Frieden, Sicherheit, Stabilitaet

This was the slogan on a huge EU billboard that recently greeted my bleary eyes at Frankfurt Airport. Peace, Security, Stability. This must be what they mean:

BERLIN - The German government wants to get in touch with the gunmen in Iraq who kidnapped a 43-year-old German archaeologist and have threatened to execute her, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday.

"We will make every effort first to make contact in order to move things forward. We will avoid endangering the health and life of the hostage," Steinmeier told reporters after a meeting of the crisis committee set up to deal with the kidnapping.

Steinmeier said the government had not yet established contact with the kidnappers. Nor has it been given any deadlines.

. . . Nick Pratt, a former CIA official now with the Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany, said experience from a hostage-taking in the Sahara in 2003 suggested Berlin would end up paying ransom if one was demanded.

In that case, Germany secured the release of 14 European tourists kidnapped by Algerian rebels. Diplomats and officials say Germany paid 5 million euros ($6 million) and believe the money was used to buy arms.

One German diplomat said, however, that if someone like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was behind the kidnapping then Osthoff‘s chances of emerging unscathed were diminished [even though she's a Muslim "revert" -- ed]. If a ransom was demanded, he predicted the government would pay up.

Paying tribute, what a peaceful, secure, stable strategy. Especially the part where they publicly bend over and grab their ankles before a demand is even made. Rantburger bigjim sums it up nicely: "It's hard to believe that the germans ever had enough BALLS to be Nazis."