American reacts to 'The US Military is EVERYWHERE'

Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to The US Military is EVERYWHERE

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[arnodobler]

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” Mark Twain

[alexialu]

An Italian youtuber was arrested and all of his belongings were confiscated after he ate at a subway restaurant in a US military base.
The video was about visiting all of the fast food restaurants in his region of Friuli. He tried to contact a subway he found on google maps, which is strange because in Italy we don't have subway, and he found out that it was inside the military base because they answered him in english. He then asked on his instagram if any of his subscribers could make him access the base, since he is pretty famous he actually had a fan whose father was an american soldier and whose family lived at the base. The fan and his father picked the youtuber up and accessed the base without any problem since they had clearence and I don't think it's forbidden to bring visitors as long as they don't film. The whole video was very chill and they only visited the residential part of the base which was basically a small sized american town with an highschool, detached suburban homes, a mall with a food court and grocery stores etc.
The morning after he uploaded the video the police showed up at his door and he was brought to the station, his video was taken down and all of his equipment was confiscated, so I was one of the few lucky ones to see it.
It's pretty enraging that an Italian citizien was arrested because a foreign government told the italian police to do so.
Also, there have been many istances when the US military killed people in Italy by accident and they faced no consequence because of the deals between Italy amd the US.
So, from a certain POV, US military bases provide a good deterrent againt invaders, but the whole concession is not balanced at all, they should at least allow the italian military to be stationed there too and italian law should be applied to the base territory since theorically we are allies and not an occupied country.

[klamin_original]

9:10 that’s also something I heavily criticize about US bases for example in Germany. There are actually people who spend their whole childhood and youth in Germany but never experienced the country they lived in. Some of them say they felt like a tourist whenever they left their base.
It alienates the military personnel even more from the country they’re in and leads to rejection of Americans being in the country overall in the public opinion.
I also heavily dislike the fact that German jurisdiction ended at the gates of the bases and that military police was always on the roads around the bases to deal with American base members doing illegal things. It boggles my mind that a country has to allow special treatment of those people rather than having local police deal with everyone regardless of their status or nationality.
It’s the special treatment that again creates a rejective public opinion.

[klamin_original]

7:44 there’s a Wikipedia article on foreign military bases called “List of countries with overseas military bases” and you’d be surprised to find out that China only has 3 minor facilities around the globe.

Because why would they have military presence in other countries?! Who would let them in for what reasons?
Same for the other countries, if you look at the list of course there are countries like France or the UK running some form of military presence in former colonies or as part of support missions for national troops but they don’t simply plot their own military bases anywhere and behave as if their presence there was completely natural and always supposed to be there in the first place.

[roberttirpak]

I personally do not want to have ANY military base of a foreign government in my country.

Saying "it's for your own protection" is just a load of bull...

[Lysandra-]

very interesting topic
And to answer your questions:

What we think?
The German taxpayer pays around 1B € annually for these bases. I thought we'd at least have a strong ally by our side if shit happened. but no longer, it has to be elections in the US or a president saying: “Well guys, you're not paying/investing enough. I’m sorry, but you’re on your own now.”

what it's like to live next to a US Military base?
I was a kid in the 80's and where I lived and went to school there was a base with one of the two locations where the Pershing II was stationed. In a physics lesson we used a map to study the effects of a nuclear bombardment. Because these Pershings made us a target. I still remember how our teacher said "we're lucky, we would die instantly. Our whole village and a little further would just be a crater"

[klamin_original]

Proposal for European US bases:
Fully convert them into NATO bases.
We don’t need US presence here, all we need is NATO presence and training.

[hermannschaefer]

About 40 years ago, it was common in Germany to do a small student exchange. Visiting an American high school (just a few miles away) was like visiting another country - with students who knew NOTHING about the country they were actually living in - physically. It was a bizarre experience. And then when US students visited our school - well, all those clips on YouTube about stupid Americans who know nothing about the world.... yes, those clips are true, and those students were... uneducated on an unreal level. "Why don't you wear dirndls?" was one of the not-so-bad questions. The student assigned to me, who came home to us over lunch, wondered why we had TV. I didn't even got his question at first...

[embreis]

13:47 'what is even in here between Africa and Australia?' that, dear Ryan, would be the British Indian Ocean Territory of _Diego Garcia_ .'

[kerouac]

France kicked out all American military bases on its soil in the 1960's (also UK and Canadian bases). That's why NATO headquarters was transferred from Paris to Brussels.

One of my great uncles lived in former US military housing in the town of Etain. The whole area looks like a US suburb from the 1950s. I stayed in his house a number of times, and it was completely alien, set up the American way with French furniture and decorations trying to make it look a little more normal and failing.

[klamin_original]

The US military being present in many parts of the world is exactly the reason why many people don’t like the US. It’s not even on an ideology level, it’s not like all people not liking the US hate the US or their ideology, it’s much rather a practical disliking of the American military strategy and presence.
The US governments have interfered with a lot of countries internal politics, they financed and empowered the Taliban and Al-Qaida once, when they stopped that support the now declared terrorists turned their aggression towards the US. They invaded their former ally Iraq, they supported the overthrowing of several governments that simply weren’t in their favor
I‘d say if the US kept out of all those unnecessary missions the world would be in a better state than it is now.
World War II isn’t a question here, of course the US military was needed to support the (until then) losing allied forces. But the other conflicts they sometimes created themselves like in countries in the Middle East or in South America? Questionable.
And if the US governments had invested just a few percent of the military spending into compulsory public healthcare there would be much less issues with healthcare in the US.

[frgv]

Ryan, remember the mercator projection on maps. Things aren’t as big in reality near the poles.

[owennoad-watson]

These bases provide logistics for allies of America too so I'm not entirely against them but I do have an issue with the level of immunity that US civilians have in allied nations. Eg an American lady killed a kid here by driving on the wrong side of the road, went back to the base and was sent home with no way for us to hold her accountable for breaking local laws and killing someone. Just why. Things like this create tension amongst what should be allies

[potencjalnypracownik]

Someone show him video explaing why stuff up the north on the map looks bigger than it is.

[BradGryphonn]

I feel for you, man. Even I was flabbergasted by this video, and I'm an Australian, another country with many US installations.

[boradenizkusu]

I love the way you open the video like "hello, how you doin", its so simple yet yo do it so friendly, hello <3

[t.a.k.palfrey]

You may be surprised to know that the UK has military based in S Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and California. Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore also have training bases in the US. Peterson AFB in Colorado is a joint Canadian/American base.

[henleinkosh]

In case people want to know a bit more about Thule (the base in northern Greenland), during the cold war an amarican bomber carrying 4 nukes crashlanded there, and the initiating detonator of all 4 bombs went off, though thankfully the safety mechanisms held good so no nuclear detonation. However that meant that the bombs were cracked and a lot of the debris from the crash became radioactive. Did the USAF warn the civilian workers (mostly Danes and Greenlanders) of the situation or even give them basic protective gear before having them start the cleanup? Of course not. It became a big issue in Denmark.

[DaxRaider]

a german comedian (more political satire) said, "for the religious muslim is the deployment of american soldiers in the holy islam areas like it would be for a christian when taliban would be deployed in the vatican, we dont need to understand it we have to accept it" and thats a big thing here. alot of the american soldiers in the middle east are the reason that the fundamentalists targets the usa like with 9/11

[adamaalto-mccarthy]

The US did not win the second world war. (It was the video not me saying that). It was an allied effort.