Frank Rinck, May 19, 2022, Food Supply and Fertilizer

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/27, pp. 3595-3596.

Herr President. Valued colleagues.

We stand before the next crisis, a crisis which puts into play the supply security of foodstuffs in Germany, and in regards to which there can no longer be room for ideological or unworldly fantasies. The AfD demands a crop-oriented fertilizer [pflanzengerechte Düngung] so as to produce the highest possible yield from our domestic fields.

Ladies and gentlemen, this should actually be self-evident. Unfortunately however, the policy in this sovereign house in the last years, and especially since the formation of the Ampel government, is rather therein intent on inducing our farmers to give up their operations and farms and on deconstructing our agriculture. There now must be an end to that! We can no longer conduct such an irresponsible policy. We need to secure the supply of our population, and beyond that we need also to be in the position to support economically weaker countries with foodstuffs so as to prevent refugee movements to Europe.

This requires, as described in our motion [Drucksache 20/1865], as intensive agriculture with crop-oriented fertilizer – and not a scarcity and shortage supply like the government strives for. A further reduction of our production would further allow prices to increase at the cost of the population. In regards the current inflation, this is scarcely bearable for the people in our homeland.

In the CDU/CSU motion, it was said that we can get along with this. It would have been nice, dear colleagues, if you had gone more into such points as, for example, point 11, where you demand that the idling of 4 percent of the agricultural area should be suspended in 2023. This unfortunately you have not now done. Yet in considering the situation, this point is exactly right and we therefore support your motion.

Unfortunately, with you the theme of fertilizer is a bit lost. We have therefore associated with a motion. Fortunately, we are represented in this house. Last Monday in the public hearing, it was quite clear that we have to expect a large deficit in the fertilizer supply, and that also there the Federal government will again not do its household duties. Herr Hemmerling, the assistant secretary-general of the Deutschen Bauernverband, very impressively set forth that the foodstuffs supply in Germany is not to be guaranteed with organic fertilizer alone, and that the mineral fertilizer supply is critical. It is fully clear that we should listen to the experts and need to immediately secure the supply with fertilizer as we have demanded in our motion.

Valued colleagues of the government, concern yourselves with the fertilizer supply, and with reliable suppliers which in regards mineral fertilizer are not to be reckoned from Russia and the Ukraine. We need to make our agriculture crisis-proof, and not whenever but now.

Herr Minister, you unfortunately are not present – I proceed however in case you follow this debate from afar – in addition please reconsider how you deal with our farmers. Our farmers are not radical people on the margins but are of the middle of society and guarantee our supply with the means of living. The German farmers do not think themselves clever but have a well-founded, practical education. I here and today demand of our Federal Agriculture Minister to apologize to the farmers whom he has insulted

            Renate Künast (Greens): What?

and to occupy himself preferably with the real problems of German agriculture, instead of insulting our farmers.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

Karsten Hilse, May 19, 2022, Climate and Government

German Bundestag, May 19, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/37, p. 3519.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen.

One first must be as bold as you of the Union: Just as you in your apparent opposition role suddenly notice that, for example, unreined immigration or the abolition of nuclear power plants are not the best of ideas, so you now place a motion for the acceleration of planning and approval proceedings – quite as if you had not sat in the government for the last 16 years, but moreover had not done everything with ever new laws and prescriptions for the “climate protection” to drive the citizens, who for example wanted to build a house, to madness, officials and unions to despair, and the costs to unimagined heights.

Freely according to Konrad Adenauer: “What interest to me is my idle talk of yesterday?”, only with the great distinction that he who grapples with real problems on that account needs to alter his opinion so as to successfully deal with and solve the problem. You however hunt after, in common with the green Communists of the Ampel, a phantom problem by the name of “man-made climate catastrophe" and want to drive forward the transformation of our industry, of which alone emigration is a consequence, and with it the loss of millions of high value creation workplaces. Adenauer acted in the interest of Germany, you in the interest of corrupt lobbyists, as we unfortunately also find in this parliament.

Naturally it is right to accelerate planning proceedings. Nevertheless, some of the means put forward by you are not only inappropriate; they also recall in fatal ways proceedings unworthy of a democracy, as for example in the former DDR or today’s China.

Not for nothing has Herr Habeck confidently posed in an interview the seriously meant question of whether our democracy or state dirigisme à la China would be better suited to enforce [erzwingen] measures against the alleged climate catastrophe. Against the will of those affected; cost what it will, and when that is one’s own people. In the interview, Herr Habeck indeed acknowledged democracy; we naturally appreciate that.

            Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): You could also do that!

Some of the measures moved are nevertheless milestones in the direction of a Chinese situation.

And the Union makes proposals to which we most quickly come. So as to break the resistance, for example, against the nature-destroying, bird-killing, sick-making monster, complaints shall only be allowed to be presented at the superior administrative courts and the complaints shall no longer have a delaying effect. Should all demands in your motion be implemented, you would not thereby maintain prosperity, but to a considerable degree annihilate it, bring a blackout a great step closer and destroy our nature to a never thereto known extent.

