Also, while I always enjoy fighting your straw men, your main point obviously has nothing to do with what I said in the post you quoted. German animosity towards military marches, patriotism and supporting the troops is an entirely different topic, isn't it?
Seven years later, and no German Tornado can drop a bomb. Within three months of beginning the Afghan campaign YOUR people tried to backpedal and “Uneingeschraengte Solidaritaet” became a few troops in the North, restricted from engaging in direct combat, watching poppy fields grow right under their nose and not doing a damn thing about it. Tell your little Maerschenstunde to someone else. What are you doing in Columbia where most of the cocaine even on German streets comes from? What are you doing in Sinai? Boy, I’m glad two German ships are sitting and doing nothing off the coast of Israel. Your help reference Libya is well noted and please don’t try to take credit for that either, because it wasn’t your big German intellectualism that changed Kaddafi’s course. So how are your great negotiations with Iran, how did those go? Who will eventually take action if it is taken, and who will sit on the side lines giving us “Ratschlaege.” I’m sure we’ll get lots of great suggestions on how we can wage that campaign too if it were to happen, and at every missed bomb I’m sure you’ll have a story of how you would have done it different. You always have an excuse for why you should not, could not and would not do anything. When you do something, as post 2006 or Afghanistan you do as little as possible, as late as possible, from as far away as possible.
There is only one constant with you Germans. You see yourselves as the perpetual victim. May it be the Jew in the past, or today the Ami who is behind your self created socialist misery. The wall dividing your own country didn’t fall because of anything YOUR people did. The Cold War didn’t end because of YOUR people and those like Fischer, Brandt, Lafontaine, Ditfurth. Along the entire Cold War from Berlin Airlift until the wall fell in 1989, even though like Korea and Vietnam your own country was divided and part of the battle between the Western Free world and communism, your own people shouted statements like “Lieber Rot wie Tot,” and were to eager to jump on the anti-Vietnam bandwagon. How many German troops were in Vietnam? Who was on the East side of that iron curtain and where did those West Germans sit? It is your country that could not deal with reality in the Cold War and sat in the background while others did its bidding in places like Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada, Angola, and even in your own country. While others were fighting a war your people were protesting the stationing of the Persching, GLCM, and air launched nuclear weapons; weapons which saved your ass and helped bring an end to the Cold War. Today the same intellectual arguments with a slight twist are the ones you hear reference a missile defense shield, which your government made big statements about (Schroeder/Fischer), but behind closed doors within NATO wanted assurances that Germany too be under the Interceptor umbrella. To cowardly to even stand up and present the official position of that administration, through ministerial channels bilaterally and through NATO, your government bought SM3, Patriot PAC3, joined in on MEADS, and wanted assured that it be under Interceptor (All intended for TBM defense). Of course while this was happening, we dumb Ami’s heard your great intellectual pontification on how we are starting a new arms race, destabilizing the world, and how of course this is not even technically possible and just a big American ploy of sorts. Yes yes, Bush oil cowboy, got it.
It’s a mooching relationship, where certain nations carry a disproportionate burden may that be financially since we pay proportionally two to three **TIMES** what Germany does on defense, in blood like those Americans that died in YOUR country at the hands of YOUR own people that belonged to such organizations as the RAF, in security since the bad guys go after the leader of the pact (There is a reason why Islamic terrorists will throw an American in a wheelchair over board the Achila Laura but leave the Germans alone, why the WTC were their prized target…etc), and politically since someone like Schroeder doesn’t need worry about dealing with the media and opposition politics unlike a Reagan or Bush that take action. While you talk of multilateralism, you’re willing to sacrifice anything and everyone in order to stay in the background, in order to keep your status as a moocher. Throwing you out of the security nest would mean we would have to sacrifice NATO, and cutting you out of the picture economically in places like Iraq where you did nothing, once again, would cause a chain of events that take us back to an era where certain nations ruled over certain areas and the resources found there, de facto colonialism. In the end, Germany has the option of not helping, and it is beneficial not too, because it’s safer, cleaner, and cheaper’; but don’t tell us how you’re intellectually superior or that your past is somehow holding you back, or that the war in Iraq is illegitimate and that’s why your not there, or how you would have not done this or that. Nonsense, that’s heuschelei.
As I said, the German arguments are always the same, and what they really boil down to is schadenfreude and heuschelei. The German people don’t want to do anything, nor do the politicians and you use your past as a facade when convenient. When you have 250,000 Bosnian refugees sitting in your country, then of course you do appreciate marching music, then you do support the troops (even ours) and you have no problems with our bombs either, even those that miss their target. I’m glad you’re at least in the Balkans, your own back yard, a war you were the political engine of, a war that you stood to gain from, that at least there you have a major role, hurra Deutschland!
Do you know what hollow words are worth? Do you know what petitions saying how terrible 911 signed by your countrymen are worth? Where are the actions? What is your excuse in Afghanistan again? It is my country that has bled even on your land, and your people are the ones with a big mouth, that do nothing but give us lots of advice.
Germany: 1.5% GDP on defense.
UK: 2.4%
France: 2.6%
US: 4.06%
S. Korea: 2.7%
…See a trend?
US dead in Desert Storm: 368 KIA, 776 WIA, cost in addition to operational budgets (Not counting long term costs either, such as fatigue on airframes of C-5s, C-141’s (Which had to be retired earlier than planned because of all the hours racked up on them), helicopters, wear and tear on the fleet of tanks, VA system etc.: 62 Billion 1990 USD, German contribution 5.7 billion or 9% of only the additional costs not counting long term added costs. But you are right; you did pay something so I guess you carry your weight as a nation./sarc
What did your people do when Libyan agents blew up a disko in Berlin “La Belle” (1986) and killed GIs and several Germans? I’ll tell you what your people did, because I persoanlly saw it! You hung on the fences of our instalations protesting when we bombed Libya! Pretty sad statement, but what German is going to remeber that, right?