Britain has developed missiles that can reach Paris, says King Charles . .

Britain has developed missiles that can reach Paris, says King Charles . .

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-11/turkey-greece-tensions-erdogan-warns-missiles-can-hit-athens[/URL]

Wait . . what? It's NOT Britain and France? It's Turkey trolling Greece? Two entirely different NATO members? Well . . . this changes everything. Nobody cares what bull$hit nations like Turkey say, right?

Actually, we SHOULD care. Turkey is a pariah among NATO members. Both Turkey and Greece were admitted to NATO 70 years ago, and have been bitch-slapping each other ever since. Turkey, you may recall, has been upping the ante recently by purchasing Russian weapons (good luck – they aren't working against Ukraine). WTF, though!!! How can you be a member of a defense pact whose STATED MISSION is deterrence of Russia, and be paying Putin billions for weapons incompatible with other NATO members?

I put this squarely on 'President Tayyip Erdogan”, who has been some combination of prime minister and/or president of Turkey since 2003. He not only fully embraces Russia, he's trying to implement an Islamic state (complete with scarf police); wipe out the Kurds. Boost Palestinian terrorists. Abduction and assassination attempts on Turkish expats living in the USA. And now . .. threatening a first strike against Greece?

Everyone wants to go to Greece at some point. Athens. The Parthenon. Those idyllic Mediterranean islands. Few rational people have a second honeymoon in Istanbul on their bucket list.

President Erdogan's stated reason for building ICBMs capable of reaching Athens? The Greek government “has too many troops in areas close to the Turkish border”. Yep – he actually said that. Remember, we're talking two NATO nations here. And countries about the size of Ohio.

Personally, I don't see either of them being worth much in the event NATO ever has to go into combat. In fact, Turkish leaks of confidential NATO documents are probably the reason why Putin “knew” that NATO would not defend Ukraine.

Kick Turkey out of NATO, President Biden. Don't convene a committee . . . you ARE the committee. Stop dicking around with WNBA basketball players and Musk-snarking. Turkey is a dictatorship and adds zero value to NATO.

Go see the film “Midnight Express” in case you missed it the first time around. These are our effing ALLIES? Get real . . .

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PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

Turkey is merely one of a few NATO member states that prove the moral high ground claims of the organization are a steaming pile of bullshit and has been for decades.

And Turkey is the second largest army in NATO fyi.

As for their use of Russian equipment. The failures in Ukraine are more to do with lack of training trying to use a conscript army for conquest something conscript armies have never been intended for going back to the roman legions.

In fact professional armies were invented specifically for conquest and for defeating conscript armies that are defensive if the people at the top have any idea what they are doing.

The biggest problem with Russia's military is people are in charge because of connections and being willing to tell the leader what they want to hear. More like a medieval or renaissance era military were commissions were determined by nobility, not competence.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow so your theory is that Putin KNEW his conscripts were going to lose? Or that his generals lied to him? Or his generals were idiots?

I suggest the Pentagon and NATO were idiots too, since they both theorized that Ukraine would be conquered in 2 weeks.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida No, I am saying they are incompetent and we know his generals lied to him. There is no disputing that. He very publicly even jailed a few for exactly that.

And Putin may not have known a conscript army would fail. His background was as a spook not military.

But the people running the army should have known that. This has been true for the last 1000 years.

You don't use a hammer to drive screws. Wrong tool for the job.

And I don't know where you are getting your estimates of 2 weeks. That is comical.

I mean theoretically a victory was possible by sheer force of numbers. If you have big enough numbers you can overrun an army armed with rocks.

But this is military history 101 stuff.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow i subscribe to the theory that Putin thinks of himself as a modern day stalin, and his biggest goal is to be remembered by history as the guy who "reconstituted" the soviet union back to its maximum geographical influence.

oh - and he's also dangerously insane.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida Lol. Everything you have said is just repeated talking points on the "news" who don't know anything about anything mashed together with cold war cliches.

The soviet union is dead. Get over your cold war hangover.

He does seem to have lost his touch in the last couple years. The invasion of Ukraine was stupid and crazy in its execution. Something he was neither for years. So as many have speculated it is likely recent mental illness or physical causing mental decline.

But it changes nothing. And if you want to disregard 1000 years of history for soundbites that is up to you.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida Something else to consider is one of the generals that lied to Putin is part of why the invasion started out so stupid and crazy. He invented fake partisan groups in Ukraine that didn't exist and pocketed the money to fund the fake groups. The initial behavior of the Russian military like armour with no infantry screens and daylight paratrooper drops makes sense if you are expecting to enter friendly territory.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Seldom do "generals" become the ratinoale for war. That never happened in WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam . . . Generals typically DON'T want to see their direct reports and enlisted troops blown to bits on the battlefield.

Politicians, however, are entirely different matter. As Zhou En Lai famously said "War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means".

Generals preach preparedness. Politicians regard weapons as diplomatic leverage. It's not Putin's generals who are threatening to use nukes. It's Putin himself.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida Lol. Sure. Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about and making stuff up to try and justify your soundbite based argument.

And yeah you also got one of the most famous quotes in history wrong. 😂

The actual quote is "War is a continuation of politics by other means" and it was said by German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz.

And now you are scare mongering to distract from the fact you have no valid argument. And funny enough most of the incidents reported where he "threatened nukes" made no mention of any specific weapons at all.

But when you are trying to scare the public into supporting war facts are secondary.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow okay, i see you've entirely neglected to provide any evidence of "wars started by generals instead of heads of state".

we can wait as long you want to research this. or you can continue with your childish insults.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida I just didn't play along with your totally irrelevant distraction. Not here to play your games.

I am laughing at your total lack of knowledge on the subject. Substituting arrogance for knowledge is not helping you.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow wait a minute. your profile says your a canadian socialist? that explains why you can't marshall ANY facts for your "arguments", lol. Stop stalking me. You're already blocked by a lot of other people.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida And of course your only recourse is to scream and whine about foreigners like a right wing cliche.

And I am not the one with a fact problem. Like every Trumper you have just made shit up.
Heck you can't even get one of the most famous quotes in history correct.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida And I know alot of right wing extremists are snowflakes. How is that my fault they are afraid of anything that doesn't parrot their bullshit?