Denmark has been fighting with U.S. wars since the 1991 invasion of Iraq. It has sent troops into Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Libya, and Syria—fighting a bloody Second Cold War.

“We perceive it as natural that once again we are on the way to war, part of our every day,” says Vibeke Schou Tjalve, researcher at Danish Institute for International Studies. “People believe that if the U.S. says it is wise, so it is wise for us to be with them … We have broken our hymen.”

Tjalve explained that, since at least October 2, 2014, practically every military researcher at universities and military think tanks agree that “Denmark is at war to please America.”^[1]

At the time of Tjalve’s statement, Denmark announced that it had sent four F-16 war jets and 300 mercenaries to the Baltic States and Poland in response to the U.S.-led coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected government. Sanctions against Russia followed. ^[2]

New Cold War against Russia

Denmark is not the only vassal state adhering to the U.S. Military Empire. All 27 members of the European Union and all 30 NATO members, follow suit to varying degrees. Denmark, however, has earned a sit in the front row.

Russia is now under sanctions by the EU, because 97% of Crimeans (1,274,096) voted to join Russia, while 2.5% (32,000) voted to remain with the neo-fascist-led coup government of Ukraine. Eighty-three percent of those eligible voted. A year later, the very capitalist Forbes magazine wrote:

The U.S. and European Union may want to save Crimeans from themselves, but the Crimeans are happy right where they are. One year after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in the Black Sea, poll after poll shows that the locals there—be they Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or Tatars—are mostly all in agreement: life with Russia is better than life with Ukraine.

President Putin with representatives of Crimean Tartars

Member-states rallied behind the sanctions despite traditional worshipping “free market trading.”

Economists from Kiel and Hong Kong calculated in 2019 that $4 billion in trade each month would be lost due to anti-Russian sanctions. Of these export losses, $1.8 billion, or 45%, are borne by authorizing countries, 55% by Russia.

The EU originally introduced sanctions on July 31, 2014, for one year in response to Russia’s actions of “destabilizing the situation in Ukraine,” and extends the sanctions periodically. A double standard is apparent in that Russia is targeted while other countries engaged in real human rights violations are not sanctioned. Examples: Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Colombia, and Israel, whose right-wing governments routinely seize Palestinian land and homes, encage children, and kill others. The U.S. wages wars of aggression and backs coups in scores of countries for two centuries.

Denmark allows its banks to whitewash money that come from drug and arms smuggling, and refuses to plug loopholes so that the rich can claim refunds from taxes they have not paid. These matters have been news for years, yet when a corporation sells jet fuel to Russia, which it uses to destroy IS terrorist enclaves in Syria, Denmark calls this criminal.

172,000 tons of jet fuel! That is what Dan-Bunkering in Denmark sold to Russia in the decisive years of 2015-17. According to Mikkel Storm Jensen, a military analyst for the Defense Academy, “Without Russian flying would Assad not have won the civil war?”

Does this mean that Establishment military analysts mean the preferred victors should have been the IS terrorists, al-Qaeda and other “milder” U.S.-armed opposition groups?

In November 2020, the government charged Dan-Bunkering with violating EU sanction rules and is seeking not only a fine, which is the most the government seeks for some corporate crimes, but also imprisonment for those responsible.

Dan-Bunkering CEO Keld Demant faces potential jail time for selling jet fuel to Russia. He says that the company had no knowledge that the jet fuel might end up in Syria.

DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) wrote that it was U.S. documentation and “sources” (read: NSA/CIA) that showed Denmark this “criminal” behavior on the part of Dan-Bunkering. The company purportedly earned about $3 billion from free market trading.

“Authoritarian” Russia was eliminating real terrorists who cut off heads for any “sinful” behavior or simply for being born in the wrong family. The “democratic” CIA and Pentagon back different terrorist groups fighting against the Syrian government army while also fighting one another.

The Los Angeles Times reported, on March 27, 2016, that Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other. In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east. A fighter with the Suqour Al-Jabal brigade, a group with links to the CIA, said intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State know their group has clashed with the Pentagon-trained militias.

Fursan al Haq sometimes is with al-Qaeda’s Syrian group, Al-Nusra, The CIA operates inside Turkey where it directs aid “to rebel groups in Syria, providing them with TOW antitank missiles from Saudi Arabian weapons stockpiles.”

Russia backs governments in Syria, Iran, Crimea, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, which the U.S. and allies consider illegitimate and criminal. On top of sanctions, more war weaponry stares at Russians on their borders, and war exercises take place in anticipation of a “Russian attack.”^[3]

In 2018, 500,000 NATO troops, 250 aircraft, 65 warship and 500 war vehicles crossed into Denmark from Germany on their way to Norway to conduct maneuvers against a Russian invasion.

Danish Foreign Policy Post-WW11 History

Denmark accepted Nazi Germany’s occupation immediately as its tanks rolled in, April 9, 1940. Its government led by Social Democrats turned over Danish resistance fighters to the Nazis, sometimes even more than asked for. It allowed fascist Danes to fight with German Nazis.

The last two years of the war, Danish underground resistance became quite effective and that convinced the allies to accept Denmark as an ally after the war.

When British troops marched into Denmark on liberation day May 5, 1945, Danish politicians eagerly embraced them, and then decided to follow the lead of the United States. The economy was rebuilt with Marshall Plan funding. Much of that repaid in Danish currency once the economy grew.

Denmark had no conflicts with the Soviet Union after it left the Danish island of Bornholm a few months after ousting Nazi occupiers at the end of the war. Nevertheless, Denmark swore alliance to the UK-USA Cold War started by Winston Churchill and Harry Truman.

Denmark was one of the first dozen nations to form NATO in 1949 and established a clandestine Gladio army, created to stop an alleged forthcoming Communist invasion.

Nevertheless, Denmark did not participate in U.S. wars and coups, and most Danes were adamantly against the war in Southeast Asia. Many Danish youth and left-wing parties were peace activists.

Social Democrat Prime Minister Anker Joergensen led the Danish government most of the time between 1972 and 1982. Having been a union activist and warehouse worker, he argued that Denmark should be neutral in the Cold War and that NATO warships should be barred from carrying nuclear arms in Danish waters.

Joergensen also opposed the Vietnam War. When Vietnam retook its land from the invaders, PM Joergensen expressed support for its liberation, adding that the U.S.’s foreign policy has a “false ideological foundation.”

Peace organizations and left-wing parties, including Social Democrats at that time, opposed NATO’s fascination with escalating the Cold War with more nuclear missiles. A majority of parliament adopted a “footnote” policy that prohibited Denmark supporting Pershing and Cruise middle-range missiles not only on its territory but throughout Europe.

As the U.S. installed their new deadly ware, millions of Europeans resisted. In September 1981, tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin against visiting U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig. They were indignant that Haig had said during his confirmation hearings earlier in 1981, “There are more important things than peace, things which we Americans must be willing to fight for.”

