Turkey

[eccieuser9500]

DOJ Proposes Rolling Back Legal Protections For Online Platforms


DOJ https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879150136/doj-proposes-rolling-back-legal-protections-for-online-platforms?sc=18&f=879150136

Legal observers described Trump's executive order as "political theater" and said it did not change existing federal law and would have no bearing on federal courts. Twitter has said attempts to erode the decades-old legal immunity may "threaten the future of online speech and Internet freedoms."

Twitter put fact-checking warnings on two of Trump's tweets that claimed, without evidence, that casting ballots by mail allows for voter fraud. Trump said the labels amounted to censorship. Twitter also put a warning label on a Trump tweet about protesters that the company said violated its terms for glorifying violence. The president tweeted, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

The true mark of a dictator.

Suck my dick and choke on it Barr.

[eccieuser9500]

[oeb11]

9500- u want to be the Policeman in this World - particularly anywhre in proximity to the Middle east - You are welcome to volunteer your own self - buy a unifrom and a gun - and go to Turkey to play cop.
as if u and Libs don't hate American cops as it is - You want our military to be cops in turkey - U go ahead and put yourself on the Line - not our Military.

usual LibDPST nonsense.

hates cops in the US - wants US military hated by everyone outside the country.



U do live on Hate - it is very clear. The One 9500 hates the most ??? - Itself.
Now - go play at nuking Middle America with Eric Swalwell - you will feel lots better.

[LexusLover]

Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

DOJ Proposes Rolling Back Legal Protections For Online Platforms

Excellent idea. "He who giveth taketh away!"

It's about time they got neutered and their creepy censors unfunded.

[eccieuser9500]

Originally Posted by LexusLover

Excellent idea. "He who giveth taketh away!"

It's about time they got neutered and their creepy censors unfunded.

Who was Prometheus?







Fire brings light.

And destruction.

[oeb11]

And Now, for something completely Different.!

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

DOJ Proposes Rolling Back Legal Protections For Online Platforms


DOJ https://www.npr.org/2020/06/17/879150136/doj-proposes-rolling-back-legal-protections-for-online-platforms?sc=18&f=879150136

The true mark of a dictator.

Suck my dick and choke on it Barr.

Originally Posted by LexusLover

Excellent idea. "He who giveth taketh away!"

It's about time they got neutered and their creepy censors unfunded.

Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

Who was Prometheus?

Fire brings light.

And destruction.

and what does this have to do with Turkey?

[dilbert firestorm]

https://newrepublic.com/article/1553...s-still-turkey

Why Are U.S. Nuclear Bombs Still in Turkey?

The American relationship with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey has been fraught for half a decade, but never this bad. Last week, American troops were intentionally targeted by Turkish artillery units in Northern Syria as Erdoğan’s forces advanced and President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. into a unilateral withdrawal. The Pentagon sternly warned that Turkey’s troops would face “immediate defensive action” from American forces if such an encounter were to be repeated.

good question, why indeed are they still there...

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by eccieuser9500

The Turkey-Libya agreement benefits Egypt, but the UAE is a spoiler


https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/the...-spoiler-37292

Trump outsmarted Vlad and someone doesn't like it.


BAHHAHAAAA


https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...-s-problem-now


The Syrian Civil War Is Russia’s Problem Now

Hampton Stephens Monday, Feb. 11, 2019


Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was never meant to be long-term. Now that Russia has been successful in saving the regime of Bashar al-Assad, what's next for Russia's Middle East strategy? Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR).

Russia's decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war in September 2015 was consistent with its belief that the Syrian state represents the only viable and legitimate actor in the country, and its forces are the only ones worth supporting. Moscow has always been willing to pay a political and military price to prevent a Syrian army collapse.


From the outset, Russia’s intervention was a multilayered gambit, but its purpose was straightforward: changing the facts on the ground and imposing new realities to leverage a different political outcome in Syria, not necessarily at the expense of the U.S., but almost certainly at the expense of its allies in the region.


