The question was asked above, why don’t the locals just choose elected officials that will act to end the US presence? I think it’s because most people vote according to their wallet. There’s nothing right or wrong about this, it’s just the way it is.

So, while in the newspapers and in the street protests the Iraqis rally against this current crusade, when it comes down to it, that means taking away their much sought after US dollars as well. Finding the political will to make that happen is, I think, going to be impossible.

Again, this isn’t a justification. As I explain this, don’t take my explanation for advocacy. I have friends and family that ask when I say I want to see our foriegn military presence and foriegn aid to EVERYONE ended, “Oh, but you don’t mean Israel too, do you?” Why, yes, yes I do. Trust me, I have every confidence that the American Jewish community can voluntarily support Israel with all of it’s aid needs, and I’m sure none of it’s neighbors could come anywhere close to generating by force the kind of cash Israel could come up with using individual choice… but I digress.
OK, now I’m not even sure where I’m going with this.
I do want to weigh in on the patriotism issue. I will stand up very proudly and call myself a patriot, in that I love my country, and her people. I find her government to be vile and disgusting, but the American people are what makes this country, and not the government. While the Constitution is only on a respirator with no sign of brain activity, I still think it beats the pants off of just about thing else this world has come up with to include Venezuela and Iran. But to be honest, fuck them. I really don’t give a rats ass one way or the other, what they do as long as they don’t come marching down my street. OK, I’ve really gotten myself lost in the weeds with this comment.
I’m reading “The Struggle for Freedom” by RW Lane right now: an interesting observation of how this country was seen around the world in the beginning of the 20th century. I recommend it to anyone.

That’s not the point: it was not me who made an assertion that seems to be false…
Btw: I did google it to get an idea of the dimensions of the costs.

‘But if the German people don’t think they’re getting value from the presence of American military bases, why don’t they vote out the politicians that tax them for it?’

Again: this is not the point.
I didn’t comment on a remark concerning the electorial behavior of the Germans.
As a libertarian I don’t even understand why someone votes at all…

‘Germany is well-known for being fairly pacifistic since WW2. Why isn’t expelling American military bases politically potent in Germany? It’s not like it’s impossible to get the Americans to leave. France and the Philippines did it.’

I’m afraid the German government is only as pacifistic as occasion demands…
I don’t deny that most Germans felt protected by the US forces during the Cold War. Moreover, most bases (especially the ones in poorer regions) helped the local economy. If this is what you mean by ‘getting value’ let me remind you of Bastiat’s ‘What’s seen and what’s unseen’…

No — they’re exacting tribute from the American taxpayer, to the tune of $663.8 billion for FY 2010 (for the sake of comparison: Russia’s “defense” budget for 2009 was $41.5 billion; China’s was $70.3 billion; Iran’s for 2007 was $7.3 billion).

How would the South Koreans feel if the United States were to pull its military out, leaving them at the mercy of the North Koreans?

Why — 64 years after the end of the Second World War and 20 years after the Berlin Wall was pulled down — is the German government not asking the United States to remove its troops? I’d think they would, if the United States was maintaining an occupation force and exacting tribute from the defeated Germans.

How much Iraqi oil has ended up heating American homes or being refined into gasoline and diesel fuel for American cars and trucks, John? That’s what the United States invaded Iraq for John, wasn’t it? The oil?

When the Soviet Union was occupying Afghanistan, did the United States ask anything in return from the Afghans for the Stinger missiles the United States provided the Mujahadeen so they could expel the Soviets? When the Soviets were driven from Afghanistan by U.S.-provided weapons, did the United States replace the Soviets as an occupying force in Afghanistan?

President Franklin Roosevelt desperately wanted the United States to go to war against Germany. After the United States was attacked on December 7, 1941, FDR was able to get a Declaration of War out of Congress … against Japan. If Hitler had not declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, Roosevelt would have had to pull all naval forces out of the Atlantic — ending all aid to England — and concentrate all forces in the war against the nation that had attacked — Japan. If not for Hitler keeping a treaty commitment with Japan when he was unwilling to keep any of the treaty commitments he’d made with Chamberlain or Stalin, FDR would have found himself fighting the wrong World War II.

When the United States had a nuclear monopoly at the end of World War II, how many nations did the United States blackmail into ceding their territory? Canada and Mexico would have been dead easy, just for a start. And why isn’t the flag of the United States flying today over Tokyo? That atomic-bomb-dropping Truman could have made that one of the conditions of the unconditional surrender, could not he have? And Washington could have American military governors running Japan to this day, no?

When the Soviet Union fell, the United States likewise had an opportunity to flex its power. Darth Bush could have said — and it would have been true — “There will be no one to stop us this time.”

And, of course, when Fidel Castro — on an island 90 miles from Florida — allied with the United States’ arch-enemy the USSR, confiscated billions of dollars of private American property, and declared Cuba a socialist state, did either President Eisenhower or President Kennedy launch a full-scale invasion to recapture that island? Or did they just give some small arms to Cuban expatriates who wished to overthrow Castro?

I think you know the answer.

John, I’m an old-school libertarian military isolationist. If I had my choice I’d close every overseas military base of the United States, pull all troops back home to the mainland U.S., and bring back Fortress America.

But for crying out loud. Cut the crap and get some moral perspective.

May I put it to you that that view arises largely from distortions you have received from outside, now that we live in an age where we have evidence both of the practice and of the actual founding processes, as opposed to the hopes of earlier generations who had to rely on what little they knew of the principles? As an outsider I see neither any actual achievement in those areas, nor any loftiness in the actual ideals which seem rather a rhetorical gloss seeking to justify what the revolting Americans wanted to do anyway along the lines of expropriating, massacring and exiling those who preferred not to play along. (I consider that the ethical and practical course for them would have been a Great Trek avant la lettre.) With no imposed bias, I have come to a very different conclusion to yours about the USA, that “shining, stinking republic”.

I am reminded of something Bertrand Russell once wrote, commenting on a letter he had received from a reader of an earlier book of his. In that he had pointed out that all forms of patriotism were mere cover stories for the worst excesses, except for that of the reader’s own country, for whom patriotism was noble, wise, and good. The reader in question wrote back, “I entirely agree with everything you wrote, but tell me, how did you know that I am a Pole?”.

J. Neil Schulman also wrote “Since I do not own a donkey, my meaning does not need to be disambiguated”.