No to NATO

As the dust of nato’s Balkan war settles over the hot peace in Kosovo, the top nato job is being vacated by Secretary General Javier Solana. He is about to move into the new post of European Union Foreign Policy chief.

Rudolf Scharping, the German defense minister, was the front runner to replace Solana as head of nato. Scharping was the all-party favorite for the job, fully endorsed by U.S. President Clinton and all nato members. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder declined the offer, declaring that he needed Mr. Scharping to assist him with domestic policies at home.

Did this really make sense?

Scharping was a competitor for the chancellorship, having run and been defeated in the re-election of Chancellor Kohl in the 1994 German election. Scharping is still rumored to be interested in the chancellorship.

So Gerhard Schröder could have killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, had he agreed to Scharping taking the nato job. In one stroke he would have sidelined a prime contender for his office and at the same time given Germany the enhanced prestige of leading the organization which is still perceived by many, despite its woeful post-cold-war failures, as the world’s principal peace machine.

Why did the German chancellor decline? The real reason should shock you!

It is summed up in our editor’s statement in his Personal in last month’s issue of this magazine: “This time the Germans are even more dangerous than they were under Hitler! And yet, it is all done in the guise of righteousness.”

Flirting with Britain

Schröder’s first official trip abroad, upon gaining the chancellorship, was to Britain. He promptly flew across the English Channel to knock on the door of 10 Downing Street.

Why this special attention to Britain? Bible prophecy explains the reason and the true motive.

In Isaiah’s prophecy we read of the style of leadership which the latter-day governments of the nations of Israel, primarily Britain and America, will exhibit. “For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed” (Isa. 9:16). Elsewhere, this prophet forecasts that the leaders of America and Britain will even act like children (Isa. 3:12).

Witness this allusion to the child-like naïveté of today’s leadership in Britain: “So the July of this century’s last year finds British ministers concerned with the same subjects as in the July of what was really the previous century’s last year: July 1914. That is, Serbia and Ireland…. By August [1914], the Northern Irish crisis had to be postponed for four years while the European one was resolved by war. [By August this year, solving the Northern Irish crisis had once again been postponed.] Today it is assumed that ‘Europe,’ as an issue in British politics then, was completely different from ‘Europe’ as an issue in British politics now. True, it is different. We are not going to war with Germany in the foreseeable future…. The problem was resolved then by beating them. Mr. Brown, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, Mr. Heseltine and Mr. Patten [British politicians] want to resolve the problem now by joining them” (The Spectator, July 17, p. 10).

Concerning the British-German flirtation, as our editor in chief has pointed out, prophetically Germany, ancient Assyria in modern clothes, is called the “lover” of the nations of Israel. “Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted” (Ezek. 23:9).

The Burden of History

Thus, it was no mere whim which led Chancellor Schröder to visit Prime Minister Blair on his first trek abroad upon gaining office. Mr. Blair had made one very strong point during his early term of office. He had, in association with France, stridently pushed for a European military force to be created, staffed, and have its rank-and-file troops supplied, by the European Union member nations.

For some time Germany has wanted a stronger military presence in Europe, to equate with its status as the EU’s leading economic and political entity. But the Germans have a problem—their history.

The term “German” comes from an archaic term simply meaning “war men.” From ancient times this Assyrian nation has possessed a reputation for being ruthless in war. Caesar called them Germanen, meaning a valiant or warlike people, probably from Ger, meaning spear or lance (see Encyclopedia Britannica, “Germany”). This is interesting to note in relation to the fascination which past German leaders, particularly Hitler, had with the ancient “holy lance.” Held in the Vienna Treasury in Austria, this relic is regarded as a most valuable icon of the imperial signature of the “Holy Roman Empire.”

From ancient times the German people (biblical Assyria) have been an imperial nation with a long history of ruling over various confederations of nation-states. Small wonder that we see this nation, described as “the beating heart of Europe,” once again on the rise, reaching out anew from its resurrected political capital, Berlin, with an imperial urge to draw Europe’s eastern nations into the fold of the European Union (EU), which it currently dominates in every respect.