What motivated the operation was the increasingly desperate military situation of Assad’s forces after territorial losses in northwestern Syria, close to the regime’s coastal stronghold around Latakia. Assad sounded the alarm, compelling Russia and Iran to come up with a military plan to rescue both the Syrian army and, as a consequence, their own ability to maintain a deciding hand in the war.


To learn more about how Russian involvement turned the tide of the Syrian Civil War, read Russia Banks on Brief Campaign to Determine Syria Endgame for FREE with your subscription to World Politics Review.
As Russia Vilified The Islamic State, Its True Agenda Emerged

From the outset of its intervention in the Syrian Civil War, Russia tried to portray its campaign at home and abroad as a push against the self-declared Islamic State. That narrative, while deliberately misleading, made a good cover story. Amid the current fog of Middle East conflict—with tangled alliances, conflicting agendas and partially overlapping geopolitical objectives—the Islamic State is the only actor whose behavior and objectives are universally reviled by the civilized world. The terrorist group earned universal ignominy with its self-styled caliphate, replete with videotaped decapitations and public slave markets. Who could challenge the moral value of fighting against it? But while Russian President Vladimir Putin consistently claimed his goal was to defeat the Islamic State, his true objectives all along were something altogether different, and that was visible as the carnage in Syria intensified and the incipient peace process crumbled.


To find out more about the history of Russia's involvement in Syria, read Putin Uses Islamic State as Cover for Russia’s Real Objectives in Syria for FREE with your subscription to World Politics Review.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/mi...t-turkey-92081

It's Time To Get U.S. Nukes Out Of Turkey

The rationale for maintaining nuclear weapons at Incirlik becomes more dubious by the day. It is time for the U.S. Air Force to bring them home.

I say just swap them out for decoys and pull troops out of Incirlick.

Turkey should get kicked out of nato.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://news.yahoo.com/turkeys-fight...210000046.html

Turkey's Fight In Syria Showed The Flaws In Germany's Leopard 2 Tanks

well hot damn!

Turkey's Leopard 2 tanks are crappy. they are literally bleeding tanks. most of the older model tanks were disabled or destroyed by the kurdish fighters.

so they brought in the leopards. didn't do them much good.

germany won't sell them the newer model leopards. wonder why.

I find it interesting that germany forbade using those tanks against the turkish kurds. now, those other kurds, thats a different story.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

https://news.yahoo.com/turkeys-fight...210000046.html

Turkey's Fight In Syria Showed The Flaws In Germany's Leopard 2 Tanks

well hot damn!



Turkey's Leopard 2 tanks are crappy. they are literally bleeding tanks. most of the older model tanks were disabled or destroyed by the kurdish fighters.


so they brought in the leopards. didn't do them much good. I find it interesting that germany forbade using those tanks against the turkish kurds. now, those other kurds, thats a different story.

guess who else's armor is getting showed up in Syria?



Russia's Tank Forces Got A Really Rude Awakening In Syria

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...g-syria-105237


Maybe the T-90 should have stayed out of the desert.


by Sebastien Roblin




Key point: TOW missiles used by Syrian rebels blew holes through Russia's armored tanks.


The interconnected conflicts raging across the Middle East today have amounted to a dreadful human catastrophe with spiraling global consequence. One of their lesser effects has been to deflate the reputations of Western main battle tanks mistakenly thought to be night-invulnerable in the popular imagination.




Iraqi M1 Abrams tanks not only failed to prevent he capture of Mosul in 2014, but they were captured and turned against their owners. In Yemen, numerous Saudi M1s were knocked out by Houthi rebels. Turkey, which had lost a number of M60 Pattons and upgrade M60T Sabra tanks to Kurdish and ISIS fighters eventually deployed its fearsome German-built Leopard 2A4 tanks. ISIS destroyed eight to ten in a matter of days.



