The Normative Project

On July 8, President Biden stated in a press conference, "As I said in April, the United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That's why we went."

"We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it's the Afghan people's right and responsibility alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country."

"Together, with our NATO Allies and partners, we have trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military of the Afghan National Security Force and many beyond that who are no longer serving. Add to that hundreds of thousands more Afghan National Defense and Security Forces trained over the last two decades."

US mission accomplished? NATO's mission achieved? German mission in shambles?

In Afghanistan, the German Bundeswehr never regarded the eradication of Al-Qaida as its primary goal. Germany instead followed the States in their deep-rooted "normative project" of firstly adhering to one's values, human rights, freedom, and democracy. And secondly, to strive to implement these values throughout the world. Heinrich August Winkler, one of the most renowned German historians, stated, "This normative project of the West has reached a dead end with the Afghan catastrophe."

Deep disappointment spreads in Germany over President Biden's remarks. Not so much that the US tries to cover up NATO's defeat, but they seem to brush off the Western values, the normative project.

In today's debate at the Bundestag, the Speaker of the House Wolfgang Schäuble tried to console the deputies and a few Afghanistan veterans present, "It is a loss of authority of the West, but the seeds of freedom have been sown." Red Baron regards the seeds falling among thorns, which will grow with them and choke the seedlings (Luke 8:7).

In her government declaration to the Bundestag, Chancellor Angela Merkel too emphasized that the mission in Afghanistan has not been in vain, saying, "Child mortality has been halved in the past 20 years, 70 percent of Afghans now have access to drinking water, and more than 90 percent have access to electricity," nevertheless ending with one of her convoluted sentences, "What is clear is that the Taliban are now a reality in Afghanistan."

Propaganda stamp of the
German School Association
from the time of the First World War
(©Deutscher Schulverein/Wikipedia)

In the desire to escape the curse of its guilt-ridden past through a policy that meets high moral standards, Germany and its mentality received a terrible blow. 

Weren't we on the right track during the refugee crisis in 2015 when the former Minister of Labor, Norbert Blüm, stated, "Precisely because we Germans committed such terrible crimes; it would be wonderful if we were now recognized around the world as a country that strives for remarkable humanity?"

Reading Blüm's sentence, I asked myself, "Doesn't this smell of Emanuel Geibel's "Und es mag* am deutschen Wesen, einmal noch die Welt genesen (Once again, the world may recover by German nature)?"
*There are several versions of Geibel's verse: Mag (may) is the original, wird (will) wishful thinking, and soll (shall) is the chauvinist spelling.

Former Federal President Theodor Heuß did he not insist already in 1952, "No nation is better than the other; there are such and such in each. America is not 'God's own country,' and the harmless Emanuel Geibel has caused some subaltern mischief with the word that the world will once again be healed by German nature?"

Professor Winkler refines, "You already find the idea of a German mission among the founding fathers of German nationalism. In 1810, in his manifesto' Deutsches Volkstum (German folklore)' ‚Turnvater' Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, son of a Protestant pastor, ascribed to the Germans a role as' Weltbeglücker (benefactor)' and' Heiland (savior)' of the world.

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