Wolfgang Effenberger

After his election as Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier had nothing else to do than to assign the responsibility for the escalation in the Ukraine conflict to Russian President Vladimir Putin in clear words and even let himself be carried away to an appeal to Putin to "Loosen the noose around Ukraine's neck"(1). To great applause from the Federal Assembly, he advised Putin not to make the mistake of underestimating the strength of democracy - clarity, deterrence and determination.
With his Teutonic demeanor in his first speech as re-elected president, Steinmeier irresponsibly fueled the U.S.-Russian conflict.
The German Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ) headlined on February 14 "The right president at the right time" and Ralf Schuler went even further in his BILD commentary "This announcement had a kick!" with his demand "This speech must be followed by action!"(2).
From a former SPD politician dyed in the transatlantic wool, such deeds are well within the realm of possibility.
Steinmeier was State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery and Commissioner for the Intelligence Services in 1998/1999. From 1999 to 2005, he was head of the Chancellor's Office under Schröder and foreign minister from 2005 to 2009 (Merkel Cabinet I). After losing as the SPD's candidate for chancellor in the 2009 election, he served as chairman of the SPD's parliamentary group in the Bundestag until 2013 and thus also became leader of the opposition. His second term as foreign minister lasted from 2013 to 2017 (Merkel Cabinet III), followed by election as German president at Merkel's suggestion. Steinmeier, in an exposed position, has supported all U.S. wars in violation of international law without contradiction and unfortunately seems to have forgotten that the reunification in 1990 was mainly due to Russia. In the so-called 2+4 Treaty of September 12, 1990, the Federal Republic then solemnly pledged "that only peace will emanate from German soil" and that "Germany will never use any of its weapons except in accordance with its Constitution and the Charter of the United Nations."

This promise has been broken three times so far – with each time Steinmeier being involved:
- 1999 in the air war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which violated international law,
- 2001, in the course of the attack on Afghanistan 27 days after 9/11, which was contrary to international law, and
- in 2003, when the Bundeswehr supported the "crime under international law" of the U.S. and its allies against Iraq and its people "with all its efforts" on the instructions of the then-acting Minister of Defense, Dr. Peter Struck (SPD)(3).

And in February 2014, we witnessed the orchestrated coup in Ukraine, which cost the U.S. five billion U.S. dollars. German Foreign Minister Steinmeier was also involved in the EU and NATO support of the US at that time. It was he who "persuaded" ousted President Yanukovych to "peacefully hand over power. The U.S. had "pre-planned everything that today has bone of contention potential in and around Ukraine." In March 2014, during his repeated visits to Kiev, Steinmeier again called the referendum a breach of international law.(4) Yet the Crimean residents, in accordance with international law, had only exercised their right to self-determination.

Ex-president Yanukovych became an enemy of the West when he refused to sign the association agreement with the EU. This, too, is only partly true. This treaty consists of two parts, the economic and the political-military part. Yanukovych was initially supposed to sign only the second part (close cooperation in foreign policy). With the Association Agreement, the EU is trying to bind neighboring states more closely to itself without opening up EU membership to them.(5) His successor, the oligarch Poroshenko, who is more favorable to the West, signed the political part in March 2014 and the economic part on June 27, 2014.
Since then, tensions have not abated and the West has done nothing to alleviate the situation of the suffering people of the two separatist republics of Lugansk and Donetsk. They are subjected to constant attacks by Ukrainian government forces, Blackwater mercenaries, and the right-wing Azov battalion(6), and their only hope rests with Russia. How long will Moscow be able to stand by and watch? Could a false-flag operation blamed on Russia trigger the strangulating sanctions here?
Meanwhile, a military escalation of the Ukraine conflict looms.
On October 13, 2021, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland met in Moscow with Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov and Dmitry Kozak, in charge of the Ukraine crisis and other CIS affairs.(7) What was the purpose of Nuland's visit to Moscow? She was Deputy Foreign Minister for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2013 to 2017, and thus in charge of the Ukraine crisis, and is considered a sworn enemy of Russia. The precipitous flight of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Kremlin's victory in the Duma elections in September 2021 may have reinforced the Biden administration's aggressive tendencies.

For Willy Wimmer, "Ukraine is only the vehicle for the implementation of purely American interests against Russia." Along with Ukraine, the EU is paying the price (Nuland "F... EU(8)). Victoria Nuland is said to have offered the Kremlin in October 2021: "Russia swings to the American line in return for billions of dollars in investment."(9) This does not seem to have gone down well, however, because just a few days later the CIA chief flew to meet with President Putin.
Since then, a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine has been staged, leading to the highest tensions between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War. Under this pretext, the U.S. and NATO are sending more war materiel to Russia's border, while the government in Kiev is fighting the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics instead of seeking a peaceful solution - after all, they are the former countrymen.

