Again, look at it from Eastern Europe. What's the good choice?
Being independent is a choice as well, and most tried that. They mostly got invaded by both sides, either being raped and pillaged in tandem or one after the other.
What's the good choice Poland or the Baltics should take?
No, the story ends with King Donald Trump.
How does this relate to Afghanistan wanting to have NATO neighbours or not? The original debate was whether Russia was justified to be hostile to neighbours joining NATO, and you brought up Afghanistan as an example.
Yet the Afghanistan neighbours involved in the NATO invasion were not NATO members, they were in fact NATO-hostile. So the lessons seems less "don't have NATO neighbours" but "ally with your trustworthy neighbours that won't sell you out".
And all that said, NATO and the US in the Middle East and Asia is not the same as NATO in Eastern Europe. I agree that the US should fuck off all the way back to where they came from, but Russia is more of a clear and present danger than the US is. At least here. There are no good guys, only the bad one near you with a rifle and the one far away with a loan.
Linkerbaan, put yourself into the shoes of any Eastern European country in 1930, and decide who to ally with. I bet however you answer that question, there will be a nice example why it was a dogshit choice. It is not that much different now, except the collective West seems less bad than the Third Reich was.
Death Road to Canada
But that someone will have their own priorities that will most likely not always coindice with yours.
Lawfare it to hell and back?
Well, yes?
I guess they have as much to do with it as "industry leaders".
Benefit of the doubt here, weren't the casinos some criminal conspiracy to dodge taxes or sg?
The US Afganistan invasion was supplied through Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, the old Russian lines that Russia used in its own invasion. Georgia was also an intermediary to a lesser degree.
None of these are NATO members.
When did megacorps, billionaires and insider trading political dynasties ever have to compromise?
It's a chilling effect, and some jobs can ask to verify your history by verifying this trail of papers.
The point is noone cares why the dems went towards the corporate right. Noone cares if Bernie got kneecapped or had no chance to begin with.
We can argue back and forth as long as we go crazy whether a more progressive administration would have been realistic.
The cold hard truth is a US dictatorship now is. It's not edgy, it's sad is what it is. Hillary got us Trump, and Biden will get us Trump.