Also Pope criticism at Miosga
Despite Chancellor Basta: Baerbock for Taurus deliveries
By David Needy
March 11, 2024, 12:57 a.m
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In the ARD talk show “Caren Miosga”, Annalena Baerbock indirectly advocates Taurus deliveries to Ukraine, and she believes a ring exchange is possible. Germany also has to defend itself against Putin’s “psychological war games.” Baerbock gives a full broadside for the Pope.
“We will not do Putin this favor.” With these words Annalena Baerbock closes the show. This Sunday evening, the ARD talk show “Caren Miosga” is about Russia’s war of aggression and Germany’s role, about arms deliveries, primarily the Taurus cruise missiles, and about European security. What the Foreign Minister means with her final words: Russian President Vladimir Putin is relying on “a strategy of attrition that will run us out of steam”, on division in Germany and the EU, but even if “there are sometimes problems in our government”, one is allowed to do so give no room to this plan from Moscow.
There is a row in the traffic light coalition over the Taurus issue, for example. Should Berlin comply with Ukraine’s request and supply the cruise missile? Chancellor Olaf Scholz has clearly announced his “no”, which a large part of the German population supports, and the Union wants the Bundestag to vote again this week. FDP politicians have already announced an uprising, and Baerbock showed in the discussion that she thinks completely differently than the Chancellor.
When Caren Miosga asks about Taurus, the Green politician behaves diplomatically, as befits her position. The talk show host wants to know whether Scholz, with his word of power, internal party lines are more important than Ukraine. “I won’t comment on the SPD,” replies Baerbock, because Putin is aiming for exactly such breaks: “We can’t be naive again, we have to be smart. If we don’t show strength now, there will be no peace.” If more weapons are not delivered to Kiev, “more children will die, more women will be raped, more places will be taken over,” said the Foreign Minister.
Ring exchange “an option”
While Scholz does not want to deliver Taurus cruise missiles because he does not want German soldiers in the war zone and the resulting further escalation of the war, Baerbock says that participation in the war would only exist if a NATO soldier shoots a Russian soldier. Miosga asks again what the Foreign Minister actually thinks about deliveries of Taurus rockets with a range of 500 kilometers. The Green politician squirms. Everyone in the federal cabinet must support this step. But “Taurus” is also part of it if you want to support Ukraine with everything “we have without becoming a party to the war.”
Baerbock considers the ring exchange proposed by Great Britain’s Foreign Minister David Cameron, which the Union rejects, “to be an option”. A little later, Miosga summarizes that Scholz is against Taurus deliveries, but Baerbock is clearly in favor, only that the diplomat is not allowed to say this. The Foreign Minister does not intervene and does not object. A protest at the Chancellor Basta that was as quiet as it was loud.
Baerbock becomes all the more clear when it comes to Putin. He is playing “a perfidious game with our fears”. By this she means, for example, participation in the war. Traveling to the Baltics taught them how not to get involved in these games, because Putin’s “psychological war games are much more present there.” Moscow is also trying to twist the narrative at the highest diplomatic level in the UN. It is always important not to let false statements stand, “because otherwise lies will get caught up,” says the Foreign Minister.
Baerbock doesn’t understand Pope
For Baerbock, this Russian strategy is part of “hybrid warfare”. Fake news has been spreading about her for a long time, specifically targeting her as a woman: “Russian bots that claim I’m a prostitute,” she says. “The undermining and infiltration of processes and communication should not be underestimated,” continues Baerbock, as this would “precisely be used by Putin as a weapon of war.” This also includes a recording of a confidential conversation between Bundeswehr officers that appeared in the Russian media last week. When it comes to this issue, Germany is not yet “in the position that brutal warfare requires,” admits the Foreign Minister, “other countries are much further along.”
The Pope is also receiving criticism. In response to Francis, who declared in an interview that Ukraine should have the courage to raise a “white flag,” Baerbock tells a personal story. She spoke to children in Ukraine who had been abducted from school by Russians and later freed. One of the freed children told her: “Mrs. Baerbock, please don’t give in to Putin. All my school friends are still in Russia.” “Where is the Pope?” when that happened, the Foreign Minister asked and was almost speechless for the first time in the program because of his quasi-call for surrender: “I don’t understand it, I really don’t understand it,” she says and suggests that Pope Francis needs to see the situation on the ground.
Of course, diplomatic negotiations are also ongoing with the participation of the federal governments. “We have been doing everything for two years to ensure that there would be peace tomorrow,” says Annalena Baerbock, but “we will not allow ourselves to be deterred or intimidated.” A peace that no one wants more than Ukraine. But that wouldn’t work with Putin. “With this Russia there will be no security in the foreseeable future, so we have to defend ourselves,” summarizes the Foreign Minister on “Caren Miosga”. Whether with or without Taurus cruise missiles will probably be shown this week.