On February 4, the opening day of the Winter Olympics, the U.S. military flew its reinforcements from Ramstein via Görlitz to Rzeszow-Jasionka in Poland, close to the Ukrainian border.  
At the same time, NATO's Neptune Strike 22 maneuver, involving more than 140 ships and 10,000 troops, was taking place in the Mediterranean.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin subsequently decided to leave the aircraft carrier "USS Harry Truman" in the Mediterranean to "reassure" Europeans in light of the conflict with Russia.
Above all, reconnaissance drones will be allowed to monitor the crisis area from the aircraft carrier. In addition, the ship could also move quickly into the Black Sea.
Any connection to the Ukraine crisis is denied, but interestingly, Neptune Strike 22 is not on a list of military exercises planned for 2022 published by NATO in December 2021.

On February 9, 2021, in a tumultuous parliamentary session, Slovak deputies voted in favor of a military agreement with the U.S.: Among other things, Slovakia will place the two military airports in Sliac and Kuchyna fully under the control of U.S. forces for the next ten years. In the end, 79 out of 140 parliamentarians present voted in favor of the so-called "Defence Cooperation Agreement" (DCA), while two-thirds of the population is against it, fearing the loss of sovereignty, the stationing of nuclear weapons on its own territory and the danger of being drawn into a possible armed conflict between neighboring Ukraine and Russia.(10)
For months, but especially since February 9, 2022, the frequency of Germany's rearward war hub has also increased.
On February 11, U.S. transport planes were spotted in the Görlitz area coming out of the U.S. Ramstein base and heading for Rzeszow in southeastern Poland, according to the flightradar24 website. A few days earlier, the U.S. had moved F-16 fighter jets to Łask, Poland.(11)
In Saxony, the population was informed that US Army military convoys were moving 500 vehicles towards Eastern Europe mainly at night for the "Saber Strike 2022" exercise. The military convoys are expected to return in the second half of March.(12)
Is anything major planned for early March? We don't know.
In this context, the sudden cancellation of the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, General Eberhard Zorn, who had already agreed to be a speaker and guest of honor at this year's Salvator evening of the Oldenburg Traditionsgemeinschaft Jagdbombergeschwader 43 in early March, seems strange. The Salvatorabend, which has been taking place since 1965, is a permanent fixture in the interaction between the military and civil society in Oldenburg.
At the end of September 2020, Zorn had pointed out in an article in the FAZ that
Germany is the hub for all troop transports across the continent: "We participate significantly in the central deterrent instrument, the NATO spearhead, which we will lead again in 2023. Our Army brigades lead multinational formations in support of Lithuania. And our navy is active in all NATO task forces in the Mediterranean, North Sea and Baltic Sea. ... Our location in the middle of the European NATO area makes us a hub for allied troop movements and a rear area of operations, but also a potential target for attack. We are still within range of conventional and nuclear weapons."(13) After Zorn's cancellation, the entire leadership of the 1st Armored Division also withdrew its participation in the Salvator evening. As a result, the organizers canceled the evening. The Northwest newspaper then reported that the Corona pandemic would not permit such an event.(14)

On February 10, U.S. President Joe Biden called on American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country as soon as possible after invoking the threat of "world war" and warning that "things between the U.S. and Russia could quickly go crazy" and quickly get out of hand. (15)
Ron Paul, longtime congressman and former presidential candidate, warned as early as January 18, 2022, in his stirring article that Washington's bipartisan "Russia bashers" are determined to start a war. (16)

Today's "Russia bashers" are likely to emerge from the intellectual background of those who waged the war of mobile capital (North) against immobile capital (South) in the U.S. Civil War. At the very beginning of the Civil War, Lieutenant General Winfried Scott proposed a strategic approach involving blockade and devastation of the South to end the Civil War. This operation went down in history as the Anaconda Plan.
In 2016, Poland conducted a maneuver with the participation of the USA and NATO to defend against an attack from Russia. This maneuver was named Anaconda and aroused associations in Moscow.

Western howls of war are hung on the claim that Putin intends to invade Ukraine. Why should he do so? Former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and member of an association of former U.S. intelligence and intelligence exploitation professionals (VIP), Raymond Mcgovern, considers a Russian invasion of Ukraine about as likely as the much-heralded arrival of the ominous "Godot" in Beckett's play Waiting for Godot.(17)The former intelligence man thinks Putin is not so unwise as to provide(18) the U.S. with the pretext for sanctions and war.

Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj expressed irritation at the alarming statements from Washington. " If you or anyone else have additional information about a 100 percent invasion on the 16th (of February), please give it to us,"(19) he said smugly.

Undoubtedly, there are forces in the US and UK that see war as the solution to their problems. These circles will not be opposed by the top of German politics - President Steinmeier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. On the contrary! They are beating the war drum in an irresponsible manner: a fatal situation for Germany and for peace in Europe.

