The Duran Podcast - German political obsession with Ukraine reaches dangerous levels

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

German political obsession with Ukraine reaches dangerous levels

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in Germany and very low approval ratings for the traffic-like coalition, but that is not deterring the traffic-like coalition of Ola Schultz from continuing to double and triple and quadruple down on Project Ukraine. 8 billion euros has been approved from the annual budget to go to Ukraine. And I believe next week is the Munich Security Council. Some people say this is where this whole SMO actually got most of its start, most of its momentum was from the Munich Security Council in 2022. But at this Munich Security Council, there will be some sort of security guarantee agreement between, Germany and Ukraine, very similar to the security guarantee between the UK and Ukraine.

Anyway, people are upset, farmers are upset, deindustrialization. Germany is going down the tubes, but the German traffic-like coalition, the elite, the governing people in Germany, they're completely unfazed by any of this. Well, they're not just on phase. They are becoming increasingly insisting. that everybody was followed what they want. So it's been a brilliant piece about all of this in naked capitalism,

in which it describes, you know, the outlook there that anybody who protests about anything, about the fact that, you know, there's a shortage of diesel oil, or the cost of diesel oil is rising, which is essential for the farmers. Anybody who protests about something like this is invariably now painted as far right,

extremist, a radical, a Putin sympathizer, Putin lover. They're going after all their opponents of this way, even as they double down on Ukraine. They are now so obsessed with the Ukraine enterprise that they're sacrificing the entire future of Germany on the altar of Project Ukraine. It is most astonishing. It's bizarre to say,

and anybody who is, you know, says, you know, let's take stock, let's think about this. Well, as I said, they come under vicious attack and it does get, I do get the sense of the coalition's popularity is plunging. But if it collapses and there's elections, more likely than not, the CDU, Angola Merkel's own, old party will take over and they will follow exactly the same policies. I mean, this is, and do so with even more, even more relentlessly. And just to give an example of this, I mean, we discussed about 10 days ago, the vote in the German parliament about the supply of tourist missiles to Ukraine. And I said that it was an encouraging sign that the,

Parliament actually voted against the supply of terrorist missiles to Ukraine. And I still think that, by the way, I still think that overall it was an encouraging thing that it happened like that. But I hadn't understood until somebody pointed me out, pointed it out to me, exactly how that vote came about, because there was, you know, all this dithering and hand-wringing within the coalition about whether to supply these tourist missiles to Ukraine. And apparently they were working their way slowly towards doing so. And then the CDU decided, well, look, all this dizzering is there, our opportunity to make a big splash, to impress our American and British friends.

So they then made a proposal to the Parliament to authorise the supply of the terrorist missiles. The opposition, in other words, the biggest opposition body proposed it. And rather than be seen to vote for an opposition motion, the traffic like coalition decided to vote against it, which is why the proposition failed. Now, I still think, as I said, it was a good thing that they voted against supplying the terrorist missiles. But it tells you that if the government changes,

if the SBD and the Greens and their liberal coalition partners lose power, it doesn't mean the policy will change bitterly unpopular, though it is becoming in Germany. All it means is that the policy will be continued, probably with equal vehemence, by a new government. And Germany doesn't seem to have a way out. More industry is closing, more reports that the chemical industry now is in particular difficulties, problems with, in the German auto industry, which is now facing Chinese competition, which they hadn't reckoned on. The budget, there's a budget crisis, but in spite of the budget crisis, in spite of the protests from the farmers, you still give 8 billion euros.

to Ukraine. That's the priority now. The question always comes up, why? Why is Germany doing this? Why are they destroying themselves? Okay, you're fascinated with, you're obsessed with Project Ukraine. You're fascinated with Zelensky. You despise Russia. But it just seems so bizarre that you'll destroy your entire country for this obsession, this fast, this hatred. I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever. Well, I mean, if we're talking about the German political class, I mean, we first of all have to... The political class, yes. The political class. I mean, we first have to begin with the Greens, who clearly are now a completely near-com party. They are, as we've discussed in previous programs, ideologically

comfortable with this policy. And, Beyond that, being greens, deindustrialization is something they welcome. I think people always overlook this, but if factories are closing across Germany, from a green perspective, that means that the policy is working. That is what they want. And that's what they're able to tell their supporters. And that's why alone of the parties within the coalition, their support base remains relatively resilient.