But the Germans have this history, a history which from ancient times they have tried to hide. “The history of early Germany, suppressed by the Romans, was revived briefly in the German-dominated Middle Ages. But before the close of the 17th century, not even the Germans remembered their past. It had been stamped out in the name of education and religion” (Herman Hoeh, Compendium of World History, p. 4). As Dr. Hoeh observes, historically the Germans have tried to hide their past even from themselves.

So we now have a government in Germany, under Schröder, which is seeking to detach itself from that nation’s responsibility for sparking the greatest war ever known to man, including the most thorough attempt to annihilate a race of people via the holocaust of just 55 to 60 years ago. And what better way to bury the history than to cuddle up to your former declared enemy! Hence Mr. Schröder’s rush to the side of Prime Minister Blair of Britain upon his gaining the chancellorship.

Recently, Britain and Germany joined forces to send the largest contingents of troops to shore up the “peacekeeping” force in Kosovo. Now Britain finds itself stretched beyond the limits of its military strength, reduced under the previous government of John Major and the infamous strategic review initiated by current British Defense Minister George Robinson. So Britain will be downsizing its troop commitment in Kosovo, leaving Germany with the largest national contingent on the ground in that still-seething Balkan hot spot.

Not only did Germany instigate the “peace plan” for Kosovo, to which both the UN and nato have agreed, they also proposed the “Marshall Plan” for Balkan reconstruction. Also, unlike other nations, the German government, together with its old Axis ally, Italy, has publicly foreshadowed the imminent prospect of that pariah Yugoslav nation-state, Serbia, being involved in the plan for Balkan reconstruction.

So would it not have made perfect sense for Schröder to have agreed to the request to have his defense secretary accept nato’s top job? After all, he oiled the wheels to ease his top personal aide, Bodo Hombach, into the role of being in charge of Balkan reconstruction. Would the covert takeover of the Balkans by the new “peace-loving” German nation not have been even more complete by the appointment of a German to head up nato, which was directing ground control in Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro?

Well—no! Obviously the German chancellor had thought more deeply about this. Let’s trace it through from Schröder’s election to now.

No Mere Coincidence

“It was not a coincidence that directly after my election to the German Bundestag as Chancellor, I have come to Britain on my first visit. It was not a coincidence,” said Schröder after visiting Britain on November 2, 1998.

The chancellor was enthusiastic following his discussions with the British prime minister centering around “the Third Way” concept or, as Schröder termed it, “Die Neue Mitte.” This political philosophy has its roots in Catholic social doctrine, and is promoted by center-left politicians as a replacement for both capitalism and communism.

The two leaders had also discussed the seething cauldron of Kosovo. But the German leader gushed over Blair’s enthusiasm for pressing forward with one of the major clauses of the Amsterdam Treaty (formerly Maastricht Treaty, initially the Treaty of Rome)—the question of the development and implementation of a common foreign and security policy for European Union nations.

“It was important for me to hear that I have the prime minister’s support,” Schröder contended. “I think that bilateral talks can very much contribute toward this end…. And to show a new quality of cooperation across Europe, a cooperation that already was assigned to the name Tony Blair in the course of the Pörtschach Summit because he delivered his fabulous speech regarding foreign and security policy.”

What was it that so struck Schröder about Blair’s stand on EU “foreign and security policy”? Simply that at the October 1998 Pörtschach Summit in Vienna, before all the assembled leaders of the EU, Tony Blair had aggressively supported the creation of a Euroforce for the security and defense of the Union.

But there was more to this than met the eye. The British prime minister has overseen a sea-change in the stance of the British government on Britain’s relationship with Germany. The vision of these first leaders in the U.S., Britain and Germany to hail from the post-World War II generation is that of a generation with little grasp of the historic hostility that has existed through centuries and even millennia of time between the nations of Israel (primarily the British and American peoples of today) and the old nation of Assyria, modern Germany.

