Schily Season
MATUS, VICTORINO
Schily Season John Ashcroft's favorite German BY VICTORINO MATUS "Terrorism is a propagandistic stereotype and nothing else. . . . 'Terrorists' are what Goebbels called the Russian partisans and...
...We discussed our] continued successful operations fighting terrorism...
...When I relay this to Ashcroft, he replies, "If he wants to ride in the back and make sure the steering is done properly, that's fine with me...
...K for a long time greeted him with the words: 'You haven't changed a bit.' 'Oh!' said Mr...
...The [German] chancellor has called a cabinet meeting on security today, because there is important evidence pointing to an Islamic trail...
...None of this comes as a complete surprise to Reinecke, who considers the minister to be an authoritarian and pragmatic politician—one who had no problem switching from the Greens to the Social Democrats in the 1980s...
...Speaking of bad attitudes, one of Schily's other Baader-Meinhof clients was Horst Mahler, who later joined the neo-Nazi National Democratic party, which Schily is now trying to outlaw...
...Otto Schily, February 24, 2004 WHEN OTTO SCHILY made that first statement in Stuttgart, he was a lawyer speaking on behalf of his clients, members of the Red Army Fraction, a left-wing terrorist group responsible for numerous robberies, kidnappings, bombings, and murders...
...As minister of the interior, Schily was asked by Schroder to make sure an event like 9/11 never happens in Germany...
...If that proves to be the case, then it would mean that fundamentalist terrorism in Europe has entered a new dimension...
...Was Schily trying to say he too has changed and that it is a good thing...
...In contrast, for Schily, the flying of commercial airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was not: "[He] was appalled by the way [the hijackers] found justification for suicide mass murder in reh- i ' giousandhis-toric concepts of Islam...
...Schily] cares deeply about the right of people to be free from this scourge of terror...
...Ennslin shared a similar background with Schily...
...We're good friends," he says...
...Terrorists' are what Goebbels called the Russian partisans and the French resistance...
...He also convened a meeting of E.U...
...And although Schily, appointed by Gerhard Schroder in 1998, was already enforcing tougher asylum-seeking measures, Thevessen says "September 11 dramatically pushed him to support things he never would have in the past...
...Otto Schily, April 27, 1977 "I had talks with my friends John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge...
...Some 27 years later, Schily, now interior minister of Germany, made the second set of remarks at a press breakfast in Washington...
...We Germans are very good at canoeing...
...It is what unites us...
...On Schily's recent visit to Washington, I asked him whether he has changed—for how else can his friendship with the attorney general be explained...
...Back in the '70s, he was claiming the RAF terrorists were 'political prisoners' of a 'fascist state' that answered to the 'criminal policies of an imperial superpower' with 'political crimes'" which were "morally justified...
...I think [Schily] has been a leader in saying when we do these things, we ought to do them in a rational way...
...That is only a half-truth," says Stefan Reinecke, author of Otto Schily: From RAF Lawyer to Interior Minister...
...Schily is a guy with a broken history," says Elmar Thevessen, news director for ZDF German television and a terrorism expert...
...She came from a well-cultured background as did he...
...Even back then, Schily hated people with bad attitudes...
...Perhaps this love for ecology is what led Schily to eagerly accept an invitation to go hiking in the Shenandoah with Ashcroft...
...And Ashcroft is fully on board: "When it comes to who you're letting in and out of your country, and who you're letting on and off your airplanes, you need to have reliable information and information of integrity, and [biometric identifiers] are a way of doing it...
...I don't know about you Americans," he said...
...When his past is raised, the minister simply reminds us, "I was a lawyer," and every German, no matter what the crime, deserves fair legal representation...
...Keuner had in fact changed, and was offended his friend did not take notice...
...It is a task that brought him into a close working relationship with the U.S...
...It was quite beautiful...
...Ashcroft remembered, "We had some apple cider, some banana nut bread and apple bread, and sat there and let the sun shine on us as we listened to the river gurgling in the background...
...We joined in our conviction that with only trust and cooperation with each other can we be successful against the bloody plans of global terrorists...
...Terrorists' are what one calls the Iranians who fight against an authoritarian regime in Iran, the Vietnamese who fought against the French and later against American colonial rule...
...discuss broader security measures throughout the union...
...Keuner, entitled "Das Wiedersehen...
...How does a lawyer for terrorists become one of our closest allies in the war on terror...
...A number of the terrorists, including Mohamed Atta, planned much of the attack in Hamburg, on Schily's watch...
...Schily wants to go canoeing on his next trip here this summer...
...Otto takes the threat of terrorism seriously, and he addresses the threat with a very complete willingness to devote whatever it takes to win this battle...
...That mostly has to do with a feeling of responsibility that came with his office...
...But we can discuss this...
...It is not an accident Schily was her lawyer and not the lawyer for Andreas Baader, [who was] a rough guy, not very well educated, with a bad attitude...
...Before he could clarify, his cell phone rang, ending our meeting...
...interior and justice ministers to Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Following the bombings in Madrid, Schily requested that Germans observe three minutes of silence and had flags lowered to half-mast...
...The Greens are not the family of Otto Schily," who identified with them "not as a left-wing party but as an ecological party...
...In the attorney general's li words, Schily jumped at the opportunity "like a chicken on a June bug...
...She played the violin, he played the cello...
...It is a question Schily himself tries to avoid...
...The point being Mr...
...He then explained that "The common ground is the fight against terror...
...Terrorist' is what any American is called who fought against his own government because of this criminal war against Vietnam...
...I seldom get in a canoe, but when I get out of one it's sometimes at junctures where I hadn't intended to...
...I was told that Germans like to have walking sticks, so we had a dozen walking sticks ready for him, and we just had a great time together...
...But it doesn't mean we share all the same positions...
...What has happened in Madrid is a shocking event for all the peoples of Europe, and it demands Europe-wide solidarity," Schily told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra last week...
...Schily was attached to Gudrun Ennslin," one of the defendants, who, along with her boyfriend Andreas Baader, was charged with the bombings of two Frankfurt department stores in 1968...
...In doing whatever it takes, Schily has become a major proponent of biometric identifiers: microchips in passports and visas, fingerprinting, facial recognition technology at airports, and retinal scans—the kinds of things that probably would have appalled the old Schily...
...K and turned pale...
...More than just an attraction to left-wing causes, Reinecke believes, drew Schily to involve himself with the Baader-Meinhof gang (which later morphed into the Red Army Fraction...
...I loved it," recalled Schily...
...When I asked Ashcroft how he and Schily could be friends despite their disparate backgrounds, he joked, "You didn't know about my Baader-Meinhof years...
...Schily is reminded of an anecdote from Bertolt Brecht's Stories of Mr...
...We have to find out who perpetrated these brutal actions, but more important is prevention...
...Department of Justice, and friendship with Attorney General John Ashcroft...
...In the story, Schily explains, "a man who had not seen Mr...
...For [German foreign minister] Joschka Fischer, the Greens are his family...
...The call was from John Ashcroft...
Vol. 9 • March 2004 • No. 28
