Roland Hartwig, September 26. 2019, Syria and Iraq

Roland Hartwig

Syria and Iraq

German Bundestag, September 26. 2019,

Plenarprotokoll 19/115, p. 14704

[Roland Hartwig is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Nordrhein-Westphalen. He is a lawyer and here responds to the government’s proposal to extend the German military mission in Iraq and Syria.]

Iraq and Syria were for a long time stable states. They provided their citizens with a relative standard of security, education, health care and job opportunities. This changed in Iraq in 2003 when a so-called coalition of the willing under the leadership of the USA attacked that country. Most international law experts however are agreed that this attack was a war of aggression in violation of international law. In 2003, Frau Merkel chimed in as leader of the opposition to the war song of the U.S. government, thereby positioning herself against the German Federal government in the Iraq war. Franz Münterfering at that time spoke of a “defamation of one’s own country” and a “red herring against the U.S. administration.

Since then Iraq has sunk into chaos. Over a million people have been killed. Many of the central treasures of one of the world’s oldest Kultur nations were destroyed; an irretrievable loss to all mankind.

Syria then took in over one million Iraqis. This was a decisive element in the destabilization of the country in the year 2011. During the violation of Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, an entire series of states supported various armed groups in Syria which fought against one another and against the Syrian government. Hundreds of thousands of people thus were killed. Meanwhile, the Syrian government regained control over a large part of its territory and announced a general amnesty.

If you really want to be in a position of improving the lives of people, as you assert in your motion, then you must work constructively in common with the Syrian government, Russia and other parties, so that the people who have fled the country can return home and re-build an existence. Instead, in this motion, you request a blessing for your plan for German aircraft, without permission of the Syrian government, to enter Syrian air space and there reconnoiter targets of military action. Here, you are moving, in the best case, in a legal gray area, though you are probably acting counter to international law.

            Markus Grubel (CDU-CSU): Have you said that yet to the Russians?

Disregard of the law, a globalist agenda and the destruction of people’s homelands run like red threads through Frau Merkel’s years as chancellor, abroad as well as here in Germany.

            Henning Otte (CDU-CSU): An impossible speech.

German foreign policy has in recent years increasingly led our country into isolation. To that, allow us to put an end, and we today may yet begin.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Jörg Meuthen, October 9, 2019, Brexit

Jörg Meuthen

Brexit

EU Parliament, October 9, 2019,

P9 CRE-PROV(2019) 10-9 (1-071-0000)

[Jörg Meuthen is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland 

and he leads the AfD’s delegation in the European Parliament where the AfD

belongs to the Identity and Democracy party.]

Frau President. Herr Commission President Jüncker. Herr Barnier.

Allow me to enlighten another aspect. I am horrified over what has been reported of the telephone call between Frau Merkel and British Prime Minister Johnson. I begin with the best of it: Merkel has indeed said that Germany could without a problem leave the EU. That was always an option, although not a good one. Yet in the view of the chancellor there were to be sure other rules for the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom, she said, could leave when it left Northern Ireland in the customs union with the EU – forever.

Frau Merkel evidently wishes, in case of a Brexit, to partition Great Britain. What arrogance of power! Thus a United Kingdom shall become a separated Kingdom. I find that inconceivable coming from Frau Merkel who herself was raised in a divided country. How could she have presumed? Or as the British say: “How dare you!” She must know what that means. Basically, Frau Merkel has said that a deal was impossible without violating Great Britain’s sovereignty. When she concerns herself with the future border between Ireland and Northern Ireland she necessarily casts a glance at the border between Norway and Sweden. That is always a possibility. Under these provisions, further negotiations as well as a further extension conforming with Article 50 can be cheerfully dispensed with.

For once finally be honest here in this house and admit that the EU institutions are relentlessly doing everything to prevent and render impossible an orderly exit by the United Kingdom. And you always do the same, politically smart thing – namely, shove the blame [den Schwarzen Peter zuzuschieben] onto the United Kingdom. Great Britain shall now draw the dividing line, and will not agree to the EU conditions for an orderly Brexit. The Earth will continue to turn, the economic damage will be less than forecast. In political terms, it will be for the British a liberation.

[Translated by Todd Martin]