A Letter to Greens at Home.

• Position: War for Oil - Green Party - War on Terrorism, 2001- - Brief Article

Recent conflict here in Germany between the Social Democrats and the Greens (and corresponding conflict within the Greens) are interesting to US Greens, though I would stress that we have not been served the same sort of dilemmas they have. I have received a few e-mails asking how in hell a Green party could have voted for this war so I will try.

Here is the mess that the Greens had to face: Schroeder forced things so that the vote of confidence in his government was tied with support for the deployment of German troops in a combat role outside of Europe for the first time since 1945--despite the fact that no one has asked them to participate. If Greens had voted no, there would be another election. They believe that they are then almost certainly out of a government in which they have been able to make some important reforms.

Weirdly enough, this meant that the Parliament (the Bundestag) looked as if it barely supported such a military role. Mr. Schroeder won the vote of confidence with 336 votes, only 2 more than the simple majority that he needed. This is because the Christian Democrats and Liberals (all supporters of the war) voted against Schroeder's government. Four Greens voted against the resolution because Schroeder insisted on "all or nothing." Four Green Party legislators opposed to the war reluctantly reversed themselves and backed the coalition. One Social Democrat who opposed the deployment decided to quit her party and vote independent. The vote looked so close that Schroeder had a fellow SPD'er who is a gynecologist sit next to another member who was due to give birth! Had he split the vote on the war apart from the vote on his government, he would have won both with no problem.

As I write this (November 21, 2001), the Greens will be meeting to discuss future policy. Looming large will be Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's game of chicken that was clearly designed to either (a) rein in criticism of his "unrestricted solidarity" with the US or (b) force another election in which his Social Democratic Party would probably gain votes and then be able to choose from three coalition partners--liberals, conservatives, or (least likely) the Greens.

One key Green deputy, Hans Christian Strobele, who voted "no," said: "This was an enormous decision, almost a martyrdom," adding: "I'm in the schizophrenic situation that I voted 'no,' but was satisfied with the result." In other words, he didn't want to flush a number of negotiated reforms...