The largest hand-linking demonstration, more than 100 kilometers long, stretched from Ulm to Stuttgart where I stood amongst 200,000 people. Organizers had hoped for half that number, which would have connected in one line the two cities and a U.S. military base where Pershing missiles were to be deployed. We were so many that we had to make a snaking formation. At precisely noon, all traffic stopped, not a word spoken. Our hands were literally electrified in a brotherly sensation as we melted into one spirit.

Our persistent actions connecting hands and hearts across the continents of North America and Europe, West and East, laid the foundation for the largest international peace conference since February 1972 when 1,200 delegates from 84 nations met at Versailles to plan actions against the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. In October 1986, twice that many delegates—2,200 from 2,468 organizations in 136 countries—met in Copenhagen at the World Peace Congress.

As a peace activist-journalist, I reported in print and radio from Stuttgart, from the Versailles conference, and from Copenhagen’s conference as co-chair of the journalist workshop. We were 254 journalists, who pledged to uphold the Helsinki Accords of August 1975 regarding the use of information in the context of “strengthening peace and understanding among peoples; to cooperate irrespective of their economic and social conditions.”

The conferees’ main goal was to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to dismantle those that existed. UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, India PM Rajiv Gandhi, and U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy sent greetings.

The World Peace Council, the Soviet Union’s peace organization, was present. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had declared the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons. Unlike U.S. leaders, Gorbachev did not think economic and political systems led by elites were more important than peace. In the minds of the owners and editors of mass media, however, if Russians wanted peace there must be something fishy about it.

Despite the mass media’s reluctance to support world peace efforts, peoples’ resistance movements, coupled with de-escalation efforts by Gorbachev, led to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

In January 1986, Gorbachev had publicly proposed a three-stage program for abolishing all nuclear weapons. He convinced Reagan to meet in Reykjavik to discuss de-escalating as we met in Copenhagen. Reagan refused to go as far as Gorbachev but within months Gorbachev’s actions de-escalating nuclear weaponry could not be dismissed—the SU reduced its long-range nuclear missiles by half. On December 8, 1987, the INF treaty was signed, passed by the U.S. Senate on May 27, 1988, and ratified by both world leaders, on June 1.

The INF Treaty banned all of the two nations’ land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers, and 1,000–5,500 km. By May 1991, the nations had eliminated 2,692 missiles, followed by 10 years of on-site verification inspections.

However, a majority of voters put right-wing/center parties in the government in the 1980s, they changed the “footnote” foreign policy of no support for more nuclear weapons and war escalation with an “active” one.

Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan

Denmark’s subservience to U.S./NATO became a greater priority than the threat of nuclear war. The first war Denmark participated in was Bush I’s 1991 invasion of Iraq.

Modern Danish Viking warriors got their feet wet during the Gulf War (August 1990-February 1991) by invading Iraq, because it had a dispute with Kuwait about oil pricing and production.

On August 2, 1990, Denmark sent a corvette to blockade Iraq and relieve U.S. and UK warships.

The world’s largest shipping owner, A.P. Moeller-Maersk (APMM), was disappointed that the Danish government had offered so little to help the U.S.-led war that he demanded and received direct contact with the U.S. military. He sent dozens of ships to transport a half-million U.S. troops and armaments free of charge. This bought him future war contracts worth billions of dollars.

One of Maersk’s shipping lines, Maersk Line Limited, is based in Norfolk, Virginia. His 56 ships there fly the U.S. stars and stripes; 22 of them are used directly by the U.S. for military operations.

The company offer of ships and expertise brought the Danish government into the picture. APMM ships were contracted to sail parts from around the world to Lockheed Martin’s factory in Fort Worth, Texas. When Lockheed Martin received a contract for building 1,763 F-35 super jets following the September 11, 2001, attacks, Moeller-Maersk was right there.

During the 1990s, Denmark assisted in breaking up Yugoslavia. This ended the socialist-led state replaced by five separate capitalist states. On November 8, 1992, Denmark sent 170 soldiers and observers to Bosnia. Denmark was under UN “peace-keeping” missions and later under NATO fighting missions until March 1995.

In October 1998, the first 875 of many thousands of Danish mercenaries were sent to fight beside the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Nine F-16s accompanied them. The KLA was a drug-smuggling band and was on U.S. and European terrorist lists. When the KLA attacked socialist-led Serbian forces, it became an ally. Denmark still occupies Bosnia and Kosovo. Hashim Thaçi resigned the presidency on November 5, 2020, after being indicted in June 2020 on ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In December 2001, Denmark joined the U.S. in its invasion of Afghanistan, for allegedly giving refuge to al-Qaeda forces perhaps responsible for the terrorist attacks September 11. The U.S. refused to offer the Taliban government, which it had helped to gain power, any proof that those Saudi al-Qaeda forces were responsible for the terrorist actions.

What Danes, and U.S. Americans, forget, or wish to ignore, is that President Vladimir Putin, just elected following Boris Yeltsin’s decade-long betrayal to Russian sovereignty, complied with President George W. Bush request for assistance in his war against Afghanistan’s Taliban government. President Putin offered intelligence support, use of its military base in Kyrgyzstan, and even proposed a broader NATO with Russia as a member. For Putin’s pains of cooperation, Bush allowed the CIA to infiltrate terrorists in areas of Russian interests in the Caucasus, including in Baku, intending to create separatism and feuds between neighbors (Georgia, Chechnya, North and South Ossetia) and Russia. Bush also withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. (See The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert, chapters 13 and 14).

Russia and China are accused of being anti-democratic, authoritarian, even totalitarian states. Yet Anders Wivel and Rasmus Mariager’s 2019 book, Krigsudredningen (The War Investigation), shows how “Denmark’s military engagement [is] driven by Danish politicians’ decision-making will to accommodate American desire for military contribution.”

The decision about going to war is “not what one fights for, but with whom we fight.” “What is lacking is any systematic discussion of goals, means, expected affect, resources, risk, time plan…alternatives and consequence. Elections are not determined by foreign policy… Denmark’s alliances and world goals are decided by politicians,” wrote Information’s editor about the book. By implication, the people have no say especially about foreign policy, i.e., who to murder or not.

Danish soldier in Iraq

Denmark has flown more than 1,000 F-16 missions, used helicopters, transport aircraft, tanks, and thousands of machine guns. It has spent more money there than any other invader in Afghanistan other than the U.S.—three billion dollars between 2002-2015, and still counting. They plan to remain in Afghanistan as long as the U.S. is there.

On March 21, 2003, Denmark became the only government to actually declare war on Iraq. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s public posture was that Iraq possessed weapons of massive destruction, as if that were an international crime warranting “regime change.” It was later proven that Rasmussen had lied. No such weapons existed and he knew it from his own intelligence service. However, such weapons do exist in the U.S. and some of its allies’ territory.

