"They chose poorly" a line from an Indiana Jones movie.
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[url=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-germbases4may04,1,6977036.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dtodays%2Dtimes]Los Angeles Times: Germany Works to Mend Fences With U.S.[/url]


Germany Works to Mend Fences With U.S.
By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer

May 4, 2003

BERLIN -- As long-rumored talk of moving U.S. troops out of Germany solidifies
into concrete plans, German officials are denying the movement stems from their
refusal to back the U.S.-led war in Iraq. But without showing remorse for their
antiwar stance, they also appear to be eager to mend fences and are dispatching
a flurry of diplomats to the U.S.

German Defense Minister Peter Struck travels to Washington today for a NATO
meeting and hopes to chat with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is also sending his national security advisor,
Bernd Muetzelburg, to Washington this week to meet with his U.S. counterpart,
Condoleezza Rice. Bush's national security advisor deemed U.S.-German ties
poisoned during Schroeder's successful September campaign for reelection on an
antiwar platform.

In mid-May, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is expected to visit
Germany, and although Schroeder is scheduled to be on an Asian tour at the time,
German and U.S. officials say the chancellor is eager to accommodate President
Bush's chief envoy whenever he arrives.

The Pentagon's stated reasons for shifting some training bases from Germany to
new or aspiring NATO members in Eastern Europe has been the need for smaller,
more mobile units in locales closer to Middle Eastern zones of potential
conflict. But the planned downsizing here is also seen by critics of German
policy, outside this country and within, as motivated in part by Washington's
desire to economically reprimand old allies who failed to back the war in Iraq.

While spokesmen for Schroeder and Struck contend there are neither definite nor
punitive plans for moving U.S. troops out of this country, others concede the
withdrawals are a looming reality that will hurt Germans in their pocketbooks as
well as their pride.

"Through the grave mistakes of the federal government in its relations with the
United States in recent months, those forces in Washington wanting to reduce the
U.S. troop presence in Germany in favor of states in Central and Eastern Europe
have been strengthened," said Friedbert Pflueger, a veteran security expert in
parliament with the conservative Christian Democratic Union. Urging Schroeder to
abandon his "foolish and divisive policies," Pflueger warned that the dispute
with U.S. leaders threatened "considerable political and economic consequences"
for Germany, home to 80% of the 112,000 U.S. troops in Europe.

A U.S. Army statement issued from Wiesbaden on Thursday said 3,700 U.S. troops
will withdraw from five bases in Hesse, the state that surrounds Frankfurt, in
2007 and 2008. Five thousand dependents will be leaving more rural outposts. The
closings will mean the direct loss of 230 German jobs at the bases and are
likely to inflict deeper economic harm on small communities that depend on U.S.
patronage of their shops, restaurants and services.

Hesse is also the current home of the Army's 1st Armored Division, which is
deploying its 16,500 troops to Iraq over the next two weeks for peacekeeping
duties and is not expected to return to its Wiesbaden locale after that mission.

The Army statement, informing the Hesse government of its plans, attributed the
decisions to a strategic restructuring of U.S. forces in Europe. But amid the
strains inflicted on U.S.-German relations by Berlin's vocal opposition to the
Iraq war, the announcement at the state rather than the federal level has
produced fresh fodder for political squabbling between the governing left and
the more pro-American right.

"I cannot give a statement for the government when it hasn't been informed on an
official basis," Schroeder's spokesman, Bela Anda, replied when asked about the
U.S. reduction plans.

A Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition he not be named said Struck
probably would be informed of the impending changes during his meetings in
Washington. Struck will be in Rumsfeld's company at a NATO defense ministers
session and hopes to have bilateral talks with his U.S. counterpart before
returning to Berlin on Tuesday, the official said.

Independent analysts tend to agree with the logic of the move to less expensive
and more strategically located venues. But they also share the conservatives'
view that the reductions are at least partly motivated by a Washington wish to
reward new allies such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria with economy-boosting
bases while showing its pique with what Rumsfeld calls "old Europe."

"It mostly has to do with geography. NATO's borders are moving east and south.
So is its strategic concept. There is more to be on guard for in the
Mediterranean or the Black Sea than in Central Europe," said Frank Umbach, a
security analyst at the German Society for Foreign Policy, a Berlin-based think
tank. Major U.S. military facilities such as Ramstein Air Base and the Landstuhl
Medical Center, where war casualties and POWs are treated, will remain because
they would be too expensive to replicate elsewhere, Umbach speculated.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

It should be noted that Germany was one of the first NATO allies (excluding the UK of course) to volunteer troops to our efforts in Afghanistan. They eventually DID deploy German Special Forces to that area who did see combat.

I think the German issue in Iraq was a result of them trying to protect German vested interests in Iraq. Bottom line is they did not back us (though not to the extent of the French or Russian betrayal) and now must be treated accordingly.

You reap what you sow.

The axis of weasels all wanted to protect their mostly illegal and certainly immoral economic interests with their bed fellow saddam.  They also wanted to humiliate the US.  This is plain to see.

The fact is, America wasn't looking for military or even financial aid for this war.  It was looking for political allies to support it.  

Frankly I'd like to the US grow some balls and put these assholes in their place.  These three formed their own little cartel and went out of their way to throw a wrench into this and make the US look bad.  Overall they failed, but they none the less proved that they are NOT friends.  Actions have consequences.