NATO Expands further

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Sherlock Holmes

NATO Expands further

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Well Finland and now Sweden have announced their desire and intention to apply for NATO membership.

That such a decisions is not made via a national referendum is a subversion of democracy, the consequences are potentially huge and every adult in the country should have had a voice in this.

The Western media constantly babble about Putin and Russia "want to reestablish the old Russian empire" while right under our noses the military force (dominated by the non-European USA) NATO continues its perverse growth.

There is nothing to stop any country from developing a treaty with other nations that guarantee military support if attacked, much as Poland had with Britain at the start of WW2.

It is simply not necessary to join NATO, there are other far less contentious options, all of this bodes ill IMHO.

So, should NATO continue to expand and continue to accept members from states bordering Russia?
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Mon May 16, 2022 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Russia Expands Further, like Hitler and the USSR

Post #61

Post by Diogenes »

In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 Russia agreed to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of nuclear weapons and turning them over to Russia for 'decommissioning.' Russia first broke its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum in 2014, with its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. The international response at the time was tepid, inviting more Russian aggression and their current war against the rest of Ukraine.

The text of the Memorandum is available online.
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetai ... 0280401fbb
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication ... -52241.pdf
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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Russia Expands Further, like Hitler and the USSR

Post #62

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Diogenes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 1:53 pm In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 Russia agreed to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine getting rid of nuclear weapons and turning them over to Russia for 'decommissioning.' Russia first broke its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum in 2014, with its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. The international response at the time was tepid, inviting more Russian aggression and their current war against the rest of Ukraine.

The text of the Memorandum is available online.
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetai ... 0280401fbb
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication ... -52241.pdf
Crimea held a referendum on national independence and the vote was a "Yes". Kiev and the West did not accept or support the independence vote.

There is of course a back-and-forth in all this, it is geopolitics, I no more regard Russia as honorable than I do NATO, they are both engaged in geopolitics and NATO's hands are just as dirty as Russia's if one takes a long, honest, hard look at it all. The undue emphasis on Russia and complete absence of serious scrutiny on NATO by the Westerns propaganda press/media is the bigger problem here. We have been and will be lied to, don't say I didn't warn you !

Sherlock Holmes

Re: NATO Expands further

Post #63

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Think for a moment, why are we dedicating and expediting 40 Billion dollars of tax payer money to weapons in a war half way around the globe when mothers in our own country can't even buy baby formula?

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Re: Russia is a Rogue State

Post #64

Post by Diogenes »

Virtually every country has condemned the Russian war of aggression and imperialism against Ukraine, including countries friendly to the regime. Even countries dependent on Russian gas and oil have condemned Putin and given aid to Ukraine.
China is allied economically with Russia but has stayed silent.
Only Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuala and Belarus, authoritarian states with horrible records on human rights and/or heavily dependent on Russia are the only countries openly supporting Russia's genocide and war crimes against Ukraine's democracy.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation ... 22748.html
Image
Putin has squarely put himself in the category of Stalin and Hitler. Unfortunately the Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green 'America First' movement that supported Hitler in 1939 (and at least as late as 1941) is still alive in America.
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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Russia is a Rogue State

Post #65

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Diogenes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:27 pm Virtually every country has condemned the Russian war of aggression and imperialism against Ukraine, including countries friendly to the regime. Even countries dependent on Russian gas and oil have condemned Putin and given aid to Ukraine.
China is allied economically with Russia but has stayed silent.
Only Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuala and Belarus, authoritarian states with horrible records on human rights and/or heavily dependent on Russia are the only countries openly supporting Russia's genocide and war crimes against Ukraine's democracy.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation ... 22748.html
Image
Putin has squarely put himself in the category of Stalin and Hitler. Unfortunately the Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green 'America First' movement that supported Hitler in 1939 (and at least as late as 1941) is still alive in America.
Image

Image
More countries are opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land than opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

156 UN nations affirm West Bank settlements, east J'lem not part of Israel.

141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UN

Do you have anything to say about Israeli crimes? are you as outraged as you are over Russia? Do you think the West should supply the Palestinians with tanks, anti aircraft missiles, ammunition, rockets? so that they can fight off the Israeli aggressors? Perhaps NATO should move in, bomb Tel Aviv? How about brutal sanctions against Israel?

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Re: NATO Expands further

Post #66

Post by The Barbarian »

The Barbarian wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 12:36 pm Ethnic cleansing is genocide, not a way to stop it. As you know, Putin had no reason at all to imagine genocide is taking place against ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Few people were gullible enough to believe that. That was the same story Hitler peddled to take over Czechoslovakia.

