The Devil Wears Taurus đ
Chair of the German Bundestag's Defense Committee promotes cruise missiles for Ukraine â while high-ranking military discuss their use against Crimean Bridge
While German Chancellor Scholz is still rejecting the delivery of âTaurusâ cruise missiles to Ukraine, Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Chairwoman of the German Bundestagâs Defense Committee and chief warmonger of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), is busy promoting this very project â recently also with a stylish T-shirt (US version here).
Scholz, who recently saw his stance confirmed by a vote in the Bundestagâa motion for a resolution by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine was rejected by 485 votesâis now facing new adversity.
Last Thursday, the Members of the European Parliament passed a resolution in favor of such a delivery by a large majority (461 votes in favor, 46 against, 49 abstentions), although it is not legally binding for Germany. It states that the EU member states must do everything necessary to ensure that Ukraine wins the war against Russia. The country would also need highly developed long-range cruise missiles such as the Taurus system.
In addition, a recording of a conference call between high-ranking Bundeswehr officersâ including Lieutenant General and Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartzâhas now been leaked, in which, among other things, the possibility of an attack on the Crimean bridge with Taurus missiles is discussed, as well as whether Ukrainian forces could carry out such an operation without the involvement of the Bundeswehr.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, who published the recording on her Telegram channel on Friday, explained that she had received it from Russian intelligence. [Link to the audio file at Odysee and link to the (German) transcript at RT.]
A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Defense has since admitted that a conversation held on February 19 between Air Force Chief Gerhartz and three other high-ranking officers via âWebExâ (a conference software from the US Cisco Group that does not offer end-to-end encryption for telephone participants in a conference) was intercepted. The fact that the NSA has access to WebEx, as it does to all US IT products anyway, seems to be of no interest to anyone in the wake of the hysteria surrounding the Russian wiretapping operation. However, a legitimate question might well be: What did Washington know?
Chancellor Scholz called the incident âa very serious matterâ, while his Defense Minister Boris Pistorius talks of a âhybrid information war by the Russiansâ. Both promise rapid reconnaissance by the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) â perhaps as quickly as back then when the Nordstream pipelines were blown up?
However, Scholz is coming under increasing pressure, as shown not only by the demands of the chairman of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrinth, for a committee of inquiry (a tit-for-tat response to the rejected motion for a resolution on the supply of Taurus to Ukraine mentioned at the beginning?) or CDU politician Henning Otte, who is even calling for the establishment of a National Security Council, but also by the reactions from the UK and France.
Both accuse Chancellor Scholzâwho justified his rejection of the Taurus delivery last week by saying that, unlike the British or French, they did not want to send their own soldiers to Ukraine to help deploy the weaponsâof damaging the Western defense alliance with such indiscretions.
The British ex-defense minister Ben Wallace told British media that Scholz was âthe wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time.â
The incident will also have an impact on cooperation between the intelligence services, as an insider told German newspaper Bild: âWe are already seen as second-rate in the world of intelligence services and are treated as such: We are not first league.â According to this, Western intelligence services such as the CIA or the British MI5 are increasingly reluctant to provide their German partners with confidential information for fear that this could become public knowledge. â A perfectly understandable reaction, considering that the leaked 38-minute conversation also mentioned that both the UK and the US have military personnel âon the groundâ in Ukraine. According to one of the participants in the conversation, there are âa lot of people with American accents in civilian clothesâ in Ukraine.
European partners have also been complaining about the lack of encryption in communications for some time: Norway and the Netherlands therefore no longer want to communicate with Germany on foreign missions, as anyone could intercept everything. True to the motto: âIf you want it to end up in Moscow â give it to the Germans!â
Unsurprisingly, the German mainstream media focused their reporting more on the âwiretapping scandalâ than on the content of the intercepted conversation â which, if critically assessed, has the potential to both exacerbate the danger of a further escalation of the Ukraine war into an open war between Russia and NATO and to destabilize the Scholz government even further than it already is.
And everyone who is outraged now, like the German Defense Minister Pistorius for example (ââŚhybrid information war by the Russiansâ), that the Russian secret service intercepts the communications of German military personnel, among others, and thenâoh horrorâuses the information thus obtained for its own purposes, seems not to have understood that this is exactly what secret services do: Obtain information. In secret, from secret.
Too bad, though, if the shit youâve screwed up yourself gets out in the open.
Well, then the problem with the Taurus delivery may once again hang around Scholzâs neck â as it did with the Leopard debate. That is, if he is even asked and doesnât have to resign prematurely. Back then, he caved in. He was probably only able to put off the problem until the pressure from Washington became too great.
But perhaps it wonât be long before Papa Joe gives Olaf the green light to give up his stubborn stance. After all, it would be bad publicity for the German government if the Russians were finally defeatedâwhich is of course completely realisticâand Germany, of all countries, didnât donate missiles for the final fireworks display, wouldnât it?
But anyway, The Devil Wears Taurus and isâat least verballyâalready on his way to the Crimean Bridge, or Moscow ⌠if heâs flying in the right direction.