“The red line has not been crossed yet. Has it?”

In an indirect way and, through the article of a journalist friend in journal Die Zeit, Joschka Fischer finally decided to participate in the debate about the involvement of the German government (to which he belonged to and whose foreign policy he directed) in the American war on terror and the “collateral damages” caused to human rights and the basic principles of our Constitution.
But Fischer is not the only one avoiding the debate for the CDU/CSU and the FDP should also face history. When they were in the opposition, they complained about the distance between Berlin and Washington pretending that they ignored the violation of international law as well as the military and economic hegemony of the United States. Hypocrisy is still noticed today and it is present in the denunciation of Schröder’s government mistakes. For Fisher, in view of Germany’s historical debt with the United States, its position can only be ambivalent. The current situation at least has something positive; that is, to make German conservatives aware of the magnitude of the moral dustbin Germany would have become as a vassal of the empire in Bush’s war.
However, it would be interesting to know how Fisher, a member of a party that has always defended the democratic moral values and human rights, has been able to handle the contradiction between those values and the actions carried out by George W. Bush, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. In his interview, he alleges that he always made emphasis on the respect of human rights and the rejection of torture. What a shame he never made such a denunciation public –contrary to Angela Merkel who had the courage of doing it in front of Condoleeza Rice! But two lines ahead, Fischer says that, in the war on terror, “dark moments” should not be avoided. This clearly means that there are moments in which democracy could be affected to advance goals already set.
Historically, if such an idea is said by a German, it will turn out to be scandalous.
And dangerous.