While these tanks could have benefited from specific defensive upgrades in some cases, the real lesson to be drawn was less about technical deficiencies and more about crew training, competent morale, and sound tactical employment matter more even than “invulnerable” armor. After all, even the most heavily armored main battle tanks are significantly less well protected from hits to the side, rear or top armor—and rebels with years of combat experience have learned how to ambush imprudently deployed main battle tanks, particularly using long-range anti-tank missiles from miles away.



One exception to the general tarnishing of reputations has been Russia’s T-90A tank, 550 of which serve as Russia’s top main battle tank until the T-14 Armatas fully enters service. The T-90 was conceived in the 1990s as a modernized mash-up the hull of the earlier mass-production optimized T-72, and the turret from the higher-quality (but operationally unsuccessful) T-80. Retaining a low profile and a three-man crew, (the tank’s 2A46M auto-loading cannon takes the place of a human loader), the fifty-ton T-90A is significantly lighter than the seventy-ton-ish M1A2 and Leopard 2.


When Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015 on behalf the beleaguered regime of Bashar al-Assad, it also transferred around thirty T-90As to the Syrian Arab Army, as well as upgraded T-62Ms and T-72s. The Syrian military could desperately use this armored infusion, as it had lost over two thousand armored vehicles in the preceding years—especially after Syrian rebels began receiving American TOW-2A missiles in 2014. The T-90s were spread out between the 4th Armored Division, the Desert Hawks Brigade (composed of retired SAA veterans led by pro-Assad warlords) and Tiger Force, an elite battalion-sized SAA unit specialized in offensive operations.



In February 2016, Syrian rebels filmed a video of a TOW missile streaking towards a T-90 tank in northeast Aleppo. In a blinding flash, the missile detonates. However, as the smoke cleared it became evident that the tank’s Kontakt-5 explosive-reactive armor had discharged the TOW missile’s shaped-charge warhead prior to impact, minimizing the damage. (This fact was perhaps not appreciated by the tank’s gunner, who in the full version of the video clambered out of an already open hatch and fled on foot.) Nonetheless, the video went viral.
While the T-90A is still outgunned by Western main battle tanks, it does sport number of defensive systems particularly effective verses anti-tank missiles that (all but a few) Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks lack—and anti-tank missiles have destroyed far more armored vehicles in recent decades than tank main guns have.


If you look head on at a T-90A you may notice the creepy “eyes” on the turret—a reliable method of distinguishing it from similar-looking modernized T-72s. These are actually infrared dazzlers designed to jam laser-targeting systems on missiles, and glow a terrifying red color when active. The dazzlers are just a component of the T-90’s Shtora-1 active protection system, which can also discharge smoke grenades that release an infrared-obscuring aerosol cloud. Shtora is integrated with a 360-degree laser-warning receiver which automatically triggers the countermeasures if the tank is painted by an enemy laser—and can even point the tank’s gun towards the origin of the attack. The T-90A’s second line of defense comes in the form of plates of Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armor, which was designed to detonate prior to a missile impact in order to disrupt the molten jet of its shaped-charge warhead and feed additional metal in its path.



So did the T-90’s reactive armor and Shtora active protection system prove a sure-fire countermeasure verses long-range anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs)?





In a word, no—but you would only know that if you followed the many less well publicized videos depicting the destruction or capture of T-90s by rebel and government forces.
Jakub Janovský has dedicated himself to documenting and preserving recorded armor losses in the Syrian Civil War for several years, and recently released a vast archive of over 143 gigabytes of combat footage from the conflict ranging from atrocities perpetrated by various groups to hundreds of ATGM attacks.



According to Janovský, of the thirty transferred to the Syrian Arab Army, he is aware of five or six T-90As being knocked out in in 2016 and 2017, mostly by wire-guided TOW-2A missiles. (Some of the knocked out tanks, to clarify, may be recoverable with heavy repairs.) Another four may have been hit, but their status after the attack as not possible to determine. Of course, there may be additional losses that were not documented, and there are cases where the type of tank involved could not be visually confirmed.


