Our German Problem

The outgoing chancellor of Germany unloaded a juvenile rant on America (and Britain, too). (Via Instapundit)

So we defeated the Nazis in 1945 and instead of razing the country that spawned such hideous and murderous beliefs and salting the earth so that nothing as awful as Nazism could grow again, we built up West Germany into an ally.

Through the long Cold War, our soldiers stood on their border, daring the Soviets to attack and declaring our willingness to risk New York to defend West Berlin and Bonn.

And when we won that long struggle, we supported reunification of West and East Germany when the Soviets warned against it and when the sophisticated analysts warned that it would be too destabilizing.

And what did we get when we needed Germany to just shut the hell up when we decided to take down Saddam? Hatred and insults for cheap electoral advantage. We didn't even ask for military help. Just act like a damn ally. And the German people ate it up in 2002. You'd think the Germans would be ashamed of themselves for this monumental ingratitude.

But his German audience appeared to back his outgoing rant.

We should have insisted that East Germany remain a separate country. It might have become a friendly country as other East Europeans became instead of a source of socialist voters to drag Germany to the left. I guess we were stupid to expect the Germans to be thankful for what we did for them. We effed up. We trusted them.

Is it too mean spirited to regret that we pounded the Germans only twice in the last century?