America’s policies create the impression that it does not need allies, only vassals, German lawmaker Sevim Dagdelen has warned
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Berlin must break with its “relationship of extreme subservience” to America and its foreign policies “marked by breaches of international law,” Sevim Dagdelen, the deputy head of the Left party’s faction in the Bundestag, said on Friday. Germany must demand that US forces withdraw, along with their nuclear weapons, she added.
“After 78 years, it is now time for the US soldiers to go home,” Dagdelen announced at a parliamentary event marking the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. The US military bases act “like extraterrestrial zones where the [German] constitution does not apply,” the MP, who is also a member of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said.
Washington uses its bases in Germany to wage wars abroad and launch “lethal drone strikes,” Dagdelen said, adding that some of these actions are “in breach of international law.”
She also criticized the regular NATO meetings at America’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where military aid to Kiev is discussed. Washington hosts these conferences “as if the Occupation Statute were still in force,” the MP said, adding that Berlin also allowed the US to put Germany “in the line of fire” with the German-made Leopard tank deliveries to Ukraine.
German lawmakers made a decision on the withdrawal of America’s nuclear weapons in 2010, but these arms are still in place, Dagdelen said. “We stand by our position: the US nuclear weapons must go,” she added.
“The US administration gives the impression that they do not want allies, just loyal vassals,” the MP said, pointing to America’s negligence toward its partners’ interests and demands. According to Dagdelen, “fewer and fewer countries around the world are prepared to accept this.” A true friendship should be based on mutual respect for human rights and international law, the MP added.
Germany hosts by far the largest number of US military personnel out of all European nations. Over 35,000 American troops were stationed on its soil as of 2022. Italy, which hosts the second-largest number of American soldiers, trails far behind, as around 12,000 US military personnel were stationed there at the same time.