Furthermore, HTS rebels captured two T-90s and used them in action, while a third was captured by ISIS November 2017. On June 2016, Sham Front rebels knocked out a T-90 with a TOW-2. Drone footage taken afterwards shows smoke rising from the turret hatch, and reveals the T-90’s tell-tale Shtora dazzlers. Another video recorded on June 14, 2016, at Aleppo shows a T-90 pulling a sharp turn and racing for cover behind a building—possibly aware of an incoming TOW missile. However, the T-90 is struck in its side or rear armor. The tank explodes, scattering debris high into the air, but stills continues to roll behind cover.



Another T-90A was either hit by a Russian-built Konkurs (similar to the TOW) or the more powerful laser-guided AT-14 Kornet missile near Khanassar, Syria, wounding the gunner. The crew eventually abandoned the vehicle as a fire spread from the machine gun mount into the vehicle, where it began to cook off the 125-millimeter shells on the carousel-style autoloader. The placement of ammunition in middle of the tank alongside the crew, rather than a separate stowage compartment as in the M1, has long been a vulnerability of Russian tank designs.
Rebels, meanwhile, maintained two T-90s in an abandoned brick factory in Idlib province. In April 2017, of the rebel T-90As, reinforced with sandbags on its armor, apparently went on a rampage assisting rebel forces in recapturing the town of Maarden, according to Russian media. Later, one of the T-90As was recaptured by the government, and the other was knocked out—reportedly, by a T-72 tank using a kinetic sabot round in the side armor.
In October, ISIS captured a 4th Armored Division T-90A near al-Mayadeen in eastern Syria when it ventured alone into a sand storm. Then on November 16, 2017, ISIS ambushed a Tiger Force armored column and apparently blasted a T-90A’s turret clean off its hull and left to rot upside down in the desert. The crew was reportedly killed. However, pro-Assad media claims this was the T-90 captured earlier by ISIS, found to be inoperable, and then destroyed for propaganda purposes.





This not to say the T-90’s defensive systems never worked. In one remarkable incident recorded on July 28, 2016, a T-90 tank near the Mallah farms of Aleppo was struck by a TOW missile, but emerged apparently unscathed from the dust cloud thanks to its reactive armor. As the vehicle frantically scuttled away, the TOW crew smacked it with a second missile—which it apparently survived despite sustaining damage.



Janovský says he is not aware of T-90s being lost to shorter-range weapons, “since the regime rarely used T-90s in close combat, especially after two were captured.” The T-90 has in fact been “relatively successful” in Janovský’s opinion, despite losses due to “overconfidence and poor coordination with infantry, which has been a long term problem of the SAA.”
According to Janovský, the T-90’s most useful feature has actually proven to be its superior optics and fire control computer compared to earlier Russian tanks. “T-90s performed well when they had an opportunity to shoot at rebels from long distance or at night, when modern optics and fire-control computer proved to be a major advantage.” Indeed, the T-90A model began receiving French-built Catherine FC thermal imagers in the mid-2000s.





Of course a small number of T-90s was not going to have a great impact on a sprawling civil war that had been raging for years. However, Janovský still see lessons to be drawn from the situation. “The regime was also lucky that rebels never got any modern ATGM that has top attack mode—which would reliable kill T-90.” Examples such of top-attack weapons include the Javelin missile, and the TOW-2B.



“In my opinion, the major issue with T-90 (and most other modern tanks) is a complete lack of hard-kill Active Protection System [one that shoots missiles down], ideally with 360 degrees coverage, but 270 degrees should be minimum. This not only means that it is vulnerable to being disabled by cheap rocket propelled grenades in urban combat but also from Anti-Tank Guided Missiles fired from unexpected angle. When you consider the range of current ATGMs [typically two to five miles], it will be fairly regular occurrence that you get a side shot opportunity against attacking enemy tank from positions across from the of attacked location.”


