Indispensable Human Sacrifice

Forfeit their Existence

March 19, the German chancellor declared that the German government will maintain the military occupation of Afghanistan and send additional civilian personnel to this Central Asian country. The chancellor explained that business activities of German companies must be extended.[1] Neither the murder of an employee of the German Agro Action (Welthhungerhilfe)[2] nor the threat of killing of two German hostages in Iraq [3] will stand in the way – Germany "cannot be blackmailed" is unanimously heard in Berlin. This allegation is false, because the foreign ministry is indirectly engaged in negotiations with the kidnappers and is also prepared to pay a price for their freedom. At issue, and the subject of the negotiations, imposed through blackmail, is simply how high the ransom should be. Berlin – as in the past – is prepared to pay cash, thereby tying the life of the hostage to a price. If the price does not exceed the political and material costs of the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, the hostages will be spared. If the contrary holds true, their existence is forfeited, according to the message derived from the foreign policy of Germany.

Welcome

"I am absolutely in agreement" added Hamid Karzai, president of the imposed Afghan administration, after the chancellor's foreign policy statement.[4] Karzai visited Berlin on March 19, for talks after having received an Operetta Award in the German province. He would "in any case, welcome everything that the Germans are prepared to do to facilitate the reconstruction and security of Afghanistan" declared Karzai in compliance with the commissioned function of the Kabul regime.

Transformation Thinkers

Participating in the "reconstruction" of Afghanistan and Iraq, advertised by Karzai, is the German media corporation, Bertelsmann. Belonging to the network of the so-called "Transformation Thinkers," initiated by the Bertelsmann Foundation [5] and the federal German Association for Technical Cooperation (GTZ),[6] are government advisors from both countries. They are Musab Alkateeb from Iraq and the Afghan Masood Karokhail. Alkateeb reorganized the economic ministry in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Today, he is an economic advisor to the Iraqi puppet premier, Nuri Al-Maliki, on behalf of the US-American USAID agency. Karokhail, formerly the Afghan manager of the Dutch Unilever food company, is the director of the branch office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in the Paktia Province of Afghanistan. His job is "to establish contacts for the Afghan government and development organizations to local clan leaders."[7]

Thinking Strategically

Alkateeb and Karokhail are among the "Transformation Thinkers" courted by Bertelsmann as the "young decision makers" and the "new generation of leaders." They comprise a "global network" maintaining "contact to one another" and holding regular meetings together. The last was in November 2006 in the GTZ headquarters in Berlin.[8] At this last meeting, selected specialists taught the "Transformation Thinkers" "strategic thinking" [9] – apparently with success. Alkateeb recently praised the western companies' takeover of the Iraqi economy and criticized the fact that, rather than demonstrating "more presence" in Iraq, German firms are merely functioning as "subcontractors for US and multinational companies."[10] Karokhail demands that NATO troops "take drastic measures" against rebels and poppy producers.[11]

Transformation Rejecters

Both of the "Transformation Thinkers" are fully on course with the line of the Bertelsmann Foundation, which developed the "Bertelsmann Transformation Index" (BTI) to rate the ability and willingness of the elite in developing and threshold countries to transform their national economies along the lines set by western nations. According to Bertelsmann, the primary goal is to impose private property as the central "criteria of the market and competition system" and the neutralization of eventual resistance ("veto powers"). States that do not behave as "credible or reliable partners" of the west, are referred to as "transformation rejecters." According to Werner Weidenfeld, member of the presidium of the Bertelsmann Foundation and director of the Munich-based Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) the "hard core" stretches from "North Korea, through numerous Arab states all the way to Zimbabwe or Cuba."[12]

Learning

The Bertelsmann Foundation openly threatens the above mentioned countries, among them several successor states of the Soviet Union, ("transformation rejecters rich in resources") with "external pressure." According to the report of the "Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006", this kind of pressure, in the case of Nicaragua, has led to "a process of institutional learning."[13] Following the victory of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) over the Somoza military dictatorship in 1979, US financed terror groups ("Contras") plunged the country in a ten-year long civil war. At the end, the FSLN government had to step down, the social reforms they implemented, such as the nationalization of the industry and the parceling of the large land holdings, have been successively reversed.

Breaking Tradition

According to Bertelsmann, in the imposition of a pro-western, neo-liberal economic order on the rest of the world, Iraq, under US-led occupation, plays a key role. "A collapse of the transformation of Iraq would have an adverse effect worldwide, on all other transformation efforts" according to the foundation: "national elites would see that as an impetus to resist all externally imposed constraints." Therefore it is necessary to "recruit a new ruling elite," because only that can break the "tradition of the appropriation and distribution of annuity of oil wealth" and siphon off oil profits to western companies. In this context, according to Bertelsmann "measures of international support" should "insure the loyalty of the Iraqi population" and hamper "social dissention." "Post-war Iraq may not be able to survive a radical therapy, such as Pinochet's Chile."[14] Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military dictator, had the elected Chilean Socialist president, Salvador Allende, murdered and thereafter – based on a policy of domestic terror – imposed a neo-liberal economic policy on the nation. At the time, German business circles, including the Hoechst chemical corporation, applauded Pinochet's bloody putsch.[15]

No Taboo

Bertelmann's plans for a new order extend beyond Iraq. The foundation insists that in order to avoid "undermining" the "credibility of the transformation process in Iraq," a "new effort for the stabilization of Afghanistan" must be undertaken. The intervention demands tear down the last remaining limits on German foreign policy. "Even the option of placing both Israel and Palestine together as a UN protectorate, should be no taboo, in light of the risky processes confronting the entire Middle East."[16]

Planned In

The radical nature of the foreign policy, that appears through these proposals, helps elucidate the German procedure in handling the hostage situation. The global domination concepts, with which Berlin is riding the coattails of German economic success, makes human sacrifice indispensable. Even if the current hostages can be saved, future deaths are planned in.

[1] see also On the Ruins of War, Hundert Prozent and Deutsche Hilfe
[2] see also Fünfhundert Ziele
[3] see also Tödliches Versprechen and Ende im Grab
[4] Pressestatements von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel und dem afghanischen Präsidenten Hamid Karsai am 19. März 2007 in Berlin
[5] see also European Way of Life, Highest Ambitions, An Russland vorbei and Thomas Barth (Hg.): Bertelsmann
[6] see also Key positions, Straßenbau and Property Obliges
[7] "Wir brauchen mehr Austausch zwischen Gebern und afghanischer Bevölkerung." Interview mit Masood Karokhail; E + Z Zeitschrift für Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit 7/2005
[8] Auftakt zu einem globalen Netzwerk. 25 Transformation Thinkers aus 23 Ländern treffen sich in Berlin; www.gtz.de/de/17885.htm
[9] Transformation Thinkers; www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de
[10] "Deutsche müssen mehr Präsenz zeigen"; Berliner Zeitung 14.11.2006
[11] "Wir brauchen mehr Austausch zwischen Gebern und afghanischer Bevölkerung." Interview mit Masood Karokhail; E + Z Zeitschrift für Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit 7/2005
[12], [13] Bertelsmann-Stiftung: Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006. Politische Gestaltung im internationalen Vergleich, Gütersloh 2005
[14] Peter Thiery: Eine Nachkriegsordnung für den Irak. Leitlinien einer nachhaltigen Transformationsstrategie, Papier der Bertelsmann-Stiftung und des CAP, April 2003
[15] see also Siegeskreuz
[16] Peter Thiery: Eine Nachkriegsordnung für den Irak. Leitlinien einer nachhaltigen Transformationsstrategie, Papier der Bertelsmann-Stiftung und des CAP, April 2003