Civilian casualties of bombing Syria represent at least as great a crime as the Paris attacks, a senior hard left German politician has claimed.
The leader of the Left Party in Germany’s Bundestag (Parliament) was comparing the anti-Islamic State coalition bombing Syria assisted by the Bundeswehr (German air force) with November’s terrorist attacks in Paris. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports the comments Sahra Wagenknecht (pictured) made in an interview with the German Press Agency, where she said:
“Of course it is no less a crime to murder innocent civilians in Syria with bombs, than it is to shoot them in Parisian restaurants and concert halls. One is individual terror, the other state sponsored.”
Ms. Wagenknecht — a former member of the East German communist party who was once described by Britain’s Guardian newspaper as “the pin-up of Germany’s far left” — also blamed the west for the very existence of Islamic State (IS), explaining:
“The cycle of violence still continues. Without the Iraq war there would be no IS. Were it not for the bombardments of Libya and destabilisation in Syria it would not have been nearly as strong. The West, above all the United States, has made this monster bigger with their wars.”
This is not Ms. Wagenknecht’s first comment on international affairs. As Breitbart London previously reported, she recently warned against doing “dirty deals” with Turkey’s President Erdogan, labeling him a “Godfather of terrorism”.
In this latest interview Ms. Wagenknecht also accused France’s President Holland of making domestic political capital out of the Paris attacks, and suggested his government was receiving undeserved support from Germany:
“The German government, which through its own European policies has contributed to the rise of the far-right in France, now wants to do [Hollande] a favour.”
“And due to domestic and intra-European political maneuverings by European politicians, women and children are dying in Raqqa, schools and hospitals are destroyed.
“Of course that’s terrorism, which has claimed many more victims than the barbaric attacks in Paris.”
To date Germany has supported France with a tanker aircraft and a frigate to protect a French aircraft carrier, and as of January it will add its Tornado reconnaissance planes to the mission.