Indeed, Russia is reportedly planning to upgrade its T-90As—which are currently less advanced than the T-90MS’s in service with the Indian Army—to a T-90M variant with new hard-kill active protection systems, upgraded reactive armor, and a more powerful 2A82 main gun. Ultimately, the losses in Syria show that any tank—whether T-90, M-1 or Leopard 2—is vulnerable on a battlefield in which long-range ATGMs have proliferated. Active protection systems and missile warning systems are vital to mitigate that danger—but so are careful tactical employment, competently trained crews, and improved cooperation with infantry to minimize exposure to long-range attacks, ward off ambushers, and provide extra eyes on possible threats.




Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. This piece was originally featured in 2018 and is being republished due to reader's interest.

[dilbert firestorm]

https://www.justsecurity.org/66574/c...led-from-nato/

very interesting. no suspension/expulsion article in the NATO treaty. I did not know that.

from what I gather, all that is needed is simply to disassociate from the recalitrant offender who doesn't share western values.

Can Turkey be Expelled from NATO? It’s Legally Possible, Whether or Not Politically Prudent

Member States Could Declare Turkey in “Material Breach” and Suspend or Terminate their Treaty Relationship

by Aurel Sari
October 15, 2019

Turkey’s ongoing military action in Syria, Operation Peace Spring, has caused consternation and dismay among its allies. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the intervention could create an “unbearable humanitarian situation” and demanded that the offensive should cease. In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for an immediate end to military operations. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed their serious concern over Turkey’s action and the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in the region.

Others have gone further. Writing shortly before Operation Peace Spring commenced, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham promised to “introduce bipartisan sanctions against Turkey if they invade Syria” and to “call for their suspension from NATO if they attack Kurdish forces who assisted the U.S. in the destruction of the ISIS Caliphate.” Echoing these sentiments, Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested that the United States should consider kicking Turkey out of NATO. On Oct 13, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper revealed that he warned Turkey in advance of its incursion that if it were to proceed with the operation, this would “damage U.S. relations with Turkey, their staying in NATO.”

We are not in unchartered territory. Demands to suspend Turkey’s membership in NATO, or to expel it from the Alliance altogether, have been made before, including in response to the political crackdown of 2016 and its decision to acquire the Russian S-400 air defence system.

No Suspension Provision in the North Atlantic Treaty

Yet matters are not quite so simple. The founding instruments of many international organizations provide for the suspension of a member State’s rights, and even for the termination of its membership, in certain circumstances. Instruments of this kind include the United Nations Charter (Articles 5 and 6), the Statute of the Council of Europe (Article 8) and the Treaty on European Union (Article 7). Alas, the North Atlantic Treaty is not among them. No provision in the treaty foresees the suspension of membership rights, let alone the expulsion of an ally.

Within NATO, concerns over the behaviour of individual allies are thus resolved primarily through diplomatic means, political pressure, and by taking a long-term view. As Jorge Benitez of the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington put it, NATO leaders tend to “wait out the misbehaving national leaders until a government consistent with alliance values eventually returns to power.”

This has not stopped speculation as to whether a nation may nevertheless be expelled from NATO and if so, how. Indeed, what are the options in the absence of a formal process for suspending or terminating membership?

It is important to bear in mind that NATO is not merely a community of interests, but also a community of values. Inspired by the wording of the Brussels Treaty of 1948, the preamble to the North Atlantic Treaty makes this point in the following terms:

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.

They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.

They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security. They therefore agree to this North Atlantic Treaty.

That the Alliance is based on a set of shared values is further underlined by Article 2 of the treaty, which commits the parties to “strengthening their free institutions” and “bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded,” as well as by Article 10, which stipulates that prospective members need to be in “a position to further the principles of this Treaty” in order to accede to it.

