Afghan Mission in Doubt as Air Raid Lies Force German Minister to Resign

Source: The Guardian

The future of Germany's mission in Afghanistan was thrown into doubt today after a government minister resigned under growing pressure to admit his involvement in a campaign of misinformation over an air raid in which civilians were killed.

Franz Josef Jung, defence minister at the time, quit as labour minister a day after the army's chief of staff, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, resigned over the incident with the deputy defence minister, Peter Wichert.

Jung said his decision followed "detailed consideration" and that he accepted "political responsibility for the internal information policy" in his ministry.

With an estimated two-thirds of the German public already against involvement, the defence ministry's admission that it effectively lied by initially denying there were civilian casualties when two petrol tankers were bombed in September has left Angela Merkel's recently re-elected centre-right government in a state of uncertainty over how to proceed in the region.

Merkel had largely kept out of the row but received Jung in the chancellery this morning when both were said to have agreed his resignation was necessary.

more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/27/germany-afghanistan

Afghans in the area pointed out that either Taliban were killed or people HELPING the Taliban move the fuel were killed. This fuel was on its way to being sold to help fund killing our soldiers and allies in Afghanistan not to mention the civilians the Taliban seem addicted to executing.

The governor of the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, Mohammed Omar, praised the German army on Monday for ordering an air strike on two hijacked fuel tankers last Friday despite strong international criticism of the attack which is believed to have killed civilians as well as Taliban fighters. Omar told SPIEGEL that the German commander who ordered the strike, Colonel Georg Klein, "made the right decision at the right time and acted in a very level-headed way."

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/30-106284.aspx

Even the locals supported it. It is a war you know.