4 ms·

> I'm actually astonished given Germany's strength in Europe that they didn't just say GFY! Germany isn't a sovereign country. Having foreign (US) troops on yo

by binarray2000 12y ago

> I'm actually astonished given Germany's strength in Europe that they didn't just say GFY! Germany isn't a sovereign country. Having foreign (US) troops on your soil makes you dependable on the policies of that foreign country. There are many other reasons why Germany cannot (and doesn't want) to "say GFY" to the US.

Zigurd 12y ago
And yet you will continue to see people, invariably Americans, argue that the Germans do not want to see US bases close, because they are dependent on the jobs. The 1960's called and they want their economic argument back. If the German economy was capable of taking on re-unification costs, Germany could easily handle greater autonomy w.r.t. the US.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  I'm actually german and I'll take the bait. Ramstein, one of the largest US Airbases in Europe is in a pretty desolate area of Germany. A lot of american troops pass through there (to and from Iraq and Afghanistan). The soldiers bring money and jobs - it would be political suicide for the local politics to demand a withdrawal. Heidelberg and Würzburg have large deployments as well. It's not like we could not shoulder the economic impact, in terms of the gross domestic product that's a tiny amount, it's rather that in terms of how the political landscape looks like we don't want to. (It would probably also require to sift more budget to the military etc.). However, I doubt that the US military would give up its Airbases in Ramstein and Frankfurt over Snowden. They're far to important in the current conflicts in the middle east.
rwissmann 12y ago
A countries sovereignty has exactly zero to do with whether or not the are foreign military bases on their soil...
- ojbyrne 12y ago
  I don't see how you can possibly argue "exactly zero."
- binarray2000 12y ago
  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_installations_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst...) US has 35 existing bases in Germany and has closed 207 (!) bases in the past. Some of the most important (strategic importance and size) are in Germany. To think that such a huge military presence has "exactly zero to do" with how freely German government can make decisions which would be contrary to the US interests is an illusion.
  - Shivetya 12y ago
    Its a financial risk. Germany could today tell the US to be out of the country by a set date and what could the US do? Likely at most point to contracts and treaty agreements and request negotiation. Does anyone really think the US could say no and get away with it? Germany wants the money the bases bring and likely the perceived protection they present. If they didn't see the latter then the money point is key. How much does the US spend to maintain those bases and do they pay fees beyond that to have them? As a Libertarian I would be more than happy seeing us out of every country that is peaceful. We have no real need to be there in this day and age with the ease at which power can be projected. I won't go into the question of being in certain other countries because of disagreements which led to war, declared or not.
- kephra 12y ago
  West Germany is still occupied by US troops. The 2+4 treaty is !NOT! a peace treaty. Russians just withdraw their troops from east Germany. Take a look in the 2+4 contract, neither US troops nor US atom rockets are allowed in east Germany. Each Chancellor has to sign a paper called Kanzlerakte, that he agrees, to give up sovereignty at lot of cases, e.e. intelligence, military.
  - patrickg 12y ago
    Please give a reliable source for your claims. We have peace now since more than a few decades. It doesn't need a signed peace treaty to have peace in a country. The 2+4 contract has explicitly stopped the allied control.
    - kephra 12y ago
      Egon Bahr (former prime minister) and Willi Brand (former chancellor) are reliable sources for the Kanzerakte. US barracks are extraterritoriality zones, and US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction. And better read the 2+4 itself, and not 3rd party writeups like Wikipedia.
      - patrickg 12y ago
        I don't comment on the Kanzlerakte, it's obvious fake. US barracks are not extraterritoriality zones, please cite your claim. "US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction", this is only partly true. It's part of the "NATO-Truppenstatut". With Art. 19 Abs. 3 Satz 1 ZA (Zusatzabkommen) the foreign soldiers are part of German jurisdiction. Again, please cite your claims.
  - dreamweapon 12y ago
    Ach, bitte. There were plenty of shenanigans going on between the U.S. and German politicians in the early BRD days. But the scanned document everyone's been passing around purporting to refer to the so-called Kanzlerakte is obviously a fake.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  That's a tough proposition to defend. The nations that act with the most autonomy have no foreign military bases inside their borders.
- coldtea 12y ago
  In paper no. In real life, try getting foreign bases on continental US soil and see how it goes.
powertower 12y ago
An infamous German journalist had something to say about all this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4OUcfiM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4OUcfiM-8
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  As to 'Putin-Versteher' and RT shill Udo Ulfkotte: I've written about the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte over the years and was pleased that he seemed to have faded from view, disappearing into the pages of the 9/11 Truther Site of Kopp Verlag. Ulfkotte distinguished himself as a racist and anti-Islam hatemonger, demanding that all Muslims be deported from Germany in order to create more Lebensraum for ethnic Germans. For years he has been publishing articles and books that distort the truth, or are outright lies. A few examples: Ulfkotte claimed that Muslims were waging a "fecal Jihad" against Germans"because Turkish women were allegedly defecating in fields of strawberries that were exported to Germany. He warned Germans to stay away from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, since black African "savages" were planning to rape and murder European visitors. Of course, President Obama is one those black African savages - or at least a 'half-breed" - whom he hates. He lied that Obama was persecuting Christians in the United States, and had given orders to burn Bibles. I could go on and on. Actually, I cannot identify any examples where the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte reported truthfully about anything. http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015/01/fake-journalist-udo-ulfkotte-makes-a-comeback-as-putin-propagandist.html http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015...
  - powertower 12y ago
    It's fairly easy to a smear campaign someone that does not fit into your narative. All you have to do is put some labels on him, take things of out context, attribute things not said or done to the said person, and pretend to debunk him. This way you never have to make the counterargument to the argument made by that person. You just dismiss him in whole. I don't know if that's the case here, but considering the name-calling from the start, the typical labeling (racist, homophobe, islamophobe, Nazi, RT-shill), I'd say it fits.