More Than a Military Alliance

Some of NATO’s founding members sought to accord these principles even greater weight. More than any other party, Canada from the very beginning wished for the North Atlantic community to be “much more than a military alliance” (Memorandum by Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, June 26, 1948, in CDER vol. 14, page 521). This desire led the Canadian government to propose that the negotiating parties should accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice for all legal disputes arising between them. Canada’s high regard for the principles of democracy, political liberty and the rule of law also led it to express misgivings over the potential membership of Portugal and Spain. In the end, the strategic reasons for inviting Portugal to join NATO as a founding member proved more compelling, while Spain acceded only later, in 1982, after democracy had been restored.

Guided by these ideals, Canada also actively pursued the idea of incorporating an expulsion clause into the draft treaty. The annex to the Washington Paper of September 1948, which contained the first outline of the future agreement, noted the following:

The question of including a provision for disqualification under certain circumstances of any of the signatories from enjoying the benefits of the Treaty requires further consideration.

In the eyes of the Canadian government, the circumstances that might justify the disqualification of a party had to include the “coming into power of a communist-dominated government” in that state (Commentary on the Washington Paper, Dec. 6, 1948). To deal with such an eventuality, Canada proposed a draft provision entitling the North Atlantic Council to suspend or expel a member state from the privileges of membership (Draft North Atlantic Treaty, Dec. 17, 1948).

These proposals met with a lukewarm reception. The general feeling among the other negotiating parties was that it would be a mistake to include any provision in the treaty that would raise questions about the voting procedure in the Council (Canadian Ambassador in the United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs, Jan. 4, 1949, in CDER vol. 15, page 483). The British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, also thought that any efforts to endow the Council with conciliatory powers should be resisted:

I really do not see any advantage in disputes which we may have in the future with the Americans or indeed with the French being discussed in the open and in the presence of the Italians, the Scandinavians and the Portuguese (Mr. Bevin to U.K. Ambassador to Washington Sir O. Franks , Jan. 12, 1949, in The Brussels and North Atlantic Treaties, 1947-1949, page 334).

The idea to incorporate some kind of suspension and expulsion mechanism into the North Atlantic Treaty was therefore dropped. But this left open the question of how NATO should deal with an ally that went “red” as a result of Soviet subversion.

Options Considered

In a statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1949, then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson took the view that such a nation could be booted out even in the absence of a formalized suspension and expulsion procedure. His comments on the preamble to the treaty merit quoting in full:

This draft, Mr. Chairman, starts out with a preamble, and one of the purposes of this preamble was to see if we could in some way describe a democratic non-Communist country. The purpose of that was, if, for instance, Italy becomes a member of such a treaty and then by any chance should go Communist, a question has arisen in people’s minds about what happens then. You do not want to have provisions in such a treaty saying that you can throw them out, because that indicates you are rather doubtful about them before you start; but if you can describe the sort of objectives that are shared by all of these countries, and one of them should no longer be able to be seeking those objectives, then the basis is laid for a separation.
We think that perhaps that is a little bit of a theoretical thing, because probably the first thing any country would do if it became Communist would be to get out of this. That is the way they proceed. They do not stay in. (The Vandenberg Resolution and the North Atlantic Treaty: Hearings, page 93)

The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations also addressed the matter in its report on the treaty. Once again, the relevant passage is worth quoting in full:

The treaty has been criticized in some quarters because it contains no provision for expulsion or the suspension of rights of a recalcitrant member which might fail to carry out its obligations as a result, for example, of its succumbing to communism. Given the nature of the pact and the close community of interests of the signatory states, the committee believes that such a provision would be both unnecessary and inappropriate. Obviously, however, if a member persistently violates the principles contained in the pact, the other members will no longer be obligated to assist that member. Clearly it would fail “to safeguard the freedom * * *” of its people, “founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law” as set forth in the preamble, and to strengthen its “free institutions” as provided in article 2. Presumably it would also decline to participate in “mutual aid” (art. 3), and might well violate its undertakings in article 8 “not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this treaty.” A country suffering such a fate would be in no position either to carry out its own obligations under the treaty or to expect assistance from the other parties. (The Vandenberg Resolution and the North Atlantic Treaty: Hearings, page 379.)

