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Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

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Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#301

Post by pydry »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #287
kX4A8o4mVmX8aW wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S.'s historical strategy has been to find or create some credible faction wherever it wanted to meddle and then support it using any means necessary, ethical or otherwise, and coerce other countries to go along with it. In purely internal matters such as against the Native American populations it sometimes bothered with some fig leaf legal cover but other times it would just take what it wanted in the most brut…

Even if you accept that votes can be taken by anybody and whenever, yes, you need international observer. Otherwise the vote will go the direction of whoever can coerce the locals the hardest. That's not democracy, that's not "the will of the people", that's a sham.

Gallup asked crimeans were asked if they believed it was a sham and 90% said no.

85% agreed with the result.

Russia didnt run that poll. We did. No troops were standing behind the answerers. It agreed entirely with the result of the referendum.

If we hypothesize coercion or fraud in crimea the poll would have disagreed with the results. It didnt.

Coming up with ever thinner pretexts for rejecting the result of this referendum is simply a rejection of democracy - that thing we are supposed to be fighting for.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#302

Post by pydry »

kX4A8o4mVmX8aW wrote: post #283
pydry wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If self-determination were absolute then for example the U.S. could get any territory it wanted by using its immense wealth to buy off local residents. I mean, yeah. Thats how panama was born for example. Colombia was kinda mad about it at the time but of all the things the US gets shit for its not even in the top 10. The US also tried to do something similar (and failed) to Kaliningrad. Only Russia objected. Theres…

The U.S.'s historical strategy has been to find or create some credible faction wherever it wanted to meddle and then support it using any means necessary, ethical or otherwise, and coerce other countries to go along with it. In purely internal matters such as against the Native American populations it sometimes bothered with some fig leaf legal cover but other times it would just take what it wanted in the most brut…

>You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries?

I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.

>How often can these votes be held?

Not sure if theres a clear answer to that. If enough of the population wants a vote i guess there should be one.

If there is one and 90% arent voting for the status quo there clearly needed to be one.

>Do they require international observation?

Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.

If observers are absent and theres no evidence of fraud or coercion though thats not a good enough reason to reject a vote, especially when the result isnt close.

In crimea i find the "international observers" argument especially disingenuous though. The two sides were "referendum without western observers" (Russia) and "no referendum at all, ever" (Kyiv/West).

Ive heard hundreds if not thousands of people reject the idea that the crimean referendum was valid because of a lack of western observers. Not a single one of them rejected kyiv's position that there shouldnt be a referendum at all.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#303

Post by kX4A8o4mVmX8aW »

pydry wrote: post #302
kX4A8o4mVmX8aW wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S.'s historical strategy has been to find or create some credible faction wherever it wanted to meddle and then support it using any means necessary, ethical or otherwise, and coerce other countries to go along with it. In purely internal matters such as against the Native American populations it sometimes bothered with some fig leaf legal cover but other times it would just take what it wanted in the most brut…

>You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries? I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%. >How often can these votes be held? Not sure if theres a clear answer to that. If enough of the population wants…

> I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.

The normal legality is that a state is governed by a national constitution that requires some supermajority to make major changes. Participating in a government formed by that constitution implies consent to it. If Ukrainian Crimea wanted to leave Ukraine then they could have looked for national support according to both regular and constitutional law. If they couldn't get the national votes then that's all there is to it. Democracy in action.

There are areas in the U.S. that heavily favor one party or the other, including rural border counties that went for Trump well over 80% in 2020. If one of these counties voted to secede after Biden won, that vote would simply have been illegal under laws they themselves had previously consented to. If prior to the secession vote some other country had sent passports and then troops to seize government buildings and "secure fair elections" or whatever, that would have been both ridiculous and hostile.

> Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.

Venezuelans or most anyone else are free to come into the U.S. and observe voting stations from the outside like any other private person who isn't actively casting a vote, and conduct whatever exit polls they can convince people to take.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#304

Post by dang »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #292
dang wrote: post #234

We have profound respect for other languages, but HN is an English-language site and articles here need to be in English. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

But paywalls somehow are allowed?

