Hacker News Reader

For "officially bullying", see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States - invade Nicaragua, be ruled against by the UN, block payment of reparations and then glare at Nicaragua for a decade until they agree to just drop it. The US has long believed that might makes right and they're not going to submit to anyone else's idea of justice. There's a long list of such instances.

As for Europe, sadly Ukraine is reminding us all that the choice is between being American client states or Russian client states. At least as American client states we get rock and roll and blue jeans, right comrades?

> At least as American client states we get rock and roll and blue jeans, right comrades?

There is much truth in jest... :-/

and http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-01/29/antigua-legit...

> As for Europe, sadly Ukraine is reminding us all that the choice is between being American client states or Russian client states

That's an absurd statement.

>I'm actually astonished given Germany's strength in Europe that they didn't just say GFY!

Consequences are playing out in other arenas, weakly evidenced by Germany (and other close US allies)[1] joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)[2] which is an organization similar to the World Bank or IMF spearheaded by China.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2015/03/18/by...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment...

> I'm actually astonished given Germany's strength in Europe that they didn't just say GFY! We're not going to be seen to be bullied by you in front of all of Europe.

Even more astonishing is they're openly admitting it (and thereby admitting weakness). My guess is they have ulterior reasons for admitting it now - perhaps to gain sympathy or be seen less as bullies during negotiations with Greece (http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-poll-kick-greece-out-...)

It could just be theatre (just like Apple complaining about NSA and Xcode ..).

And that's theatre because?

Who doesn't like theatre? There's no business like show business... jazz hands! :P

> I'm actually astonished given Germany's strength in Europe that they didn't just say GFY!

Germany isn't a sovereign country. Having foreign (US) troops on your soil makes you dependable on the policies of that foreign country. There are many other reasons why Germany cannot (and doesn't want) to "say GFY" to the US.

And yet you will continue to see people, invariably Americans, argue that the Germans do not want to see US bases close, because they are dependent on the jobs. The 1960's called and they want their economic argument back.

If the German economy was capable of taking on re-unification costs, Germany could easily handle greater autonomy w.r.t. the US.

I'm actually german and I'll take the bait. Ramstein, one of the largest US Airbases in Europe is in a pretty desolate area of Germany. A lot of american troops pass through there (to and from Iraq and Afghanistan). The soldiers bring money and jobs - it would be political suicide for the local politics to demand a withdrawal. Heidelberg and Würzburg have large deployments as well.

It's not like we could not shoulder the economic impact, in terms of the gross domestic product that's a tiny amount, it's rather that in terms of how the political landscape looks like we don't want to. (It would probably also require to sift more budget to the military etc.).

However, I doubt that the US military would give up its Airbases in Ramstein and Frankfurt over Snowden. They're far to important in the current conflicts in the middle east.

A countries sovereignty has exactly zero to do with whether or not the are foreign military bases on their soil...

I don't see how you can possibly argue "exactly zero."

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst...) US has 35 existing bases in Germany and has closed 207 (!) bases in the past. Some of the most important (strategic importance and size) are in Germany. To think that such a huge military presence has "exactly zero to do" with how freely German government can make decisions which would be contrary to the US interests is an illusion.

Its a financial risk. Germany could today tell the US to be out of the country by a set date and what could the US do? Likely at most point to contracts and treaty agreements and request negotiation. Does anyone really think the US could say no and get away with it?

Germany wants the money the bases bring and likely the perceived protection they present. If they didn't see the latter then the money point is key. How much does the US spend to maintain those bases and do they pay fees beyond that to have them?

As a Libertarian I would be more than happy seeing us out of every country that is peaceful. We have no real need to be there in this day and age with the ease at which power can be projected. I won't go into the question of being in certain other countries because of disagreements which led to war, declared or not.

West Germany is still occupied by US troops. The 2+4 treaty is !NOT! a peace treaty. Russians just withdraw their troops from east Germany. Take a look in the 2+4 contract, neither US troops nor US atom rockets are allowed in east Germany.

Each Chancellor has to sign a paper called Kanzlerakte, that he agrees, to give up sovereignty at lot of cases, e.e. intelligence, military.

Please give a reliable source for your claims.

We have peace now since more than a few decades. It doesn't need a signed peace treaty to have peace in a country.

The 2+4 contract has explicitly stopped the allied control.

Egon Bahr (former prime minister) and Willi Brand (former chancellor) are reliable sources for the Kanzerakte.

US barracks are extraterritoriality zones, and US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction.

And better read the 2+4 itself, and not 3rd party writeups like Wikipedia.

I don't comment on the Kanzlerakte, it's obvious fake.

US barracks are not extraterritoriality zones, please cite your claim.

"US soldiers are not under German jurisdiction", this is only partly true. It's part of the "NATO-Truppenstatut". With Art. 19 Abs. 3 Satz 1 ZA (Zusatzabkommen) the foreign soldiers are part of German jurisdiction.

Again, please cite your claims.

Ach, bitte.

There were plenty of shenanigans going on between the U.S. and German politicians in the early BRD days. But the scanned document everyone's been passing around purporting to refer to the so-called Kanzlerakte is obviously a fake.

