FYP (From someone who has lived in Europe for a few years)

Funny how you can substitute almost any country or area and it works.

Guys,

IT'S AN ARBITRARY ****ING LINE DRAWN ON A MAP THAT MEANS NOTHING EXCEPT WHICH MAFIA GANG YOU PAY YOUR PROTECTION MONEY TOO!

There's no such thing as a country only people. Why would any sane person have any allegiance to lines on a map drawn hundreds of years ago?

"well my unicorn is better than you're unicorn because it's made of rainbows"

"oh yeah? My unicorn is 10X better than yours it ****s buttercups."

f off

The following is a list of countries that allow a U.S. military presence in them. As such, these countries are all just as responsible for the actions of the U.S. military as the U.S. is and all belong on this "torture list" until such a time as they reject the U.S. military and expel them from their countries.

Canada
Germany
Greenland
Guam
Italy
Japan
Kyrgyzstan
The Netherlands
Panama
The Philippines
Spain
The United Kingdom
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic
Honduras
El Salvador
Columbia
Equador
Peru
Iceland
Paraguay
Romania
Bulgaria
Turkey
Greece
Hungary
Morocco
Egypt
Senegal
Somalia
Kenya
Macedonia
Albania
Bosnia
Croatia
Belgium
Australia
Georgia
Saudi Arabia
Israel
Jordan
Oman
UAE
Kuwait
Kazakhstan
Turkmenistan
Tajikistan
Pakistan
Thailand
Malasia
Indonesia

List may not be complete

On behalf of all hetero male Canadians.... we are deeply sorry.

Alex,

Allow?

Yes, allow. Plenty of countries out there with no U.S. military presence. France, Brazil, India, China, Russia, etc. etc.

Lol. I hope you understand how stupid this sounds and i hope you will explain it further. And yes, you have missed at least one country (although that's debatable because military was not really invited there) and you have mentioned two non existing countries.

False.

The "torture list" is a list of countries that that Canadian government thinks are "risky" for Canadian diplomats on the basis that those countries engage in torture practices and therefore the diplomats are at risk of being tortured.

The purpose of the list is important to consider. What you are saying is that Canadian diplomats should be worried that Canadian officials might torture them, which is ridiculous.

The "torture list" in not a list of countries Canada thinks are guilty of torture.

ZOMG US responds!!!!11!

New cold war imo.

What's stupid about it? It's called aiding and abetting. Maybe "just as responsible" is an exaggeration, but they definitely share in the responsibility.

I intentionally left out Iraq and Afghanistan.

O RLY? Which ones?

It might sound strange, but i have some problems with saying that South Korea should be responsible for torturing in Guantanamo.

Guam and Greenland.

In political geography and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government. There are dozens of non-sovereign territories (subnational entities, another form of political division or administrative division within the expanse [realm or scope] of a larger nation-state) which constitute cohesive geographical entities, some of which are former countries, but which are not sovereign states. Most of these nowadays even have a great deal of autonomy and local governments but such do not constitute a nation as they are possessions of such states — as several states have overseas dependencies, with territory and citizenry separate from their own.

Greenland became an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark in 1953. It was granted home rule by the Folketing (Danish parliament) in 1978. The law went into effect on May 1, 1979. The Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, remains Greenland's Head of State. Greenlandic voters subsequently chose to leave the European Economic Community upon achieving self-rule. A referendum on further self-rule is scheduled for 25 November 2008.

Guam, officially the Territory of Guam, is an island in the Western Pacific Ocean and is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States. - wikipedia

You're right about Guam, wrong about Greenland. It's an independent country within the Danish Commonwealth, like Canada or Australia is to the UK.

Nope. Greenland is just a self governing province with it's represents in Danish parliament and is officially part of Denmark. Using Isle of Man (or even Scotland) status would be much more appropriate for your example than Canada or Australia. But that's not important here.

The question was regarding responsibility of other countries for crimes made by US military. So, are you trying to say that South Korea should be responsible for torturing in Guantanamo? (if it would happen in case you don't admit them)

Yes, they are partly responsible. They choose to support the U.S. military. All these countries are more than happy to use the U.S. military in ways that help them but then reject them and say "no, that's bad, don't do that, you're bad people, but oh, by the way, keep defending us and it's not like we're actually going to do anything about you doing that bad thing, it's just good for us to say that for public relations". It's insanely hypocritical. Any country that actually thinks the U.S. is doing something wrong should immediately withdraw their support of the U.S. military. That they don't just shows that their words are mere lip service.

If 20 people get together and decide to blow up the World Trade Center, is the 20th guy responsible for his part in it, since it would have happened anyway if he didn't show up that day? The 19th? The 18th? Is anyone responsible?

I wasn't meaning to single your response out so much as to comment on the dismissive tone of everyone's response in general, the "who-are-you-to-question-what-we-do" attitude.

And yes, I could probably take things less seriously. But it would be nice to get some content in a "Politics" forum, too.

This tread sucks worse than Canada

Others would call it paying room and board. It is not free to feed, clothe, and shelter convicts.

I do agree though that the US has far too many inmates, many due to crappy drug laws.

Your argument is really bad because it's much more complex than that. Also, it's attempt to avoid the real issue, which is that the US is torturing people and that's ****ed up. To try and reverse that it throw it back at countries which have allowed US military presence in them is a fair bit assisnine. Especially considering that when these countries allowed US presence the US was not a torturing state.

There are some other major problems with your argument. Many of the countries on the list have been indirectly controlled (well, have had control influenced) by US foreign policy and as thus don't have a lot of choice about allowing US bases on their sole. I'm thinking of countries like Chile (US created a coup there), Brazil (same thing), and the Philipines (US conquered them and controlled them for a few years... real nice of you).

My last point is that you argue that the presence of US bases in these countries is at the request of said country for defense of said country. That may be true in some cases, but moreso than not, it is not true. The truth is that US has requested that said country allow them to place bases on their soil for strategic reasons (US strategic reasons), and because these countries don't want to piss off the US due to economic reasons they abide. Defense is probably a partial reason.

Of course it is.

Nope, I have no interest in avoiding that issue. It is really screwed up. And it's also really screwed up that so many countries support the U.S. on this in reality while paying lip service to those who hate the U.S. for it.

Nothing is forcing them to continue to allow the U.S. presence. Even if there's some treaty that says "must allow U.S. base until 2020", they could at least make some kind of announcement that that treaty will not be renewed due to U.S. actions.

B.S. If they told the U.S. to get out, the U.S. would have to get out or face serious damage to their foreign relations.

There is no U.S. presence in Brazil. Also, I had nothing to do with the Philippines.

So you agree. They choose to accept the presence of this military that they claim to hate for their own personal profit.

Severe long-term sleep deprivation + long-term stress positions = torture. Not significantly different than the medieval technique of locking people in cramped cages suspended from the ceiling.