How the Bundeswehr doesn't fight much in Afstan

Truly ludicrous:

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Once thought to be far safer than the southern insurgent strongholds, the situation in northern Afghanistan -- where the Bundeswehr is in command of the security force -- has grown far more dangerous recently. Over the past few months insurgent attacks on International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops have increased. Since the beginning of the year, insurgents in the region perpetrated 31 armed attacks, 15 rocket strikes and 27 incidents involving explosives. "Kunduz is lost," says a sergeant who just returned to Germany because, as he puts it, his "luck ran out." The sergeant was in his "Dingo" armored vehicle when it was struck by explosives several times.

The Taliban is no longer limiting its activities to hit-and-run attacks. Instead, the insurgents have taken to ambushing German soldiers in Kunduz and the surrounding area and engaging them in sustained combat.

However, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) still doesn't want to talk about " a war ["Not Calling Afghanistan a War Is a 'Semantic Farce'"]." According to Jung, the focus is on civil reconstruction and "networked security." The word "war," he says, sets "completely the wrong tone." But since last Tuesday those who disagree with him have become more vocal. Reinhold Robbe, with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the German parliament's military commissioner, says that the situation is "essentially war." And according to former Defense Minister Peter Struck (SPD), the Taliban is "forcing war upon us [nasty chaps, what? - MC]."..

The German army, or Bundeswehr, has changed its tactics in recent weeks. In the past, a patrol that was ambushed was simply advised to "push forward." Today those soldiers are fighting back. "Anyone who attacks us can expect a response," says Defense Minister Jung.

The Defense Ministry often speaks of ambushes, but the German soldiers also appear to be seeking out areas controlled by the Taliban. In doing so, they are not only deliberately exposing themselves to risk but are, quite literally, making themselves the Taliban's targets. As one soldier reports, before some of the recent skirmishes, the Germans drew attention to themselves by making loud noises. The reason for this is the German military's peculiar mandate for its soldiers in Afghanistan.

DDP

The three soldiers who drowned in last week's fighting died in a "Fuchs" armored personnel carrier like this one.

Describing last Tuesday's events, soldiers claim that about 170 men in German and Afghan units combed through the Chahar Darreh district, a Taliban stronghold southwest of Kunduz, looking for booby traps. When a Luna unmanned drone spotted a group of insurgents, the soldiers took their positions. They requested permission to drive around the enemy, but they received no orders at all over the next hour -- neither to withdraw nor to attack.

One soldier writing to his comrades afterwards would say they felt like rabbits in a trap. Under the rules of engagement in its current mandate dictated by parliament, the German soldiers are only permitted to attack when their lives are in danger. So did this mean that they had to wait for the Taliban to attack? Or should they have drawn attention to themselves so that the enemy made the first move and the battle could begin?

Is Political Expediency Making German Soldiers Targets?

Do German soldiers have to make themselves targets simply because of their commanding officers' reservations about legal definitions? According to the rules of engagement, which every Bundeswehr soldier deployed abroad keeps with him in the form of a printed pocket card, the German ISAF forces have the right to defend themselves against attack anywhere and at all times, as well as to repel attacks and to provide emergency assistance. But they are not permitted to hunt down and kill terrorists.

International law offers a broader mandate. In its resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has empowered the ISAF troops to take all measures necessary to fulfill their mandate. The Germans, however, have subjected themselves to more stringent rules.

...the German politicians responsible for sending soldiers to Afghanistan prefer to portray their mission as one that involves policing and developmental aid; they know that anything else would be unpopular with the general public. And with the exception of the far-left Left Party, all of the parties in the German parliament have agreed to keep Afghanistan out of the campaigns for the September parliamentary elections. And while there are many doubts about the mission, majority support for a withdrawal does not exist...

So long as it's not a, er, war. Here's another example of avoiding that which might smack of combat.