Afghanistan mission: not the Chancellor’s war

In her almost 16-year term in office, Angela Merkel has done a lot to keep the war in Afghanistan at bay. Even today in the Bundestag she did not correct this impression.

This war is not their war – Angela Merkel has always given this impression during her almost 16-year term in office. Now, at this very moment, in view of the heartbreaking images of the airport in Kabul, at this moment when the lives of thousands of Afghans are hanging by a thread and the credibility of the West humiliated by the Taliban is at stake, the Chancellor would have this impression can correct. Need to correct. Merkel, who was celebrated as the “leader of the free West” in Trump’s times, missed this opportunity.

Her dismay at the fate of the Afghans may have been evident in the Bundestag. Otherwise, however, the Chancellor asked many questions without giving answers – remarkable after 20 years of service in the Hindu Kush. She made hints that the mistakes could be found elsewhere: with the USA with its unconditional withdrawal date. With the Afghan army, which imploded breathtakingly quickly, or alternatively with the Afghan culture. Troubleshooting herself or the responsible ministries – inside, outside, defense – never occurred to Merkel, let alone over the lips.

Merkel hardly spoke about Afghanistan

That would have been appropriate in view of the slow motion pace at which the federal government has acted in the past weeks and months. And has failed to help those who once helped in the Hindu Kush: the local staff. For whom the time window for an escape is now closing – possibly forever.

But the Chancellor never saw the war in Afghanistan as hers – and of course that should not apply to the disaster in which it is now ending.

Believe it or not, it has been more than eight years since Merkel was seen in the Hindu Kush. She only commented on the most important foreign deployment of the Bundeswehr when it really could no longer be avoided. As if this mission, originally decided by Red-Green in 2001, had something toxic that one would rather keep far from one’s body. But that was and is exactly the problem. If the Chancellor didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan and missions abroad, why should society do so?

The unfortunate debate about the term “war”

And so the Merkel address shows in a kind of microcosm what has gone wrong in the Hindu Kush for over 20 years: yes, dismay, but a remarkable reluctance to take on responsibility and to name mistakes. Coupled with the tendency to pimp things up cosmetically. Just think back to the unfortunate debate as to whether one should really speak of “war” while the Bundeswehr was engaged in daily firefights with the Taliban in Kunduz.

And if Merkel did not want to admit that the Afghans are not only being left in the lurch, but the reputation of the West has been ruined in the Hindu Kush, she could at least have devised a scenario in which these past mistakes do not become the mistakes of the The future will be: in which one day, for example, Europeans will be able to maintain an airlift even without the USA if necessary. Merkel would only have come to these conclusions if she had ever admitted to herself that this war is also her war.