There was some discussion on plausible NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. At that point the disucssion was based on guestimates from media. But now it's official. This is not the NATO membership application, but a statement from the political leadership in Finland that they support and suggest parliament proceeds with the application process with maximum urgency. The President and Prime Minister of Finland have p…
Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
But will Russia really win? As of the last that I saw, Ukraine was doing remarkably well in getting Russian forces to pull back from many positions they initially captured, and what they have captured has cost them considerably. A German invasion of Poland this is definitely not in terms of agility. It's more like Italy's invasion of Greece, but without a bigger power to step in and take the reins. Putin can try othe…
So instead, unless Ukraine acceeds to their demands, they will get more and more bloody and bomb it to the ground. If that is the only course of action afforded to them, that is what they will do - as they have done in Afghanistan and Chechnya before.
This is monstrous and disturbing, but doing otherwise is seen as an existential threat to Russia. They have already shown they lack the power to pose any kind of threat to NATO (beyond nukes of course), so their only hope is to go all in on this.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK kicking someone out of NATO is very difficult. Otherwise I suspect that about 5 years ago Turkey would have been at risk of being removed.
Not just difficult, it impossible. There’s no provisions for removal. The closest thing to kicking someone out of NATO would be all the other countries simultaneously withdrawing and forming NATO 2.0.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really need to ask why? Because Ukraine is on the doorstep of Europe, that's why Europeans care more, and by proxy the US. As for Iraq, yes people did care, there were large protests in London and Tony Blair is still hated by the general public in the UK. I don't know the real feeling in the US. The UK government didn't listen because Tony wanted his ego boost on the world stage. The only NATO backed war of th…
> I don't know the real feeling in the US. About half of us called bullshit the instant "WMDs" were paraded as the reason to go to war. And I think the other half have, over time, come to see the whole operation as a regretful waste of time, money, and lives. So, no, I don't think there are any fans of the U.S. invasion of Iraq still around. Some of us are still incensed by the lies that were trotted out though.
this is the only point i'm trying to make. suppose tomorrow biden comes up and wants to invade iran for example. will american public lap it up like they have for the last so many decades, thats there but what about the rest of the world community? how many will arm IRAN against USA when they know USA to be the one who is invading? who will fight alongside USA?
USA or for that matter, "Allies" do not have the moral upper hand in the world, no one has. every nation is the same so why not accept that as a reality and move on?
russia may indeed be the bad guy here. heck, putin might be personally responsible for murder of thousands but so is bush and obama so how does that give usa the right ?
one commenter said "after 9/11 usa had to do something" and they invaded a soverign nation, destroyed it because a single person was responsible? its fine when usa takes revenge but russia cant defend its borders?
i am not a troll, i am not a paid/unpaid actor. i just want to point out that there is propaganda on both sides, thats all
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Hungary and it's seemingly pro-Russian leader, Orban? They could vote against.
Vetos are somewhat overrated. Agents may have the right to veto, but might not have the power to deal with the consequences. Russia has a UN veto and uses it, because they can weather the consequences. Could Hungary piss off all of its allies, trade partners, basically everyone but Russia? Doubtful. Hungary is playing a skillful, if somewhat devious, game of balancing between Russia and the West. But an outright FU t…
It's not a coincidence that von der leyen wants to change the voting system from hunanimity to majority. They don't like to lose, and the rules are fine only as long as they can do what they want.
So vetoes have more power than you would let us think.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
Providing evidence and arguments to support your claims is not "spoonfed bootlicking". Your claim was: "NATO is a war-crime committing, human-rights abusing entity." The first seems to be a link collecting data points for civilian casualties. I don't see any NATO actions on there; and in any case it's missing the further evidence that war crimes and human rights abuse occurred. The second page, on the front page anyw…
Airwars tracks civilian casualties of war. These casualties - war crimes and crimes against humanity - are committed by NATO members and aligned states almost every single day . NATO bases are used to launch the attacks. NATO resources are used to cover up the crimes. Clearly, you're not asking for this information in good faith, or else you'd have discerned this already, even with a casual look at the Airwars report…
That's not the same as committed by NATO.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Croatia doesn't have any real influence in NATO so nobody will be obliged to listen Unfortunately, same applied when that drone with explosives fell in the middle of Zagreb. Deafening silence from NATO.
Yeah. If that happened in Berlin, we'd have WW3 by now.
Had that happened in any other nation surrounding Ukraine that would have been the case, too; it's odd why they let that slip. Are we really to believe that if Serbia decided to attack again on some absurd notion of Russian loyalty or whatever they wouldn't defend Croatia despite being a NATO member?
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#528"When we look across the border now, we see a Finn on the other side. If Finland joins NATO, we will see an enemy." Putin to a Finnish journalist in 2016 according to Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in an interview with the German magazine 'Der Spiegel' https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/finnish-president... I guess, the russians are finnished.
is he wrong? the sole purpose of NATO is to counter Russia. that's why it was formed in the first place (against the Soviet Union, at that time).
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is certainly not on Russia's side in this conflict. https://hungarytoday.hu/orban-hungary-ukraine-conflict-eu/
He is as close to it as politically possible.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody asked about your opinion of NATO, answer the question.
Yes, NATO-aligned states do currently commit war crimes and crimes against humanity at heinous scale - with seeming impunity - and there is nothing to indicate this would change in their battle against Russia. Sanctions - factually, crimes against humanity since they collectively punish an entire nation - are already evidence of the intentions of the West in dealing with Russia: to see its destruction.
Notice the constant careful weasel-wording.