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It's kind of ironic and pretty bitter. The Greens were founded by environmentalists and pacifists.
Their slogan was "never again war, never again genocide"
And both times they were part of a government coalition, they immediately had to decide on an active involvement in a European war (Yugoslavia and Ukraine).
Cause in both wars, "never again war, never again genocide" wasn't an option.
They had to chose one, and they chose to get involved in the war to stop a genocide.
Pacifism doesn't mean you cannot defend yourself or surrender against an attacker.
And that's the whole point here: Ukraine isn't waging a war, they're defending against an invasion.
As would anyone with a working brain.
Comparing Yugoslavia to Ukraine is not a good comparison. The involvement in the Balkan war was an absolute disaster and the point where the Green party of Germany turned to shit. They didn't become advocates for defending yourself, they're not doing it for the sake of the countries that are being invaded or suffering from war crimes. They're doing it because they became outright transatlantic puppets.
I wish the Greens in my country weren't so utterly useless and simping of Russia.
Be careful what you wish for, the German Greens ditched a good part of their climate policy, they even approved of strip mining away a whole village for brown coal.
In 2023, when Putin shut down gas supply to Germany and Germany needed coal to preserve gas. Also the deal included half of Germanys brown coal power plants to be shut down by 2030, which was all the plants of the company strip mining. Also the village was bought out by the coal company years before the Greens gave the permit to have it demolished.
Just thought the context really matters in this case.
The additional coal from destroying that village wasn't needed for domestic energy supply but for energy export, AKA the coal company's profits. Just thought that the context matters in this case.
Mainly to France, which otherwise would have increased its gas consumption.
And gas is still a lot cleaner than brown coal.
In the case of fracked LNG that's highly debatable. But even in the case of conventionally-sourced pipeline gas, flaring and pipeline losses are significant and often underreported.
True, they are far from perfect.
But the Greens where I am are against things like building new solar/wind farms, and against infrastructure that connects this renewable energy stuff to the grid. They're against building any new houses.
They're just a NIMBY party cashing in on people thinking they're actually green.
The German Greens do have enough NIMBYs, too, who at times will happily confuse small localised protection of two stalks of grass with protection of the climate.
I wonder why we built all those weapons, is it for protection against the USA? China?
Can't be against Russia can it now?
Wow, that was not a headline I was expecting to see. The sentiment has shifted quite dramatically in the past two years.
At least regarding Germany the truth is the Greens have been pushing for more weapons deliveries almost since the beginning of the war. It has been pretty clear that not delivering Taurus is because Scholz decided so.
They were also arguably the only major German party that took the Russian threat seriously before the war.
And props to Habeck for putting a stop to that pipeline project when he got the chance.
English (via Google Translate) https://www-t--online-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik/id_100419068/nordstream-2-wie-robert-habeck-die-pipeline-stoppte-.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
That dude to me is the most competent AND down to earth person in German politics right now.
And literally everyone else (besides the Left Party) is attacking him as their main opponent for that, despite the party being #4 in the polls at the moment and the Russian sleeper agents AfD+BSW are threatening to breach 1/3rd of the votes blocking any further changes of the constitution even if all democratic parties agree on it.
I really don't get why the CDU chose to attack the greens over the AfD and how they can seriously consider the scheming FDP as a possible coalition-option...
The Greens started out as a party of (among other things) the peace movement but quickly realised that vulgar pacifism is a) self-defeating and b) gets exploited by war mongers. In short, you gotta stand up to bullies. They very much backed the Kosovo intervention, and generally are in favour of talking softly but carrying a big stick. With friends, while singing Kumbaya, before aiming it at some genocidal maniac. In short scratch the hippie attitude now it's metal.
Really? The Greens are the most hawkish party in Germany, when it comes to Russia.
Among German parties, the Greens were the most skeptical of Russia for the past ~15 years. But until the war, they were never hawkish. Only days before the war started, foreign minister Baerbock (Greens) said Germany wouldn't deliver weapons. In late January 2022, the government then promised "5000 helmets" (although I think this may have had more to do with the chancellor than the Greens).
Habeck was lobbying for delivering weapons to Ukraine in 2021. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/habeck-gruene-zu-waffenlieferungen-an-ukraine-die-ukraine-100.html
I'd completely missed that. Seems Habeck was right yet again.
Habeck wanted to deliver weapons before the war started.
It was more about the then minister of defence, that's why she was gone.
Reading her Wikipedia entry, it sounds like she was dismissed for being too much of a Scholz loyalist. And that kind of matches my recollection: She was careful to discuss everything with Scholz and to not cross him, whereas her [suc]cessor just took matters in his own hands and ran with it.
According to a media report, in the discussion about the possible delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, which intensified at the end of 2022, she forbade her ministry from even recording its own stock of Leopard 2 and Leopard 1 tanks, as knowledge of deliverable stocks could potentially have put further pressure on Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. [DeepL, Wikipedia]
In der Ende 2022 sich verstärkenden Diskussion um die mögliche Lieferung von Leopard-2-Panzern an die Ukraine verbot sie nach einem Medienbericht ihrem Ministerium, den eigenen Bestand an den Panzern Leopard 2 und Leopard 1 überhaupt zu erfassen, da Kenntnis lieferbarer Bestände möglicherweise weiteren Druck auf den Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz hätte aufbauen können.
I remembered it wrong. She herself asked for being let go, officially because the constant discussions about her person made it impossible for her to do her job (her statement).
TIL: The Green Party has been actively supporting Ukraine for quite some time. I was mostly just thinking of the general atmosphere of political discourse surrounding this topic. Remember that time when it wasn’t even clear that sending weapons is ok.
Ukraine wont get Taurus. The system is Germanys part in NATO defense plans and delivering it to Ukraine would compromise that goal.