By Bill Maher

If I were to say to you that the German Army is woefully underprepared and financed, you might say that’s a good thing. After all, if the German Army were strong and prepared, Greece would be annexed by now.

But the Washington Post recently ran a story about just how useless the German Army is, noting that, during a recent NATO exercise, Germans had to hide their lack of available arms by using broomsticks that they’d painted black in the place of mounted heavy machine guns. Which sounds like something the Iraqi Army would do. Additionally, “out of 89 German fighter jets, only 38 were ready for use.”

So the Germans can’t hold a proper missile parade. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Because history.

But here’s why they can get away with not having a military that’s ready to fight: because we are their military. In 2013, Germany spent only 1.3 percent of its GDP on defense, because they don’t have to. Because we have their back. They can spend that money on infrastructure and green energy and those weird love festivals. America spends 3.8 percent (down from almost 5 percent in recent years) of its GDP on defense, and part of that is keeping nearly 40,000 troops stationed in Germany. Germany only has 181,000 active troops of its own, which means the size of its military doesn’t even rank in the top 20 globally. Deutschland under alles.

Well, Germany is a rich country. Maybe we’d like to spend less on their military and more on our own schools and infrastructure. And since it’s been 70 years since the end of WWII, and almost all the Nazis are dead or drooling somewhere in Paraguay, isn’t it time to revisit the idea of providing Europe with the military protection it can surely provide itself?