On March 18, 2011, the Danish parliament voted unanimously to create a no fly zone to prevent Libya’s government from protecting itself, in effect warring against Libya. The parties voting included the Peoples Socialist party (SF) and Red/Green (Enhedslisten). Denmark sent six F-16s, allegedly to prevent President Muammar Gaddafi from “crushing civilian opposition” armed in Benghazi, something that groups associated with al-Qaeda claimed would soon happen.

Denmark dropped one thousand bombs. The “brave pilots,” as the media called them, had no risk as Libya’s air force was crushed. Not one Danish invader was killed, but hundreds of Libyan civilians were. Denmark spent more than $100 million helping destroy schools, hospitals, homes, and soldiers protecting their sovereign nation. Western “humanitarian” forces watched as its “rebel opposition” captured President Gaddafi and tortured him to a painful death.

“WE CAME, WE SAW, HE DIED” chortled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on CBS news.

In April 2014, Danish ships transported 1,300 tons of chemical weaponry from Syria’s government into the hands of the U.S., the country with the most chemical and biological weaponry. Denmark also sent F-16s on missions inside Syria against all laws of sovereignty.

In January 2017, Denmark sent 60 Special Forces to Syria to assist terrorist groups fighting the Syrian government. Denmark has focused on donating tax money to “opposition” “humanitarian” groups, such as “White Helmets” embedded with IS in its captured territory, and “friendly” militia fighters against the government.

The same month, Denmark flew four F-16s to aid Estonia from being “invaded by Russia”. This action was linked to supporting the neo-fascist Ukrainian coup government, which the U.S. set in. Denmark continues its “peace-keeping mission” in the Baltics.

Greenland Not For Sale, or What?

U.S. Homeland Security official Miles Taylor was with President Donald Trump in Puerto Rico, in August 2018. After he resigned, Taylor recounted: “Not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico…Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor?”

Trump didn’t bother to ask Puerto Ricans or Greenlanders. He raised it with Denmark’s new PM Mette Frederiksen. Denmark’s prime ministers do not have the authority to make such a deal. Frederiksen made the error of telling Danish media that the notion was “absurd.” This term injured Trump’s vanity. He cancelled his planned trip to Denmark on September 2, 2019. About 1,000 of us gathered to demonstrate against him and Denmark’s cozy relationship with Trump anyway.

Donald Trump does not give up easily, as the 2020 election clearly shows. He tried buying “good will” so that Greenlanders would allow the United States to use their land for more war machinery. In April 2020, Trump sent $12 million “to enhance Greenland’s growth.”

Mette Frederiksen smiled and said the $12 million was a wonderful gift.

Trump’s ambassador to Denmark, Carla Sands, wrote, “Unlike Russia and the PRC [People’s Republic of China], America’s vision for the Arctic area is based on transparency, cooperation and democratic values.”

Sands also wrote that this money would screen Greenlanders from “malicious influence and extortion by Russia and China.” She encouraged Denmark to spend more to protect Greenland, i.e., buy more F-35s. The 27 already contracted will increase its war aircraft fleet by 40% along with General Dynamics F-16s.

The Russian ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir V. Barbin, replied that the U.S. rejects dialogue and cooperation, preferring “confrontation politics” oriented “to achieve domination.”

Unlimited consumerism is causing the melting of all the Arctic’s glaciers within a few years. The territories and countries around it (Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, China, Russia) should see the need to cooperate to help save its glaciers and not remove oil and mineral wealth beneath them. Nor should they put every human in the area in threat of diseases from radioactive chemicals, or entire elimination from nuclear accidents or nuclear war.

Greenlanders remember what most others do not about how dangerous flying around with nuclear weapons can be. On January 21, 1968, a B-52 carrying four nuclear bombs caught on fire and crashed into ice nearby Thule Air Force Base.

Thule Air Force Base Greenland

Denmark has had a no-nuclear policy since 1957.

The U.S. had moved Greenlanders from Thule village during WWII to build the base. Denmark unwillingly gave the U.S. eternal use of Greenland. It agreed to never inspect what the U.S. brought. After the war, the enemy was again the Soviet Union, and the U.S. brought nuclear weapons to Thule. Since then, the U.S. flies and sails nuclear missiles anywhere regardless of any nation’s laws. Danish politicians faithfully cover up the fact that the U.S. has nuclear weaponry on its territory.

Following the crash, teams of Danes and U.S. Americans conducted as much clean-up of nuclear waste and plutonium as they said they could. The whole matter was hushed up, but a report revealed that only 90% of dangerous material was recovered; 10% was sunken below the seabed at North Star Bay, contaminating plants and fish.

Of the 1,500 Danish workers, 450 died from radiation cancer. There is no information available about how many Greenlanders fell ill and died. In 1995, Danish survivors of the clean-up (“Operation Chrome Dome”) sued for compensation.

Survivors received the grand total of $6,000 each for their pain. Neither the American workers nor native Greenlanders in the area received anything. The Association of Former Thule Workers called it a “cover-up.”

Cover-up is what the Danish governments’ Defense Department has been doing for years, and has led to illegally spying on its residents and European neighbors, a Danish weapons firm, Terma, even the Ministry of Finance, all to please NSA and Lockheed Martin.

Social Democrats Embrace the New Cold War with Relish

In the autumn of 2019, the new Social Democrat government leaders wet their skirts scrambling to convince the most narcissistic president in U.S. history that they are his most loyal of all lackeys. Great Britain move over.

Mette Frederiksen and her war minister, Trine Bramsen, felt the need to make up for not being able to sell Greenland to Donald Trump’s government, something he felt was a condition for his scheduled September 2019 visit.

Frederiksen pledged even closer U.S.-Danish cooperation in efforts to control the Arctic, whose melting ice has increased competition with Russia over oil and minerals. Frederiksen made further offerings to assist the United States Military Empire:

1. The same day that Trump would have walked beside PM Frederiksen, she instructed her war minister to send four F-16s to Lithuania just in case Russia decided to invade there.
2. The same day, Frederiksen-Bramsen announced they were buying top-notch sonar so it could help search for Russian submarines.
3. To offset Trump’s criticism that Denmark as a wealthy country should pay more for its military, Frederiksen-Bramsen pledged millions for NATO.
4. Bramsen assured us that her elite corps (comparable to Navy Seals and Frogmen) will be used as protection against Russia. She did not tell us what the threat was but emphasized that the elite corps would be “effective when there is need for it.”
5. September 6, the PM, Secretary of State and War Minister stood together as they announced sending 500 more soldiers to various vulnerable parts of the globe. They will sail Denmark’s largest vessel, a frigate, alongside U.S. aircraft carriers to patrol the waters close to Russia and Iran. (A Danish frigate with helicopters and 155 sailors sailed in a France-led surveillance mission in Hormuz Strait beginning in December 2019.)
6. September 27, the largest military exercise on Danish soil in 15 years engaged in maneuvers against a hypothetical Russian invading force. Operation Brave Lion confronted the invisible Brown Bears with two thousand men and women (women now comprise 20% of the military).