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:26 am And likewise NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999. The FBI and war crimes forensic teams and Carla Del Ponte all agree, there was no evidence of genocide, yet NATO bombed for two months on the claim there was genocide.
Well, let's take a look...
Kosovo:
https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/global/ ... ument.html

Bosnia
With skin hanging limp across broken skeletons, these grisly remains are yet more evidence of the bloodlust that gripped the former Yugoslavia in the early-Nineties.

Two decades after Serb soldiers carried out house-to-house searches in a campaign of ethnic killings in Bosnia, investigators are digging up what could turn out to be the largest mass grave from the war.

The remains of 360 people have so far been found at the Tomasica mass grave, which was discovered last month near the town of Prijedor, 162 miles north-west of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

That number, already far more than authorities expected, is expected to rise and could even one day surpass the 629 bodies found at Crni Vrh in Srebrenica

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... grave.html
Did you know that more ethnic Albanians were killed by that bombing than by Serb forces?
Show us your evidence.

The number of victims whose bodies have been burned or destroyed may never be known, but enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces.
https://1997-2001.state.gov/global/huma ... epage.html
If NATO can just claim there's genocide when there really wasn't and start dropping bombs then why can't Russia?
Once you start assuming things not in reality, any story is equally plausible.
Finally NATO actually did not start bombing because of "genocide"
Sounds like a testable assumption. Let's take a look...
On 24
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 1:13 pmThe campaign was launched after all diplomatic avenues had failed. Operation Allied Force was suspended by NATO on 10 June 1999 — lasting just 78 days — once it had a Military Technical Agreement that included Yugoslavia’s immediate end to violence and withdrawal of its military, police and paramilitary forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bomb ... Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commences air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians on March 20.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-his ... yugoslavia

Led by the United States, warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on this day in 1999 began a bombing campaign against Serbian military targets in the former Yugoslavia. The air raids, President Bill Clinton said, were aimed at halting widespread evidence of urban cleansing — the worst such outbreak in Europe since World War II — being perpetrated by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. They ended after 10 weeks when the Serbians agreed to a peace accord that called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/ ... 24-1231269
exercise for you, why did NATO start bombing Serbia?
See above. You could have looked this up for yourself, you know.
I refer you to my earlier post which I assume you have not read.
This explained that there was in fact no evidence of genocide, or ethnic cleansing (in fact the first true ethnic cleansing in FRY was Croats cleansing Serbs from Krajina). Do you dispute what Carla Del Ponte says? She was sitting as a prosecutor during the campaign.
I find all those other sources more convincing. Lots of mass graves and witnesses, you know.
You also failed to answer my question about why NATO decided to bomb,
You ignored my answer so I'll tell you again.
Led by the United States, warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on this day in 1999 began a bombing campaign against Serbian military targets in the former Yugoslavia. The air raids, President Bill Clinton said, were aimed at halting widespread evidence of urban cleansing — the worst such outbreak in Europe since World War II — being perpetrated by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo.

No point in denying this. I notice you declined to support your claim:
Did you know that more ethnic Albanians were killed by that bombing than by Serb forces?
When can we expect you to do that?

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Re: Russia is a Rogue State

Post #67

Post by The Barbarian »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:46 pm More countries are opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land than opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As if that excuses anything at all.
Do you have anything to say about Israeli crimes?
Let's stay on topic, um? I get it; Putin is losing it, because his plans to weaken NATO backfired and made it stronger; in all likelihood, Sweden and Finland will become part of NATO. They are already cooperating militarily with the alliance and are prepared to act in concert with NATO. He's mobilized his troll farms to save him, but it doesn't look as though things are going very well for him, right now.

Apparently, the pressure has taken its toll on his health and that alone might be his downfall:

THE recent TV appearances of "cancer-stricken" Vladimir Putin have been staged to hide his week-long absence, Kremlin insiders have claimed.
The claim raises speculation about the Russian President's health amid rumours he is battling cancer. A source has suggested that Russian media have used pre-recorded footage to show Putin in meetings held in the past week. According to the General SVR Telegram channel, his trusted aide Nikolai Patrushev - a former FSB chief - is now in virtual control of the Kremlin, and is the recipient of top-level briefings that would normally go direct to Putin.

