Fighting to the last Ukrainian?

by Oskar Lafontaine,* Germany

(29 January 2023) The public debate about the delivery of Leopard tanks to Ukraine is becoming more and more adventurous. Surely we should believe US politicians more: when US Secretary of War Lloyd Austin says: “we want to see Russia weakened to a degree that makes it impossible for it to do what it did in Ukraine with the invasion”, we should believe him. Even if the US president says he will put an end to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which he has now done, we should believe him. But we should not stop thinking because of that. The French intellectual Emmanuel Todd has pointed out that a new Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev axis is determining NATO’s actions in Ukraine.

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The Yanks want to shove Germany down the pipe and demand the delivery of Leopard battle tanks. The British deliver a few Challenger 2 tanks to put Germany under pressure. The Poles declare that they will deliver their Leopard tanks even if Germany does not give permission. Prime Minister Morawiecki wants “not to stand idly by and watch Ukraine bleed to death”.

“We appeal to Germany to deliver Leopard tanks,” says Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics. His Lithuanian colleague Gabrielius Landsbergis says it is now a matter of overcoming the fear of a Russian defeat – the fear of what could happen afterwards. Merkel’s military adviser Erich Vad recently said Russia would then use nuclear weapons. “Germans, don’t be afraid of nuclear war,” Landsbergis calls out to us. And Urmas Reinsalu, Estonia’s foreign minister, urges haste. Of course, Baerbock and Strack-Zimmermann are also in favour of the delivery of Leopard battle tanks. And soon fighter jets. And next there is the demand for deploying German soldiers.

When will the warmongers in politics and journalism realise it? For decades, the USA has been declaring that Ukraine must become its outpost in order to dominate the Eurasian continent. And that is why the USA has been arming Ukraine for years. And that’s why the Rand Corporation wrote back in 2019: “US delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine will increase the cost in blood and money to Russia.”

To achieve its geostrategic goals, the US has in recent years resorted to letting others fight for them. In Europe, they want to draw Germany in particular more and more into the war. It is devastating that above all the Greens, but also the CDU and FDP, headed by Baerbock, Hofreiter, Merz and Strack-Zimmermann, whether they know it or not, are dragging the Germans into the war.

The delivery of more and more new weapons makes it more and more likely that the war will spread to Germany and Europe. We must now be careful that the “cost in blood and money”, to use the language of the Rand Corporation, does not continue to increase for Germany as well.

* Oskar Lafontaine was Germany’s finance minister and the SPD’s candidate for chancellor.

Source: https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=92944, 24 January 2023

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)