Danish soldiers in Combined Resolve 111 military exercises

Kristian Soeby Kristensen, senior researcher at the Institute for Military Studies, Copenhagen University, told DR, “Russia constitutes a potential military threat to Europe…so it is decisive that European countries also equip themselves and pose with more powerful forces.”

The “threat” from this huge country is frightening for those who refuse to see how ridiculous it is to claim that 145 million Russians will take on 900 million people in 30 NATO countries.

Denmark and the EU are also increasing the demonization of Russia by following U.S.’s lead in denying that the Soviet Union/Russia played an important role in winning WWII.

On Victory Day, May 4, 75 years after Germany surrendered in Denmark, Danish politicians gave no credit to the fact that the Soviet Union played a central role in liberating Europe from the Nazis. Twenty-seven million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed (13% of its people), compared to 450,000 in the UK (1%), and 420,000 Americans (0.32%).  

Denmark has also come up with reasons to sanction Russia’s ally, China. Denmark’s largest telecommunications company (TDC) worked with Huawei and was satisfied. No one could find any spying capabilities with Huawei products. Trump, however, just as all U.S. presidents tied with Wall Street, must have enemies. They serve for weapon-industry profiteering and as diversions from internal problems. With sanctions against Huawei, TDC switched to Ericsson, a Swedish company.

Mette Swinging with Trump

Following the tense situation about who should control Greenland, Mette Frederiksen met with Donald Trump in London during the December 2019 NATO meeting.

She told the media, “I have a good and positive impression of the president.” “We can count on one another and we can trust one another.” “We swing well.”

To prove how well she swings with her big partner, Frederiksen increased Denmark’s military support over what she had offered just two months before. This support includes:

• More military focus and money in Greenland’s Arctic area for “national security.”
• Double Denmark’s aircraft for NATO from four to eight in honor of its 70th birthday.

Key features of Denmark’s military might for its 5.7 million inhabitants include:

• $3 billion military budget (3% of 2019 Financial Budget), a 20% increase in military spending over a six-year period.
• Mercenaries in Afghanistan (160) plus Danish police instructors; $50 million for what is admittedly Afghanistan’s corrupt police corps; aircraft and war vehicles come and go.
• Mercenaries in Iraq (150). Denmark sent 50 more as it takes charge of the remaining NATO countries’ 500 “advisers.” This is Denmark’s third mission in Iraq. Its first 2003-7 aimed at crushing Saddam Hussein’s government and resistance forces. Denmark also has 14 operators at a United Arab Emirates airbase as part of its mission in Iraq.
• Mercenaries in the Baltic (200-300). The Danes are there officially to keep “Putin’s troops away.” The three Baltic countries are in NATO and the EU making it ludicrous to believe the Russians would invade.
• Mercenaries in Bosnia (400) and Kosovo (three dozen).

Denmark’s Wars: The Toll

Thirty thousand troops and mercenaries sent 67,371 times to war between 1990-2017 (and running) as an aggressor in half-a-dozen countries, either as part of NATO or part of the “coalition of the willing.” Danish troops have also been in two dozen countries as part of UN peacekeeping forces.

Danes killed: 64; wounded, approximately 300; 47 suicides in 300 attempts between 1992-2013 (and running). No figures are kept of how many human beings Denmark has murdered!

1. Balkans=33,691 Danes; 12 Danes killed; 35 wounded. 1992-today.
2. Afghanistan=20,000 Danes; 43 killed; 214 wounded. 2002-today
3. Iraq=9,605 troops; 8 killed; 19 wounded. 2003-today
4. Libya=629 pilots+, none killed or wounded. 2011
5. Lebanon=1,551; one killed; no wounded.
6. Gulf of Aden=3,149 sailors/military; none killed or wounded.
7. Syria=738 air force and special forces; none killed or wounded

Conclusion: Why are Danes so obedient to the United States Military Empire?

Profiteering from the weapons industry and wars is always one answer, usually the main answer. Nevertheless, with the exception of a handful of capitalists (A.P. Moeller Maersk, Terma) income from weapons and war is negligible in Denmark.

Demonizing President Vladimir Putin is the key ideological reason. Copying the United States Military Empire goes hand-in-hand with that.

Can Danes really believe that the Russians would invade them if the U.S. wasn’t behind them militarily? Would the U.S. drop its support if Denmark refused to fight the Yankees’ wars? No. If it did, it would have serious problems with several current vassal states.

Not all 30 NATO countries and the 27 in the EU are so obedient as are the Danes. Danes want to be first in line. In fact, “shoulder to shoulder” was how Social Democrat Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen expressed Danes support for U.S. wars following 9/11 attacks.

In summary, this is what Danes have told me about their complacency over the decades.

1. We had to do what the U.S. wanted of us so we could come in out of the cold, and get Marshall Plan benefits.
2. Danes profited from colonialism/slavery. Much of Denmark’s wealth has come from being oppressors. Danes don’t want to confront that past, clearly seen on many monuments/statues/street names, and Greenland is still a colony.
3. Danes now see themselves as just a “little land” needing “security” from a big land.
4. Danish culture has long been passive, authoritarian faithful, conflict-adverse and indifferent.

END

^[1] Denmark does not even have a large profiteering weapons industry, not yet. Most of its war profits come from supplying advanced radar and communication apparatuses for satellites and jets, measurements of heat, dust, sounds, and drones. Before Denmark began its warring era, there were less than a handful of such firms. Since 1996, the Defense and Aerospace industry has grown to 73 members (2014). Its exports in 2008 (latest figures provided) were some $3 billion. It has recently reorganized its production from delivery of components to entire systems for such warring giants as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, as well as NASA. It sells war materials to the Balkans and to the Baltic States, pressing Russia on its western borders. (See Outposts of the U.S. Surveillance Empire: Denmark and Beyond, CovertAction Magazine for information on Denmark’s largest weapons firm, Terma, and the Defense Intelligence Service (FE).

^[2] Mercenary because if Denmark has not declared war or is not under attack, no soldier is forced to take to foreign war missions without volunteering, and do so with greater pay. Denmark’s war in Iraq began in March 2003 as George W. Bush invaded the cradle of civilization, murdering hundreds of thousands of human beings while destroying and stealing much of its ancient and modern works. Tjalve pointed out that the so-called “red” social democratic government was then even more willing to continue warring in Iraq—this time against IS instead of the defeated forces of Saddam Hussein—than was the majority in the U.S. The 2014 mission was not official war, rather part of the “anti-terror” mission against IS. Danish soldiers were not ordered to fight in other countries where Denmark had not declared war. They went voluntarily, and are thus mercenaries.

