The recently foiled terror attack in Germany--involving several Turkish extremists and, very disturbingly, two German converts--has triggered another acrimonious political debate about how far the government can go to fight terrorism and protect the homeland. For example, does the (conservative) German defense minister have the authority to order the downing of a hijacked civil airliner even if it means the killing of innocent passengers on board? (Back in March 2006, when this issue first erupted following a Constitutional Court ruling prohibiting such shoot-downs, I wrote a DAILY STANDARD piece about the dangers of "Flying Blind in the Post-9/11 World.") And what of those who spend their summers at terrorist training camps in Pakistan learning Bomb Making 101 (like several of the recently detained terrorists did): should German laws be changed so that anyone who attends these training camps can be charged with membership in a terrorist organization? Is it necessary to prove that these folks had the premeditated intention to use their new skills to commit terrorist attacks in the future? Also, should German security agencies have the authority to install spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists to track their online movements? Finally, at a more abstract level, how real is the threat of nuclear terrorism and the use of a "dirty bomb"?
Much of the current controversy centers on the long-standing left/right divide over the appropriate balance between security and civil liberties, a battle that is also being waged here in the United States. In the German context, however, calibrating the government's response is made particularly difficult by the country's long shadow of history. Since the end of the Nazi dictatorship, successive generations of German political leaders, as well as large segments of the general population, have consistently put a premium on the far-reaching protection of civil liberties by agreeing to strictly limit the state's domestic security and surveillance competencies. For sure, during the Red Army Faction's left-wing terrorist campaign against top-level government and business officials back in the 1970s, West Germany passed expansive anti-terrorism legislation, most of which still remains in force today. Yet while these new police and security measures helped defeat the RAF group's old-style terrorist tactics, they are hardly a match for today's breed of doomsday Islamists willing to use any weapon--including nuclear, biological, and chemical devices--to cause wanton mass destruction.
Yesterday, at a special homeland security debate convened in the German Bundestag, the profound political and ideological divisions over the appropriate approach to fight terrorism were on full display. While formally part of Chancellor Merkel's Grand-Coalition government, several senior politicians from the ruling left-wing SPD party used the parliamentary session to launch harsh attacks on conservative CDU interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (who will discuss his anti-terrorism approach here in DC next week) and Franz-Josef Jung, his colleague in charge of the defense ministry. The two were accused of deliberately spreading panic and fear of terrorism among the population for political gain. Deputy SPD Bundestag leader Fritz Rudolf Koerper (until 2005 deputy German interior minister in the previous Red-Green Schroeder government) even ridiculed Schaeuble as "the Nostradamus of our times." It was Schaeuble who, just a few days earlier, had caused an uproar in Germany when he said that an attack using "nuclear material" was no longer a question of "if" but "when." In response to these unprecedented and public intra-coalition attacks, CDU/CSU Bundestag majority leader Volker Kauder decided to leave the chamber in protest; an indication of how sour relations between the Grand Coalition partners have turned.
On virtually all of the anti-terrorism issues under discussion right now--hijacked airliners, terrorist camps, expanded online surveillance, dirty bombs, etc.--SPD party leaders (under pressure from their left-wing base) appear to consistently downplay the new terrorism threats or to constrain the government's authority to address them effectively. But make no mistake; these SPD folks are no freedom-loving-stay-out-of-my-backyard libertarians. After all, when it comes to economic and social issues, these same party leaders are more than eager to extend the government's reach wherever and whenever possible. No, the political rationale behind the SPD's homeland security approach is rather simple. The SPD party leaders know very well that they enjoy far less public confidence on crucial homeland security and anti-terrorism issues than their conservative CDU/CSU coalition partners. Things are made worse by the fact that all the major opposition parties, ranging from the populist "Left party" to the Greens and the libertarian FDP, are also highly critical of the CDU/CSU's muscular anti-terrorism strategy.
For an SPD party whose standing in national opinion polls has just sunk to an all-time low of 27 percent approval (it is under tremendous political pressure from the rising "Left party") it would be political suicide to back its CDU/CSU coalition partner on the anti-terrorism front, as this would surely cause further defections ahead of crucial German regional elections next Spring. On the emotionally charged issue of downing a hijacked airliner, recent public opinion polls in Germany indicate that 63 percent of respondents were strictly against such a step, while 29 percent supported such a measure as a last resort. Going into the next elections, the SPD strategists' political advice appears to be simply to sit back, downplay the terrorist threat, and hope that nothing bad happens. But even if it does, one can always try to blame the CDU/CSU ministers in charge of interior affairs and defense for not having prevented the attack(s) in the first place.
