By\u00a0Johannes Stern<\/p>\n
Anyone reading the editorials in Germany\u2019s two major Sunday newspapers would find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris were welcomed by the German elites as an opportunity to push their right-wing agenda.<\/p>\n
In articles bearing headlines such as \u201cInto World War,\u201d \u201cThis is no longer terrorism, it is war\u201d and \u201cWe cannot be subjugated, we have to fight,\u201d Berthold Kohler in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung<\/em> and Stefan Aust and Mathias D\u00c3\u00b6pfner in Die Welt am Sonntag<\/em> called for war and dictatorship with an aggressiveness previously seen only from extreme right-wing circles.<\/p>\n Kohler, Aust and D\u00c3\u00b6pfner are not fringe figures. They belong to the so-called \u201cAlpha journalists\u201d who have the deepest connections in government and security circles, and who used the Ukraine crisis to promulgate war propaganda against Russia and the return of German militarism.<\/p>\n Since 1999, Kohler has been one of the four editors of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung<\/em> (FAZ<\/em>) and is a regular participant in the Munich Security Conference. D\u00c3\u00b6pfner, the chairman of the board of Axel Springer SE, one of Germany\u2019s largest media companies, is a member of the Global Board of Advisors of the US Council on Foreign Relations and a participant in the notorious Bilderberg meetings. Aust was, from 1994 to 2008, chief editor of Der Spiegel<\/em> and has been the editor of the right-wing Springer paper Die Welt<\/em> since 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n In their articles, all three draw a direct parallel to 9\/11. This comparison alone speaks volumes about the writers\u2019 reactionary political agenda. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the exact circumstances of which have never been clarified, were used by the Bush and then Obama administrations as a pretext to wage illegal wars, push through massive military rearmament abroad and increase state powers at home.<\/p>\n In the name of the \u201cwar on terror,\u201d the US invaded Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). The NATO war against Libya (2011) and its stoking of a civil war in Syria devastated an entire region, killing millions and creating even more refugees. Worldwide, the US kidnaps, tortures and murders real or perceived opponents of its war policy, spies on more or less the whole of humanity and is building a police state in America.<\/p>\n Now, right-wing circles in German politics and the media are exploiting the shock over the terrible attacks in Paris for similar ends, which they have so far only been able to impose to a limited degree. They have two major aims: First, they want to push for the return to an aggressive foreign and war policy announced by President Gauck and the federal government. Second, they argue openly for the establishment of an authoritarian regime to break down the widespread popular resistance to militarism and arm the state apparatus in preparation for upcoming class struggles.<\/p>\n To advance their reactionary political agenda and make the public \u201cready\u201d to accept war and dictatorship, the authors define the Paris terrorist attacks as an act of war, where the \u201cshockwaves go even beyond those in the past,\u201d referring to September 11. They conclude that the supposedly \u201cglobal war\u201d (Aust) or \u201cworld war\u201d (Kohler) requires extreme countermeasures.<\/p>\n Kohler writes that the events in Paris could \u201chave serious consequences\u2013for France, for NATO and thus also for the most important ally, Germany.\u201d The editor of the FAZ<\/em> yearns for a more aggressive military intervention by Germany in the Middle East. \u201cMerkel\u2019s dictum, that one must fight the causes of the wave of refugees in Syria, could suddenly experience an unwanted change of meaning for her,\u201d he declares.<\/p>\n Kohler combines his call for war directly with a plea for an authoritarian regime. \u201cMore than ever it is now a matter of the unity of the West. And consequently, that it demonstrates its will and ability to protect its values,\u201d he wrote, adding, \u201cGiven the scale of the threat and the asymmetry of the conflict this will not be entirely possible without restrictions of the freedoms that are to be defended, if necessary, with our own troops in Syria. It will not be possible to win this epochal battle without sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n He concludes his apocalyptic editorial with a barely concealed attack on German chancellor Angela Merkel, who despite her ongoing crackdown on refugees has long been regarded in right-wing circles as too \u201csoft.\u201d Prior to the Paris attacks, the Germans had \u201cnothing against a friendly face at the head of their government,\u201d Kohler declares, but in times like these \u201cthey want and need to see another: A hard one.\u201d<\/p>\n Aust also attacks Merkel sharply and condemns \u201cthe humanity expressed in [Germany\u2019s] welcoming culture\u201d as \u201cdangerous naivete.\u201d He longs not only for a \u201chard\u201d government, but places the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Germany from the consequences of Western war policy under general suspicion. \u201cThe security apparatus, kept on the back burner for years,\u201d was \u201ccompletely overwhelmed,\u201d and open borders allowed \u201cwar to be exported.\u201d No one could judge, \u201cwho, in the crowd of young men, are needy refugees or who are…violent Islamists.\u201d<\/p>\n D\u00c3\u00b6pfner goes even further in his rant against refugees. He speaks of \u201cthe refugee crisis\u201d and \u201cthe wave of terror in Paris\u201d in one breath, calling both \u201caccelerants in a culture war that has long been smouldering.\u201d His longing for an authoritarian regime to lead the \u201cculture war\u201d could not be more apparent. \u201cThe non-democratic regimes in the world are often virile and led more decisively, democratic societies are often weak, indecisive and hesitant,\u201d he laments.<\/p>\n While \u201cRussians, Chinese and most Islamic countries\u201d know \u201cwhat they want,\u201d and also implement their aims, \u201cmost democracies…[seek] dialogue, compromise and above all the applause of their own people.\u201d The consequence of this policy is \u201cinaction in Syria. Hesitation in Iran. Looking away in the radicalised parts of Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n D\u00c3\u00b6pfner\u2019s message is clear: to conduct war in further parts of the Middle East and to act brutally against refugees requires deportations and immediate expulsions\u2013which in turn requires an authoritarian regime. Specifically, the Springer chief demands a \u201cpolicy of strength\u201d that is to be enforced by \u201ca radicalisation of the social centre.\u201d<\/p>\n In Germany, the political content and the historical consequences of such expressions are well known. The last time the German elite embarked on a policy of the \u201cradicalisation of the social centre\u201d to pursue a \u201cpolicy of strength,\u201d it was followed by Nazi terror, the Second World War and the worst crimes in the history of mankind.<\/p>\n D\u00c3\u00b6pfner, Kohler, Aust and the right-wing circles for which they speak have no significant support in the population, but their comments are a clear warning. In response to the deepest crisis of European and world capitalism since the 1930s, sections of the German elite are again willing to look to war, dictatorship and racism in order to defend the interests of German capitalism and imperialism. Via WSWS<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0Johannes Stern Anyone reading the editorials in Germany\u2019s two major Sunday newspapers would find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris were welcomed by the German elites as an opportunity to push their right-wing agenda. In articles bearing headlines such as \u201cInto World War,\u201d \u201cThis is no longer terrorism, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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