Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
I would not blame this on the German Army. This is a reflection of Germany's government and a pretty clear metric that they do not perceive any great German interest's to be at stake.
IMHO the German government does not reflect about German interest.
They think about how something is going to influence the polls
or the next election. So they send soldiers abroad to be seen as acting
decisively, defending freedom and human rights or fighting global terrorism.
On the other hand, they do not want to take responsibility for casualties,
so force protection is the no1 priority for those forces they send.

Reportedly however, a significant portion of the foreign fighters who have traveled to Pakistan to support AQ are German. One must look at both of these circumstances together to understand either one, I suspect.
These fighters are mainly naturalized Turks and Arabs. I do not think that
their taking part in global jihadism is really influencing German policy in Afghanistan.