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| Europe |
| Germany: Move To Legalise Anti-Terror Shooting of Planes Rekindles Row |
| 2007-01-03 |
| (AKI) - Germany's interior minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble is seeking controversial changes to the constitution that would allow the military to shoot down terrorist controlled aircraft. Schaeuble, a member of Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union, was quoted by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday as saying such an amendment would create a so-called "de facto defence situation," enabling the prevention of attacks like the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United Nations that killed close to 3,000. The plan, which comes less than a year after Germany's top court ruled on 15 February 2006 that a law allowing the destruction of terrorist-controlled planes was unconstitutional, has come in for harsh criticism from politicians across the political spectrum. In last February's ruling, judges said the lives of innocent plane passengers could not be weighed against those of people on the ground. "Schaeuble is trying to side-step the constitutional court," Volker Beck of the opposition Greens party told the online newspaper Netzeitung, adding that German parliamentarians should not grant a "license to kill." Dieter Wiefelspuetz, an interior policy expert for Schaeble's coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, cited by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, also termed the interior minister's plan "unacceptable." Only if national security is threatened could the sacrificing of innocent lives be countenanced, he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #9 Of course my explanation has no technical basis or understanding behind it, BA. It's ever so much easier to explain things when not weighted down by reality. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-03 16:50 |
| #8 More than five years later and they still have not sorted this out? Talk about flying blind. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-01-03 15:40 |
| #7 lol, TW! Only you could come up with such an exquisite explanation in such a short time. Back to topic...this actually has to be legalized? And, what's with those judges. We now must assume that anyone aboard a hijacked airliner is a "dead man flying". Saving add'l lives on the ground is the highest priority. |
| Posted by: BA 2007-01-03 14:52 |
| #6 Some water must have gotten into the cable running under the ocean from the European mainland to North America, JFM. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-03 07:34 |
| #5 I don't know hy but the rantburg system ate part of my comment. This is the second time since I returned from Christams holidays. In the original I related Benedict XVI election with TGA's absence implying that his real identity was Pope Benedict XVI. Just kidding. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-01-03 06:45 |
| #4 Thanks, JFM. That helps. I had thought he had gotten a position in Merkel's government and just didn't have time to post. Obviously he is missed here at RB. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-01-03 05:44 |
| #3 He stopped posting just after Beneedict XVI was elected... No Seriously. He is well in his eighties. At this age mortaliry rates are very high. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-01-03 04:50 |
| #2 ...enabling the prevention of attacks like the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United Nations that killed close to 3,000. Don't wire services employ proof readers anymore?If only the attack had been on the Turtle Bay facility and its occupants. Sigh... And wondering whatever became of TGA. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-01-03 04:39 |
| #1 The Greens want only the terrorists, aka their future overlords, to have a "license to kill." |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-03 00:42 |