BERLIN: Chancellor Schröder's government coalition barely scraped through Germany's Bundestag to secure the support it needed to dispatch German soldiers to help in the campaign against international terrorism. No doubt special circumstances accompanied that vote, but the effort which the country's most respected and powerful politician expended in order to gain the backing of Germany's parliament (as well as his coalition partners, the Greens) should be a warning to other Western governments not to leave their publics behind as they engage in the tough, multi-year campaign against the planners and executors of international terrorism.
BERLIN: Chancellor Schröder's government coalition barely scraped through Germany's Bundestag to secure the support it needed to dispatch German soldiers to help in the campaign against international terrorism. No doubt special circumstances accompanied that vote, but the effort which the country's most respected and powerful politician expended in order to gain the backing of Germany's parliament (as well as his coalition partners, the Greens) should be a warning to other Western governments not to leave their publics behind as they engage in the tough, multi-year campaign against the planners and executors of international terrorism.