Twelve thousand five hundred

by Volker Weber

What is 12500? The number of German police needed to protect the POTUS during his visit in Germany. This number does not include his own troops, the warship outside of Stralsund and the fighter jets. Business as usual: A thousand sewers welded shut, all cars removed from garages and private property, no windows must be opened alongside his potential routes.

Welcome, Mr. President. It could be worse. You could be visiting France.

Comments

Most expensive BBQ... Die Welt ist verrückt. Gestern wurden Anwohner des Stralsunder Marktplatzes im Regionalfernsehen sogar davor gewarnt, an Ihre Fenster zu treten... Was wohl allein die Jets kosten, die hier den ganzen Tag rumlärmen?
Hoffentlich sind er und seine Entourage schnell wieder weg; im Falle eines "Zwischenfalls" muß ich die ganze Woche meine Tochter aus der Kita holen, da Mama längeres Verweilen im Schockraum angedroht wurde...

Mir ist auch völlig schleierhaft, wie einige lokale Politiker dazu kommen, aus dem Besuch einen Benefit für den regionalen Tourismus abzuleiten: Gibt es so viele Masochisten, die gerne Stacheldraht sehen oder bäuchlings die Arme von sich strecken?

Martin Kautz, 2006-07-12

In the night England played in Stuttgart during the World Cup there were a total of 1900 policemen working to deal with hooligans and they arrested 375. Mr. Bush gets a total of 12500 policemen ergo Mr. Bush is as dangerous as 2467 English hooligans.

Ralph Unden, 2006-07-12

Now, does that qualify him as a terrorist?

Ragnar Schierholz, 2006-07-12

Hab vorhin das ARD Mittagsmagazin geschaut und die meinten nur, dass der komplette Einsatz wohl rund 16 Millionen Euro kostet.
Die haben sie sie doch nicht mehr alle oder? Was soll das? Unsere Steuergelder fuer so einen S**** auszugeben.

Patrick Mosby, 2006-07-12

Let them panic. Throw firecrackers.

Karsten W. Rohrbach, 2006-07-12

Great idea, especially after the population has been asked not to stand next to the window. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Volker Weber, 2006-07-12

so, if you celebrate a child party and some ballons explode, they will fire Mavericks into your house? Wow... hot party .-)

Robert Basic, 2006-07-12

Does it ever come to the president's mind, why he seems to need this amount of protection? I seriously doubt so.

Frank Dröge, 2006-07-12

this morning 7.10am when i sat down on my table in the office (i can see most of the wismar bay from my windows) i started making dashes for every fighterplane and dots for every military helicopter that passed by.

i stopped at 24 dashes and 21 dots. i stopped at 11.20am.

wonder how long i could have been driving with all that gas.

dietmar kneidl, 2006-07-12

@Frank: what I find much more astonishing is why the host (in this case the Federal Republic of Germany) gives in to the pressure and actually goes to all this trouble and expense to "protect" a single person, irrespective of how important "he" thinks he is.

Jan-Piet Mens, 2006-07-12

Jan-Piet: If we wouldn't protect him in a way he feels he needs to be protected, of course he would offer to bring his own protection. However if there were 12500 american soldiers running around and there is an incident you wouldn't want to have them beating down a german crowd and making arrests. That would definitely be politically dangerous.

Ralph Unden, 2006-07-13

Well, he called Merkel "a friend". That's worth quite something, isn't it?

Philipp Sury, 2006-07-13

"why he seems to need this amount of protection"?

Easy: PR & Marketing logic
=> big protection = "he" is in danger = USA is in danger = we all are in danger from terrorists = we must work together

you must always sell your things, not only commercial organisations ;-)

Robert Basic, 2006-07-13

Wherever I need 12.500 people plus everything but the kitchen sink to protect me, I'm obviously not welcome.

And if 'wherever' is about everywhere I go...maybe I'd better stay at home and stop travelling to all those foreign countries that I don't really understand anyway.

Those Germans don't even have oil, so why bother?

Frank Dröge, 2006-07-13

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