Well … to be honest I consider 1990 the year in which occupation ended and Germany got its full sovereignty back (with the 2+4 talks and reunification).

Technically that doesn’t matter at all because all through the cold war West-German and US interests were very tightly aligned (and when interests diverged a bit the US did give West-Germany enough freedom, though they hardly ever diverged much).

I mean, West-Berlin was most certainly occupied until 1990. It’s just that that was an occupation hardly anyone had a problem with.

The US has bases in countries all over the world as part of military agreements. From 1955, W. Germany has them as a NATO member vs. the Warsaw Pact countries. They're not occupations unless the armies establish control over the countries.

The US still has some of its largest overseas bases in Germany; see http://militarybases.com/overseas/germany/

Ahh, so it's forward deployment, not some modern version of colonialism. It should be noted that US bases aren't always loved or even well tolerated. See Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan et al.

The US doesn't have any military bases in Iraq.

The Japanese could certainly ask us to leave, and we would. But they don't, because except for a vocal minority they do want us there.

And Afghanistan is a war zone. I wouldn't consider that anything but an occupation. Which, I might add, they brought on themselves, so I don't have much sympathy.

Yes indeed, legally declining to extradite someone totally justifies being invaded and occupied.

In this case it was. Absolutely. One of the duties of a government is to control what goes on in its territory. Legally we had an iron-clad casus belli.

Legally, the UN charter and thus US law makes it clear invading another country can be done in self-defense or by approval of the security council. Neither of those conditions were met. Legally, you're talking nonsense. The U.S. government knew this. They labelled Taliban troops terrorist-supporters rather than soldiers so that they could ignore the law. Invading a country and bombing big lumps of it into oblivion and then occupying it for a decade because you fear a handful of non-state actors who might or might not be inside it; both illegal and fucking ridiculous, and far more damaging to the US than a grown-up response would have been.

>Legally, the UN charter and thus US law makes it clear invading another country can be done in self-defense or by approval of the security council. Neither of those conditions were met.

Nonsense. That's as clear a case of self defense as you're going to find.

The Taliban, assuming they weren't in league with al-Qaeda, violated Niven's Law 1b, "Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."

I've lived in Heidelberg for a while (with Germans) and I don't think the Americans there were really well seen. The MP cars in the streets (or the US imported cars in general), flying italian bottled water to US then back to Germany to avoid paying taxes, the fact that many American people born on German territory (children of military families) don't even bother to learn german, the gated communities etc. Plus the fact that the Iraq and Afganistan operation where headquartered there, the resentment seemed quite high.

(I just googled it and I see it's deactivated on april 1st 2013 actually)

> It is also worth pointing out that the occupation of Germany ended in 1955.

Interestingly, though, Germany never signed a peace treaty with the US. It only signed a "cease-fire" with the US to end the war. :)

Luckily, the US hasn't declared war since Vietnam anyway.

The US hasn't declared war since the Second World War. Neither Vietnam nor Korea was declared as it is described in the US Constitution (that Congress shall declare war).

Weren't both Vietnam and Korea wars the US was simply involved in, instead of them declaring war against someone / a nation / a government? Similarly, Iraq and Afghanistan, iirc the US merely cooperated with the UN to er. Do something with those countries.

For Iraq as far as I remember the UN was opposed to any intervention. They went on their own.

No military bases in Iraq.. I'd better get with the times, good point. Got the hell out of that mess - the same will be said of Afghanistan shortly.