Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

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Actually one of the main reasons I want TTIP not to happen is because I don't want any closer relationships with the USA. US foreign policy has been somewhere between awful, irresponsible and plain evil for the last couple of decades. Don't get me wrong, it is not unreflected anti-Americanism, I am German and hugely thankful for what the USA has done for Germany in the past, especially of course during and after World War II.

But that changed. I would love if we could distance ourselves from the USA for a multitude of things from spying over torturing to the offensive war against Iraq, to just name some obvious examples. If we as Europeans impose sanctions on Russia right now for their actions related to the Ukraine, we should have imposed sanction on the USA long ago.

But we can not because we are so dependent on the USA, especially when it comes to IT with most of the major players like Microsoft, Intel, Google, IBM and Apple being US companies. We would be screwed without them. Could we openly oppose the USA and still do business with them? Maybe. Do we want to find it out, test who gets hurt more? Not really.

In the same way the USA is doing business with regimes like Saudi Arabia we keep doing business with the USA. But I am convinced we should really avoid getting even more entangled with the USA wherever possible to not risk worsening our position further. At least until US politics gets sane again.

Do you realize how many military installations we have in your country?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_ins...

Of course, but I don't know what you want to say with that.

Well, you are proposing sanctions against a country which is largely responsible for defending your country. You don't see the disconnect? Further, you wrote about dependence on the U.S. with respect to IT, which seems to pale in comparison to the military dependence.

We fly drone strikes out of your country and you are worried about CPUs?

In which way is the USA defending Germany and against whom? Besides local businesses profiting from the presence of US soldiers people either don't care about these military bases or want to see them gone because of drone strikes from there or the opportunity to have spying equipment there. Getting rid of the US military bases would not really hurt anyone, losing access to US IT technology would hurt a lot.

I'm not really the person to argue with on this topic because I probably agree with you on most counts. Given the close ties our countries share, I just thought your original comment a bit odd.

Would you care to pin down what you perceived as odd? I would appreciate that, because it is obviously a highly controversial topic and I would like to know where I have to be more clear or precise or whatever to get my point across as objectively as possible.

What is the United States doing currently that deserves sanctions?

Ya I have to 2nd this one, why on earth would germany impose sanctions?

I did not necessarily mean exactly right now, but the Iraq war was obviously worth sanctions. Also distancing from the USA does not necessarily imply imposing sanction, but the US spying programs and the drone war are recent and current activities that make me want to get as far away from the USA as possible.

The NSA spying on Merkel (and other allied world leaders, but someone mentioned they're German in comment to this as well), off the top of my head?

Or for humanitarian reasons, same as we claim when we impose them elsewhere? Examples such as our continued use of torture both abroad and local (especially since solitary confinement is viewed as torture when it goes on longer than a few weeks), our continued life without parole imprisonment of non-violent offenders for miniscule crimes (3 strikes and you're out), our still imposing the death penalty, etc.

Or for our breaking international law in the various wars and attacks the US has undertaken without international backing? I mean, we're basically a rogue state in that regard, just, you know, big enough no one responds to it, same as Russia with the Crimea.

What exactly do you think it would take to deserve sanctions, if not those?

Guantanamo is still open, for one thing.

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