Philipp Missfelder, deputy front man for Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, tells 'Post' military option against Iran can't be ruled out.
BERLIN -- Israel's vital security interests are integral to the interests of the Federal Republic, according to Philipp Missfelder, the Germany deputy front man for Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... ''s party in the Bundestag.
In a wide-ranging telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post on Friday, the Christian Democratic Union deputy covered the pressing security issues unfolding in the Middle East.
"The Chancellor is 100 percent right that Israel's security is in Germany's national interest," he stressed. "Israel's military capacity should not be underestimated."
"It was a mistake in the fall to rule out a military option," Missfelder continued. "Obama was correct in how he handled it. The military option must remain on the table because, if not, the negotiating strategy will not be taken seriously by Iran."
Last November, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, spoke differently: "We reject a discussion about military options" in connection with the Iranian nuclear threat, he said.
Additionally, in February, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere delivered a grim assessment of Israel's capability to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities. He said an IDF strike on Iran would be "highly unlikely" to succeed, and would cause "obvious political damage."
The 32-year-old historian is viewed by close followers of German-Israeli relations as a politician who seeks to breathe new life into strengthening the security bond between Israel and the Federal Republic.
Israeli diplomats in Berlin have praised Missfelder's unwavering support for the security of the Jewish state over the years.
"Germany's population wants to be the like the Swiss and stay out of conflicts, such as the one in Afghanistan," Missfelder told the Post. "But that is no longer possible.
There is a joint responsibility towards Israel, to say to the German population that we have a new role in Europe and the world."
When asked about what the UN has characterized as civilian massacres by Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's regime, Missfelder said, "Syria shows the region is in upheaval...There is no unity in the UN...[They are] no longer in the position to engage in protected responsibility in connection with Syria. Many have criticized [former president George W.] Bush for intervention, but the US should take more responsibility."
He noted that a military option for Syria would be very difficult after the Libya decision, and one option would be to arm the opposition.
Missfelder added, "We will not profit from instability, friends of Israel and the West -- and Israel belongs to West, in my view. My main concern is Iran will win great influence."
In regard to the so-called "Arab Spring," he said he was very skeptical in the beginning: "It was great that young people became political. But foreign policy is very serious.
There is romanticism in the world of art, but in foreign policy that is ridiculous."
Egypt and Yemen, he said, are the largest question.
"Egypt is a challenge," he continued. "It has not become easier. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation worked successfully in Egypt, but now is massively prevented. I cannot say that I was disappointed [when] I saw this development. It is not clear who will take over power on the long term."
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a think tank affiliated with Missfelder's party that promotes pro-democracy work.
Missfelder observed that the EU government in Brussels tends to be pro-Paleostinian.
"Brussels is orientated on the Paleostinians. I know this phenomenon from the Left in Germany," he said.
Critics argue that the Left movement in Germany and many Left Party deputies have focused the bulk of their foreign policy work on criticizing Israel and advocating for the Paleostinians -- including, at times, the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror group in the Gazoo strip.
Osama bin Laden accepted that he may be betrayed by someone close to him and viewed death as a release from years of declining health, according to a new account of his life in Pakistan.
[Dawn] FOR once, news about two women who were declared 'kari' is positive. A jirga held in the Chak area of Shirkarpur district had decreed that they should be murdered. Had the crime been carried out, the women would have suffered double injustice of the most serious nature given that they were declared 'kari' not because they were suspected of extramarital relations, as is usually the case, but because they had been kidnapped by some men of a rival tribe. Fortunately, media reports raised the alarm. After receiving instructions from the inspector general of the Sindh police, the local police swung into action and recovered the women from a house in Dur Mohammad Shar village.
This success should be followed up by the police making every effort to pursue and bring to book the organisers of the jirga that decided to play judge and jury. Locals believe that police are delaying this task because the organisers of the jirga have been provided shelter by influential political elements. All such suspicions must be put to rest in order to send out a strong signal that crimes in the name of honour will not be tolerated. The media, as this case illustrates, has a crucial role to play here. If news of the intended crime gets out, the probability increases that the law will intervene or that the perpetrators will stay their hand. This case should encourage news hounds and news organizations to make renewed efforts to publicise any and all instances where someone's rights are being threatened. Moreover, the media constitutes an important tool for shifting the societal mindset towards a more progressive trajectory and in shaping a society that resists crimes of honour. Such practices have not yet been controlled in their entirety in Pakistain, but as this case illustrates, the battle can be won and lives can be saved.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/08/2012 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/08/2012 08:51 ||
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#1
I would say Iraq served that purpose. Iran paid no price for involvement and felt encouraged to continue their attempts at intimidation and hegemony.
