Tageszeitung, 28 January 2025
AAN’s Thomas Ruttig writes (in German) about the report by the German Bundestag’s Enquiry Commission on the country’s contribution to the US-led Afghanistan mission between 2001 and 2021, formulating recommendation for future deployments abroad it assumes it ‘will’ continue to make its contribution to, as the report states, although probably not to the same extent as in Afghanistan. Green MP Schahina Gambir sounded a warning, though: ‘Just as we failed in Afghanistan, we must never fail again.’ The report was passed in consensus by all parliamentary parties (although with individual ‘votes’ on diverging opinions on detail). It contains “a devastating analysis of Germany’s Afghanistan policy”: Together with its international partners, Germany had “failed strategically”, “national strategy formation” and “interdepartmental planning” were not discernible, but had been lost in “departmental egoism” between the lead Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Development.
Self-criticism almost didn’t appear in the report, according to a former Green Party MP and commission member. After all, it now states that the Bundestag was ‘structurally overburdened overall’ with oversight of the Afghanistan mission it had mandated. According to the MP, this means ‘in plain language that the German parliament is partly responsible for the failure in Afghanistan.’
There is also a commentary by him on the same subject in the same newspaper edition:
The German investigation into the ‘terrible’ (Merkel) failure of the Afghanistan mission is coming to an end. The final report of the Bundestag’s Enquete Commission has been public since Monday, followed by the report of the parallel committee of enquiry. Both will be debated in the Bundestag this week.
The outcome is clear: bad. For the people in Afghanistan, but also as far as the German government’s Afghanistan policy is concerned. Denial of reality and deliberate misinformation of the public and parliament are just two central keywords. The Bundestag, which mandated the Bundeswehr, failed to supervise the mission. The ‘partial successes’ in the Hindu Kush postulated in both reports have long since sunk into the Taleban’s flood of bans.
The commission’s conclusions are mixed. A few bureaucratic reorganisations to create a more realistic picture of the situation in crisis situations are unlikely to be enough. Departmental egotism is probably of a systemic nature. Will ministries that are often resistant to consultation really involve science and civil society better, beyond alibi events? It will be even more difficult in the international arena.
And the Bundeswehr? It received a lot of praise from all sides. That’s probably the new sound of the “Zeitenwende” [‘turning point’, postulated by the German defence minister after Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine]. The praise is only justified for the final phase, and then only for the evacuation of the German embassy staff. For most of the local staff, their efforts were no longer enough.
Correct: It only carries out Berlin’s orders. On the ground, however, it had room for manoeuvre and caused some damage. It co-operated with warlords for self-protection, but ignored the local civilian population. It co-opted development workers to stick its label on projects, thereby jeopardising them. It caused unpunished civilian casualties, remember Kunduz. Civil society, academia and parliament are called upon to ensure that the Afghanistan reports do not gather dust on shelves.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 5 Feb 2025
