[Kurtz79]

Europe has not been an independent entity since the end of WW2 and the beginning of the cold war.

Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

I'm not judging or complaining, it's just the way it is. At some point in history, decisions were made about Europe's own place in the world that put it under US sphere of influence, and these decisions have important consequences to this day.

It can be argued that European countries traded part of their own sovereignity in exchange for security, protection and economic progress.

[epsylon]

Europe is merely a free trade agreement between various independent country, and a common currency between a subset of these countries.

> Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

These bases are negociated not through the European Union, but through NATO agreements (AFAIK), and on a bilateral basis.

For example, there are no American bases in France since the 60's.

> I'm not judging or complaining, it's just the way it is. At some point in history, decisions were made about Europe's own place in the world that put it under US sphere of influence, and these decisions have important consequences to this day.

Western European countries, maybe, but please remember that Eastern Europe has been under Russian influence since the cold war (and many of them still are).

> It can be argued that European countries traded part of their own sovereignity in exchange for security, protection and economic progress.

Some of them traded a bit of their military sovereignty (the first and foremost being Germany), but as far as I know most of these countries are politically sovereign.

[kimlelly]

> Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

Correct, that and the NSA infrastructure on European soil has to vanish.

[Zaytes]

> Correct, that and the NSA infrastructure on European soil has to vanish.

The odds of either of those things occurring are perilously near zero

[kimlelly]

Don't take this personally (you're in good company...):

We need to STOP saying:

1. "I'm so not surprised"

2. "That has zero chance of happening"

What we NEED to do is:

1. Think about things we CAN do

2. Find others to EXECUTE these things

3. TALK about this action

Anything else is just demotivating people. And that will only make things worse.

EDIT: To the downvoters - that's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Zaytes]

OK, we can widely adopt encryption and use alternets whenever possible, and attempt to affect technological activism. That is feasible and should be done as swiftly and as widely as possible. Evangelize these measures to the less technically inclined people in your life.

But as far as "removing" US military and intelligence presence from Europe - that will literally never happen, as all of Europe is entirely complicit in our presence and information gathering activities.