The military has been tremendously important in the past during catastrophes and in protecting the population. But it shouldn't become an auxiliary police force.
From Otto Schily
The vast majority of Muslims living here are peaceful citizens. Unfortunately, however, we also see religious and political fanaticism among Muslim groups in Germany.
There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.
And now when we hear that Iran and Iraq plan to cooperate more closely and that a fundamentalist is coming to power in Tehran - a man about whom we cannot be sure that he is absolutely averse to terrorism - it is very worrisome.
Freedom of the press is not questioned when investigative journalism unearths scandals, But that does not mean that every classified state document should be made available to journalists.
Incidentally, our railroad facilities are under video surveillance by the federal police. However, the federal and state governments will have to determine whether video surveillance shouldn't be significantly expanded to a certain degree.
It's a mistake to assume that Islamists always come from the slums. Indeed, many come from affluent families but for some reason just couldn't manage to integrate into Western society, even though they had good opportunities for advancement.
On the other hand, all kinds of adventurous schemes to add security checkpoints to subway and bus systems have been circulating since the London attacks. This is nonsense. No one can guaranty 100 percent security.
This will help us next year with the World Cup. I can imagine a lot of visitors from abroad will be here and asking what happened between 1933 and 1945. A lot of that will come up. I think this will make an important contribution to those discussions.
We can no longer apply the classic criteria to clearly determine whether and when we should use military force. We are waging war in Afghanistan, for example, but it's an asymmetrical war where the enemies are criminals instead of soldiers.
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