[D66] German media beats the drum for war against Syria

[Nord]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/28/germ-a28.html

German media beats the drum for war against Syria
By Ulrich Rippert
28 August 2013

The alleged poison gas attack against Syrian civilians is serving as a 
pretext for a war planned long in advance. This was made clear by a 
cynical comment by Stefan Cornelius in the Monday edition of the 
Süddeutsche Zeitung .

Although there has been no evidence presented to back claims that the 
Syrian government carried out the attack, and though there are numerous 
reasons to think that the rebels backed by Western powers are behind the 
attacks, Cornelius demands: “President Obama must intervene now.” The 
old logic “endure, keep out” could no longer be maintained, he writes. 
The use of poison gas requires the immediate use of military force.

Cornelius then poses the question, “Is it really decisive who deployed 
[the poison gas]?” He then replies: “Not really. ... Realistically, it 
makes little difference who fired the shells.”

The shamelessness of this war propaganda is staggering. Cornelius writes 
that it is irrelevant whether the Assad regime (which had just let UN 
inspectors into the country to verify the use of chemical weapons) 
carried out the gas attack, or the so-called rebels who maintain close 
links with the governments in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington and 
have a vested interest in providing a pretext for a NATO military 
intervention.

The main thing is that there is now a reason for war, which commits the 
“international community” (i.e. imperialist powers) to intervene 
militarily. This is the content of Cornelius’ comment.

Such bellicose tones have been rare in the German press, especially in 
papers such as the Süddeutsche, which often refers to its own supposedly 
liberal and independent political orientation. The paper supported the 
western led wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Mali, but 
was more restrained in its approach, well aware of the unpopularity of 
such military interventions.

The bluntness with which the paper now beats the drum for war against 
Syria reflects the political transformation within the ruling elite, 
which includes the government and all opposition parties. Faced with a 
deepening crisis of the world economy, increasing international tensions 
and growing class conflict, they are tossing aside any pretense of 
pacifism in favor of traditional great power politics.

Bearing in mind the current election campaign, the chancellery and 
foreign ministry waited a day’s time before speaking out for action 
against Syria. The supposedly liberal media on the other hand clamored 
for war from the start.

Similar comments to that in the Süddeutsche could be found in many other 
papers. Spiegel Online published a comment by Severin Weiland and 
Matthias Gebauer under the headline, “Merkel cannot look away.” It 
begins: “Germany and the Merkel government must take a stand. If the UN 
inspectors confirm the use of chemical weapons, there cannot be an 
abstention, as in the case of Libya.” Tagesspiegel and Zeit.de wrote 
jointly that Germany confronts in Syria “a life and death foreign and 
security challenge, demanding resoluteness, reliability to its partners 
and German influence in the world.”

The commentary in Zeit.de, which is close to the Social Democratic 
Party, criticizes “the feel-good Chancellor” who has been reluctant to 
speak out on behalf of “a military response from the West.” If “the 
economic power in central Europe” wants to “fulfill its foreign policy 
responsibility” then it had to “support a reaction that shows Assad his 
limits.”

“Only he or she who now signals to the main NATO partners their 
willingness to act, can then influence their decision,” Tagesspiegel and 
Zeit.de declare.

Gone is all the talk about “human rights,” “humanitarian missions” and 
the other terms that have dominated German war propaganda since the war 
against Yugoslavia in 1999. Instead there is increasingly reference to 
“responsibility,” “interests” and “influence.”

The ruling class is of the opinion that the time is ripe to revive the 
German tradition of militarism and great power politics. The comment 
cited above from the Süddeutsche begins: “It may sound cynical, but, of 
course, military interventions are decided on the basis of a 
cost-benefit principle.”

This resurgence of German power politics and militarism is of 
international importance. Next year marks the centenary of the outbreak 
of the First World War, which was largely the responsibility of German 
imperialism. The war was preceded by 15 years of intense imperialist and 
militarist propaganda. Two decades later, following the handover of 
power to Hitler, this war propaganda assumed hysterical forms until 
German troops finally turned all of Europe and large parts of the world 
into an inferno.

The fact that the German media and political parties now join the war 
propaganda against Syria shows that the imperialist class interests of 
the German bourgeoisie far outweigh any lessons they have drawn from 
their past crimes. Only an international socialist movement of the 
working class can overcome the threat of war and its root cause, capitalism.