The language Prime Minister Blair used in expressing his view of Germany is vastly different from that used by Margaret Thatcher or Winston Churchill! On the eve of Chancellor Schröder’s first visit to Britain, Mr. Blair commented, “The ties between our two countries have never been closer…. Germany, not the Commonwealth or the United States, is now Britain’s most important trading partner…. Like Gerhard Schröder, I come from a generation that grew up after the war. All my life, German democracy has been a model…. Germany has confronted its past and moved on…. With Gerhard Schröder’s election a new generation has taken power in a new Europe” (Die Welt Am Sonntag newspaper, Nov. 1, 1998).

In that same article, Blair went on to state, concerning European defense, “I know that many in Germany share my frustration over Kosovo…. I will be discussing this with the chancellor…. We will look at how Europe can speak more coherently and with greater authority in international affairs. Europe needs to be able to back this up militarily if necessary…. Europe should be able to act on its own in a credible way where the U.S. does not wish to participate.”

This all worked to the heavy advantage of the German chancellor.

A month later, Mr. Blair strengthened his support for the EU to have added military clout when he made the following statements in an article published in the New York Times: “We thought we could deal with the Bosnian crisis alone. The guns over Sarajevo destroyed that illusion along with much else. Washington in the end had to get involved to provide the military muscle for our diplomacy…. Europe needs to get organized [a particular German strength]…. To speak with authority, the European Union also needs to be able to act militarily on its own when the U.S. is not engaged…. An effective European defense capability also requires an effective Europe-wide defense industry…. The European defense industry needs to consolidate and build bridges with American partners if it is going to meet the demands of tomorrow’s technologies” (Nov. 13, 1998).

Of course, the Daimler-Benz/ Chrysler merger has since opened up American technology and capital to be exploited in the EU armaments industry, of which Germany is the leading manufacturer, and to which Daimler-Benz/Chrysler is its largest contributor!

Top Award

This harmony of philosophy and approach, culminating in both the German chancellor and British prime minister claiming that they stand on the same platform, did not go without reward from the German government. On May 13 this year, Tony Blair was invested with the coveted Charlemagne prize, the same prestigious award with which the German government honored its own former president, Roman Herzog, in 1997.

During his acceptance speech, Mr. Blair drew the attention of the assembled guests to a remarkable phenomenon. “I cannot let pass without comment the great symbolism of raf and Luftwaffe [British and German] planes fighting, together, in a just cause with Germany.”

Since then the British government has exceeded the experience of “fighting together, in a just cause.” They will now fight under the authority of German direction in the Kosovo “peacekeeping” force.

Germany in Command

“British troops on active service are to be commanded by a German for the first time in almost two centuries. Gen. Klaus Reinhardt takes over from Britain’s Lt. Gen. Sir Mike Jackson as commander of the Kosovo peacekeeping force, kfor, in the autumn…. Gen. Reinhardt, 58, takes Bismarck as his role model…” (The Telegraph, Aug. 8).

That’s just a trifle scary, considering that it was Otto von Bismarck who declared, “Not through speeches and majority decisions are the great questions of the day decided—but through iron and blood!” Bismarck was hardly a shining example of democracy. In fact, following an electoral defeat in 1863 he ruled for a whole year without meeting parliament at all, defying the law and violating the constitution. Bismarck’s classic foreign policy practice was to skillfully isolate his enemy, ensure neutrality of other competing powers and then, with his reformed Prussian army, deal a lightning blow in the field.

Blitzkrieg was not a new concept to Germany in World War II. Lord Byron described their style of warfare in his famous lines from his Destruction of Sennacherib: “The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.”

Bismarck used war as an instrument of policy. General Klaus Reinhardt, who now heads up the Kosovo “peace-keeping” force, is an admitted student and admirer of Bismarck.

Such connections should make us think, and think very deeply, about what is going on in the Balkan Peninsula.