In its latest post, the channel-which is reportedly run by a Kremlin insider- said key figures believe Putin to be terminally ill which has altered the dynamic in Russia. His absence “since Tuesday” cannot be verified but the channel said his staff “show pre-recorded videos of his meetings”.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18620053/ ... n-illness/

Which is likely why other Russian officials have not been very vocal in support of the invasion. If Putin becomes incapable of ruling, the successor can simply blame the whole fiasco on Putin.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: NATO Expands further

Post #68

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

The Barbarian wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:59 pm
The Barbarian wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 12:36 pm Ethnic cleansing is genocide, not a way to stop it. As you know, Putin had no reason at all to imagine genocide is taking place against ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Few people were gullible enough to believe that. That was the same story Hitler peddled to take over Czechoslovakia.

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 10:26 am And likewise NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999. The FBI and war crimes forensic teams and Carla Del Ponte all agree, there was no evidence of genocide, yet NATO bombed for two months on the claim there was genocide.
Well, let's take a look...
Kosovo:
https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/global/ ... ument.html

Bosnia
With skin hanging limp across broken skeletons, these grisly remains are yet more evidence of the bloodlust that gripped the former Yugoslavia in the early-Nineties.

Two decades after Serb soldiers carried out house-to-house searches in a campaign of ethnic killings in Bosnia, investigators are digging up what could turn out to be the largest mass grave from the war.

The remains of 360 people have so far been found at the Tomasica mass grave, which was discovered last month near the town of Prijedor, 162 miles north-west of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

That number, already far more than authorities expected, is expected to rise and could even one day surpass the 629 bodies found at Crni Vrh in Srebrenica

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... grave.html
Did you know that more ethnic Albanians were killed by that bombing than by Serb forces?
Show us your evidence.

The number of victims whose bodies have been burned or destroyed may never be known, but enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces.
https://1997-2001.state.gov/global/huma ... epage.html
If NATO can just claim there's genocide when there really wasn't and start dropping bombs then why can't Russia?
Once you start assuming things not in reality, any story is equally plausible.
Finally NATO actually did not start bombing because of "genocide"
Sounds like a testable assumption. Let's take a look...
On 24
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 1:13 pmThe campaign was launched after all diplomatic avenues had failed. Operation Allied Force was suspended by NATO on 10 June 1999 — lasting just 78 days — once it had a Military Technical Agreement that included Yugoslavia’s immediate end to violence and withdrawal of its military, police and paramilitary forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bomb ... Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commences air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians on March 20.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-his ... yugoslavia

Led by the United States, warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on this day in 1999 began a bombing campaign against Serbian military targets in the former Yugoslavia. The air raids, President Bill Clinton said, were aimed at halting widespread evidence of urban cleansing — the worst such outbreak in Europe since World War II — being perpetrated by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. They ended after 10 weeks when the Serbians agreed to a peace accord that called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/ ... 24-1231269
exercise for you, why did NATO start bombing Serbia?
See above. You could have looked this up for yourself, you know.
I refer you to my earlier post which I assume you have not read.
This explained that there was in fact no evidence of genocide, or ethnic cleansing (in fact the first true ethnic cleansing in FRY was Croats cleansing Serbs from Krajina). Do you dispute what Carla Del Ponte says? She was sitting as a prosecutor during the campaign.
I find all those other sources more convincing. Lots of mass graves and witnesses, you know.
You also failed to answer my question about why NATO decided to bomb,
You ignored my answer so I'll tell you again.
Led by the United States, warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on this day in 1999 began a bombing campaign against Serbian military targets in the former Yugoslavia. The air raids, President Bill Clinton said, were aimed at halting widespread evidence of urban cleansing — the worst such outbreak in Europe since World War II — being perpetrated by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo.

No point in denying this. I notice you declined to support your claim:
Did you know that more ethnic Albanians were killed by that bombing than by Serb forces?
When can we expect you to do that?
Everything I've said is true, I have sources for everything but clearly facts are little interest to you. Even Carla Del Ponte the former prosecutor for war crimes committed during that time is dismissed by you, but here are her words again:

Former war crimes prosecutor alleges Kosovan army harvested organs from Serb prisoners

Kosovo assault 'was not genocide'
A United Nations court has ruled that Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.
The KLA were (and likely still are) terrorists, child traffickers, organ harvesters, drug & gun smugglers, they have nothing but contempt and loathing for Christians especially Orthodox Serbs, their ranks included Islamist cutthroats and sadists, the Serbs knew what they were dealing with and deserved our support, instead for geopolitical reason the West, NATO aligned itself with scum and the lies were later exposed, but few care for facts as you well know, they only ever get in the way of a good narrative anyway.