^[3] One must bear in mind that the combined military forces of U.S./NATO/EU/Israel are ten-fold what Russia has. The U.S. has about 800 military bases outside (plus 4,154 on its soil); NATO has 30; Russia has a dozen, and China one. See William Blum books. Blum documented that since WWII the U.S. has attempted to overthrow 50 governments, most of them democratically elected, and been successful about half the time. See also my book, The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert, chapter 18. Amazon.com: The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert eBook: Ridenour, Ron: Kindle Store

In the Pentagon’s “New Arctic Strategy” it is stated that the Space Force will “develop new technologies and modernize existing assets in the Arctic necessary to ensure access to and freedom to operate in space,” while Air Force Secretary Barbara Barret announced in July that “U.S. air and space forces value the Arctic. Access and stability require cooperation among America’s allies and partners, along with a commitment to vigilance, power projection, and preparation.”

Barrett’s observation that the region should be “a free and open domain for benevolent actors” would be more credible were the Pentagon indeed a benevolent actor — and while Washington always declares that other countries are indulging in military adventurism when developing defences in their own territory, it is a different call when the Pentagon indulges in “forward-basing.” For example, it is believed to be sinister that in its own Arctic territory, “Russia has refurbished airfields, invested in search and rescue, and built radar stations to improve awareness in the air and maritime domains” while U.S. military expansion in the Arctic is considered essential because “it is a critical domain to protect America’s homeland.”

This was raised by Trump during his fantasising about buying Greenland when, although acknowledging that “Denmark essentially owns it” he claimed that this hurts Denmark “very badly” because it loses “almost $700 million a year” (which is not so) but that he wants to continue “protecting” Washington’s “big ally.”

Denmark and the rest of the world laughed at Trump’s silly fantasy which caused the usual Trump reaction, in that he promptly cancelled a scheduled visit to Copenhagen and tweeted childish abuse about Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. His reason for scrapping the visit and insulting the Danish people was that the prime minister had “no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland”. As with the entire Washington establishment — and most notably the Machiavellian Pompeo — Trump considers that when a country is presented with demands made by the United States then there has to be speedy and totally compliant action on the part of the targeted government.

Trump’s petulant insult was laughed at by the Danes and everyone else, but then he turned his attention to another part of the Arctic. As pointed out by Juan Cole, on August 18, the same day that scientists produced a research analysis concluding that the Greenland ice sheet is losing 500 billion tons of ice each year (equal to a million tons a minute), the real estate agent in the White House finalised his plans to encourage oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

You have to hand it to Trump, in that he rarely fails to make a complete idiot of himself when an opportunity arises.

The wildlife refuge was first protected by legislation brought in forty years ago, but has been under constant threat from oil and gas companies which are faithfully supported by members of the Republican Party whose Congressional legislators in 2017 (when they controlled both Houses) approved a tax bill that opened the area to oil and gas leasing. It has been calculated that the oil and gas sector contributed $84.4 million in the 2018 election cycle. Koch Industries was the largest single donor, at $10.5 million. Total campaign spending by the oil and gas sector since 1990 has totalled $625 million.

Trump and the people who fill the pockets of legislators — and the pocket-filled legislators themselves — are not in the slightest concerned about the effects of gas and oil drilling in the Wildlife Refuge, which are likely to be catastrophic.

Which brings us to the military expansion equation, in which the Pentagon is to the fore in explaining in its Arctic Strategy that “U.S. interests include maintaining flexibility for global power projection, including by ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight; and limiting the ability of China and Russia to leverage the region as a corridor for competition that advances their strategic objectives through malign or coercive behaviour.”

Russia and China wish to develop economically, and the Arctic is an area that can be beneficial to their interests. Russia, as even the Pentagon has to admit, “is the largest Arctic nation by landmass, population, and military presence above the Arctic Circle”, although of course it is regarded as deplorable that its “commercial investments… have been matched by continued defence investments and activities that strengthen both its territorial defence and its ability to control the Northern Sea Route.”

As to China, the summation is that it is “attempting to gain a role in the Arctic in ways that may undermine international rules and norms, and there is a risk that its predatory economic behaviour globally may be repeated in the Arctic.” In other words, Washington, which fancies it does not indulge in predatory economic behaviour, does not want either Russia or China to continue their initiatives in developing the region.

Neither Russia nor China is furthering schemes whereby northern wildlife will be destroyed by their economic activities, and there is no evidence that their military activities are in any way confrontational or aggressive. But the Pentagon is determined to find justification for its own posture in the region and is developing a “U.S. Arctic deterrent” which “will require agile, capable, and expeditionary forces with the ability to flexibly project power into and operate within the region, as the Joint Force must be able to do elsewhere globally.”

Trump’s emphasis on expanding fossil fuel production and throwing open the Alaskan Arctic to drilling and associated coinstruction will imperil endangered species and contribute massively to the climate change crisis. The Pentagon’s military strategy for the region will increase international tension and inevitably lead to confrontation, as it expands its presence in order to “project power.” Washington’s plans for the Arctic will heat the place up in more than one way.

While Donald Trump shocked the world by admitting that he is entertaining purchasing the world’s largest island, Greenland, from Denmark, regardless of the fact that it is not for sale, there are other island moves taking place in the Middle East, Indian Ocean, South Pacific, and elsewhere. What makes Trump’s obsession unique is that Trump appears to think that an island like Greenland that is under duress from global warming is prime for a hostile takeover bid. While that may be a business strategy in Trump’s cut-throat world of high-end real estate, it is not acceptable in the world of diplomacy and international relations.

When a Manhattan hotel is sold, the purchase agreement does not include all of the hotel’s occupants. Greenland’s population is 57,000, 88 percent of whom are native Inuit. There is little chance that the Inuit citizens of Greenland would want to become part of a country whose president repeatedly calls a US senator “Pocahontas” and disparages the treaty rights of Native American tribal nations. Nor would the Inuit, as well as the ethnic Danish minority, want to sacrifice their top-notch national health care system for one of the worst in the industrialized world.

Another strategic island, Socotra, which lies in an important shipping channel in the Gulf of Aden, is currently a highly-contested prize between the United Arab Emirates, the internationally-recognized government of the Yemen Arab Republic – exiled in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the South Yemeni secessionist Southern Transition Council (STC) – which is backed by the UAE and seeks restoral of South Yemen’s former independent status, and the British colonial era Mahra State of Qishn and Socotra, which is supported by Oman, where the pretender to the throne of Qishn and Socotra, Sheikh Abdullah Al Afrar, is headquartered when he is not present in Socotra. Socotrans have grown tired of the presence of Emirati and Saudi troops on their pristine island, called the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean” due to the presence of flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world. During the final 75 years of the Mahra State, the Mahra sultans ruled their British protectorate from Hadiboh, the capital city of Socotra.

There are significant historical links between the Mahra and Omani sultans and Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said has avoided participation in the Saudi-led coalition that is battling Houthi-led rebels who have taken control of much of North Yemen. The UAE, which took over control of Socotra’s airport and seaport, views Socotra as a key link between the UAE, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea. There has been some talk of the UAE leasing Socotra for 99 years. However, just as Greenland and Denmark have told Washington that Greenland is not for sale, the Socotrans and Mahra State, backed by Oman, have told Abu Dhabi that Socotra is not for lease.

