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Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

reuters.com

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Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#11

Post by DasIch »

woah wrote: post #2

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tes…

The US and UK military are usually stationed in somewhat small cities and are a very important part of the economy in these areas. Most people don't care about the fact that they are still here in Germany and those that do care are happy about the income they provide.

Everytime they leave somewhere it's usually a source of great concern and not at all something to celebrate.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#12

Post by hga »

1morepassword wrote: post #7
hga wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves. That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(…

How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US? A great success for US board of tourism?

"fully armed"

Right there you start going astray, a lot of them are doing logistics of one type or another, including our largest overseas military hospital, the top level hospital for serious GWoT theater injuries.

More directly, it would all depend on why they were there.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#13

Post by jckt »

return0 wrote: post #4

this is a great movie about surveilance in the east germany. I don't know how accurate though. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

Probably not very accurate (just because most movies aren't, anyway). But I think most of the cast actually lived through the GDR years (in the GDR), and I figure that's how they acted so damn well.

To anyone considering watching this, if not for the history, watch it for the movie's sake. You will not be disappointed at all.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#15

Post by njharman »

hga wrote: post #5
woah wrote: post #2

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tes…

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves. That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(…

One year, 2010, is not long term. Germany had been heavily occupied (by several nations) from end of WWII until recently. Recently being last 20years or so.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#16

Post by Cass »

woah wrote: post #2

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tes…

There's nothing surprising about the German tolerance of the US military bases, considering that they do nothing whatsoever to interfere with our lives or inconvenience us in any way, but do provide quite a lot of jobs. These are mostly medical or training facilities, many of them operated jointly by American and German forces, not some occupying force that's intent on overrunning our government or controlling the citizenry.

As far as public opinion goes, this is a complete non-issue, and I strongly suspect that if public opinion turned so far as to make it an issue, the US would withdraw their troops before entering into a war with a powerful western nation that would almost inevitably turn into another world war. This is really not what I'd call an occupation.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#17

Post by wahsd »

Stasi.? Germans are simply shying away from comparing it to the Nazis' unimaginable wet dream because of a very self-conscious sensitivity about the matter. But don't fool yourselves, ignoring other unrelated, horrible outcomes that were a consequence of the times, this level of surveillance is by far worse than anything that has ever existed in all of human history. It is tantamount to mind reading, and without a doubt on the exact trail to that outcome.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#18

Post by danbruc »

wahsd wrote: post #17

Stasi.? Germans are simply shying away from comparing it to the Nazis' unimaginable wet dream because of a very self-conscious sensitivity about the matter. But don't fool yourselves, ignoring other unrelated, horrible outcomes that were a consequence of the times, this level of surveillance is by far worse than anything that has ever existed in all of human history. It is tantamount to mind reading, and without a do…

When it comes to surveillance the Stasi did a way better job than any NS organisation.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#19

Post by DasIch »

hga wrote: post #12
1morepassword wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US? A great success for US board of tourism?

" fully armed " Right there you start going astray, a lot of them are doing logistics of one type or another, including our largest overseas military hospital, the top level hospital for serious GWoT theater injuries. More directly, it would all depend on why they were there.

They are nevertheless armed among other things with nuclear weapons.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#20

Post by craigyk »

While we are pointing fingers... why are the Germans so set on laying the economic foundation for WWIII? We get it, you feel like you shouldn't have to rescue "lazy bums", but get over it already and suck it up. The US massively spent too reconstruct Germany after WWII, partially because of the realization that post-WWI financial destitution was part of the groundwork for WWII.

It's not like your entirely blameless here either Germany, your banks made the questionable decision to lend money to those lazy bums so they could buy back German goods.

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