A Poisoned Chalice

So, with a German general taking the top military job on the ground in Kosovo, it appeared that Chancellor Schröder only needed to say “Ja!” to the appointment of his defense minister, Rudolph Scharping, taking the top nato job to give Germany all that it has sought from its Balkan adventures. Germany would then not only have had control of the EU budget and enlargement process (having just gained these posts in the reconstituted European Commission), but also control of implementation of the East European Stability Pact (via the chancellor’s top aide, Bodo Hombach), control of the high command of kfor (the Kosovo “peace-keeping” force under General Reinhardt) and control of the direction of the whole North Atlantic Treaty Organization!

Why did Schröder falter?

Perhaps the answer lies in the type of man Scharping really is. It was Scharping’s barely restrained glee at his daily picture show of Serb atrocities to the press during the Kosovo war which stimulated the London-based Telegraph’s Berlin correspondent to comment, “Each afternoon during the nato bombardment of Kosovo, Rudolf Scharping, the German defense minister, held a press conference, and whenever he could he presented us with new evidence of Serb atrocities. There were days when he was certainly the market leader in this sector, others when he promised he would be able to show us something especially juicy tomorrow…. What exactly did Herr Scharping see in his aerial reconnaissance photographs of possible mass graves that was so arousing?” (The Spectator, June 19).

Not only did the Telegraph’s Andrew Grimson find Scharping’s press conferences off-putting, it seems that his feelings were shared by a number of his peers in Germany. “But I have met many Germans who were as disgusted by Herr Scharping’s Serb atrocity stories as I was myself, and who also had the impression he was enjoying himself. The atrocities did not simply serve a valuable political purpose for Herr Scharping, being the strongest motive he could offer for the bombing campaign. They also seemed to fill him to bursting point with an intoxicating sense of self-righteousness” (ibid.).

Perhaps it was Mr. Scharping’s excessive desire to portray the thousands of Serb atrocities as equating with the 6 million Jews gassed in Nazi horror chambers that cautioned Chancellor Schröder to keep him under his wing in Berlin.

Perhaps it was the chancellor’s perception that Scharping would be better employed doing what he had consistently declared he desired to do—“remodel the German army.”

Then again, perhaps he really saw that nato post as being the poisoned chalice that it has become since the almighty failure of the Atlantic alliance to prevent the reckless efforts of Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. Perhaps Herr Schröder foresaw nato’s impending failure as an effective force to keep the peace in Kosovo. There the Kosovo Liberation Army is running riot; 30 Serbs are being killed daily, with many more continuing to be “encouraged” to leave Kosovo; the “ethnic cleansing” continues, even now, right under the eyes of nato’s mish-mash of international infantry.

Also, “there is pressure from nato nations to balance the number of sfor (Bosnian peacekeepers) and kfor (Kosovo Force) troops, and fornatoto withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina as soon as possible. ‘It’s very expensive to maintain this force here,’ [Special Forces commander Gen. Montgomery] Meigs said. ‘The United States pays $1 billion a year to maintain its share of sfor. That’s a lot of money—that’s a lot of tax dollars. So in all our [nato] countries there is tremendous pressure to reduce the force’” (upi, Aug. 14).

The problem with nato is simply that it is no longer clear why it exists. Its role in Kosovo created at least as many problems as it sought to solve. As has been noted, anyone who thought that the war was troublesome ought to contemplate the peace.

Nato, it is said, was created to keep the U.S. in, the Russians out and the Germans down. George Robinson of Britain takes on nato with the U.S. struggling to get out, the Russians already in (on the ground in Kosovo and in Bosnia) and the Germans up!

So, if and when the nato effort at peacekeeping collapses simply through lack of member nation support, who will maintain the “peace” in Kosovo and in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Can we yet see why the German government refused to appoint their top soldier to the post of nato secretary general?

Nato’s Failure—Germany’s Opportunity

Gerhard Schröder may have developed the reputation of a chameleon in his electioneering days, due to his readiness to change policy stances in mid-stream, but he is no fool when it comes to politicking. Prime Minister Blair has wined and dined the chancellor, lauded and praised the “change” in Germany from historic war-mongering to its perceived “peacemaker” role—a veritable “model of democracy” as he put it. But he has found it so difficult to back up all the rhetoric which he unrolled in Aachen, in Brussels, in Vienna, in Cologne (as well as back home in London), with real evidence of support from the British people for his pro-European policies.

