From the guy’s own mouth.

  • Syldon@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    There is nothing in this that reflects the title. It’s nothing more than passive propaganda. They are relying on people to just read the title and not open the link.

    What is actually said is:

    And let me just end by saying that this reflects the political reality that nations are sovereign. Nations decide themselves, and Ukraine has of course the right to decide its own path. And it’s up to Ukraine and NATO Allies to decide when Ukraine becomes a member. Russia cannot veto membership for any sovereign independent state in Europe.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

      At least he had some good jokes to warm up the crowd!

      I think I’ve told you before that I know it’s hard to allocate money for defence, because most politicians want to spend money on health, on education, on infrastructure instead of defence.

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      And let me just end by saying that this reflects the political reality that nations are sovereign.

      I mean that’s just factually untrue. Every nations sovereignty is restricted by geopolitical realities. No nation can just do whatever they desire, including joining certain alliances. Mexico will not be joining BRICS for instance, because of the geopolitical situation. And that’s not even a military alliance, which NATO is! Europeans are not special, they have to play by the same rules as everybody else. To claim otherwise is to ignore the reality on the ground right now, both in Ukraine and globally.

      Also none of this factors in that joining NATO, by definition, involves giving up some part of your nations sovereignty. NATO in reality acts as an extended arm of the US military and it’s industrial complex, and in joining, countries are subjected to this reality of Atlanticism.

      • Syldon@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Mexico will not join BRICs because they would then have to leave USMCA trade agreement. Cuba, your nearest neighbour, can do whatever it wants. The US does not get to dictate anymore by military might. They have done in the past. To do so today would bring other trade deals into conflict. The EU would be very against this. This does not mean the US cannot use its financial might, which it clearly does and often.

        Also none of this factors in that joining NATO, by definition, involves giving up some part of your nations sovereignty. NATO in reality acts as an extended arm of the US military and it’s industrial complex, and in joining, countries are subjected to this reality of Atlanticism.

        Simply not true. Being part of NATO is not an aggressive pact. It is only enacted if another member is attacked. One or more members being aggressive does not mean the rest have to follow. The US and the UK attacked Iran as individual nations. The US has the biggest say in NATO because they spend more than anyone else by quite some distance. Something that is changing because of the Russian attempts to annex Ukraine into its own borders.

        • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          One or more members being aggressive does not mean the rest have to follow.

          But they usually always do, because of the implication…

          You are aware that the US and UK were not the only countries to deploy troops to Iraq (not Iran, as you mistakenly claim). There was a whole NATO training operation involving 13 NATO member states. 20 of the current 31 NATO members had some form of troop deployment in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.

          Cuba, your nearest neighbour, can do whatever it wants. The US does not get to dictate anymore by military might. They have done in the past. To do so today would bring other trade deals into conflict. The EU would be very against this

          I am not American, and it’s quite clear the US does use it’s military might when it needs to, to dictate the order of the world, and there is nothing that the EU can do about it. Precisely because their sovereignty is curtailed due to being US vassal states. Of which NATO membership is a key part. This includes actions against the EU. Unless you want to argue that the nordstream gas pipelines just spontaneously combusted.

          • Syldon@feddit.uk
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            1 year ago

            If it was a NATO aggressive action then ALL would be involved not just a portion.

            As for the US using it military might, it has been bitten enough to know it is just a waste of money. Unless you have a costed strategic end game policy, simply removing dictatorships is not enough.

    • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Actually he also said (in the link):

      “The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.”

        • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          NATO is not a friend or friendly force, it is one of the great evils of our time, anyone arguing otherwise just wants to bomb third world countries.

          Ask the citizens of Libya and Iraq how defensive and friendly NATO is.

          The process of “joining NATO” is not anything equivalent to making friends, any country joining NATO essentially becomes a vassal for US interests. There’s a reason why Sweden and Finland held out for so long.

          • edge [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            There’s a reason why Sweden and Finland held out for so long.

            And that they’re doing it with no say from the people.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          “If you invite your serial killer gun nut friend to build a tree stand on your property pointed at my house, we’re going to have problems”

              • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
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                1 year ago

                Eh. It’s the metaphor. Ukraine is a sovereign state, and the argument about what Ukraine does or doesn’t do on its own soil - or who it invites over to play - being somehow justification for invasion is hypocritical tripe. Russia’s been invading other sovereign states, and stockpiles weapons in its vassel states; it’s an “existential threat” to every one of its neighbors, except the strong ones like China.

                The arguments Putin used for invasion about Ukraine abusing its citizens were better, except for being lies. They should have stuck with that one, except they had no evidence and nobody believed it. It still made a better story and was less hypocritical.

                Also, behaving like a communist with your country when your neighbor is an imperialist dictatorship is only a recipe for becoming a member of an imperialist dictatorship.

                • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Firstly, I’m not sure your understanding of the meaning or relevance of ‘hypocrisy’ is very clear.

                  Secondly, you’re introducing a moralistic discourse about this when the first issue is what caused or explained the Russian intervention in Ukraine. Despite the evidence overwhelmingly pointing to NATO expansion, the fact that you are denying it when even Stoltenberg and Blinken are basically at the point of admitting it, implicit as those admissions may be, is pretty comic.

                  If you think that the Ukrainian government was not only not abusing, but in fact not committing acts amounting to ethnically cleansing Russians in eastern Ukraine, you have been living under a rock and its disgusting that you can utter such bullshit with such nonchalance and impunity. Contrary to, say, accusation of genocide in Xinjiang, for which there is no hard concrete evidence (in fact evidence and reason point to the contrary), there are mountains of evidence in every form of media, whether video, documents, government announcements, proving that there was repressive military and political action being taken against the Russophone and ethinically Russian, or simply anti-nationalist Ukrainians of the East, by the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist regime. There have been mass disappearances, lynchings, bombings, assassinations, and we could go on. Again, there is too much evidence for this in every form for any one person to peruse the entirety of, so either you are pig-shit ignorant, or you are lying. Trouble is you are doing it in the wrong place.

                  Your last sentence is barely comprehensible quite frankly. If you think that reocognizing that a state should not aggressively expand a demonstrably imperialist organisation and in the process break all related previous agreements and promises in doing so, in a way that every party involved is fully aware will be perceived as a threat to the national security of one of the concerned countries, if one wants to avoid hot conflict, given the self-evident realities of realpolitik, is communist or marxist, then go off I guess.

                  • Ok, so, in all seriousness, thanks for making the attempt at a rational and detailed response.

                    However, and I say this in all honestly, I have got to start paying better attention to the homeserver of the people I’m responding to. While I appreciate the time you put into your response, I’ve found that my mood is greatly improved when I don’t engage the hexabear swarm.

                    So, I apologize that you took that time and I’m just going to blow it off. My bad for not looking at the usernames more closely.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Cool, now your brother is dead and you lost half your property. Your serial killer gun nut buddy doesn’t give a damn about you so he didn’t show up to fight himself, but now he holds the mortgage to your house because he lent you weapons to fight and lose.

              Was it worth it?

      • Syldon@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Some Presidents should stick to declaring only things they have control over.

      • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        This is so hilariously weak who did you think you would convince with this quote blatantly showing your title to be a lie. Lmao.

    • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

      The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

      So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.

      Learn to read.