Table of Contents
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Should someone say again that we from Heilbronn are not innovative. Elsewhere there are sausages with mustard, cakes or shopping vouchers. We get there differently.
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a country that has long been under the influence of the Russian Federation, China, Pakistan and Iran. When the USA also came to the conclusion in 2001 that they wanted to protect their own interests there, they started doing so very competently at first by leaving the field to their secret services and small-scale warfare forces.
For reasons I don't quite understand, the USA expanded its successful engagement and motivated its partners to take part in a "war" that no longer had any strategic basis with this expansion.
A German government with an affinity for violence took advantage of the opportunity that presented itself in order to score points domestically or simply to be able to realize its own fantasies. Therefore, the Bundeswehr was sent into an operation that had no basis to be even remotely successful and, from a purely military point of view, should never have taken place. In an article published at the time, I described this as "hot for war".
If the government at the time had done their homework anywhere, they would never have approached the Bundestag in this regard. Alternatively, however, she would have had to reveal to the Bundestag and the citizens that, if everything goes right, we have to reckon with a deployment of indefinite duration and a corresponding budget in the tens of billions. And also have to reckon with around one hundred dead and hundreds of wounded soldiers. In addition the alliance defense is no longer to be maintained. Not to mention the resulting influx of tens of thousands of Afghans who neither want nor can get involved in our society, which will entail additional costs in the billions.
Unfortunately, the politicians of the time allowed themselves to be celebrated as responsible, strong men and women, leaving the public completely in the dark. This irresponsible policy was then adopted by the following governments and further developed into pure farce. So today we can be happy that other governments were a bit more reasonable and responsible and thus also reduced our casualty and wounded rates a bit.
And as soon as the "operation" is over, German politicians are screaming for a second helping!
What's different today?! Those responsible remain the United Nations, which without one actual agreement of the Russian Federation, China, Pakistan and Iran continue to be unable to offer a viable solution for Afghanistan.
A misguided alternative would be to include these countries as part of the problem. Because that would make the Afghanistan problem too big, even for the United Nations.
That is why, in addition to attempts at a political solution, there can only be attempts to contain the conflict, which mainly direct the flow of refugees to those countries where the Afghans feel more or less at home: Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, or the arms and ammunition deliveries to Afghanistan try to stop.
It is still completely absurd to use western soldiers there or to bomb any targets.
In the event that a corresponding strategy is actually developed, one could possibly, as initially thought, try to control the conflict with secret services and small-scale warfare forces - but our citizens have to be told the price for this too!
Frankenbahn
Using the example of Frankenbahn it's easy to see how politics hasn't worked for us for years. The mayor and even the EUROPA-UNION Heilbronn have been campaigning for the expansion of the Frankenbahn since 2006 at the latest, which would actually only have been a repair of the last war damage.
On the one hand, this would benefit local traffic, commuters and the northern part of the Heilbronn-Franconia region, and on the other hand, it would increase the chance that the Berlin - Milan railway line could be restored.
The advantage of the latter would be that Heilbronn would actually be connected to the railway and Baden-Württemberg would also have an alternative route for the Rhine rail.
This was all before the adoption of the last Federal Transport Route Plan communicated to our responsible politicians. They promised unanimously to support the Frankenbahn, but then voted against the Frankenbahn in Berlin.
When the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Transport declared that he was not responsible for the Frankenbahn, the proponents of modern rail transport had to accept that the Heilbronn-Franken region was not in the focus of interest of the state government.
In the meantime, the state government has even created facts in the course of Stuttgart 21 in order to prevent the restoration of the Berlin - Milan railway line in the future, for example by relocating the Gäubahn to the airport.
Today you can once again read in the newspaper that our politicians want to support the Frankenbahn — at least those politicians who have already voted against the Frankenbahn in the Bundestag should no longer be believed.
You can also read in the newspaper what these pre-election campaign activities really mean for our politicians. The necessary expansion of the Frankenbahn will be further delayed. The only new thing is that consultants and experts are now allowed to earn their living with the Frankenbahn.
I dare say that in the next 15 years there will be no change in the Franconian Railway, just as there has been no change in the past seven decades.
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The railway line Paris - Budapest is simply more popular than a line Berlin - Milan, which, as far as Italy is concerned, already goes as far as Naples.