“European matters have been making the prime minister increasingly uneasy, for two reasons. It is the one issue on which he seems to be unable to manipulate British public opinion…. In Brussels, they are beginning to grow impatient with Mr. Blair…for arousing expectations which he cannot fulfill. In his private conversations with European leaders, he almost always tells them what they want to hear” (The Spectator, July 31, p. 8).

Britain (biblical Ephraim) is simply being used by Germany. The Britain described in scripture as a “cake unturned” (Hos. 7:8) will soon find itself dropped like a hot cake when Germany has no use for Britain to legitimize the world’s perception that it has changed its ancient, aggressive habits.

As Britain’s minister of defense, George Robinson, prepares to accept the top nato post, the memories of that sad wake in Washington last April which marked 50 years of nato, amidst the total confusion of the Kosovo debacle, have faded.

The very British administration which has moved so swiftly to destroy the last vestiges of Britain’s glorious heritage, burying it amidst the dust of devolution, may well live to regret the applauding of this German-speaking, Scottish liberal-socialist’s promotion to nato’s top job.

Meanwhile, under Robinson’s direction, British forces are stretched to their limit (see sidebar below). Nato now seeks to justify its existence by mounting a “peacekeeping” effort for any fight that may be deemed “humanitarian.” Mr. Robinson may find that the final fading glory of the British military may drown in this shallow cup of hemlock, passed to him under encouragement from a failing American administration and a German-led EU which will soon have no use for any American-dominated force on its soil.

The Box Seat

Germany now sits in the box seat in Eastern Europe. Soon the world will

realize (as our editor in chief indicated would become the case in his Personal last month) that the Germans, to all intents and purposes have, by stealth, conquered the Balkans! Now they are perfectly positioned to extend their dominant influence in Europe further eastward—and it has begun already!

Last July, 30 world leaders lent their weight to formalizing an Eastern European Stability Pact. Under this pact, the German-dominated EU will supervise economic and political reconstruction and security in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and the Balkans. It will be run by former German Chancery Minister Bodo Hombach. It is well known that Chancellor Schröder initiated some gentle arm-twisting to maneuver his top aide into this key role. “Stability Pact” is another term for a German-initiated “Marshall Plan” for rebuilding the Balkans; it’s just that it now conveniently extends its reach into other Eastern European countries as well.

Bodo Hombach is the most powerful man in Chancellor Schröder’s government. He is the chief representative of German economic interests. It is by the extension and imposition of their economic interests that Germany has rebounded from being vanquished in 1945 to being the true victor in the Balkans in 1999!

In fact, the EU’s stability pact was actually being drawn up before the first cruise missile was fired over Yugoslavia! Before the first nato bombs fell on Belgrade, the German foreign minister was hard at it, laying out plans for uniting the entire Balkan Peninsula under one government. In practice, this plan, now in process of implementation by Hombach, “imposes supranational government on the whole of southeastern Europe from the Black Sea to the Adriatic” (The Spectator, Aug. 1999).

Germany is now in charge of the wholesale political and economic reconstruction and control of south-eastern Europe! Do you get that? Do you really get it? Can you grasp what has happened as a result of this diplomatic and economic blitzkrieg by the German-led EU?

The Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and even Stalin in 1947 all tried to unite the Balkans under one government, and, in differing ways, it led ultimately to their downfall. Germany has done it with a few strokes of the pen, a little diplomatic bullying and some masterful political maneuvering, at the same time cloaking its historic reputation as a warmonger under the shroud of “peacemaker.”

It’s time to face up to reality. As Gerald Flurry headlined in his cover article in last month’s edition, the pot is boiling. Few see it today—many will suffer because of it tomorrow.

Germany is back—big time! It’s time to wake up and heed the clarion call of the Trumpet. It’s time for you to do something about it before the tentacles of this expanding imperial European power really start to impact your life! Write now for your free copy of our booklet The Rising Beast and find out what you can do before it is too late!