To the south in the Indian Ocean, the UN General Assembly voted on May 22, 2019 to set a six-month deadline for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago, which is claimed by Mauritius. In 1967, the British expelled the native Chagossians from the archipelago to make way for a major US military base on Diego Garcia. Mauritius, which became home to many Chagossian refugees, wants the original inhabitants resettled on their islands. London and Washington are balking at any such notion.

While Borneo, the world’s third largest island after Greenland and New Guinea, is part of Indonesia, the announcement by Indonesian President Joko Widodo that Indonesia will move its capital city from Jakarta to the northeastern part of Borneo will forever change the nature of Borneo. Half of Jakarta is currently below sea-level, a situation that has been caused by a combination of depletion of ground water and rising sea levels due to climate change. Current plans are to move Indonesia’s capital to a forested area between the East Kalimantan province cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda.

The new capital will be close to Eastern Malaysia’s states of Sabah and Sarawak and the Sultanate of Brunei. Like the Amazon Basin, East Kalimantan province’s rain forests have also earned it the title of “lungs of the world.” Environmentalists are concerned about the effect the new capital city will have on forest destruction, an issue that currently plagues the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Borneo is home to three secessionist movements. The Kalimantan Dayaks and Malays favor independence or unification with Malaysia. However, there are also nascent secessionist movements in Sarawak and Sabah that seek a complete break with Peninsular Malaysia. It remains to be seen how Indonesia’s new capital will be viewed by Kalimantan secessionists.

Two uninhabited islands in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Tiran and Sanafir, have been the subject of a virtual tug-of-war between the Saudis and Egyptians. In 2016, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said during a press conference with visiting Saudi King Salman, that the two islands would be transferred to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis insisted that they only temporarily transferred administration of Tiran and Sanafir to Egypt in 1950 in order to protect the islands from being occupied by Israel. In 1956, Israel did occupy the islands, but they were transferred back to Egypt following the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt.

In response to the transfer of the islands, Egyptian protesters demanded that the Egyptian government not go through with the deal because it violated the terms of the Egyptian Constitution, which requires a national referendum is required before any change to Egypt’s borders. The Saudis plan to build a causeway via the two islands linking Saudi Arabia to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Many Egyptians are keenly aware that the Saudi military crossed the Saudi causeway with Bahrain to help brutally put down a popular revolt by Bahraini citizens. They fear the same will occur with the Saudi causeway to Egypt.

Global climate change also resulted in one government, that of the rising sea level threatened South Pacific nation of Kiribati, to purchase land on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu that in the future would become the home to Kiribati’s climate change refugees and become an ex-situ seat of government for Kiribati. The 6,000 acres bought in 2014 by Kiribati’s then-president, Anote Tong, was seen as a model for how other threatened nations, including Tuvalu, Nauru, and Maldives, might maintain their identity and independence long after they disappeared beneath the waves. Tong called the project “migration with dignity.” Tong’s successor, Taneti Mamau, changed Tong’s plans. Rather than move to higher ground on Vanua Levu, Mamau now favors dealing with climate change effects in Kiribati. He said he favors leaving the future of Kiribati and the I-Kiribati people in God’s hands. That comes as little comfort to the people of the crowded Kiribati capital in South Tarawa, Abaiang, and other islands dealing with the effects of saltwater contamination of fresh ground water, ruined crops, and inundated houses.

From Washington and Jakarta to Copenhagen and Abu Dhabi island fever has taken hold with new real estate development plans at the forefront of major political and financial decisions.

It is a close race to determine whether Trump or Bolsonaro are having the greatest negative impact on Earth’s climate. Although both reject sound scientific methodology, Bolsonaro slightly edges out Trump due to the fact that the “intellectual” guru for Bolsonaro, a far-right Brazilian “end-times” evangelical “Christian,” is a Virginia-based conspiracy monger named Olavo de Carvalho. Among his other fanciful notions, Carvalho entertains the idea that the Earth is not a sphere but flat.

As wildfires of biblical proportions plague Alaska, Siberia, and the Amazon Basin, unprecedented heat waves hit Europe, and the Greenland Ice Sheet and Western Antarctica melt as Trump figures out how to annex Greenland from Denmark, Bolsonaro is fiddling while the Amazon rain forest burns. Called the “lungs of the Earth” because of its provision of 20 percent of our planet’s oxygen, the Amazon is plagued by Brazilian farmers committing systematic arson to open up more grazing land for cattle. Bolsonaro, who, like Trump, pulled his nation out of the Paris Climate Agreement, has encouraged overdevelopment of the Amazon Basin and given a green light to the forest’s ecocide and genocide of one million indigenous tribes that for millenia have called the region their home.

Bolsonaro and Trump are acting in tandem to see who can do the most damage to the Earth’s environment. Trump has called global climate change a “Chinese hoax” and has scrapped most of the federal environmental protection laws, putting him at loggerheads with state governors and attorneys general and the leadership of America’s automotive industry. Bolsonaro, who rejects climate science like some modern age Luddite, has severed the role of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in conducting satellite surveillance of the Amazon rainforest and fired its director for providing accurate statistics on the rate of Amazon destruction. Bolsonaro is outsourcing the function to a private company, one of several linked to his business network of corrupt political cronies. Bolsonaro, in Trumpian fashion, accused the director of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) of being on the payroll of a “foreign NGO.” Bolsonaro rejected IBAMA’s determination that in July 2019 there was a 278 percent increase in deforestation of the Amazon from the rate measured for July 2018.

Bolsonaro’s antics have earned him sharp rebukes from Europe, where the effects of planetary warming have resulted in dramatic consequences, including scorching heat waves. The Elysee Palace issued a statement that Bolsonaro lied to President Emmanuel Macron when he told the French leader that he would protect the biodiversity of the Amazon. France and Ireland announced their opposition to a trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc, which is now dominated by right-wing regimes in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Germany and Norway suspended their financial assistance to the Brazilian government’s Amazon fund due to the inaction of the Bolsonaro regime in failing to live up to its commitments to protect the Amazon region.

Macron was prepared to discuss the destruction of the Amazon at the G-7 summit in Biarritz. However, noting that Trump would likely balk at a traditional summit communiqué, decided to forego the consensus statement because, among other issues, Trump was likely to defend his fellow environmental pirate, Bolsonaro, against any move to single out Brazil for criticism.