That's a tough proposition to defend. The nations that act with the most autonomy have no foreign military bases inside their borders.

In paper no. In real life, try getting foreign bases on continental US soil and see how it goes.

An infamous German journalist had something to say about all this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4OUcfiM-8

As to 'Putin-Versteher' and RT shill Udo Ulfkotte:

I've written about the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte over the years and was pleased that he seemed to have faded from view, disappearing into the pages of the 9/11 Truther Site of Kopp Verlag. Ulfkotte distinguished himself as a racist and anti-Islam hatemonger, demanding that all Muslims be deported from Germany in order to create more Lebensraum for ethnic Germans. For years he has been publishing articles and books that distort the truth, or are outright lies. A few examples: Ulfkotte claimed that Muslims were waging a "fecal Jihad" against Germans"because Turkish women were allegedly defecating in fields of strawberries that were exported to Germany. He warned Germans to stay away from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, since black African "savages" were planning to rape and murder European visitors. Of course, President Obama is one those black African savages - or at least a 'half-breed" - whom he hates. He lied that Obama was persecuting Christians in the United States, and had given orders to burn Bibles. I could go on and on. Actually, I cannot identify any examples where the "journalist" Udo Ulfkotte reported truthfully about anything.

http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015...

It's fairly easy to a smear campaign someone that does not fit into your narative.

All you have to do is put some labels on him, take things of out context, attribute things not said or done to the said person, and pretend to debunk him.

This way you never have to make the counterargument to the argument made by that person. You just dismiss him in whole.

I don't know if that's the case here, but considering the name-calling from the start, the typical labeling (racist, homophobe, islamophobe, Nazi, RT-shill), I'd say it fits.

There's no need to "smear" him. By appearing on RT, he's discredited himself enough.

Remarkably, Richard Stallman has appeared on RT.

And by attacking RT you've discredited yourself enough.

Especially when they start with " RT shill". As if RT is in any way worse than, say, CNN.

As a non-Russian and non-US person, I find it way more balanced.

As if RT is in any way worse than, say, CNN.

My Russian friends would probably laugh at what you're saying. You have to be very, very naive about what's happening in Russia these days to have that impression.

And MY Russian friends would laugh at what you're saying too.

It's a kind of selection bias: the kind of Russian friends that laugh at RT are the kind of friends a westerner would make (especially if they are involved in entrepreneurship and IT or social media etc).

They are the kind of people with little experience of modern history and a strong western bias that westerners find everywhere (e.g. even in places like the Middle East, and make general examples out of them). They are not representative of the majority of Russian population, though, who predominantly voted for Putin.

Kind of like liberal lefties reading Counterpunch and the like are not representative of the majority of the US population.

> Are they trying to pen themselves into a corner where the entire world ends up standing against them? http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/media/50646/us_vs_world.gif

There's not many outcomes to that scenario if you look at the budgets involved.

That may be the case, but if you cut off America's access to oil, food and other things they're a net importer of, you'd pretty soon restrict their military abilities regardless of their military spending - they can't let their non-military population starve and go homeless. A huge expensive military with billions of dollars worth of machinery isn't going to run very long without food/water for its personnel, supplies and fuel - even if they have almost half of the global military spending. The first rule of a fight is never fight someone at their own game. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. At some point you have to say "Hey, enough of this bullshit. You may think you run this planet, but you're one country of 196. The rest of us are tired of your shit, we all deserve to be treated with respect. If you want to be part of the team, step up and be part of the team, but you're not going to dictate to the rest of us how you want it to be."

> if you cut off America's access to oil, food and other things they're a net importer of

Not sure where you got that idea but the US is a net exporter of both.

> The rest of us are tired of your shit

But apparently not tired enough to actually do anything.

Except make pissed off assertions on Hacker News :P

I believe that the US is a net exporter of food and could probably be self sufficient in oil too if need be. Also, with that huge military the US could pretty much take whatever we want from whomever we want. It reminds me of a scene from the Rome TV series when Caesar is in Alexandria trying to collect the money owed to Rome (Pompey the Great). He is explaining his calculations to the Egyptians when the minister of Egypt protests that is based on Roman law, and Caesar replies "Is there any other?"

That whole "take whatever we want from whomever we want" has failed a few times. Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.

It hasn't failed. If you disrupt the balance of power in a tribal state, you're going to have a lot of contingencies making power plays. The U.S. accomplished its short-term goals at least in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Changing hearts and minds" is good propaganda but everyone knows it's eminently unrealistic, and not why we invade countries.

if we suddenly stopped caring about human rights and political consequences (I.e., we're starving), it's a different approach completely. It's not like we unleashed the full force of our military (our came anywhere near).

Of course, your entire premise is flawed as we could support ourselves Not sure where you got your numbers from, but they're wrong.

> with that huge military the US could pretty much take whatever we want from whomever we want

It's exactly this attitude that is gradually turning the world against them.

"Is there any other... You wretched woman"

The full quote :)

I'm sure the Greeks will be so happy to learn that "official bullying" is considered ridiculous.