Now, as to the other parties, as to the rest of the German political class, I have difficulty explaining this, but I suspect at some basic level, deep psychic level, part of the German political class, which has been very, very aligned with the Anglo-Americans ever since the creation of the Bundeshehrie Republic, in the 1940s. They were worried.

They'd been much more worried privately than I ever imagined that they were coming to be seen as disloyal to the United States because they were, you know, doing deals with the Russians, you know, the Nord Stream pipelines and all that. And what they're now doing is they're going absolutely overboard to prove finally their loyalty, to put the question of their life. loyalty to the European Union, to the United States, to put all that once and for all beyond

doubt. And of course, if you're talking about individual politicians, they're now so committed to this enterprise that it's probably very, very difficult psychologically for them to draw back. And last but not least, the fact that they've started off on this project and that they are being challenged probably also makes them want to double down because of course if they now reverse course they will probably feel that they will show weakness

to the other parties that are starting to emerge in Germany, the IFDA, Sarah Wagner-X party, a new party which has been formed by a German lawyer, Dr. Maeson, who is a well-known and apparently very respected figure in Germany, which is trying to establish itself as a more, you know, right of centre parties than the IFTA, which is deeply critical of all of these policies.

Anyway, they're probably worried that if they start appearing weak in the face of these parties, then their entire credibility in Germany will collapse, and they will risk finally losing control. So for all these odd mix of reasons, probably all of them coming together in some ways, they're deciding to stick with Project Ukraine, come what may and still hope that someday things will turn out well and that Germany will in some form come through

and that the Americans will deliver for them. It's very bizarre because Biden has now just banned exports of LNG to Europe. You remember how LNG was supposed to be the great thing that was going to make up for Russian gas? It never really did. It's very expensive. There's not enough of it that you can provide. That's one reason why factories have had to close. You've got to reduce the use of gas.

but anyway, American LNG isn't coming. So what they're now doing apparently is that they're buying LNG from Russia because the Russians are now the only people who are exporting LNG in the necessary quantities. But of course, they can't buy directly from the Russians, even though I understand imports of LNG to Europe from Russia are not actually sanctioned yet. But anyway, they are still buying the LNG from Sanct. from Russia, but they're making sure that it's firstly repackaged or laundered by going through

various middlemen who are making heaps of money on all of this, even as German taxpayers lose on it. Again, the article in naked capitalism went into this and discussed how all of this has happened. So, you know, they're going to carry on because, as I said, if they don't keep steaming full steam ahead towards the iceberg, the crew might start to wonder about the sanity of the camp. They worry that they would. So, you know, they keep going. Tell everybody all is well, I have it under control and hope that that's enough. Yeah, but it seems like the German population. I mean, definitely the farmers, they're not buying it to any of this nonsense. I mean, you know, that's obvious that they want the Schultz government out. And so it goes back to

Annalina's statement maybe a year and a half ago where she pretty much just came out with the truth of it, which is, as a government, we really don't care about what the voters want. We're going to do what we want to do. I mean, when do we get to the point where the citizens of Germany have enough and they get their say whether the elite politicians like it or not. Or is there a mechanism for that? Or are the people in Germany just stuck? Are they stuck on this ship as it moves ever closer to the iceberg? Well, indeed so.

I mean, this is a good question because, of course, the German political system, the way in which Germany's constitutional arrangements were created after the Second World War, not just the basic law, but everything else was designed to keep to preserve stability within the existing political system because of fear that if they didn't, another mustachio gentleman might emerge and lead Germany to disaster again. So, you know, the premise was that you keep Germany. under the control of steady, sensible, rational, centrist, liberal people. They're the people who run Germany and who can run, trust it to run Germany. Well, you don't want people from the right or the left coming in and messing things up,

because if you do that, well, we might be back to the 30s again. So, I mean, that's the premise in Germany. And of course, when all that was created in the 40s and 50s, nobody really considered the possibility that actually it might be the people at the centre who are going mad and the people on the right and the left who are arguing sense. But you're left with the system that makes change in Germany extremely difficult. But you're absolutely right. The German people are becoming increasing the dissolution. increasingly unhappy. And we are starting to see alternatives appear.

