Explains or proves absolutely nothing.
After the end of the cold war the British reduced their bases to 4 (and those will be gone by 2019 too), the Russians left 1994 and the French, I don't know, would need to look it up.
The US has afair about 40k troops in Germany. They use Germany for their bases to be closer to the hot spots like Iraq and Afganistan. You might say that 40k is not much, but the whole German Bundeswehr has only 186k soldiers, so 40k is quite a lot of foreign soldiers (+ the british and french leftovers). That is of course after a big reduction after the end of the cold war.
You could say that it does not explain or prove anything but it does. It explains why even if Germany were independent economy wise (which their are not) they still wouldn't be able to say "Fuck you NSA".
They could very much say "Fuck you NSA and the horse you rode in on and your little dog as well", and all it would lead to is lengthy diplomatic posturing and economic damage to both sides (and the USA is at least as dependant on Germany economywise as the other way round).
I too was convinced, that the west is so much better than say China or Russia ... Today I still don't like China and Russia, but things have changed ....