The WSJ points out that the German love affair with Barack Obama didn’t last the night:
One day after his speech before an adulating Berlin crowd last week, Barack Obama said more NATO troops would allow the U.S. to cut its presence in Afghanistan. The “billions of dollars” saved, he told CNN on Friday, could “finance lower taxes for middle-class families.”
Em, no:
(The) Secretary General of the opposition German Free Democrats, Dieter Niebel, responded to Mr. Obama by telling the Bild am Sonntag that “Under no circumstances will the German taxpayer pay with more money and more troops for Afghanistan for tax cuts in the U.S.”…
Which at least makes a kind of sense. You don’t ask a country to invest more of its blood and treasure so that you might spend a little less. No, real allies do what they can within the resources they have sufficient to accomplish the mission. Which made the response of Erwin Huber, chairman of the center-right Christian Social Union of Bavaria, seem just that little bit less gracious:
“(It) is the opposite of solidarity and partnership when one side is to make more sacrifices and the other gains an advantage from it.”
Tell us about it. We used to have these allies, for gosh, I don’t know. Decades? Spent significant portions of our GDP to protect them – exposed our own island homeland to nuclear annihilation by extending our nuclear umbrella over them! - while they in turn skimped on their own defense in order to built elaborate social support systems.
Came a day when NATO finally invoked the right of collective self-defense, because a member state had been attacked? Then it was all about caveats.
The 44th president may well have spoken recently in Germany, and it might well be that his election will make for soft cooing noises where previously we have heard harsh voices grating. Pretending not to notice when a trusted friend has stiffed you on the tab. Color that “progress” if it suits your fancy.
Just don’t expect the facts on the ground to change.
Lex,
The quality of the blog for the two years I’ve been reading has always been great, but I’m thinking this private sector lifestyle change of yours has elevated the content here even more.
I really enjoyed this post.
Cap’n,
I really don’t contemplate Barack Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States. To do so requires me to believe a majority of American citizens have rejected all examples of his massively obvious short comings. Beyond that, I would, of necessity, willingly subvert my disbelief for at least 4 years during which I will likely see my grandchildren become entombed in a Socialist miasma they are not likely to escape.
Yes, a sea change is forthcoming for our country. One which will see many new ways in which socialist egalitarianism and the attendant movement to the mediocre becomes the norm. American Exceptionalism will no longer be praised, but ridiculed.
Our allies will see us, not as a powerhouse of Democratic Government, but a pathetic ghost similar to themselves.
Just one more example of his inexperience which SHOULD weed him out of this presidential race. Gaffe doesn’t begin to define the depth of diplomatic errors (I actually was going to use an obscene word and then the word UP) his statement was. It reflects a naivete about diplomacy, leadership and team building that makes even Jimmy Carter look competent. God help us if the moonbats prevail in November.
Could the Germans at least buy bullets? Would that break their bank?
Let us never forget that the Germans voted Hitler into office as chancellor. They got it wrong; once. That was enough.
There are a lot of people that declare that there is no way that one “wrong” president can do that kind of damage in the US. These morons need to come up with some example to prove their case. In a democracy, elections matter. I cannot think of any democracy or republic that successfully survived voting into office a marxist or socialist government without some sort of civil war; barring FDR who lucked into a major world war and died in office. Let’s see: Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, all the SSRs that really had no choice, Nicaragua, Argentina,…….hmmm, except for the thoroughly emasculated Nordic countries it seems to be a clean sweep. On the other hand, I expect “pirate” submarines off the coast of Denmark and Sweden any day now…..
Spent significant portions of our GDP to protect them – exposed our own island homeland to nuclear annihilation by extending our nuclear umbrella over them! – while they in turn skimped on their own defense in order to built elaborate social support systems.
A key issue I’ve been talking about for some time. Every time someone says “The U.S. should intervene in Darfur” or something such, I comment somewhere along the lines of “We’re busy – how about if the Germans and French and Italians and Spainiards send in their army?”
Being informed that they haven’t the resources to do so, I lead the discussion to the end that the lack of resources stem from a lack of will. And the lack of will stems is expressed in a particular choice of priorities – if you want to spend money on social services, then of course you will not have that money to spend on the military, etc. But then, if you don’t want to spend money on that, why should we? Who are you to tell us how to spend our money and place our priorities on something where you are not willing to do the same?
Others here are very likely much better informed on this next than I, but IIRC there’s also an issue that other countries (Britian and Canada being notable exceptions) won’t permit their armed forces to actually be put in harms’ way. Haven’t various other forces in NATO assignments been forbidden from being placed in combat situations?
O.K. Strike that last para, it’s addressed in the “caveats” link in the post.
Sigh ….
Babs, RonF,
no way we would buy the bullets, although it would not break our bank.
Germany paid one time for not going to war, that was at the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Please lookup the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Cost
That was later felt as embarrassing and the public consensus was that next time Germany would either take some military part or no part at all.
As for the Persian Gulf War cost, there is an important side-note to it. Regrettably I have no link on it. True or false, I remember reading it in a left-winged news magazine and it was “public knowledge” in Germany, especially at the begin of the Iraq war in 2003: The congressional office inflated the US costs of the Persian Gulf War on purpose, they were moreover in the 40-50 billion $ region and they would not want to admit that they made profit out of the war.
Dunno. I was quizzed last week while quaffing a Viennese pils on the sidewalk of a cafe once owned by Hegel (0r so the current owner, looking more Turkish than Austrian, claimed) by an inebriated young lady who asked me, “Obama or McCain?” I assume McCain, because she never quite got the name out, despite the repeated encouragements of her friend (who obviously wanted to be more than her friend). She was all for Obama, never had a clue why (me nor her). The European press is licking Obama’s shoes, not surprising to see the young lady’s preference in that environment.