The IFTA has seen a big surge in its support over the last two years. There's been a massive sustained campaign against it over the last few weeks. There's been attempts to talk up a particular meeting between some people connected to the if there, with other people who were class or labeled as far right and, you know, the use of the F word was very much used in relation to these people. There was supposed to be a plan to run up migrants

and deport them, I think, to Madagascar or someplace. I mean, I haven't really followed the details of it. The newspaper, the magazine, that broke that story as, again, that article in Naked Capitalism, has said, has actually retracted on significant parts of it. But the media and the political class have seized on it. And they run a massive campaign against the IFTA on the basis of it. And there's been a small dip in the IFDAO's popularity, but I think given the pressure

the party has been under, perhaps not as much as some of its opponents might have hoped. And of course, the risk the political class runs is that if the IFDAE comes through this and, you know, emerges intact, then there will come a point where if they continue to attack it

in the same kind of way. it'll become bomb-proofed. That does happen to political parties. And you get to a point where anything you say, any smear, any abuse that you direct at a particular political party, far from weakening it, actually ends up making it stronger.

So anyway, that's what they're trying to do with the eye of debt. But now we also have these other parties that are starting to appear. There's Sarah Wagenect, was creating her new left-wing party, which is said to be a working-class party, I think that it might actually gain some support in northern parts of eastern Germany, in Berlin, in Brandenburg, in those sort of places.

It could conceivably even win a certain amount of support in some of the working-class areas in, say, Hamburg. I mean, I can see it making some in roads. certainly into the SBD's historic support in this area. It might win over some workers and it might, you know, do even better than that. And then there is this new party that Dr. Masson is now creating, which might in time start peeling off support from the CDU. But, you know, these are very, very early days and the political class have not given up.

And, of course, they've already raised the spectre. banning parties. They've talked about doing that to the IFGA, and they might, for all I know, decide at some point to do that to the others also. Yeah, I just don't think that Germany has that kind of time. No, this is the problem. I mean, things are deteriorating very fast. And I don't think that the government, the political class in Germany, understand that. I mean, that's the other thing. I mean, they inhabit a bubble. And I think within that bubble,

they don't want to hear the bad news. I remember right at the beginning of this whole business, way back in 2022. I was told about meetings that Robert Harbeck was having with various experts. And they were coming along and they were telling you, look, this isn't going to work. We can't rely solely on the US for LNG.

your attempts to do big deals with Qatar are not going to achieve the results. You think we've got to moderate our policies. We can't press forward with the sanctions and all of that. And apparently Robert Harbeck just dismissed it all, and said you're just talking Putin talking points. All will be well, trust me. I mean, that was the line that he was taking.

And I suspect that that kind of illusory bubble that, you know, Germany's been through hard times in the past since the Bundes Republic was set up. There were recessions in the 70s. There were recessions in the early in the early 90s after the reunification.

There was a period after the 2008 crisis when Germany also had economic problems. They think that it's like that. That if they continue to throw money at this and fiddle with the budget law and ease the budget,

law, that things will be well and everything will come back to normal and all will be, all will work out. And I think some of them are probably still deluded enough to think that maybe there will be a collapse in Russia and, you know, that Navalny will come to power and that all will be well there. The thing, I always say this about Germany. And bear a mind, you know, I know a little about the country. I mean, I know. dealings. The provincialism of the German political class is very difficult, the German political class is very difficult to convey to outsiders. I mean, in America, in the United States, whatever you may think of the political leaders there, they, you know, they're accustomed

to thinking in global terms and thinking, you know, in ways that, assess geostrategic matters, well at least with some degree of knowledge. But in Germany, politics is very localized and very regional. And they know Germany very well. They know a certain type of politics in Germany very well. They know the European Union and the mechanics of how to operate things in Brussels very well. but you know the biggest picture what's going on in russia and that kind of thing they don't really understand that at all and they assume that you know they're much better than the russians that

everything they've got the better tanks they've got the better artillery they've got the more efficient economy all that kind of thing and it's not something that they take a step back and think about very much to the extent that you will find people who do make those kind of criticisms. You're more likely to find them, I have to say this, in the eye of death. And I suspect before long in Saravagenet's group. And of course, Dr. Marsen might be able to win over some of the old aristocratic families, Prussian aristocratic families, who did have that, and still to a certain extent,

