Posted on 08/23/2004 5:50:39 AM PDT by Calusa
However, the consequences of such a significant troop withdrawal have a couple of downsides, too, most of all for the Germans. One mostly overlooked but important side effect is the departure of the US troops themselves. With their visible presence of African-Americans and immigrants from Asia and Latin America, they enriched the German shopping malls and restaurants, representing a multi-ethnic society. If they are gone, German society will lose a bit of color, so to speak. This step will play into the hands of right wing xenophobes whose aim is to purify the German nation. Here, by accident, the goal of the Neo-Nazis and the one of the German socialists coincides.
Buh-bye!
No good deed goes unpunished.
The ugly American was written many years ago and yet still foretold that big government donations to other countries was bad PR and that more effective programs were small and cheap.
But no. The raging liberal hysteria in the US during the 70s mandated a big check to pay other people to make them go away and like us.
This is the same principle as domestic programs. Why deal with the problem and solve it for less money when you can squander a lot of cash on a big named program to do nothing and undermine those who are less fortunate? There is a bonus if you can make those less fortunate hate those who are fortunate.
We held the line. Maintained a 300K man Army in Europe, even when we had 500K men in Vietnam! I spent time at the Fulda Gap. Doubt if you've even heard of it...
How, exactly, have we "taken upon it ourselves to intervene in the affairs of other sovrereign states to the point that we feel we have even the right to dictate what should be the optimal ethnic mix of their societies.???"
Be specific. Cite examples.
Scourge, this one is right up your alley, I think.
I didn't see any of those other countries complaining when we went in to save their behinds. We have paid with the blood of OUR AMERICAN soldiers. And, if you are talking about the growing population of muslims in other countries then, yes, we have a right to be concerned. It's not the fact that they are muslim that is worrisome, it is their evil religion and the fact that THEY want to force THEIR lifestyle on everybody else. Those non-muslim countries that have growing muslim populations SHOULD be worried.
Why don't you figure out who the REAL bad guys are? (Hint: it's not the US!)
Umm.. okay..
And who will do what is needed to keep terrorists inline?
Is that the place all you guys in Armor were going to get killed while those of us in Pershing blew the hell out of the Warsaw Pact? ;-)
But now the only guard tower (at Fulda Gap)functions as part of a museum. As does the barbed wire. Job well-done, I'd say...Bring 'em home!
One could argue there's a reason for the "overlooked" to be overlooked - maybe the priority of the "important side effect" is only elevated in the writer's mind...
Uh, right . . .
can you please show me where in the article you posted, your claim of "the right to dictate what should be the optimal ethnic mix of their societies" can be found??
And, even if we DID "dictate" the ethnic mix, what OTHER country could even remotely claim to have such a right if NOT the US.
Oh, and Welcome to FreeRepublic.
they enriched the German shopping malls and restaurants,
Restaurant diplomacy: did you see the Am Werewolf in Paris restaurant scene. Let's offer up our lives to save the world for bad table manners. Sorry. I stand ostracized.
LOL! You will understand this then. I was shooting against some Germans and US Air Force at Sigmaringen in SW (West) Germany in 72 or 73. I found out the Air Force guys were from a unit that buzzed our missiles every afternoon. I asked them why the hell they did it, as it drove our commo people nuts. They said we were their primary target so the Russians wouldn't capture any of the nukes we couldn't fire before we were overrun!
Since then I always thought of the US Air Force as a bigger danger to the Army than the Russians! ;-)
I was in the 11ACR. I served with the 2/11 at Bad K and regimental HQ at Fulda. D@mn straight I know where the Fulda Gap is!
The Pershings won the cold war, canned the Soviet Union, and exposed the total innanity of the worldwide perennial lefty protest life style/ personality disorder. We owe you for that, and to Reagan who put you and the missles there. And now we're done.
A most unpleasant spectacle. Glad it never came to that. Those of us east of Rhine River and those in particular that were near the Iron Curtain, were essentially "speed-bumps." Unmatched in man-power, arty, and tanks. But we won the peace...
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