Trump and Bolsonaro are not the only environmental pirates on the loose in the world but they are the most destructive. Duterte of the Philippines has categorized climate scientists as “noisy” and he fired one of his government officials for attending too many climate conferences. Duterte is also a skeptic about the benefits of the Paris Agreement. Other climate scofflaws include the Central American nations of Guatemala and Honduras, both ruled by right-wing authoritarian regimes. Insufficient attention to crippling droughts that have forced many Guatemalan and Honduran farmers and their families to migrate north to the United States to face even greater trauma inflicted by Trump’s border security forces have been the hallmarks of the regimes in Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is another leader who has a jaundiced view of the actual causes behind climate change, an event that will eventually lead to the melting of the Himalayan glaciers and result in the drying up of India’s major rivers that provide water to most of India’s massive population. In 2014, Modi answered a question on climate change from a student from Assam, a Himalayan state already beset by the ravages of climate alteration. Modi replied to the student, saying, “Climate change? Is this terminology correct? The reality is this that in our family, some people are old . . . They say this time the weather is colder. And, people’s ability to bear cold becomes less . . .We should also ask is this climate change or have we changed. We have battled against nature. That is why we should live with nature rather than battle it.”

Modi is not quite an environmental pirate on the scale of Trump, Bolsonaro, and Duterte, but he has shown great promise to achieve such ignominy. Someone already ranking among the environmental policy pariahs is Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. At a recent summit of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu, Morrison prevented the gathered leaders of Oceania to issue a strong final communiqué calling for urgent action to deal with rapidly cascading climate change. Morrison, who is owned and operated by Australia’s coal companies, insisted on a watered-down final statement by the leaders, an action that bitterly disappointed the forum host, Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga. Tuvalu may be among the first to succumb to rising sea levels, making it the world’s first ex-situ nation resulting from climate change. While Morrison was away in Tuvalu, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, Australia’s fanatical equivalent of US Vice President Mike Pence, said of the embattled Pacific islanders, “They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here to pick our fruit.” The racist diatribe was not lost on island inhabitants across the Pacific expanse, from Palau in the west to Tahiti in the east.

Environmental pirates are also found in the leadership of the far-right political parties around the world, including the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The AfD policy plank on the climate preaches classic climate change denial canon in stressing “the influence of CO₂ on global temperatures cannot be proven and carbon emissions reduction measures thus do nothing to protect the climate.”

The rise to power of the eco-nihilists – Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Morrison, and others – will intrigue future historians. They will ponder why, faced with sound scientific data, certain world leaders insisted on doing nothing to prevent the demise of their own nations, as well as global civilization.

President Donald Trump wants to purchase Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. “Strategically, it’s interesting,” he observed, though “it is not number one on the burner.”

Alas, the Danes aren’t impressed. “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland,” said Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Greenlanders were a bit blunter. Inuit Maya Sialuk told the Wall Street Journal: “We are still trying to recover from a colonization period of almost 300 years. Then there is this white dude in the States who’s talking about purchasing us.”

Trump, always in character, called the Prime Minister’s response “nasty” on Wednesday and abruptly canceled a bi-lateral meeting with her government planned for next month.

In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward, who orchestrated the acquisition of Alaska, proposed buying Greenland. In 1946, the Truman administration did likewise. Both times, the Danes said no.

Greenland is not just a place; it is a territory of 56,000 people who largely govern themselves—with a parliament and prime minister—other than in international affairs, which Copenhagen manages, though in consultation with the locals. In fact, internationally Greenlanders are viewed as an independent people. The original residents were Inuits. Vikings showed up in the 10th century, and the territory eventually became part of Norway, and then Denmark.

Greenland is obviously strategic—it is close to America and hosts Thule Air Base. However, one should not oversell its value to American interests. The Washington Examiner grandly declared that Thule “gives the U.S. military the means to deter and defeat prospective aggression.” Aggression by whom? A sneak attack by the Russkies or Chinese launched from the Arctic seems, well, unlikely.

Anyway, no one expects NATO member Denmark to hand over the island to a hostile power. Last year, Washington opposed Chinese financing of three airports, and Denmark’s government found other funders. Canada and Mexico are even more strategic and the U.S. isn’t trying to buy them. (Although Americans once unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Canada and considered annexing all of Mexico, instead of the half that Washington seized after winning the Mexican-American War.)

Most everyone is making the issue about America; at least the Examiner remembered that the U.S. would be, er, buying people. But, it explained, don’t worry, “this isn’t just about American interests. Greenland’s small population also has everything to gain from a massive influx of American investment. The surge in tourism alone would surely offer a vast untapped potential.”

It’s not clear why U.S. firms would suddenly invest in a largely icebound territory that lies mostly north of the Arctic Circle. And what is stopping tourists from going today? Maybe Greenlanders don’t want to be overwhelmed by their much larger neighbors.

While talking about the potential financial benefits for Denmark, columnist Quin Hillyer pronounced, “The wishes of Greenland’s current population should be considered.” Only “considered”? They rule themselves. Would the U.S. seriously contemplate taking control if they didn’t want to join the American colossus? Surely thousands of people should not be bartered as if they’re an oil field or coal mine.

While the Examiner lauds the possibility of Greenland’s “inhabitants joining our national family,” they might not have the same desire to be ruled by the imperial city of Washington, D.C. Can’t say I blame them. America remains exceptional in many ways, but it’s ruled by an abusive, hypocritical, irresponsible, sanctimonious, and incompetent elite—at best legal guardians, not parents—living far distant and with only minimal concern for the “family’s” welfare.

Power is increasingly concentrated in Washington. The federal government exercises ever more authority over ever more aspects of Americans’ lives. Interest group politics has grown more feverish and vicious. In recent years the U.S. has even been moving in the wrong direction on economic liberty. Although it remains ahead of Denmark on the Economic Freedom of the World ratings, on the similar Index of Economic Freedom, Denmark is just one position and a fraction of a point behind America. Most of the Scandinavian countries are redistributionist rather than socialist, and employ less intrusive regulation than the U.S.

People have long been concocting new schemes to expand the American Empire. In the early days, Washington conquered nearby territories; then it acquired more distant possessions. These days, outright aggression is frowned upon, so expansionists must be more nuanced. For instance, before the possibility of Canada dissolving was mooted, even Patrick Buchanan, who had long argued against America’s warfare state, listed the seceding pieces Washington should snag.

However, the U.S. already is too big. With nearly 330 million people, there is no “national family.” California is a fabulous place, but a majority of its citizens want to base policy on dirigiste economics and identity politics. Why not let them go their own way, rather than whine when the Electoral College prevents them from imposing their self-absorbed fantasies on everyone else?

Equally caustic judgments could be made against other sections of America, such as the South, Rust Belt, and New England. Books have been written about breaking the U.S. into pieces. In this case, secession, or “separation,” would have nothing to do with race and slavery. Rather it would be about community, commitment, family, communication, unity, compassion, responsibility, humanity, and scale. Americans from everywhere should live in peace. But there is no reason why everyone needs to be forced into the same massive political aggregation, with one faction or another constantly attempting to seize control of the whole.

Thinking creatively could yield additional benefits. Why not sell off California to the highest bidder? That could raise a good chunk of money to pay down the national debt. Put Hawaii on the market. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, or perhaps some Russian or Middle Eastern billionaire might make it worth Americans’ while to yield the Pacific paradise. If not Hawaii, then perhaps American Samoa and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianna Islands.

