Röttgen sees the "greatest mistake" of the USA in the Iraq war - whistleblower Manning has no regrets

Created: 11/24/2022 10:26 am

Markus Lanz and his guests on November 23, 2022.

© ZDF media library / Markus Lanz

"Markus Lanz" looks to the Middle East: With whistleblower Chelsea Manning, the group is working through the past, with CDU man Röttgen she is looking to the future.

Hamburg – The “Markus Lanz” group discusses the international geopolitics of the most powerful states on Wednesday evening.

To the left of the moderator sits whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who was convicted and pardoned under US President Barack Obama. Talkmaster Markus Lanz moderates her personal story as “very moving”.

All in all, Manning was imprisoned in the USA for almost seven years. In the meantime, she has published the book "README.txt", for which she is currently traveling in Europe for PR.

CDU man Röttgen on "Markus Lanz" about the Iraq war: "The USA's worst mistake since Vietnam"

Manning realized relatively soon after her arrival in Iraq in 2009 that there was a major discrepancy between American warfare as it was propagated in the USA and the reality of the war on the ground.

"I thought to myself: As a citizen, I would want to know what's happening there," she explains to host Lanz, explaining her reasons for leaking around 400,000 secret documents to WikiLeaks in 2010.

When Lanz asked about the Iraq war, the CDU politician Norbert Röttgen primarily remembered the fact that the Americans' reason for entering the Iraq war was based on a lie and described it as a breach of international law: "It was the most serious and momentous foreign policy mistake of the American since the Vietnam War.” Knowing full well what the answer would be, Lanz Röttgen asks where he stood politically at the time.

Röttgen prefaces having made legal policy at the time, before admitting that his Union faction supported the course of the USA: "It was not known at the time that it was untrue."

"Markus Lanz": Whistleblower Chelsea Manning gives no regrets

Meanwhile, Golineh Atai, head of the ZDF studio in Cairo, describes the Iraq war as the "beginning of the end of Western credibility".

The subsequent analysis of the now famous "Collateral Murder" video recalls why.

Manning describes the fact that passers-by who want to help the injured are shot at as representative of the spirit in the US Army at the time: “It shows the dehumanization of not seeing them as people but as targets.”

Talkmaster Lanz suspects that the leaks, first by Manning and later by Edward Snowden, have led to a changed perception of US foreign missions in American society.

Manning agrees that the US public is war-weary and that American credibility has suffered internationally.

When asked if she'd act like this again after what she's been through, Manning replies awkwardly but firmly that she'd rather focus on things she can actually influence.

"If I had made any other decision, it wouldn't have been me," she tells the host.

"Markus Lanz" - these were his guests on November 23rd

• Norbert Röttgen (CDU)

  – politician

• Chelsea Manning

  – whistleblower

• Golineh Atai

  - Middle East Expert

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Röttgen rated Donald Trump's renewed candidacy for US President as unimpressive.

"It could have been worse," he says, referring to the midterm elections in the United States, in which the Republicans could not achieve the hoped-for gains that Trump wanted to campaign on.

Röttgen finds: "Trump is now attached to the image of the election loser."

The fact that the international balance of power is currently shifting overall and that Europe's dependence on fossil fuels is shifting to the Arab region worries both Lanz and Röttgen.

Joe Biden was not only rebuffed in Saudi Arabia with his request to increase oil production in the summer, he even had to be diplomatically duped.

Instead of increasing or at least maintaining the production volume, Röttgen explains, the country of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even reduced the production volume shortly after the US President's visit.

"This is a foretaste of a new self-confidence that has an economic basis," says Röttgen.

USA, Saudi Arabia, China: "Markus Lanz" round debates Germany's international dependencies

This self-confidence also includes wanting to keep the world dependent on fossil fuels for as long as possible, because there is no awareness of climate change in the desert region anyway, explains Atai.

Like talk show host Lanz, the journalist has a problem with the moral component of trading with countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, namely always "when values ​​and interests are balanced against each other".

Röttgen contradicts that it is precisely the essence of politics, at least foreign policy, to reconcile different values ​​and interests.

If you consistently only trade with democracies, Germany and Europe would harm themselves, explains Röttgen.

In the case of China in particular, it is not in its own interest to stop trade.

Nevertheless, in Röttgen's opinion, Germany should strive to reduce existing dependencies.

He agrees with talk show host Lanz that German companies in China are making huge profits, but as soon as Beijing decides to attack Taiwan, Germany will be “trapped”.

In the event of an attack on Taiwan, which President Xi Jinping has announced several times, the West will have to react with sanctions, Röttgen explains.

However, this would mean that German companies in China – and thus the German economy – would be disadvantaged.

Röttgen would like to see the German economy better armed for such a scenario: "If nothing has changed in our dependence on China by then, then China has a partially devastating potential for retaliation against us."

"Markus Lanz" - The conclusion of the show

Moderator Markus Lanz is visibly happy to welcome whistleblower Chelsea Manning to his show on Wednesday evening.

The approximately 30-minute conversation remains superficial, also because of the language barrier between German and English.

For the rest of the show, Manning sits next to Markus Lanz without taking part in the debate and nods to himself, probably because the translator on her button in the ear takes the trouble to interpret the show simultaneously.

As a result, the rest of the show is reduced to a conversation between host Lanz, politician Norbert Röttgen (CDU) and Middle East expert Golineh Atai, in which the trio analyzes the geopolitical situation in the Middle East.