Also with respect to this that you included:

Led by the United States, warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on this day in 1999 began a bombing campaign against Serbian military targets in the former Yugoslavia. The air raids, President Bill Clinton said, were aimed at halting widespread evidence of urban cleansing — the worst such outbreak in Europe since World War II — being perpetrated by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. They ended after 10 weeks when the Serbians agreed to a peace accord that called for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops.

You said to me "No point in denying this" yet where did I ever deny that Clinton and NATO lied? They did say exactly what that quote says they said and as you now know the lie was exposed when the UN Court made its decision.

Remember the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq? I guess that was a fact too!
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Sun May 22, 2022 5:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Russia is a Rogue State

Post #69

Post by Diogenes »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:46 pm
Diogenes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:27 pm Virtually every country has condemned the Russian war of aggression and imperialism against Ukraine, including countries friendly to the regime. Even countries dependent on Russian gas and oil have condemned Putin and given aid to Ukraine.
China is allied economically with Russia but has stayed silent.
Only Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuala and Belarus, authoritarian states with horrible records on human rights and/or heavily dependent on Russia are the only countries openly supporting Russia's genocide and war crimes against Ukraine's democracy.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation ... 22748.html
Image
Putin has squarely put himself in the category of Stalin and Hitler. Unfortunately the Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green 'America First' movement that supported Hitler in 1939 (and at least as late as 1941) is still alive in America.
Image

Image
More countries are opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land than opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

156 UN nations affirm West Bank settlements, east J'lem not part of Israel.

141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UN

Do you have anything to say about Israeli crimes? are you as outraged as you are over Russia? Do you think the West should supply the Palestinians with tanks, anti aircraft missiles, ammunition, rockets? so that they can fight off the Israeli aggressors? Perhaps NATO should move in, bomb Tel Aviv? How about brutal sanctions against Israel?
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and other crimes hardly excuse Putin's war crimes. Yes, I condemn both, but comparing them is inapposite, at least in terms of scale. In any event, one atrocity does not justify another.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-p ... illed-same

I think the founding of Israel was a mistake, but at the very least I support an independent Palestine built partially on current land occupied by Israel and Jordan. A majority of Israelis support "an independent Palestinian state together with the state of Israel."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution
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Before You Embark On A Journey Of Revenge, Dig Two Graves

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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Russia is a Rogue State

Post #70

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Diogenes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 5:38 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:46 pm
Diogenes wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 4:27 pm Virtually every country has condemned the Russian war of aggression and imperialism against Ukraine, including countries friendly to the regime. Even countries dependent on Russian gas and oil have condemned Putin and given aid to Ukraine.
China is allied economically with Russia but has stayed silent.
Only Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuala and Belarus, authoritarian states with horrible records on human rights and/or heavily dependent on Russia are the only countries openly supporting Russia's genocide and war crimes against Ukraine's democracy.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation ... 22748.html
Image
Putin has squarely put himself in the category of Stalin and Hitler. Unfortunately the Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green 'America First' movement that supported Hitler in 1939 (and at least as late as 1941) is still alive in America.
Image

Image
More countries are opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land than opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

156 UN nations affirm West Bank settlements, east J'lem not part of Israel.

141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UN

Do you have anything to say about Israeli crimes? are you as outraged as you are over Russia? Do you think the West should supply the Palestinians with tanks, anti aircraft missiles, ammunition, rockets? so that they can fight off the Israeli aggressors? Perhaps NATO should move in, bomb Tel Aviv? How about brutal sanctions against Israel?
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and other crimes hardly excuse Putin's war crimes. Yes, I condemn both, but comparing them is inapposite, at least in terms of scale. In any event, one atrocity does not justify another.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-p ... illed-same

I think the founding of Israel was a mistake, but at the very least I support an independent Palestine built partially on current land occupied by Israel and Jordan. A majority of Israelis support "an independent Palestinian state together with the state of Israel."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution
Should Israel be bombed for ignoring (the great many) UN security council resolutions calling for then to desists building settlements? Other countries like Iraq were bombed for that very reason, refusing to comply with security council resolution. But Israel won't be bombed because the US ALWAYS votes against enforcement resolutions targeting Israel and they are usually the only nation defending Israel.

Frankly Russia invading Ukraine is a far down on the list of global injustices people should be worried about, but its always easier to avoid controversy and just fit in with the West's narrative, I understand, I really do.

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