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Politics : Bush Administration's Media Manipulation--MediaGate?

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To: steve harris who wrote (5043)9/17/2005 2:34:39 PM
From: Proud_Infidel  Read Replies (1) of 9838
 
SCHROEDER'S SPD USES DEAD U.S. SOLDIERS ON ELECTION POSTER
dpa ^ | 16 Sep, 2005 | dpa

Berlin (dpa) - Battling for reelection in a tight race, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's party is putting up campaign posters showing flag-draped coffins of dead American soldiers to underline their opposition to the Iraq war, reports said Friday.

Rolf Schwanitz, a state secretary in the Berlin chancellery, is using a poster with five coffins covered by the American stars and stripes being loaded into a transport aircraft flanked by a U.S. military honour guard. The caption of the poster is aimed at conservative challenger Angela Merkel, who backed the Iraq war while always vowing not to send German troops.

``She would have sent soldiers,'' is emblazoned across the poster for Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD). The Chancellor, who narrowly won reelection in 2002 after making his ``no'' to the Iraq war a key campaign issue, never misses a chance to attack Merkel over Iraq in election rally speeches.

``As long as we are in office German foreign policy will be made in Berlin and not anywhere else,'' said Schroeder to cheers at a rally in Potsdam this week, adding that Merkel lacked the strength to stand up to ``the kind of pressure'' he had to face over Iraq.

Schroeder's use of the Iraq war in 2002 for domestic purposes led to the worst post-war crisis in German-American ties.

The conservative Bild tabloid dubbed the posters ``perverse election campaigning.'' Merkel's Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) reacted with outrage to the poster.

``It's totally tasteless! There are limits even in an election campaign - you don't use the dead to win votes,'' said CDU Secretary General Volker Kauder. German elections will be held this Sunday. Polls show a very tight race with Merkel's centre-right alliance short of a majority in parliament.

There is speculation that Merkel may try to form a grand coalition with Schroeder's SPD as junior partner. But some analysts predict Schroeder will try to cling to power by adding the opposition Free Democrats (FDP) to his SPD-Greens government which all polls show failing to win a majority. dpa lm pmc

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