President Bush is vocalizing the plan to relocate a bunch of deployed military personnel over the next 10 years. One of the biggest chunks of this is brining home folks from Germany. Apparently there are abou 70,000 US troops in Germany, plus their 100,000 dependents. And those 170,000 people spend money in the German economy on top of whatever money the military itself spends in the local German economy by hiring local folks for maintenance etc. So now some German officials are upset at the future base closures b/c of the impact on their local economy. Yep, they should be concerned ... communities where bases have closed in the US have also been hit hard.

On the one hand, Germany's politicians have been very clear about their disdain for our War on Terrorism, blocking us actively at every turn where they have influence. Supposedly those politicians are elected and thus reflect the mood of the populace. So, you know, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You want US military to just sit around spending money in Germany but don't want them actually protecting US interests? Too bad. You block us, you pay the price. Yep, there it is: that famous American arrogance. Right back at ya, those who think that terrorism will not / does not affect them in Germany. You should probably instead be happy that we're reducing our presence .. that makes your civilians less at risk as bystanders when the terrorists come after -us-.

On the other hand, there's the adage "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Germany is a known harborer of terrorists. So we should be there rooting them out. But I guess that will have to be Germany's own problem now.