Nah what it is is the gov't spent all their effort killing abroad they had to cut back on their murdering of US citizens.
You use of German in this circumstance was improper. Indeed "Verstehen" does mean "Understand". However German grammar does not allow the word to stand alone with a question mark. In the present-tense there is no "you" implied. In the formal you would need to write "Verstehen Sie?" Informal, "Verstehst du?". In theory, you could write "Verstanden?" past tense which would be the equivalent of "Understood?".
It doesn't bother me a lot, because the point of language is to communicate. But, if you want to mangle a language and really pi$$ people off, use French. Comprendre?