Belacqua Wrote:So in 2008 there was a summit at which "NATO leaders reaffirmed the decision that Ukraine will become a member." They never made it to full member status, but you'll notice that the NATO web site doesn't say that this plan has been abandoned.
Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, knowledgeable people have warned that aligning Ukraine too closely with the west, against Russia, would provoke conflict.
And yet when Putin launched his invasion, he said he did it to 'denazify' Ukraine.
Not to mention that if NATO on Russia’s borders is “existential threat,” then Russia will attack next Finland & Sweden who recently entered NATO. But there's barely murmur from Russia when Finland & Norway membership brought NATO and all its weapons so threatening to Russia dramatically closer.
Because invasion wasn’t about NATO expansion but about dominating Ukraine. Russian occupational army pursues genocidal policies targeting for arrest, torture & death all who support Ukrainian sovereignty and oppose occupational regime. Further evidence that Putin’s beef with Ukraine is not just about NATO are his demands on Ukraine long went much deeper than foreign policy alliances. He objected and tried to dictate on all matters of purely domestic politics, from decentralization, to language, education, historical memory and more.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