#2
The answer to the question is no. But there are interesting parallels.
The Spanish civil-war was a proxy war fought by the leading nations of the world. It was a World War fought in a fish bowl.
All the leading nations of the world (let's call this the G8, China and India) have taken a pass on the Syrian civil-war. So, in their place the leaders of the region are stepping in to fight their proxy war in the Syrian fishbowl.
I suppose someone could say that the Spanish civil war was a regional proxy for Europeans, just as the Syrian civil-war will be a regional proxy for the middle-eastern countries. But in the thirties Europe was so much more powerful than everywhere else it is absurd to compare the relative importance of Europe in the 1930s to the middle east of today. So such an argument is simply absurd.
But it further seems to me that the countries fighting this proxy war are so weak vis-a-vis the leading nations of the world that whatever they do would easily be overturned by any one of the leaders as soon as it became important.
Thus the Syrian civil-war is a regional battle between regional powers that is of little importance to any leading nation or any nation outside the region.
It is analogous to the recent regional wars in Congo, Sudan, and Cambodia. It will not be important nor long remembered, except as an example of man's inhumanity to man.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
03/08/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
So IIUC, SecDef Panetta = doing a Senator John Mccain as per calls for unilateral US intervention or mil action [Mccain = air strikes] in Syria widout need for UN/UNSC Mandate???
#1
1 Kings 14:10, KJV: I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
Obama's doing real good on this one.
#2
Luke 2:1, KJV again: all the world should be taxed
Doing perfect on this one, too!
Luke 2:3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
That's for his 2nd term.
#3
Ecclesiastes 10:5-9 NIV: 5 There is an evil I have seen under the sun,
the sort of error that arises from a ruler:
6 Fools are put in many high positions,
while the rich occupy the low ones.
7 I have seen slaves on horseback,
while princes go on foot like slaves.
BINGO!
Have you got health insurance? I do. Wouldn't it be nice if everybody did? Just think:
No more worries about losing your health care if you lose your job, or just get a different one. Ah, peace of mind at last.
No more freeloaders who go uninsured and expect those of us who pay insurance premiums to take care of them when they fall ill. It would be only fair.
No more overcrowded emergency rooms -- the most expensive and least efficient way to deliver medical care -- because people use them instead of carrying health insurance. What an improvement that would be.
Health insurance is such a good idea, the wish was father to the law. Which is why we now have Obamacare, and will soon have more of it if Washington and the states can ever figure out just how it's supposed to work. Along with doctors and hospitals and insurance companies and the whole health-care industry and, oh yes, patients.
All will be watching how the new health-care system develops -- some with hope, others with fear, most with a mix of both.
This much is certain: There will be changes. Settled law and settled habits will have to be changed. There will be objections. From the states, among others. Medicaid costs are already mounting from state to state across the country -- a harbinger of the fiscal challenges to come. But that's no problem for Washington. It'll just pass another (unfunded) mandate.
Some churches won't want to pay for procedures that violate their beliefs, like contraception, sterilization and abortion. But there's no rush. They have a whole year to figure out how to violate their conscience. Maybe their objections can be papered over by a little creative accounting or verbal prestidigitation here and there.
The word for this process is accommodation. There's no problem, no expense, no objection that can't be met, or at least postponed, or talked away, or discreetly hidden. But start recognizing some conscientious objectors, and the danger is you have to recognize all of them. Soon everybody will want to follow his own conscience. That's no way to maintain an unconscionable law.
Don't fret. It'll all be nice. Just leave it to government. It knows best. And it's all for our own good. The velvet glove will be so soft that after a while we won't notice the iron hand inside.
The important thing is that nothing come between Washington and the people, rulers and ruled. Not the states or church or family or conscience or any of the intermediate layers of government and society that have separated them till now. Edmund Burke called them the "little platoons" of a nation, and was much attached to them. But they're outdated. Modern times demand modern remedies -- organization, control, direction from the top. That way, all our needs will be recognized and met. Even invented. It'll be nice. Why not lie back and enjoy it?
A French visitor to this then-new democracy saw it coming. In his two-volume guide to "Democracy in America" that remains the most relevant study of our system, he pointed out the two great contending forces in the American psyche -- the love of liberty and the drive for equality. His conclusion:
Democratic nations are peculiarly susceptible to a soft form of despotism that doesn't so much dictate to its people as embrace them, infantilize them, smother them ever so gently in its all-encompassing arms.
