[blackcat]

Germany is enabling the US to continue with these ridiculous escapades by not closing US bases for some minuscule economic gain. If you believe these wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Syria are terrible but want to keep the bases you are a hypocrite and either way as culpable for civilian deaths as any American. Many in Germany are upset about these wars, virtually none want to close the bases. Serious willful disconnect there.

[D9u]

I don't see too many Americans chomping at the bit in favor of US intervention in yet another nation which poses absolutely zero viable threat to the the USA.

We're sick and tired of interventionist policy, since Korea, Viet Nam, etc, etc, etc.

To hold American citizens culpable for the actions of the government which lies to us and spies upon us while claiming "Moral High Ground" is to ignore the fact that we are no longer informed, so the "consent of the governed" is no longer present.

[pyre]

> I don't see too many Americans chomping

You must not get out much. There are a lot of Americans chomping at the bit to "stick it to those ragheads." It doesn't matter which Middle Eastern country, as long as we go over there and "kick some ass" against people that are different than us, they are 100% on-board.

[primitur]

The only way for Germany to close the US bases is for Germany to declare war on the US. Seriously! US bases in Germany are US territory ..

[nraynaud]

I think they are US jurisdiction, not territory, it's like an embassy. There are ways to remove them. There might also be a reason to remove them, in light of the spying involved, if Germany discovers for example that SAP is more negatively impacted by the US spying than positively by the commerce with the US. Same with planes (that's where the suspicions are the highest) car makers and tool machine makers.

[gtirloni]

I think your example of SAP is spot on. People see all these news about war, US vs. the world, etc and they take sides, become angry, etc while not questioning the obvious: who is going to have a material gain from this all?

I've become quite a cinic about these things and I think economic power / money will usually be behind most of it. Unfortunately I don't believe in countries helping poor people in remote lands, government worried about killings, pride in being the beacon of democracy, etc. It's all about power and money.

[betterunix]

Germany does not have to allow US airplanes or vehicles to travel through their country to and from those bases...

[_ak]

The US will try anyway. Years ago, when the F-117 was still in use, the USAF would regularly acquire permits to fly cargo planes from Germany to Italy over Austria. What they then attempted was letting a F-117 fly really close to the cargo plane (Austria wouldn't allow foreign military planes through their airspace unless for very specific reasons) to try to get over the short way through Austria, as well.

The Austrian Airforce found out about that, and intercepted and sent a few F-117s back to Germany.

[btilly]

That strategy didn't work well for East Germany as a way of shutting down the US presence in Berlin.

[_ak]

Actually, the US, the UK and France had contracts with the Soviets that guaranteed them access to Berlin by air. They didn't have correspnding contracts for access via streets and railways, though, that's why the Soviets could block food trucks but not the airlift.

The contracts only allowed very specific air corridors (3, to be precise), which is one of the points why the airlift was so hard to implement at full capacity.

The Allied forces had quite extensive rights in all the other sectors, and not just in Berlin. For example, military vehicles were considered extraterritorial, and had to be let in. And that's what the US and the UK did: they drove into East Germany and rather openly spied on Soviet troop movements and maneuvers.

[blackcat]

Actually they are leased. But it hardly matters because although the Germans may feign outrage, they have zero interest in closing the bases.