Zigurd 12y ago

And yet you will continue to see people, invariably Americans, argue that the Germans do not want to see US bases close, because they are dependent on the jobs. The 1960's called and they want their economic argument back. If the German economy was capable of taking on re-unification costs, Germany could easily handle greater autonomy w.r.t. the US.

Xylakant 12y ago
I'm actually german and I'll take the bait. Ramstein, one of the largest US Airbases in Europe is in a pretty desolate area of Germany. A lot of american troops pass through there (to and from Iraq and Afghanistan). The soldiers bring money and jobs - it would be political suicide for the local politics to demand a withdrawal. Heidelberg and Würzburg have large deployments as well. It's not like we could not shoulder the economic impact, in terms of the gross domestic product that's a tiny amount, it's rather that in terms of how the political landscape looks like we don't want to. (It would probably also require to sift more budget to the military etc.). However, I doubt that the US military would give up its Airbases in Ramstein and Frankfurt over Snowden. They're far to important in the current conflicts in the middle east.

rwissmann 12y ago

A countries sovereignty has exactly zero to do with whether or not the are foreign military bases on their soil...

ojbyrne 12y ago
I don't see how you can possibly argue "exactly zero."
binarray2000 12y ago
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_installations_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst...) US has 35 existing bases in Germany and has closed 207 (!) bases in the past. Some of the most important (strategic importance and size) are in Germany. To think that such a huge military presence has "exactly zero to do" with how freely German government can make decisions which would be contrary to the US interests is an illusion.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  Its a financial risk. Germany could today tell the US to be out of the country by a set date and what could the US do? Likely at most point to contracts and treaty agreements and request negotiation. Does anyone really think the US could say no and get away with it? Germany wants the money the bases bring and likely the perceived protection they present. If they didn't see the latter then the money point is key. How much does the US spend to maintain those bases and do they pay fees beyond that to have them? As a Libertarian I would be more than happy seeing us out of every country that is peaceful. We have no real need to be there in this day and age with the ease at which power can be projected. I won't go into the question of being in certain other countries because of disagreements which led to war, declared or not.
kephra 12y ago
West Germany is still occupied by US troops. The 2+4 treaty is !NOT! a peace treaty. Russians just withdraw their troops from east Germany. Take a look in the 2+4 contract, neither US troops nor US atom rockets are allowed in east Germany. Each Chancellor has to sign a paper called Kanzlerakte, that he agrees, to give up sovereignty at lot of cases, e.e. intelligence, military.
- patrickg 12y ago
  Please give a reliable source for your claims. We have peace now since more than a few decades. It doesn't need a signed peace treaty to have peace in a country. The 2+4 contract has explicitly stopped the allied control.
  - kephra 12y ago
    Egon Bahr (former prime minister) and Willi Brand (former chancellor) are reliable sources for the Kanzerakte. US barracks are extraterritoriality zones, and US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction. And better read the 2+4 itself, and not 3rd party writeups like Wikipedia.
    - patrickg 12y ago
      I don't comment on the Kanzlerakte, it's obvious fake. US barracks are not extraterritoriality zones, please cite your claim. "US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction", this is only partly true. It's part of the "NATO-Truppenstatut". With Art. 19 Abs. 3 Satz 1 ZA (Zusatzabkommen) the foreign soldiers are part of German jurisdiction. Again, please cite your claims.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  Ach, bitte. There were plenty of shenanigans going on between the U.S. and German politicians in the early BRD days. But the scanned document everyone's been passing around purporting to refer to the so-called Kanzlerakte is obviously a fake.
Zigurd 12y ago
That's a tough proposition to defend. The nations that act with the most autonomy have no foreign military bases inside their borders.
coldtea 12y ago
In paper no. In real life, try getting foreign bases on continental US soil and see how it goes.

powertower 12y ago

An infamous German journalist had something to say about all this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4OUcfiM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4OUcfiM-8

dreamweapon 12y ago
As to 'Putin-Versteher' and RT shill Udo Ulfkotte: I've written about the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte over the years and was pleased that he seemed to have faded from view, disappearing into the pages of the 9/11 Truther Site of Kopp Verlag. Ulfkotte distinguished himself as a racist and anti-Islam hatemonger, demanding that all Muslims be deported from Germany in order to create more Lebensraum for ethnic Germans. For years he has been publishing articles and books that distort the truth, or are outright lies. A few examples: Ulfkotte claimed that Muslims were waging a "fecal Jihad" against Germans"because Turkish women were allegedly defecating in fields of strawberries that were exported to Germany. He warned Germans to stay away from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, since black African "savages" were planning to rape and murder European visitors. Of course, President Obama is one those black African savages - or at least a 'half-breed" - whom he hates. He lied that Obama was persecuting Christians in the United States, and had given orders to burn Bibles. I could go on and on. Actually, I cannot identify any examples where the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte reported truthfully about anything. http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015/01/fake-journalist-udo-ulfkotte-makes-a-comeback-as-putin-propagandist.html http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015...
- powertower 12y ago
  It's fairly easy to a smear campaign someone that does not fit into your narative. All you have to do is put some labels on him, take things of out context, attribute things not said or done to the said person, and pretend to debunk him. This way you never have to make the counterargument to the argument made by that person. You just dismiss him in whole. I don't know if that's the case here, but considering the name-calling from the start, the typical labeling (racist, homophobe, islamophobe, Nazi, RT-shill), I'd say it fits.