Dismiss the climate ideology. Make proposals so we may invigorate our economy, maintain our prosperity and protect our nature. Then you have us on your side. However, as long as you participate in the de facto annihilation of Germany, we will fight you and your plans, naturally with democratic means – for the preservation of our homeland and for the well-being of our people.

I am grateful for your attention.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

René Springer, May 19, 2022, Afghanistan Investigation Committee

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/37, pp. 3544-3545. 

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests. Dear soldiers and veterans who perhaps are watching.

The Alternative für Deutschland here in the German Bundestag today moves for the appointment of an investigation committee for a reappraisal of the mission in Afghanistan, which in 2001 was begun by red-green, was carried on by four additional Federal governments, and in 2021 ended in a disaster. Not one, single goal was attained. Afghanistan was thrown into chaos.

What were the goals of the Federal government? The principal goals were the preservation of security and creation of a self-supported stability. The fact is that the number of terrorism deaths in the course of time, and with the presence of the Western troops, increased year for year. In the year 2007 for example, there were 2,000 terrorism deaths; the year 2009, 8,600 terrorism deaths – a fourfold increase. In 2016, the blood toll of the Afghan armed forces was so great that the Afghan government and the U.S. government decided to no longer publish the numbers, and the Federal government joined in this deception strategy. All together from 2001 to 2021 are 212,000 deaths to lament. This is the result of a values-conducted foreign policy, in regards to which the export of values and democracy were more important than the reality on the ground, the cultural identity of the Afghans and the traditions of these people. In the eyes of many Afghans, we were not liberators, we were occupiers, a Western foreign body in an archaic, tribal culture, and thus ourselves a factor in the increasing instability in this country.

An additional goal of the Federal government was the promotion of the state of law, democracy and women’s rights. A research opinion of the Bundestag’s scientific service now says: There was never a functioning state of law in Afghanistan in the years of 2001 to 2021. Afghanistan was at the latest since 2010 a de facto failed state. The Taliban won the upper hand, and thereby also corruption, the drug economy and militia arbitrariness. For an additional ten long years, the Federal government nevertheless spread an endurance rhetoric and led the public to believe in an improvement of the situation which was not in place.

And what about women’s rights? Today is the burkha – as is read in the newspapers – again obligatory for women. Women’s freedom to travel without male escort is restricted. Girls are no longer allowed to attend continued schooling. That is the result of feminist foreign policy!

            Gyde Jesen (FDP): Rubbish!

The Federal government pursued the goal of fighting drug cultivation in Afghanistan. The announced goal was the halving of the drug cultivation area. In fact, the opium production from 2001, the last year of Taliban rule, to 2021 increased 36 times. 36 times more drug production, although the fight against drugs had been proclaimed. Afghanistan is today the principal drug producer, the principal opium producer worldwide, and supplies 24 million drug consumers, 80 percent of all users. In 2021, Afghanistan was also the world’s second largest producer of hashish. No citizen understands how the fight against drugs can be announced and there then arises a state which works its way to become a global player in the drug economy. No man understands this.

An additional goal of the Federal government was to enable the Afghan security forces to guarantee security in its own country. In 2003, the Afghan armed forces numbered 6,000; by 2020, 270,000. The armed forces included more troops and police than the Bundeswehr. Despite this, following the withdrawal of Western troops, the Taliban without encountering resistance worthy of the name could re-conquer Afghanistan. The results of 20 years of education, equipment, financing and training were pulverized within a few days. How is something like that possible?

Ladies and gentlemen, this war had many losers, yet also winners. The losers are the German taxpayers who have paid over 17 billion euros for this mission. The losers are over 100,000 German soldiers who were senselessly used as cannon fodder [verheizt] in this mission. The losers are the 59 dead German soldiers and thousands with mission-conditioned psychic illnesses with which today they still have to struggle. And the profiters? That is the arms industry which did a good business; primarily however it is the Taliban who today sit stronger in the saddle than in 2001, and who are extremely well armed by means of our equipment and by means of our formation.

Endlessly many questions are yielded from this 20 year mission; and these questions we want to clarify in the scope of an investigation committee. How could five Federal governments deceive themselves and the German public for two decades? Why did the Federal government set up as partners corrupt warlords and war criminals whose only interest was building their own power, yet not in stability?  How could it be that the opium production was continually higher than under the rule of the Taliban? Why did the Federal government so long refuse to conduct talks with the Taliban, as was demanded by then SPD chief Kurt Beck in 2007 and as was ultimately done by Trump, the U.S. President? How much tax money landed in the hands of corrupt power elites? And before all: How could an entire army, which was larger than the Bundeswehr, collapse within a few days? In our view, these questions need to be clarified.

I thus come to conclusion. The appraisal of the 20 year Afghanistan mission will not heal wounded and traumatized soldiers. It will also bring back none of the 3 dead police and 59 dead soldiers. Yet we owe it to them and their relatives to unsparingly clarify the disaster, the wrong decisions, the empty promises, the deceptions, the lies. We want to and we must hold to account those politically responsible. That is the goal which we pursue with this motion for the appointment of an investigation committee on Afghanistan.

I am grateful for the attention.

 

[trans: tem]