 

BILD on Sunday, 13.2.2022, the day of the election of the Federal President

The war against Russia, which the USA has been striving for since 1945(20), is none of Germany's business, just as the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have been. It is always only about geopolitical interests and access to raw materials for US corporations. Everything else serves only the obfuscation!

A falling world empire is unpredictable. Today we are dealing with even more powerful interest groups than at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Rhodes-Milner group - respectively a small conspiratorial circle of British politicians - intrigued behind the backs of cabinet and parliament and took the unsuspecting members by surprise with destructive world conquest strategies.
In 1953, Thomas Mann addressed the Europeans with his fears: in American exile, he had recognized the inclination of the U.S. administration "to treat Europe as an economic colony, a military base, a glacis in the future atomic crusade against Russia, as a piece of the earth that may be antiquarian and worth traveling to, but whose complete ruin will be the devil's care when the struggle for world domination is on."(21)
The unpredictable policies of the Biden administration are now forcing Russia and China to strengthen their alliance.
In the joint statement at the start of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Presidents Xi Jin-ping and Vladimir Putin emphasized that "Russia and China oppose attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their bordering regions" and "the further expansion of NATO."(22)

Finally, it is worth recalling Willy Brandt, who in 1976 emphasized:
"Only an offensive for assured peace can guarantee the future of mankind."(23)
And for this, one would only need to invoke the Preamble of the United Nations:
"We, the peoples of the United Nations - are determined,
to save future generations from the scourge of war, which has twice in our lifetime brought untold suffering to mankind,
to reaffirm our faith in the fundamental rights of man, in the dignity and worth of the human person,
and for these purposes
to exercise forbearance and to live together in peace as good neighbors,
to join our forces to preserve international peace and security."(24)

Notes

1) https://web.de/magazine/politik/ukraine-krise/steinmeier-appelliert-putin-loesen-schlinge-hals-ukraine-36601742
2)file:///Users/wolfgang/Documents/Kommentar%20zur%20Steinmeier-Rede:%20Jetzt%20müssen%20Taten%20folgen!%20-%20Politik%20-%20Bild.de.webarchive
3)Merkel, Reinhard: Krieg. Was Amerika aufs Spiel setzt. Ein Präventivkrieg mag der Logik imperialer Macht entsprechen. Aber er untergräbt das Rechtsbewusstsein der Menschheit, in: Ambos, Kai/Arnold, Jörg (Hrsg.): Der Irak-Krieg und das Völkerrecht, Berlin 2004, S. 28
4)https://www.dw.com/de/steinmeier-stärkt-kiew-den-rücken/a-17514449
5)https://www.lpb-bw.de/ukraine-eu-nato
6)https://www.voltairenet.org/article215490.html
7) A war and peace visti to Moscow
https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/10/19/a-war-and-peace-visit-to-moscow/
8)https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article124612220/Fuck-the-EU-bringt-US-Diplomatin-in-Erklaerungsnot.html
9)https://parstoday.com/de/news/world-i65550-der_ukrainische_kreidekreis
10)https://kurier.at/politik/ausland/slowakei-stimmte-trotz-tumulte-in-parlament-fuer-militaerabkommen-mit-usa/401900296
11)https://www.saechsische.de/amis-ueber-goerlitz-5623145.html
12)https://www.saechsische.de/us-militaer-faehrt-durch-sachsen-5625281.html
13)https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/generalinspekteur-zorn-fuer-praesente-bundeswehr-im-alltag-16977307.html
14)https://www.nwzonline.de/plus-oldenburg-stadt/oldenburg-salvatorabend-erneut-abgesagt_a_51,6,36337546.html#
15) https://uncutnews.ch/biden-warnt-vor-weltkrieg-waehrend-truss-sagt-rostow-und-woronesch-seien-nicht-russisch/
16)https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2022/01/17/washingtons-bi-partisan-russia-bashers-are-determined-to-start-a-war/
17)https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/01/21/godot-likely-to-arrive-before-russia-invades-ukraine/
18)https://twitter.com/raymcgovern/status/1466444326062497795
19)https://web.de/magazine/politik/ukraine-krise/krisengespraeche-ukraine-telefonate-putin-durchbruch-36600694
20)Oktober 1945 Plan TOTALITY (Atombomben auf 20 sowjetische Industriestädte), Dezember 1949 Kriegsplan DROPSHOT für das Jahr 1957 (vereitelt durch SPUTNIK), etc.
21)Thomas Mann: Deutsche Hörer! Europäische Hörer! Darmstadt 1986, Klappentext rück
22)“Russia & China Joint Statement on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”, Voltaire Network, 4 February 2022.
23) Antrittsrede als Präsident der sozialistischen Internationale 1976
24) https://unric.org/de/charta/