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Is Germany at Risk in Iraq?

For good historical reasons, Germans tend to get easily nervous about war, and recent violence in Afghanistan and Iraq has caused the nation to reconsider its role in the war on terror.

Dozens of gunmen dressed as Iraqi police kidnapped five foreign workers in a brazen daylight raid on Baghdad's Finance Ministry on Tuesday, and early reports from Iraq had suggested the victims were German. They were, in fact, British, but the raid highlighted ongoing chaos in Iraq and gave German newspapers a reason to mull the violence.

War-jittery politicians in Berlin have been reconsidering the nation's role in Afghanistan ever since three German soldiers died in Afghanistan on May 19, bringing the total German death toll to 12. The initial reports that those kidnapped in Baghdad were German have proved to be unfounded. Nevertheless, the events have prompted newspapers to reconsider the nation's (almost nonexistent) role in Iraq -- where about 100 German nationals live -- as well as the part Germany is playing in the 'war on terror.'

The overall conclusion on Wednesday is that it may be too late to pretend that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with Germany.

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:

"In February a German woman and her son were kidnapped; in mid-April there was a terror alert for Americans in Germany; one month later three German soldiers died in Afghanistan; and yesterday it seemed that three Germans had been taken hostage in Baghdad. Even if this last report is untrue, the reminders that Germany is caught in a steadily-more-hopeless 'war on terror' are becoming more frequent. It seems our freedom and security are not being defended in Afghanistan (and wherever else German anti-terrorism forces are stationed) so much as put at risk."

"Deliberating this in public has been made virtually taboo by the German government…. Anyone who, like (Left Party politician) Oskar Lafontaine, dares to characterize as 'terrorism' the campaign waged by the United States and others -- including Germany -- against al-Qaida and the Taliban, finds himself labelled an enemy of the state. It's time to retire the current culture of debate in Germany that follows President Bush's maxim: 'Who's not for us is against us,' and make way for a realistic and objective political argument about the point and duration of foreign commitments, anti-terrorism alliances and new security laws."

The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:

"Yesterday British computer specialists and their English guards were kidnapped from Baghdad's Finance Ministry -- which was guarded by a (foreign) security firm. The question arises whether the work of foreign firms in Iraq is just frivolous."

"The fact is that German businesses have trained many of their Iraqi employees in Germany, in order to avoid sending their own specialists -- who would be even more highly threatened (as targets) -- to Iraq. But it's also true that some foreign experts (like the kidnapped computer specialists) need to travel to Iraq to help oversee complicated equipment …. The relevant firms then pay a lot of money for personal protection in Iraq. But as the most recent events in Baghdad show, this is no guarantee for safety."

The conservative daily Die Welt writes:

"Do critics like the former US Security Advisor Zbigneiew Brzezinski have it right? Months ago he suggested two alternatives to the Bush administration: Either suppress the insurgents quickly and brutally with 300,000 American soldiers, or pull out as fast as possible."

"The second option can't be in the interest of the West…. There are therefore good reasons to hope for success in the latest American security effort, even if setbacks like the most recent kidnappings suggest reasons for pessimism. If America fails, it looks bleak for all of us."

- Michael Scott Moore, 3pm CET