From the guy’s own mouth.
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.
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.
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.
Being part of NATO is not an aggressive pact. It is only enacted if another member is attacked.
Yugoslavia and Libya would probably beg to differ.
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.”
“If you don’t promise to stop making new friends, I’m going to kill another one.”
“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”
Maybe. But it’s my fucking property, and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want on it.
Go ahead. Come onto my property and try to stop me.
Average property rights enjoyer here
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.
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.
This is so hilariously weak who did you think you would convince with this quote blatantly showing your title to be a lie. Lmao.
It’s not a lie, he literally said it in his speech.
Lol the absolute delusion of tankies. You’d be funny if you weren’t advocating for imperialistic cultural genocide.
That’s literally what you’re advocating for.
