>

The falklands are undeniably not North America though. But Hawaii and Puerto Rico may have some debate.
That guy is a pain in the arse >

Damn that Turkey has to be located where it's an important piece of geography. >

Turkey is a fine country with fine people, their leader though 🥴 >

that can be said... for a lot of countries >

Iran and Russia come to mind >

Ahh I don't know about that. Have you seen any of the videos asking regular Russians about the war? I've seen quite a few of them and they're honestly disturbing. They'll say things like they hope everyone in the west dies via their nukes, or Ukrainians aren't even human so the war/war crimes don't matter, and so on. I know there are good Russians too, they're in the videos as well. But it's overwhelmingly hateful in general.  
"Well that's because of how their government has treated them terribly and fed them disinformation for decades+" Yeah, maybe. But it doesn't change the harsh reality of things >

All the good ones are in Russian gulags by now >

Well, and abroad. The Russian diaspora is growing quite large. >

Plenty Russians abroad that are drinking the Putin Kool-Aid too. I used to have a few on FB. Obviously I'd be anti-Russian, they said, because I'm Polish so I believe all the propaganda against them. These guys are knee deep in the bullshit, as they live in a western country and enjoy all the freedoms and benefits we have to offer here. >

By all means, if they love the current state of Russia, they have all of the freedom in the world to go back. Can't guarantee they'd be able to change their minds once they're there. >

Can't wait when Putin and Erdogan die >

There will always be another despot wanting to rise - even in long-established democracies like the US.  Strong and enforced rules preventing this kind of thing are essential to long-term peace globally. >

Yea but you need the fuckung despots to be dead so you can get people in power who can establish such rules. Otherwise the same despots will establish their own. >

Thus forever repeating. So it goes >

Turkey is going to milk this as long as possible.  Erdogan is such an evil bastard. >

And Trump kowtowed to him and we let our Kurdish allies die as a result.
Edit: typo >

Trump committed the war crime of perfidy on that day.  Another horrible crime he got away with because there is no justice when rich people break the law. >

We in Sweden believe in democracy and the separation of government and the courts. We will not sacrifice our democracy for Erdogan. If our politicians had any balls they would simply say no to Erdogan and tell the world how a proper democracy works. >

Personally I find trading Turkey for Sweden plus Finland a very good deal. The only value Turkey gives to the alliance is control of access to the Black Sea under the Montereaux Convention. Unfortunately, there’s no mechanism to boot them from the alliance. >

Hopefully the people behind the scenes don't give Erdogan too much to make the deal to go through. Sounds like he's stalling for concessions. Having Finland and Sweden in NATO is fundamental to what NATO is all about. Control of the Blatic, support to the Baltic states if the Suwalki corridor is even taken, and NATO forces bottlenecking the Kola peninsula. Plus, there's Finland's experience with Russia and Sweden is experienced in developing modern weapons. Anyone trying to stop that from happening goes against the core concept of NATO. >

The only reason NATO accepted Turkey into its ranks is because they served a strategic geographic role in being the only pro-West country (at the time) to have a geographic border with Russia. 
For Turkey, the reason (at the time) they submitted their bid to join NATO was because they were under threat of Soviet invasion. The West graced them will full membership instead of "defensive cooperation" was because they supplied troops to fight with the West during the Korean War, and again, served strategic geographic importance. The U.S. would go on to house their nukes in Turkey to keep pointed right at Moscow. >

They were also a weak (but strengthening) democracy at the time. 
It was thought that membership would stabilize and strengthen the institutions, like with the Greeks that were simultaneously admitted. 
The same thing happened with Portugal and Spain too. >

To be fair, they were making a best effort attempt.  Hell, they even had a tradition of, whenever the politicians were fucking things up too much, the military staging a coup, calming things down, and then holding new elections and abiding by the results.
It's one of the reasons it's plausible that the coup attempt against Erdogan might have been legit, and not just something he made up in order to launch a purge. >

I consider the attempted coup the military doing what Atatürk intended, restoring democracy. 
But they failed, so we’ll never know what their plans exactly were. >

how longer til election? it was may 23 rite? >

Gonna be hard to lose when he just jails political rivals, though. >

Came here to say that Imamoğlu is not actually physically in jail, his sentence isn’t large enough for that. For now, it is(in my opinion) failed attempt at a political ban which just caused the public to like him more >

Would a condemnation prevent him from holding office, though? >

Not exactly. Erdogan also got a similar political ban before he ran. >

Interesting, so after circumventing this exact situation, he was hoping it would stop his adversary. This guy... >

Yeah he isn’t really the brightest. History repeats itself >

If anyone knows what it means to be in the North Atlantic treaty org... it would be the nation farthest from the Atlantic, I suppose... >

Japan? /s >

Japan in NATO would be so amazing... I'm glad they're at least a major ally. >

I don’t think Japan meets the requirements to be in NATO since there are military obligations that the SDF wouldn’t be able to fulfill. >


I don’t think Japan meets the requirements to be in NATO since there are military obligations that the SDF wouldn’t be able to fulfill.

Japan wouldn't benefit from the NATO charter without amending it, it only covers North America, The Atlantic, and Europe.

Article 6
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer >

Would an attack on Puerto Rico or Hawaii be covered by this? Both are south of the Tropic of Cancer, so it just depends on if they are “north America” or not? >

I do not think so. For the Falkland Islands, UK couldn’t activate Article 5 either