German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll
19/202, pp. 25458-25459.
Herr
President. Right honorable colleagues.
We have
certainly heard an emotional speech. In the past months and years in many
forums, the necessity of armed drones was discussed. The conclusion was
represented, as has been heard, by a hearing in the Bundestag.
A few days
ago however, the SPD notices that the previous debate might be too much
confined to the protection of our soldiers. The war in Bergkarabach however now
shows that armed drones are able to be used as offensive weapons, according to
colleague Heinrich of the SPD.
Ladies and
gentlemen, what you there deliver up, that is the SPD’s security policy
declaration of poverty. You could exactly so reject tanks, corvettes and combat
aircraft; since these also are offensive weapons, if you so desire.
For all that,
this acknowledgment includes two remarkable aspects:
First. The
Union now completely stumbles over its argument that this weapons system served
only the protection of our soldiers on a mission.
Tobias Pflüger (Linke): Yes, that is the fairytale that they tell the entire time!
Second. The SPD leadership here reveals a
frightening degree of ignorance. Or is it cold, political calculation? I know
not which is more worthy of scorn.
Siemtje Möller (SPD): The AfD!
A year ago already in this place I predicted
in theory what has occurred in Bergkarabach. Armed drones are effective means
for the reconnaissance, surveillance and combating of opposition forces.The
Azerbaijanis owe their victory to the ability to identify and precisely attack
enemy positions and war equipment, even better than artillery or combat
aircraft are able, provided a real air defense is lacking.
I thus summed this up at that time – and it
still goes for today – : Protection for our soldiers results solely by means of
a reconnaissance and operations potential on the battlefield. And for that are
armed drones naturally the suitable means of air war.
Yet all that shows: In the SPD delegation,
there is not only a lack of expertise but every relation to reality has been
lost, and that in the party which, with Helmut Schmidt or Georg Leber,
presented renowned defense ministers to this country. Shame on you!
The SPD’s contortions can only be designated
as schizophrenic. The day before yesterday, you declare yourselves against an
arming of drones. Yesterday in the defense committee, you vote against a
similar motion of the Linke party. This is surely a security policy wrong-way
drive you are on here. Please explain that for once to our soldiers who you
with your votes casually send on dangerous foreign missions to Afghanistan or Mali,
those to whom you then however deny, according to partisan calculation, the
means of defense against enemy attack.
Tobias Pflüger (Linke): It is not for that reason! But he does not understand that!
Ladies and gentlemen, the procurement of
armed drones is a highly charged social topic. This alone clearly contradicts
the thesis of a deficient public debate. The fact is: For more than a decade
there has been a widespread campaign against armed drones driven forward by
leftists and Greens and their comrades in conviction at the levers of
publicized opinion.
The Union and the FDP knew already for more than
ten years what is necessary; yet there governs here in the self-described political
middle the fear, the fear of no longer being electable by a portion of a
society mis-informed by the media and instrumentalized by party politics. For that
reason was this decision postponed for more than a decade.
Now into the SPD again breaks the left lane.
Mützenich’s and Borjans’s great fear is of being punished by the leftist voter
clientele should a procurement of drones be agreed to. It is similarly so with
the Greens: They also are victims of their own leftist and unworldly
propaganda. And of much amusement, ladies and gentlemen of the Union, with your
coming coalition partners.
How does it actually feel to have your heart’s
defense project sunk by the SPD? And that, before all, against the background
of you having fulfilled the SPD’s every wish in this legislative period, right
up to the basic pension.
Mechthild Rawert (SPD): Unfortunately not.
Götz Frömming (AfD): Right up to self-abnegation.
Yet all that occurred to the chagrin of the
Bundeswehr, its soldiers and the security of our country.
While many of our allied armed forces now
operate these weapons systems, the Bundeswehr is now on the way to become a
third-class army: Technically obsolete, materially looted, with a hollowed out
personnel,
Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): Yet you now again speak poorly of the Bundeswehr!
without ability to fight, not in a position
to defend our home country. For that are you co-responsible.
Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): You speak poorly of the Bundeswehr!
We therefore demand of the SPD to return to
the course of Realpolitik, a course
which a Helmut Schmidt would have sailed.
I thank you for your attention.
Götz Frömming (AfD): A very good speech!
[trans: tem]
