Posted on 01/31/2003 2:03:45 PM PST by HAL9000
MANNHEIM, Germany, Jan 31 (AFP) - American forces Friday loaded hundreds of vehicles onto riverboats in the German city of Mannheim for eventual onward transportation to the Gulf, a spokeswoman for US forces said.
The lorries, tracked vehicles and trailers came from US bases in southwest Germany, she said. A similar river convoy was organised earlier this month from the southern state of Bavaria.
Mannheim lies on the Rhine, one of Germany's main arteries, which flows via Cologne and Rotterdam into the North Sea.
Germany has one of the biggest concentration of US bases anywhere in the world outside the United States.
Last week the British army in Germany said that it would also send armoured vehicles and other equipment by boat to the Gulf.
I just wonder if the smaller towns with military bases are going to get hard when the Americans leave. Who is going to replace them? Just emptying a base and saying you will "privatize" it doesn't ensure economic development of the area...some places in the U.S. still have not recovered from base closures (though some have had somewhat successful transitions).
Also, hadn't some in Germany come to think of the American troops as a more or less permanent presence? Is there much in the way of political opposition to the Americans' mere presence there? And what will Germany's defense establishment look like with the Americans out of the picture? I'm sure the Germans are capable in theory of managing their own security but a lot of times being close to the American military makes a nation foolish and unrealistic in formulating their own defense budget.
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