My point with Germany and most western 'democracies' is the illusion of choice.
I also believe our governments are not always truthful with us and, if necessary, will lie to us to further their own ends. Dragging us into destructive wars at terrible costs being one.
The belief in the West that we should intervene and spread 'liberal democracy', almost that 'we know best, honest' has caused no ends of grief. Christ - there is a reason for Gaddafi, Assad, etc Strong men are needed to control certain countries - David Starkey once said 'People don't like being ''freed'' 'and if you think about it there is much truth in that statement. They do want 'liberal democracy'. Have people ever stopped to think about that? The Western media didn't even cover the anti-Christian violence in Syria in the early days of the Arab Spring, a journalist at the time asked another why and he said 'Its not sexy enough'. Assad again isn't perfect but if he gets removed in some Gaddafi style manner - it will be the end of the Christian minority there - make no bones about it.
Putin is a dictator. So? Sever all ties with Russia? Have we done that with other countries with terrible Human rights records? - China, Israel, Saudi Arabia but hey the latter have women drivers now, so that makes it ok I guess.
What really irritates me the most is media outlets talking about 'Dirty Russian money' flooding London but dirty Arab money is totally acceptable. The industrial might going into mosque and madrassa building in this country from Wahabist teaching from Saudi Arabia and Qatar is bad enough, the money from Pakistani into Deobandi extremist mosques (over 800 from the last count) is even worse. Just as orthodox as Wahabism but hardly anyone talks about it - teaching young children to despise the Kuffar but we worry about Russia who 'attempted' such a brilliant assassination that one; doesn't get the job done and second, leaves an easily detectable nerve agent which was then identified in a lab' 8 miles up the road from the targets home!
This isn't a possible Iraq we are talking about here - we are talking possible destruction - the sheer magnitude is incalculable. I am just questioning such apparent certainty.