I know what you are talking about but these troops are just training - and they are cycled through when their classes are done.
For Example:
I was at Holloman AFB back in september and there were 5 or 600 German Air Force personnel there along with support, etc.
I think there are maybe 30, possibly 40 Tornado fighter jets there. In the week I was there the German aviators were polite, very good students and
very punctual and perhaps most important ... unarmed.
Training such as this is done all over the US, it's not a big deal. Actually it is a big deal - it's important that US allies who could be in any
potential conflict be on the same page as their US counterparts. Tactically, engagement strategies, policies and procedures, etc...
As you've no doubt noticed the US has a bad habit of unwittingly engaging their allies. The Canadians and Brits know of this all too well... (maybe
one of the reasons Canada sat out of the Iraq conflict and the Brits said they'd take southern Iraq and the US could handle everything else). So
joint training such as this is seen as important for this reason as well as good diplomatically.
Now when I go onto the internet and do a search for Holloman AFB and foriegn troops - you get all kinds of conspiracy theory stuff that is simply
absurd to one who has been there. In fact it borders on nationalistic racism.
As far as the UN being a force that would take the US over? In most UN sanctioned conflicts in it's history the US was the force behind the UN.
There's another thread here on ATS concerning 200,000 chinese troops on our border in Mexico... that's a bunch of poopy too... there is a chinese
listening post on the border down there and there are a few dozen support perosnnel. It's amazing how the rumour mill churns up big conspiracies out
of small mildly significant things.
Anyway, maybe I've got my proverbial head in a hole hiding from trouble like the ostrich or emu but this is just not reality.
[Edited on 15-1-2004 by intelgurl]