German general: we should do more in Afghanistan

Der Spiegel online has posted a candid interview with Germany's top military officer in Afghanistan. He admits that Germany needs to do more, mainly by getting rid of the caveats that restrict where German soldiers can go and what functions they can perform (Germans are posted mainly in the relatively stable north of the country):

The limitations that the Germans have placed upon themselves are not regarded as optimal here. If a country takes over reconstruction responsibilities, its teams can, in an emergency, be replaced by reserve units if the Afghans go into battle. That's what we're really talking about here. When all the countries on a mission go into conflict areas and then a few of them say that they're only going to do something very specific, it becomes difficult.

He also doesn't have much patience for the argument, heard so often in Europe, that the war-fighting element of the mission (largely but not exclusively done by the American-led force called OEF) is getting in the way of gentler peacekeeping and uncontroversial reconstruction.

It bothers the Americans when Europeans accuse them of waging the war in a brutal fashion. If there were no OEF, the insurgency would gain strength in the country and they would consider themselves unopposed here, which could also threaten ISAF's success. Here at ISAF we don't have the forces to go after the extremists alone.

Maybe somebody in the Green Party will listen.