do still have that wider understanding of the world, the German politicians and general done. Yeah. I'm just curious why the hatred in this segment of the German political class towards Russia, towards Russia, Russians. I mean, if you remove, if you remove, let's just put a pin in World War II. Let's just not factor that in. Let's say everything post-World War II up until, say, 2020. There really is zero reason for the German political elite to, hey, Russia, if anything, you would imagine that all the CDU and CSU and SPD, all of these guys would love Russia because they built a huge amount of wealth through the deals that they had with Russia, through the access to Russia's resources. And I just can't understand. What did Russia do in the last

30 years to warrant this type of hate, like absolute hate to the point of destroy Russia and Balkanize it that this group of this segment of politicians has towards its. Well, remember, hatred is based on anger and anger is often based on fear. Now, the thing to understand is that within a large segment of the German political class, they never really wanted to accept that the relationship with Russia was a mutually beneficial one from which Germany in some ways was the country that did better they always assumed that it was the other way around.

But it was. I know, I know, well, it was, but, you know, they didn't want to see that. They wanted, they always wanted to believe that Russia couldn't cope without Germany. and of course the fact that it's turning out otherwise that Russia's economy is strong and I just again seen some PMI coming out of Russia the services still expanding

the reading came out 55.8 so you know still expansion and services despite the high interest rates so all the signs are strong economy Russia, even the IMF is predicting strong growth in Russia this year. The Germans political class are furious about this. And the point was that the sanctions were supposed to implode Russia. It was inconceivable to them before they unrolled the sanctions, that the sanctions wouldn't work.

And so they've now discovered how. how much weaker in relation to Russia they actually were. And that's made them frightened, and it's made them angry, and it's made them, you know, become consumed with hatred. And, I mean, undoubtedly, there's always been in Germany, and, you know, I have to say this is something I greatly underestimated. I always thought that the Germans had managed to get over this, that there's always been, especially in Western Germany

and the more Catholic regions of Germany, there one mustn't be careful here. And I mean, far from all Catholic Germans are anti-Russian. A lot of Catholic Germans are most definitely not anti-Russian, even phylogen. But anyway, but there was always in Western Germany, historically, an antagonism towards Russia, of the sense that the Russians weren't really European.

We didn't really want them in Europe. We want a German Europe, which does not include Russia, because the Russians are the Eastern barbarians. And besides, there's this enormous country. And if we had them in Europe, we'd have to deal with them on equal terms. And we don't want to do that. And, of course, that segment of German society has always tended to be very pro-American. and pro-British, by the way, also, and to some extent pro-French.

And because they want to distance Germany from the east and focus it instead on the West. And a lot of that has evolved into outright Russophobia. And I have to say, I was shocked at the start of the special military operation and in the weeks and months have followed. And how powerful that current in Germany still. Liz, I thought like you that after 30 years of very good relations, or at least relations that on the surface appear to be very good, that we had got past all of that. And I was absolutely

shocked to see that we had not, that there are still people, like I have to say Ursula von der Leyen, as a classic example of this, who still have this fear and anger and hatred towards Russia, which was also, by the way, played such an important role in causing the collapse of German-Russian relations at the end of the 19th century after the fall of Bismarck, which led directly to the First World War, which was a disaster for Russia, but it was also a disaster for Germany too. Yeah, I think if you want to understand, I'm listening to what you're saying,

if you really want to understand the attitude that the German political elite had or have towards Russia, I think a good place to understand that would be in the attitude the political elite had with regards to Greece during the austerity of 2009 to 2010-11. But in the case of Greece, the German political class was able to push the Greeks down to get what they wanted from the Greek political class. And it created a Greek political class which understood their place in the pecking order and are now very compliant with whatever Germany tells them to do. I mean, it worked in the case of Greece for obvious reasons being a much smaller country, a weaker country and much more. dependent and in the pocket of the European Union with Russia. They tried to put Russia in their place with the sanctions and it's, it didn't work. It didn't work and it's driving them mad. Agreed. Yeah. All right. We will end the video there. The durand. Dotlocals.com. We are on Rumble,

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