Comments by "peabase" (@peabase) on "Turkey approves Finland Nato membership bid - BBC News" video.

Uh, Norway is a founding member of NATO.
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Yeah, thank you for not being a complete pest any longer. Just a pest.
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@Carl Sagan You yourself were the only one to upvote your comment, while I got 13 upvotes -- excluding my own. What does that say?
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How on earth can you spin this as a masterstroke by Putin? It's a major setback for the megalomaniac. Are you sure you aren't a Putin troll at heart?
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@lolidasterner414 I'm not impressed with your assessment. Geography alone dictates that Finland is the shield, and Sweden its strategic depth. You may not be aware of the nature of the Finnish Gulf and the northern parts of the Baltic Sea in general, but it's not conducive to large-scale naval operations. What remains are land forces, where Finland dwarfs Sweden. Naïvely, Sweden gutted theirs, abolishing conscription in the mistaken belief that Russia had mended its ways. They've reintroduced conscription now, but their land forces remain a shadow of their former selves. I've trained and served with Swedes, and while in other respects they regard us as their little brothers, the same can't be said about our military.
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@OneRichMofo Germany has given plenty in military aid to Ukraine. You can withhold style points for their initial reluctance, but it's an undeniable fact that by now, Germany is a major donor. It's not Turkey's veto in NATO that I take exception with. It's Erdogan's blackmail tactics and his branding of all his opponents as terrorists that I have a problem with. Half of NATO is blocking arms exports to Turkey and sheltering "terrorists" of his, the US first and foremost. So it's not just Sweden that hates Erdogan's guts, but Turkey is burning bridges left, right and centre.
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@Carl Sagan There you go again, upvoting your own post. It's like pleasuring yourself in public. Eww!
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@serendipitousconversations Sweden and Finland don't "approve of" Turkish opposition parties. As to whether or not these parties have connections to terrorism, both countries follow EU directives, just like the rest of the EU. At the end of the day, Finland didn't extradite Kurdish or Gulenist refugees to Turkey -- which would've been impossible anyway with prevailing laws, again based on EU directives -- yet unlike Sweden, which is in exactly the same position, Turkey deemed Finland fit to join NATO. And what did we learn? That's there's neither rhyme nor reason to Erdogan's shenanigans, which are highly damaging to Turkey's international reputation.
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@lolidasterner414 Talks can be open, but Turkey is still not getting F-35s. Also, US congressmen still insist they won't approve Turkey's desperately-needed F-16 deal until Turkey lets Sweden in as well. Putin is getting a tiny little bonus in the form of a delay in Sweden's NATO entry by a few months. During that time, Putin daren't even dream about acting militarily against Sweden. His forces are overly committed in Ukraine already. Losing, in other words. Masterstroke my foot.
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