Just days before U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to go on television and tell the American public that he plans to send 30,000 to 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan, the war there has led to one less member of the German cabinet:
Germany’s Labour Minister Franz Josef Jung has resigned amid allegations of a cover-up relating to a deadly Nato air strike in Afghanistan.
Mr Jung was defence minister when a strike was ordered on 4 September by a German commander against two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants.
But dozens of civilians were also killed in the attack, which happened in the northern province of Kunduz.
Mr Jung had repeatedly denied civilians were killed in the attack.
He moved to the labour ministry after Germany’s general election in September.
“I told Chancellor Angela Merkel this morning that I was handing in my position as federal labour minister,” Mr Jung told reporters in Berlin on Friday.
“I am therefore taking responsibility for the information policy of the defence ministry.”
Germany’s parliament has been debating whether to extend the military mission in Afghanistan, amid growing domestic opposition to involvement in the conflict.
This incident shows the ticklishness of the Afghanistan war in Europe for many policymakers there. In Germany the furor over the civilian deaths has aleady led to one major military resignation:
The head of Germany’s armed forces has resigned over allegations of a military cover-up following a Nato air strike in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s resignation caps a deeply embarrassing episode for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government over the country’s policy in Afghanistan.
The 4 September bombing of two oil tankers in the northern Afghan town of Kunduz caused carnage, and was the deadliest incident involving German troops since the Second World War. At first the German Nato forces, which had ordered the attack, claimed that all those killed in the incident were insurgents, although later the government in Berlin expressed regrets if innocent people had been among the victims.
Yesterday General Schneiderhan, the highest ranking official in the Germany armed forces, asked to be relieved of his duties for failing to pass on crucial information to ministers. Peter Wichert, a deputy defence minister who was in office at the time of the attack also stepped down. The resignations came after Bild newspaper published photographs from a secret army video indicating that civilian deaths were known about even as the then defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, was insisting that there was no evidence to show anyone but Taliban fighters had died.
As the war continues on, look for it to be a major political issue in both Europe and the United States — with all kinds of delicate subissues that will arise as it unfolds.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.