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Matthias Höhn: There is currently no humanitarian aid in Afghanistan without military support
Photo: Christophe Gateau / DPA
In the past few days, the left has struggled to decide whether to vote for the Bundeswehr to be deployed abroad for the first time.
Now the parliamentary group in the Bundestag wants to abstain from the vote on the evacuation mission of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan.
Defense expert Matthias Höhn decided to cast his vote anyway and agree to the mission.
Höhn told Bayerischer Rundfunk that there is currently no humanitarian aid in Afghanistan without military support, "that's why I will agree to this mandate."
But he understood the parliamentary group's recommendation, as there was justifiably massive criticism of the organization of the evacuation of the local staff.
"First you have to think of the local people who urgently need help."
more on the subject
Afghanistan crisis: For the first time, leftists do not want to vote against deployment of the Bundeswehr abroad
Evacuation mission in Afghanistan: Know-it-all doesn't save livesA comment by Marc Röhlig
The Bundeswehr's evacuation mission in Afghanistan, which has been ongoing since mid-August, is to be subsequently confirmed in the Bundestag this Wednesday.
The federal government has submitted an application for this.
Left party chairman Janine Wissler had said that they were in favor of the rescue and would not vote against, but that they would not agree to the mandate "in this implementation" either.
In the text on the Bundeswehr's operational mandate, the group of people who are to be flown out is "far too limited".
Defense expert Höhn told the radio station Bayern 2 that a lot more people could have been flown out much earlier, "that has been brushed aside in this dramatic situation, for which the federal government is of course largely to blame."
According to information from the »Tagesspiegel«, Berlin's left-wing member of the Bundestag Evrim Sommer, who announced in the development committee within the faction, would vote for the militarily secured evacuation.
"Failure in the current situation would be the continuation of the policy of organized irresponsibility," she said accordingly.
asc / dpa