~..............those bases where needed can also be moved to eastern European nations with relatively recent memories of what it was like to live under the iron boot of the USSR. Some of those nations are begging for US troop deployments and bases.
I wasn't arguing the feasibility of moving US bases to Eastern Europe (and I won't go into it here), I was responding to your take that Germany needs the bases more than the US needs to have them there. I've already addressed how the bases served both the Absurdistan and the Iraq war(s) and will just add that it served BOTH Iraq wars, the first being commonly referred to as the first (aka Gulf War, aka Desert Shield).
None of the three having anything to do with defending Europe or Germany specifically but not forgetting that in the case of Absurdistan NATO statutes were nevertheless successfully invoked (9-11 attack having justified invoking NATO article 5).
No much to ask for considering that those US bases are in Germany primarily to provide for Western Europe's security.
see above
And as for Germany's opposition to the Iraq invasion, it's not secret why they opposed it. Germany had too many lucrative finacial contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime under the auspices of the "Food for Oil" program which was a UN scandal in itself.
What is(was) of far greater importance: the fact that Germany did not believe the reasons for the invasion as being lodged in actual reality, not after having burned their very own Iraqi informant on Saddan's WMD's as being a total dud. And where they'd initially passed on his information to the US, they duly informed the very same shortly after of having burned him completely and his intelligence as totally unreliable. To no avail, as we know and not just since Powell admitted to it all.
Not to be misunderstood here, there were indeed German business interests in Iraq but to cite them as the main reason for Germany opposing the invasion (and thus refusing to participate) is highly disingenuous.
I was stationed on one of the US bases in Germany in the early to mid 1970s. During my deployment, one of those earlier wars broke out between Israel and one of it's Arab neighbors. The US prepared to ship arms and other military equipment to Israel using our port at Bremerhaven. The German Government afraid of what would happen to their supplies of oil from the Arab OPEC nations refused to allow that. The US ended up airlifting what they needed to send. The USA in response to the German refusal quickly threatened to pull US troops from Germany.
You are seriously attempting to claim that the US was going to go the ocean way in supplying Israel in a war that lasted barely 19 days? With the Yom-Kippur war (the only one that would fit your otherwise vague description) having caught US intelligence by surprise so much that the decision to re-supply Israel with (mainly) munitions from Germany could not be taken before the war was into its third day?
In actual reality the main airlifts to replenish Israeli material losses came straight from the US, with Portugal supplying a refuelling point on the Azores, for the Galaxy transporters as well as the Phantoms that gave both protection along the Med. as well as serving as replacements, once arrived.
Bremerhaven port my flippin' foot, the average transit time for ocean transport between Bremerhaven and Ashdod is 10-12 days.
The German government screamed bloody murder and ended up paying for renovation of many US bases, including the one where I was stationed.
It didn't scream blue murder until after Yom Kippur war was over. And it did that over US materials having been withdrawn from Germany (as resupplies for Israel) without prior information. Irrespective of which it had nevertheless given the green light by Oct-16, 10 days into the war, 9 days before its end and 7 days after the US had already acted wrt supplies from Germany.
They certainly wanted the US bases in Germany then.
I've no idea why Bremerhaven was renovated but Yom Kippur had precious little to do with it and shipping anything via ocean vessel has already been addressed.
I suppose we will soon find out how much want the remaining bases to stay put.
No doubt we will, the local population would probably very much like things to stay as they are, alone for reasons of local economy.
Maintaining a multi billion dollar energy deal with the same Russian government they are expecting NATO to protect them from suggests that their priorities are still conflicted.
Isn't it great then how the US does no business with Russia at all these days? Or (god forbid) do they?
What with the Prez. having been the toughest on Russia ever, such conflicted priorities at least don't appear to arise.
Or do we have a case here (not confined to any nation but rather practised by all) of "do as I say and not as I do"?
