Steinmeier criticizes NATO ‘saber-rattling’ | Deutsche Welle |

On June 7, NATO launched exercises codenamed “Anakonda-16,” which simulated a Russian attack on Poland. The two-week-long drills involve some 31,000 troops, including 14,000 from the United States, 12,000 from Poland and 1,000 from the UK, as well as dozens of fighter jets and ships, along with 3,000 vehicles.

 « click for more info
Steinmeier kritisiert Nato-Manöver in Osteuropa (Photo: Bild)

Speaking to Germany’s “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper, Steinmeier (SPD) said more dialogue and cooperation with Russia are needed, not what he deemed military posturing.

“What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and war cries,” Steinmeier said in comments made available ahead of publication on Sunday. “Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security, is mistaken. We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” he added.

Steinmeier instead called for dialogue and diplomacy, saying it would be “fatal to now narrow the focus to the military, and seek a remedy solely through a policy of deterrence.”

He told the newspaper that a willingness to negotiate must also be present alongside military precautions, and that the alliance should be prepared to “renew discussions about the benefits of disarmament and arms control for security in Europe.”  

My Islamist Neighbor

Your book clearly suggests that Europe’s struggle to retain its cultural identity is practically lost. You confront the reader with the terrifying conclusion that various Western European countries, large and small, are undergoing an unstoppable process of Islamization. This process, which applies to everyday life, culture and institutions, is bound to continue in the years to come, changing Europe as we know it. Are you trying to frighten us and give us a wake-up call, or are you preparing us for living in a completely different world, even if on the same continent?

I am not trying to frighten anyone, because life itself is scary enough and so are phenomena that we’re losing control of. The processes you mentioned are driven by the tremendously expansive Islamic ideology. We are unable to resist it with our own, because we’re too lazy and like to think we know it all. On the other hand, we are tangled up in democracy and stuck with our own rules and codes. These prevent us from coming up with an adequate response to what’s been going on around us. We are slaves to our beautiful way of life, organized by laws and Enlightenment traditions. The thing is that those who are trying to annex our world have no respect for our codes. Islamic communities are foreign bodies to us “infidels” and that is how they see it, not we. They live in parallel universes that we have no access to. They don’t need us as we are at present, and they refuse to cooperate. Their foundation is a supranational community that relies on strict religious discipline and negates our way of life, and not just ours. Look at what’s been happening in the Middle East. The victims of the Islamists include their Muslim brothers whose views are not fundamentalist enough. We could completely ignore it all as long as the “repair” of Islam were confined to already Islamic territories. But Islam is invading our space as well, one step at a time. Such conquest is the most sacred obligation for every Muslim, radical or not. And since we’re not calling a spade a spade, at the end of the day we are supporting the expansion.


Author: Marek Orzechowski - the author of hundreds of publications, radio and television reports, including from the war in the Balkans. He has done numerous interviews with European and world political leaders. He was the winner of the "Europejski Ekran" Award in 2003 and he reported from Brussels and Strasbourg on the most important events associated with Poland's accession to the European Union. Between 1984 and 1987, he was an associate at "Radio Free Europe" in Munich and he is also a former Voice of America and "Panorama" TVP correspondent in Bonn (1988-1999). Until August 2006, he was the long-serving correspondent for TVP in Brussels. He has written several books, including "Holandia. Presja depresji", and his latest work is entitled Mój sąsiad Islamista. Kalifat u drzwi Europy (My Islamist Neighbor: The Caliphate at the Door of Europe), which was published in Poland in the spring of 2015.