If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
I am not aware of any gap in my knowledge of our neutrality mark.
What?
Well, at least I am read up on the history of Irelands 'neutrality' unlike yourself who refuses to read or educate themselves on the matter.
So you dont trust anyone and you are going to spray everyone with your gutter and lies?
I guess that is why you are one of the most anti-EU posters on the site as well.
Grand so.
If you think that arrogant disparaging of our history of neutrality will help convince the electorate, keep it up.
I use my critical faculties mark. If you give blind trust to anyone, that's your issue tbh.
We are in the EU.
We are not politically neutral.
We are not economically neutral
We are not socially or culturally neutral....
...yet we pretend to be militarily neutral.
Its like we want to be children forever, living in Peter Pan's Nevernever land where we never have to grow up and live in the real world.
So who do you trust Francie. Last week you didn't trust the Irish people or the Irish Government, yesterday you didn't trust the UN, today you don't trust the EU....
You are a bluffer.
Couldn't agree more.
Being in Putin's Russia is incompatible with Ukraine's independence.
Quite happy to have a referendum on the issue.
We are a part of the EU and we can influence our own affairs and that the goals of the EU are compatible with ours. If the EU establish a military alliance there is a reason why we have to have a referendum on joining. We have a choice as a nation. A choice I am quite willing to observe if it gets a majority.
We are a neutral country militarily so therefore membership of NATO is incompatible with that. My principal objection to NATO is around the power and influence of it's primary members and NATO performing to their objectives and agendas, that may not be ours.
As I say, very simple really.
No it's not time to join NATO, we need to be able to defend ourselves to some degree before thinking about defending others.
We are not neutral. We are modern western democracy.
It is offensive to suggest that ordinary decent Irish people in this country are in any way "neutral" between tyranny and democracy. They aren't. And it's time for the government to move on it.
Ok so you trust them when around the EU table but not the Nato table.
Your words, you do not trust these people (but you do sometimes).
Nope. I treat the decisions of the EU with the same critical thought that I treat the decisions of the UN etc.
Being in the EU is not incompatible with our goals as a nation, being in NATO is incompatible with our neutrality. Very simple really.
ok so you don't trust the people who sit around the table at NATO wielding huge influence.
Well I have news for you, 21 of the 27 members of NATO are also in the EU. As part of the EU, these very same people who you do not trust, sit around a table where they wield huge influence on Ireland now.
So I assume that you are also in favour of leaving the EU
We should make it a condition of our entry into NATO that Zelensky agrees to drop all the superfluous vowels and consonants from his name.
Zelenskiy's spot on.
Military neutrality is just cheap cowardice at the end of the day. Plain and simple. We'll do all the sugary stuff like humanitarian aid but when it comes down to it we don't stand with any country under attack.
We're special, or so we believe. We expect everyone else to do the dirty work of defending democracies on our behalf and refuse to contribute one iota.
No one else is fooled and i'd like to see more of our morally reprehensible position exposed.
If referencing the country it is 'the' US. I had no 'the' in there, the mistake is yours and Yurt's.
Not being able to answer the questions in a court is usually taken as guilt or contempt Yurt.
To be fair of the current 30 member nations of NATO only 10 spend 2% at least of gdp on defense. Ireland currently spends only 0.3% of gdp on defense. But as recently as the early 80's we were spending about 1.5% which would compare favorably with most of NATO's members.
In fairness to Yurt2, I made the same misinterpretation. For future such occasions, you may want to italicize, bold, or even use “Ireland” instead of capitalizing “us”.
Aside from anything else, one of the conditions of nato membership is that 2% of gdp is spent on defence forces. Would ye be comfortable with ove 7 billion going to it and where would it come from?
I'd advise you not to waste any time getting into the legal game, because resting your case after making a twit of yourself is scarcely a good courtroom tactic.
Correct me if im wrong,but werent many of the bombs dropped in kosovo contained depleted uranium even causinh controversy then.....also pretty sure i recall them bombing a fertilizer plant (?) and it poisioning air for an entire city (this in particular as was around time IFI was wound down)
You are happy for irish state to be responsible for the above,and more,which to me amount to crimes againest humanity.......lets get our political and media to stand over these actions and accept responsibility for em,before even dreaming entering nato (which i dont think for 1 second they will do either)
These above bombings and morality surronding them,is entirely appropriate and relevent,given the grim likelyhood of russia likely to deploy chemical weapons soon and refusal of nato to enforce a no fly zone
😁 I rest my case.
No. Your question is stupid, and posed in a stupid way.
If I were a government spokesperson for "the political establishment" answering questions about NATO's intervention in Kosovo, I'd say "the Irish state congratulates the treaty alliance in f*cking up the militarist government of Milosevic and his genocide committing pals, and wishes the treaty forces every luck in the future."
Pr*cks like Milosevic and Putin only understand Tomahawk missiles coming down on their head. That's the real world. You can sing hands across the borders all you want, sometimes F16s in the air is the only thing for it.
Saucers of milk would have worked about as well for Milosevic as they will for Putin. Kosovo was NATO doing its job and preventing further genocide of Kosovar Albanians - they deserve a prize for it and the only people still bellyaching are Russia, the Chinese and assorted cranks on the left in Western Europe. For the record, Ireland was one of the first to recognize the independence of Kosovo, and more power to us for doing so in the face of Russian and Chinese pissing and moaning.
and they PATENTLY didn't work.
Why was Russia not made a pariah state in 2014.
A pariah state being one where NOBODY would be going to sweet talk them into a vote, where they would NOT be able to move their money around the world, where their oligarchs would not be wined and dined in NATO countries etc etc.
You haven't addressed the question, you are as usual fixated on me.
Answer the fecking question Yurt.
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