German President Quits Over Military Remarks
At Newsmax:
German President Horst Koehler resigned Monday in a surprise move after being criticized for reportedly linking military deployments abroad with the country's economic interests -- creating a new headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel. . . .
He said in that broadcast that, for a country with Germany's dependency on exports, military deployments could be "necessary . . . in order to defend our interests, for example, free trade routes."
That was taken by many as relating to Germany's unpopular mission in Afghanistan, although his office later said that he was referring to anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia. Germans are often uneasy about deployments abroad, given the country's militaristic past, and the mission in Afghanistan makes many particularly uncomfortable.
