By Steve Hynd
From the UK's Daily Mail:
German soldiers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves - in the form of a badge that protests their country's involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
Some troops have taken to wearing the cloth accessory that states - ironically - 'I fight for Merkel' in a bid to persuade the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain exactly what they are fighting and dying for.
...Unable to engage the Taliban directly on the ground, frustrated by their government�s inability to acknowledge they are even engaged in a war and angered by the lack of popular support for their mission, the badges are a low-key mutiny that has sent shock waves through the top brass of the Bundeswehr.
Soldiers were warned this week that it is illegal to sew the cloth patches on to their uniforms.
But that hasn�t stopped them from buying the badges in their hundreds, in desert beige or NATO green, at the ISAF camp at Mazar-e-Sharif.
German troops get a far higher level of training on the ethics of war, illegal orders, war crimes and suchlike than American or British troops do, understandably given their national sensitivity about their national history. This protest is a courageous way to express their misgivings about an occupation with no clear strategic aim.
After all, we keep being told by Obama and Brown that the occupation of Afghanistan is all about Al Qaeda but even senior generals agree there are no AQ members anywhere near Afghanistan, they've "diverged strategically" from their old allies the Taliban and they don't even make money from the Afghan drug trade, depending mostly on contributions from rich activists in the Gulf.
Maybe British and American troops should be looking to get similiar badges, because the explanations they're being given don't fly.
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