That's answered in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. If you read that and still have a question, there's more explanation here:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#305

Post by m00dy »

tuukkah wrote: post #272
xhevahir wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a very big and complicated undertaking, both politically and militarily. Turkey has NATO's second-largest army, for one thing.

Turkey is second-largest based on manpower, right? Time to update that ranking soon: Turkey 775,000 vs Finland 937,000 military personnel available

hahahha :D You missed the fact that every turk born as a soldier when it comes to availability :)

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#306

Post by Consultant32452 »

golergka wrote: post #300
Consultant32452 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 25 years, which country in the world has invaded the most countries and slaughtered the most people in those countries they invaded? NATO/US is a far greater risk to the world than Russia, even if you might think Putin the person is more evil than Biden the person.

> invaded If we're talking about moral side of thins, then this word should be read as "unjustifiably invaded, violating international law" and US haven't actually done it once in the last 25 years. > NATO/US is a far greater risk to the world Only if you invade your neighbours that have defence treaties with US or partake in genocide. Not something that I, or anyone else, minds.

Did you know the US is partaking in a genocide in Yemen as we speak? And committing war crimes with cluster bombs to boot.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#307

Post by bayesian_horse »

actionfromafar wrote: post #99
adolph wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they aren't then what's the problem? On the other hand, if the PKK is able to fundraise in Sweden and Finland like the IRA used to be able to in the US, then it seems logical for Turkey to use whatever leverage they have to decrease that activity, similar to GB. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/03/22/i...

Turkey sees YPG as a subsidiary to PKK. Others don't necessarily agree.

The history of Turkish forces prosecuting Kurdish civilians makes the whole matter extremely murky. Even the PKK does have quite legitimate and understandable goals and motivations, though it has been criticized for its methods which could be called "terrorism". But the same can be said of the Turkish state.

As a total outsider I see the situation as somewhat related to the Palestinian struggle: The more you are struggling for basic survival in the face of aggression, oppression and poverty, the less energy and motivation there is to curb the excesses of extremists in the own ranks.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#308

Post by jessaustin »

mcv wrote: post #175
ericmay wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd definitely be kicked out at this point if push came to shove. No doubt about that. There's no value in a member who doesn't cooperate. Both Finland and Sweden are very much aligned with the rest of NATO and if member states object to them joining you basically set the precedent that one member state (that's not the US/UK) can hold the group hostage. There's no way that would be tolerated, regardless of the str…

I really don't think so. Turkey is in a very strategic location. Turkey has leverage and a very good chance of getting the concessions they want. Which is sad, because I care about the Kurds, and they seemed to be one of the few good, humane groups in Syria.

Also Turkey has the best attack drones now. They beat previous-generation Russian equipment in Nagorno-Karabakh, now they're pretty effective against current Russian equipment in Ukraine. USA and our vassals don't want any of that medicine.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#309

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #275
giorgosts wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they mutually recognize each others occupied lands as "sovereign states" the context would be pretty obvious. (Turkey to recognize the Russian backed separatists in Ukraine and Russia to recognize the Turkish backed separatists in North Cyprus). Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

> Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Super disingenuous considering that Greece was the initial country to invade and that multiple UN-brokered solutions to the problem have been supported by the Turkish side only to have been voted down by Greek cypriots. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annan_Plan

[deleted]

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#310

Post by giorgosts »

whimsicalism wrote: post #275
giorgosts wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they mutually recognize each others occupied lands as "sovereign states" the context would be pretty obvious. (Turkey to recognize the Russian backed separatists in Ukraine and Russia to recognize the Turkish backed separatists in North Cyprus). Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

> Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Super disingenuous considering that Greece was the initial country to invade and that multiple UN-brokered solutions to the problem have been supported by the Turkish side only to have been voted down by Greek cypriots. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annan_Plan

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1617660/Boris-Johnson-Nato-expansion-Turkey-crisis-North-Cyprus-Sweden-update

Apparently, the Turks included the recognition of the occupied (by them) North Cyprus as one of the terms for agreeing to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

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