Bush May Heal Rift With Europeans

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Rockhound
So far tcsenter is hitting every point correctly, but just to add to the assertion that "while America is the little sweetheart who only wants peace and justice to the people of the world" - America seems to be the one AND only country in the world looking out for not only itself but others as well, namely France, Germany, Russia, the rest of Europe, middle east, etc. with regard to security and the prevention of another 9/11. Just as America has been looking out for all of Europe for the past 60+ years in terms of its defense and economic stability. I haven't seen us pulling out our troops from Germany after all this time, have you? Why have they been there so long? Obviously, to protect Germany and the rest of Europe from being invaded again. So who else promotes peace and justice to the people of the world if not America? Surely not France or Germany. Remember, they did not want to get involved in Serbia at all! Their backyard. They left it all up to us because they surely don't have the will to do anything of that nature.

So we did all this out of the goodness ofour heart? Like we did in Chile or Iran in 1953? Sure.

We are there because it was in our best interest to keep the Communists out of Europe as best we could. Now that they are gone, having bases overseas makes military operations worldwide much simpler. Protecting the French and Germany from being invaded? By Upper Volta? Sri Lanka? Pittsburg?

No, we are there because it suits us to be. Europeans accept our presence because we bring in money. Both benefit. Don't think they need us though. We don't need them either. It would just be far more difficult without those bases.

 

[Rockhound]

Like we actually use any of those bases for anything anymore anyway, especially in Germany. South Korea maybe, but that is simply a "trip wire", its not really meant to stop the North Koreans from actually invading. Most of the operations conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq were done from aircraft carriers aside from landing all of our troops and equipment in Kuwait to invade Iraq which Kuwait let us willingly.

You are right it was to keep the communists out of Europe and that is exactly the point. We want to keep the peace in the world and if it takes having military bases around the world then that's what we will do. What would have happened if we didn't have those bases in Germany and in East Asia? What would it have cost us had the communists invaded those areas? But seeing as how the Cold War in 14 years ago, the question remains why are we in Germany still with all those forces? What are they being used for exactly except for maybe a staging point for other operations in other places which in all practical terms can be done directly from the US or other more strategic bases.