“Material Breach” under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

These passages confirm that maintaining and furthering the principles on which the Alliance is based — democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law — forms part of the object and purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty. This, in turn, suggests that a failure to comply with these principles may amount to a material breach of the treaty within the meaning of Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Pursuant to Article 60, a material breach consists of:

(a) a repudiation of the treaty not sanctioned by the present Convention; or

(b) the violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty.

To constitute a material breach pursuant to sub-paragraph (a), the violation of the principles underlying the treaty would have to be so extensive in scope, so severe and so persistent as to effectively “disavow” or repudiate the treaty (cf. Namibia Advisory Opinion, para. 95). Turning to sub-paragraph (b), there can be little doubt that continued compliance with the values set out in the preamble and Article 2 is essential for the accomplishment of the object and purpose of the treaty.

Official statements issued by the member states, including at the Brussels Summit in 2018 and more recently on the occasion of NATO’s 70th Anniversary, repeatedly affirm these principles. A member nation that violated them in a systematic and egregious manner would thus cast doubt on the very resolve of the allies to “unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security” (preamble, North Atlantic Treaty).

Should the conditions for the existence of a material breach be satisfied, NATO’s member states would be entitled, by unanimous agreement, to suspend the operation of the treaty in whole or in part or to terminate it either in their relations with the defaulting state or among them all (Article 60(2) of the Vienna Convention). For these purposes, a unanimous decision of the North Atlantic Council, excluding the defaulting state, would suffice. No further procedural requirements apply, including those laid down in Article 65 of the Vienna Convention.

Whether or not Turkey is in material breach of its commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty is therefore a question to be determined by the other members of the Council. As Klaus Kress has observed, there is a “very serious possibility that Operation ‘Peace Spring’ could constitute a manifest violation of the prohibition of the use of force.” Coupled with President Erdoğan’s threat to “open the gates” for Syrian refugees to migrate to Europe, a threat fundamentally at odds with the unity and solidarity of the Alliance, characterizing these developments as a material breach is not entirely far-fetched.

In any event, they entitle other NATO nations to suspend or scale back their military cooperation with Turkey, even without declaring Turkey to be in material breach. Although Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty commits the parties to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack, this obligation is meant to pursue the objectives of the treaty. The duty to develop military capabilities and to cooperate to this end therefore does not override the commitment to further the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. A number of Allies, including France, Germany and Norway, as well as official NATO partner Finland, are reported to have suspended the sale of military equipment to Turkey.

Overall, the absence of a suspension and expulsion mechanism in the North Atlantic Treaty does not prevent the North Atlantic Council from suspending or terminating the membership of an ally found to be in material breach of the treaty. However, with the 70th anniversary of the treaty just past, this is a sorry position for the Council to be in by any measure. Suspending, let alone terminating, a nation’s membership of NATO would be an extreme measure to be contemplated only once other attempts to restore unity and respect for the Alliance’s founding principles have been exhausted.

(The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of any organization or institution with which he is affiliated.)

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

guess who else's armor is getting showed up in Syria?



Russia's Tank Forces Got A Really Rude Awakening In Syria

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...g-syria-105237

Maybe the T-90 should have stayed out of the desert.

didn't know russia sent over their T90s and gave assad some.

looks like the T90s didn't do to bad. the quality of the T90s is uneven.

of course, it is up against different TOW systems including Russias. lol.

[eccieuser9500]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

and what does this have to do with Turkey?

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

https://newrepublic.com/article/1553...s-still-turkey

Why Are U.S. Nuclear Bombs Still in Turkey?

The American relationship with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey has been fraught for half a decade, but never this bad. Last week, American troops were intentionally targeted by Turkish artillery units in Northern Syria as Erdoğan’s forces advanced and President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. into a unilateral withdrawal. The Pentagon sternly warned that Turkey’s troops would face “immediate defensive action” from American forces if such an encounter were to be repeated.

good question, why indeed are they still there...

You fuckin' get it now?