Who are we fighting in Afghanistan?

[Octafish]

114. Germany?

From the Escalating Escalator to Nowhere Department:

German government prepares new combat mission in Afghanistan

By Johannes Stern
World Socialist Web Site, 16 November 2015

The German government is making plans to send another 100 troops to Afghanistan, raising the size of its deployed force to 980 personnel. These plans were reported last week in a blog post by military journalist Thomas Wiegold, who cited sources within the government.

The report was then effectively confirmed by Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) defence spokesman Rainer Arnold, who told the Berliner Zeitung, “The order is not being changed. But the Bundeswehr [army] must be put in a position to fulfill it.”

According to Spiegel Online, the cabinet will decide the text of the mandate for 2016 on Wednesday. Subsequently, the Bundestag (parliament) will debate and then vote on it in its last session before the Christmas break. According to the magazine, the Bundeswehr will also remain in northern Afghanistan longer than originally planned. The training mission in Mazar-i-Sharif, the fourth-largest city in the country, will be continued until at least the end of 2016.

The US halted its military withdrawal from Afghanistan in mid-October. Under the new plans of the Pentagon, the current contingent of about 9,800 US troops is to be maintained over the coming year. Contrary to earlier withdrawal plans, the strength of the American troops is only to be reduced at the end of 2016 or even the beginning of 2017.

So far, the German government and a majority of the media are trying to play down the escalation. The claims that German soldiers will not participate in “combat operations” has been repeated ad nauseam.

Wiegold reports, however, that the mandate of the Bundeswehr would be changed in one point. “In the new mandate, support for the Afghan consultative level by German forces will no longer be limited to meetings and the like, but would also be possible in the situation on the ground,” Wiegold writes.

In plain language, this means that German soldiers can “accompany” and “advise” Afghan forces trained by them in combat situations. One need not be a military expert to understand the consequences of this decision. The German “trainers” and “advisers” will be directly involved in hostilities and if necessary “defend” themselves. The official announcement of new Bundeswehr combat operations in Afghanistan is then only a matter of time.

CONTINUED...

Lots of countries on this escalator heading down. Perhaps our Deutscher allies can better train the locals to ally with our main shared "democratic" ideal, the worship of property.