We would all be saved the trouble of making our own decisions, providing our own necessities (like health care) and generally thinking for ourselves. Which was always a bother anyway.
In a different era, when the nation was paralyzed by a Great Depression and its own fears and uncertainties, Americans looked to Washington not just for leadership but also salvation. How nice it would be if there were no such things as unemployment, uncertainty, instability, recurring crises and all the other ills that a free people is heir to. Why not pass a law to that effect?
It was called the National Industrial Recovery Act and was passed in the first flood of New Deal emergency legislation in 1933 -- toward the end of the fabled Hundred Days. It covered just about everything in the economy -- every wage paid for every job, every price for every item manufactured, even down to every chicken slaughtered in New York City.
But it didn't last. The designers of this grand scheme had overlooked a detail or two, like the Constitution of the United States and a Supreme Court willing and able to enforce it. The day of reckoning came May 27, 1935, when the Supreme Court's classical conservatives (like Charles Evans Hughes) and classical liberals (like Louis Dembitz Brandeis) united to strike down the whole scheme as unconstitutional. The court's decision was unanimous. (Schechter Poultry v. U.S., popularly known as the Sick Chicken Case.)
Why? The law was too broad, too detailed, too intrusive. It delegated comprehensive legislative powers to an all-powerful, unelected federal agency, the National Recovery Administration, Gen. Hugh S. Johnson in command. Much the way Obamacare provides that the vast American health-care industry, making up roughly one-sixth of the national economy, be minutely regulated by a select, secretive, arbitrary bureaucracy.
The Supreme Court is due to begin its hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the formal name for Obamacare, come March 26.
#1
Women"" vote (fluke is anything but" Than in order every voting block type classification compartmentalized way to go down the list of lesser voters.
Some animals are more equal than others....
And my teeth are grinding and my chest is tight.
There is no fiber in democrats anymore. They are lose bowels full of themselves.
#5
California will boom, unemployment will plummet, and all this nonsensical talk about California's best days being behind it will cease. But for this to occur, monetary policy must be righted.
In other news: Carnival Cruise line to raise and refit Star's Luxury Liner Titanic.
#6
Also ! Show How Much Dissent By Showing Ron Paul Also : Running As : Democrat As In Republican Party As : 3rd Party : Occupation : Party Stalwart Party : Leader ! California : Obama - Democratic Presidential Party Head : 88% Ron Paul 12% ! Shows Butter Vs. Guns Issue : Economic Factors : In All : 50 Democratic Primaries ! Etc. ! Holland : Germany : France : Christiania : Freelandia : Amsterdam : Europe : Etc ! Go For -It - RON
Posted by: Support Ron Paul : Democrat ||
03/08/2012 14:24 Comments ||
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#7
I'd like to be optimistic about beating Obama, but I don't see how that happens with a Dole/McCain Republican leading the ticket.
Met a guy recently, Californian (big C cuz he is a good one) rep for a furniture company, said I recognized his brand name from a made in USA furniture search I did a couple years back. Asked, why the Vietnam sticker? He said emminant domain - shut down their factory to build a school.
#13
ca, cia, washington, hollywood,brainwashed dipshits all the same life goes on. when is the last war the cia has won anyways? They have lost the most important one in their own back yard(America)oops they helped the enemy. Love the brainwashed dorks they had print up books and circulate Alien Magic and the UfO nuts. Hope r2d2 gets back with the secret message from Afghanistan so we can win!
Posted by: Pearl Bluetooth8457 ||
03/08/2012 21:37 Comments ||
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#14
Nice try, Pearl honey, but you can't hold a candle to our Joe Mendiola.
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/08/2012 23:12 Comments ||
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#15
B, Wull Yu-uh. JM just goz missing a cupla times a week.
Prolly jus at hiz lokl Elks Lodg 2nite or giving a speech at a Regional MENSA conference somewhere. Guam, perhaps?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
FOR once, news about two women who were declared 'kari' is positive. A jirga held in the Chak area of Shirkarpur district had decreed that they should be murdered. Had the crime been carried out, the women would have suffered double injustice of the most serious nature given that they were declared 'kari' not because they were suspected of extramarital relations, as is usually the case, but because they had been kidnapped by some men of a rival tribe. Fortunately, media reports raised the alarm. After receiving instructions from the inspector general of the Sindh police, the local police swung into action and recovered the women from a house in Dur Mohammad Shar village.
Have you got health insurance? I do. Wouldn't it be nice if everybody did? Just think:
