3000

I wish I could have started this blog on a high note today. But unfortunately it's not the case. On the last day of the year 2006, the number of American soldiers who died in Iraq has reached 3000.

And I have to make a big confession here today. When the Bush administration started the Iraq War in March 2003, I didn't feel sorry for the men and women in uniform fighting and dying in this war for Bush. I only felt for the Iraqi civilians who became casualties of war because the bombs and bullets missed their military targets or because they just were at the wrong place at the wrong time. This may sound harsh in the ears of American citizens standing behind their army, but the background I come from doesn't allow me to see anything positive in a war, especially in a war of choice. But this last years' submersion in American politics showed me clearly, that it was the choice of George W. Bush and not the choice of the American people.

March 2003, this was the moment I really began paying attention to American politics. Well, actually not for the very first time though. In 1990/91, back at college, we already had protested and marched through the streets of a German city in opposition to the Gulf War. But in March 2003 I switched my TV to CNN International and never stopped watching since. I was in complete shock and awe to see the Americans starting a war "just like that", "just because they can"... again!

As a German citizen, born and raised in the 1960s and 1970s with the guilt and the shame of the Nazi Regime and World War II fresh in our parents' and our teachers' minds, with Social-Democratic grand-parents who had been harassed and silenced by the Nazis and a father who had been sent to fight the last battles of this horrible war as a frightened 15 year old kid and who was more than glad to give the written and signed promise to the US Army that captured him, to never ever take up a weapon again, with this background, I couldn't be but "anti-war" and against the glorification of the military. "Patriotism" meant nothing to my generation of Germans in the 1970s and most of my male class-mates never joined the German army, the Bundeswehr (and Germany had and still has a draft), but opted out and did the prolonged civil service instead.

But back to George W. Bush's war or the Neo-Cons' war, call it what you want, but I don't call it the American people's war anymore. Learning more and more about American politics, first from TV (and CNNi isn't that bad), then from sites like Salon and the liberal blogosphere, and finally from the American people I met (and especially ONE American I met, John Kerry), I realized how Americans were manipulated by Bush and his cronies in supporting a war that led to 3000 brave and misguided young people dying in vain to satisfy Bush's and the Neo-Cons' fantasies. John Kerry's famous words from the Vietnam War era still sound so right today: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

I didn't know much about Vietnam before becoming familiar with John Kerry in early 2004. I was too young during the war to remember more than a few news flashes on a TV screen. But when I read up on John Kerry's life and watched the movies "Going Upriver" and "Brothers in Arms" it dawned to me how tragic this was. All these idealistic young men that thought they were fighting for a noble cause and that instead were played by cynical politicians with unfathomable objectives. These young people came home broken in their body and soul and were often abandoned by their government. And the whole sad story is happening now in Iraq all over again.

How, for God's sake, can the USA make the same mistake twice? Today I feel sorry for all Americans that were duped by Bush, all those who voted for him in 2000 and again in 2004 and regret it ever since. And especially for the soldiers who maybe signed up in the wave of patriotism that followed 9/11, only to find themselves in this unjust and unnecessary war in Iraq.

When I heard Cindy Sheehan's story in 2005, I cried for her and her son. She stands for all the families who lost a loved one in Iraq. Not everybody speaks out against the war, not everybody even realizes right now that the death of these young people doesn't make sense. But this time will come, I'm sure.

In honor of the 3000 American soldiers and - don't forget - in honor of the over 600,000 Iraqis that lost their lives since the war began, here is my "Running Out of Heroes" anti-war video again, inspired by John Kerry's protest against the Vietnam War and now against the Iraq war, inspired by angry Americans like Cindy Sheehan and many, many others.