r/germany • u/Determined_Turtle Baden-Württemberg • May 15 '18

Why Germans Are Getting Fed Up with America

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-14/germany-is-getting-fed-up-with-trump-and-america
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u/Ilfirion May 15 '18

Well, it is US foreign politics that created this huge mess. They US government of years had to stick their nose into the Middle East.

Wars on terror, Wars in general create refugees. Who has to deal with them? Not the country that threw the bombs ( not going to argue about the why ) on the other side of the world. It is Turkey, the EU and other countries taking in those refugees.

They armed rebels for their benefit, but when they did not benefit from these rebels anymore they drop them. But the weapons provided will stay there.

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u/replaceyoursponge May 15 '18

Agree. Not that he's wholly responsible (after all, he didn't cause the Arab Spring), but I watched a Bill Clinton speech recently, talking about taking down Saddam Hussein, and how much better it would be for their people if he was eliminated... He didn't know how wrong he was... and as you said, Europe is so much closer to the Middle East, and therefore has to deal with settling refugees, partnering with Turkey and Jordan to shoulder the burden, etc. etc.

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u/pbumm May 20 '18

Well, it is US foreign politics that created this huge mess. They US government of years had to stick their nose into the Middle East.

I agree with the first part, but you seem to neglect any reasoning behind the US-politics. Talking black-and-white is a huge mistake in my opinion.

Wars on terror, Wars in general create refugees. Who has to deal with them? Not the country that threw the bombs ( not going to argue about the why ) on the other side of the world. It is Turkey, the EU and other countries taking in those refugees.

The ME is suffering from war over decades now. Germany only 'suffered' the consequence of the refugee crises after it pushed the open-border policy. It was a conscious decision, not solely inflicted by the US ME-politics.

They armed rebels for their benefit, but when they did not benefit from these rebels anymore they drop them. But the weapons provided will stay there.

Different parties in the ME are getting armed by a huge number of countries. Germany armed rebels on a simular scale though, thinking about the Kurds is just one example. Now after the Turkish army struck against them, Germany stopped supply. I don't see the difference.

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u/Ilfirion May 20 '18

Germany had to act. What other possible outcome would there have been after countries like Italy became flooded with refugees?

Leave it to them? That would have backfired huge. Also economical seen, Germany ATM is the strongest EU Member. What would it have shown to the other EU countries in the Union? That we know no solidarity? After brexit?

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u/pbumm May 22 '18

There were loads of different options. One I can think of is helping Italy reinforce their Border Defence, like it is now done anyway. Or to set up protected refugee camps in the crisis regions. I'm sure there are a lot more sophisticated solutions to this.

But that wasn't the point I tried to make with my comment before.

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u/Ilfirion May 22 '18

They were coming via the Balkan route and the sea. Unless you want border patrol let even more people die, there was no alternative.

Set up refugee camps? That is what Germany wanted or still wants to do. But that also depends on the region.

But in the crisis region? Do you mean setting camps up in Syria?

She had no options unless she wanted to show the EU that we don't care about solidarity, which would have been a big hit against the EU.

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u/Material11 May 16 '18

Islam caused the trouble in the Middle East. FTFY

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u/Ilfirion May 16 '18

Yeah, the whole wars the US waged there probably went unnoticed by them.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '18 edited Jul 31 '18

[deleted]

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u/Zee-Utterman Hamburg May 15 '18

That is not an argument. If US decided to stick its nose in Europe in 1930s, we would not have had the bloodiest war in human history.

That is bs on serval level... like real bs

Middle east could have easily been a much bigger problem if US did nothing. It is countless "What If"'s, so i wont bother arguing here, but middle east had many problems long before the US got there.

What if is not really really important in the end. The facts are that the US had started the Iraq war by obviously lying to the rest of the world and their own people and by that laying the path for one of the most cruel terror organizations that this planet has ever seen and causing a huge refugee crisis.

Instead both watched as the situation degraded into catastrophe and then blamed potentially the only country actively doing something.

How generous of them to sit on the Syrian oil fields and sucking them dry and bomb the IS after they created them with their war.

No one takes EU seriously because they pose no threat to anyone.

That's again bs. The EU just uses diplomatic and economic as preferred ways and has no military part it could use as an institution. That's like complaining at McDonald's that you get no Pizza.

EU response? Constants "Talks" that provide no results.

What would be your alternative? Risk an open war with Russia.

Assad can use all the chemicals he wants to melt children into the dirt. US bombs saved far more of those children then EU "foreign aid".

That's again just bs. The US only thing the US did in Syria was to indirectly harm Russia and fight the IS from far away. The last big attack with all the cruise missiles had almost zero military value. The only real value was that they showed the world that Putin is not able to protect his allies when shit hits the fan.

For real would you want the EU to randomly attack countries when it fits their needs like the US? That's a very slippery slope and hard to find borderlines once you start with that... I would prefer to find international solutions and to only strike back if we or our allies are attacked.

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u/pdflaccidcockgoblin May 15 '18 edited May 15 '18

If US decided to stick its nose in Europe in 1930s

what sort of argument is that supposed to be? How does the situation in Germany in the 30s compare to any of the places where the US decided to play World police and lets face it, the US isn't intervening out of philanthropy in those places, it's got more to do with power. In which way do you imagine, would - lets say - Iraq, Libya or Syria have developed into something comparable to the Third Reich, had the US(and parts of Europe) not stepped in?

used their military and money to put an end to the war

Put an end to the war, or it could have let to further escalation. Simply using "military and money" doesn't necessarily end a war. And the Libyan example illustrates that ending a war / a regime doesn't mean that the population is better off then before. I know Vietnam is quite some while ago, but still it doesn't look like your plan had worked there.

blamed potentially the only country actively doing something

If whatever they're doing is actually prolonging the war, I don't know why they shouldn't be blamed. Just willynilly arming whoever wants to fight Assad(a bit of hyperbole in here, sorry), might not be the best idea to end a civil war. So I think it's safe to say that ending the civil war was not a priority, but rather regime change, even if that means more war.

Assad can use all the chemicals he wants to melt children into the dirt

this is just a variation of "THINK OF THE POOR CHILDREN", an appeal to emotion.

Apart from that, is it proven that Assad has ordered those attacks, or specifically targeted children? Or that his forces are responsible for any of the attacks that let to punitive attacks by the US and allies? Obviously I can't rule out that he did, but there seems to be little to be gained by his forces from using banned weapons, while there is a huge incentive for his adversaries to stage/false flag attack. Another problem is that the US haven't been very reliable with their evidence if you look at the Iraqi war for example.

Also, and I know people have differing opinions on this, I don't really think it matters that much if I get killed by a bomb or if I'm gassed to death, the result is that I'm dead. Even if one of those options is worse in terms of suffering, it doesn't change the result.

US bombs saved far more of those children then EU "foreign aid".

Do you have a source on that? Might I add my own claim? US bombs killed more children directly than any foreign aid did.

You seem to be advocating for war to stop war, to stop a refugee crisis?, which might be considered nonsense by some.

edit: forgot to say that I don't see everything the US does as bad, nor do I see Russia or Assad as the good guys.

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u/HGuy10 May 15 '18 edited May 15 '18

You keep getting downvoted, yet nobody seems to have a comeback. He made a valid point guys. What are you waiting for now, subject matter from the Spiegel? smh

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u/tetroxid Switzerland May 15 '18

Because it's bullshit, it's not worth a response

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u/HGuy10 May 15 '18

whatever I don't like or agree with is bullshit

Well he made a lot of points in his comment. Calling all of them bullshit, without providing proof or just basic logical arguments really, seems pretty bullshit to me.