Perhaps with a little bit history background it gets a little bit more clear. Germany lost WW2 and was divided between the allies (USA [south], France [west], UK [north], Russia [east]), the rest was given to Poland for their lost areas in the east which are now mostly Ukraina.
After the end of the cold war the British reduced their bases to 4 (and those will be gone by 2019 too), the Russians left 1994 and the French, I don't know, would need to look it up.
The US has afair about 40k troops in Germany. They use Germany for their bases to be closer to the hot spots like Iraq and Afganistan. You might say that 40k is not much, but the whole German Bundeswehr has only 186k soldiers, so 40k is quite a lot of foreign soldiers (+ the british and french leftovers). That is of course after a big reduction after the end of the cold war.
You could say that it does not explain or prove anything but it does. It explains why even if Germany were independent economy wise (which their are not) they still wouldn't be able to say "Fuck you NSA".
It is still meaningless in the context of this discussion because an actual military confrontation between the USA and Germany is not a realistic scenario no matter how the NSA thing washes out.
They could very much say "Fuck you NSA and the horse you rode in on and your little dog as well", and all it would lead to is lengthy diplomatic posturing and economic damage to both sides (and the USA is at least as dependant on Germany economywise as the other way round).
The important things are not easily proven. The important people of the world cover up, what they do and what power they have. Because, if they would do it openly, people would find out, that democracy is just a mock-up.
The weird thing is, had I read a comment like this two years ago I would just dismiss it as conspiracy theorist bullshit. Today I can't do that that easy anymore :-/
I too would have dismissed many things, that I know today as conspiracy bullshit. The point is, that we were educated (or should I say brainwashed) for centuries in a special way. But today I see, that it was a cover-up.
I too was convinced, that the west is so much better than say China or Russia ... Today I still don't like China and Russia, but things have changed ....
That image is very inaccurate. I can't accurately list all the installations that are shut down off the top of my head, but I am very certain that many of them are, i.e. Schwetzingen, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Stuttgarten, etc