The Midwest, with its big agricultural production, would be in high demand. China might pay a hefty price—after all, it has a lot of people to feed! There might even be a market for progressive enclaves: San Francisco, Austin, Madison, New York City, Atlanta, and more. Bundle them together and see what the market will bear. Maybe a British government under Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn would make an offer. It would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire America’s commanding heights of left-progressivism.

Another alternative would be to have U.S. communities go the way of Greenland—that is, become autonomous territories under Danish control. For example, Springfield, Virginia, where I live, could offer to sell to Denmark. No more being forced to support the American imperium.

What is not to like about Greenland’s situation? Once an active, militaristic, and colonial power, Denmark has left those days behind. Now it is a small, inoffensive, constitutional monarchy. It survived World War II and protected its Jewish population. It’s a small, human-sized country, with fewer than six million people; it’s wealthy, democratic, and, according to a UN survey, for what that’s worth, the world’s happiest place.

Perhaps most important, the Danish military has only about 27,000 people in uniform. New York City alone has 36,000 police officers. That means Denmark really can’t wander the globe bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unlike Washington, which seems to believe Americans cannot be happy unless they’re at war.

Denmark exercised exceptionally good judgment by remaining neutral in World War I, perhaps the stupidest modern war with the greatest long-term consequences. In contrast, America, led by the sanctimonious megalomaniac Woodrow Wilson, voluntarily, even enthusiastically, entered that conflict. World War I brought forth communism, fascism, Nazism, and World War II. Had Washington stayed out, a compromise peace was most likely; the result would have been unsatisfying, but far better for humankind. Denmark’s perspective was the right one, and American policymakers were wrong.

President Trump should leave Greenland alone. It isn’t Denmark’s to sell and it isn’t in America’s interest to buy. This nation’s problems have resulted not from a lack of territory, but from its transformation from a democratic republic to a global imperium. No wonder Mute Bourup Egede, who heads a Greenland independence party, observed: “America will always have an interest in Greenland. Our country will always be ours.” As it should be.

theamericanconservative.com

Of course since Trump thinks grabbing some Greenland is a good idea the Mainstream Media must immediately denounce it even if they are not quite sure how to do so. It seems that the primary form of poo-pooing the idea is to loudly imply that since it is an unusual idea, it must therefore somehow be impossible. Essentially their logic is that since large territories are not bought and sold on a regular basis then it should be somehow absurd for Trump to think he could do this. Apparently many of these American “journalists” forget that The Donald is President of a country that bought Alaska and a huge part of its territory from the French. America looks the way it does today on a map partially due to large land purchases from foreign powers. Everyone who passes 2nd grade social studies in the US should know this.

There is another argument that since Greenland is already populated by people that makes it impossible to buy from Denmark. This talking point makes no sense as the Louisiana Purchase’s territory (although sparsely populated) was nowhere near being devoid of people (same with Alaska) both native and of European origin. So, is there US historical precedent for buying large pieces of land from foreign governments – yes. Therefore, theoretically it should be possible to do again. This is nothing new, just something not done on a massive scale for many generations.

So it is possible to buy Greenland, but the question is why even bother? It is cold, isolated, relatively far from the rest of America and has seemingly little to offer economically.

Well first off if you look at a globe, parts of Greenland are as close to Moscow as a few NATO member states like Portugal and Spain. In face Greenland kind of sits nicely between the Land of Opportunity and the Snow Bad Guys.

We shouldn’t forget that Trump has been critical of NATO from the beginning of his campaign and continues to be so. He also chose to get the US out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The President seems open to a bit of defense restructuring and Greenland could be a good “launching pad” for a different US military strategy in a post-NATO and renegotiated INF Treaty world.

Europe is starting to get uppity and taking complete and total control of Greenland is a lot easier than taking territory on the continent. Even if Denmark protests, (which they are) it is very hard to say “no” to the United States in the long term and very bad for your health. If the US is willing to openly threaten NATO member Turkey with sanctions for daring (as a sovereign nation) to buy tech from the Russians, then one could imagine that the Danes could be easily made to suffer for not giving up their very large future US Air Force Base for some nice beads and a few empty promises.

Greenland also offers the fact that it is sitting on lots of lovely natural resources that would allow America to dig for what it wants instead of possibly buying it from Moscow. The purchase of the island is a win-win for America’s future from both a Hard Power and Economic Soft Power perspective. Trump is a businessman first and he can obviously see the logic in grabbing the “means of production” rather than just buying from a foreign power that sometimes challenges the US.

Many would argue that the 50,000 inhabitants of Greenland would either protest or just not accept being bought. This is true, there would be mass protests and the populace wouldn’t approve of this, but so what? What can they do about it? They can march around with signs all the want, it will change nothing. The Lakota Indians have been begging and protesting for independence (as have Hawaiians) for some time, and how’s that going for them?

The Mainstream Media won’t cover the inevitable protests thus the “poor Greenlanders” narrative will never come into the global consciousness and their pleas will be heard only by God. The Russians will probably send two reporters to shoot a very official documentary movie about them, that the world will ignore, because some White celebrity is wearing dreadlocks and that is harmful to somebody somehow.

Furthermore, Greenland is a poor location, the US could simply bribe the entire populace with $10,000 each for a total sum of $500,000,000, which in terms of Washington’s budget is peanuts. Hearts and minds have to be won but often they can just be bought. Materialism is one of the greatest means of repression we have ever known, it simply works so a little bribery and the promise of nice roads should work to coerce the population, it certainly did in Eastern Europe in the 90’s,

If Trump can make or force the deal, taking Greenland would be a massive win for the future of America.

• It would give America access to resources freeing it from having to buy them from Russia.
• It would block any further (alleged) developments on the territory by the Chinese.
• It would give America an expendable piece of territory just as close to Moscow as some NATO member states, which could be critical when/if NATO dissolves.
• The island has a tiny population. Assimilating millions takes time, but providing for and assimilating 50,000 humans is no problem whatsoever for the USA.
• Bribing the locas into submission would be cheap, and Greenland is far away enough to stay off the Mainstream Media radar. What happens in Greenland stays in Greenland, so no uprising could occur no matter what the US buys or does there.
• What can Denmark do to resist other than stalling till a more mainstream US President comes to power?

“Make America Great Again” is Trump’s slogan on his red hat and when nations are at their “greatest” they are more often than not – expanding. Those 50 perfectly organized stars on the flag were getting boring anyways.

Danish and Greenlandic government officials immediately questioned Trump’s sanity after the Greenland proposal was confirmed as authentic. The news of Trump’s desire to own Greenland as a US territory came as bitter news to actual US territories that feel abandoned by Trump. These include Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, the latter having been purchased by the United States from Denmark in 1917. These and other US territories, including the Northern Marianas and American Samoa, are, in reality, considered foreign nations by the geopolitically challenged Trump. The draconian budget cutting actions of the undemocratic Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico have spurred a popular rebellion in Puerto Rico. Two successive governors of the territory, the elected Ricardo Rossello and appointed Pedro Pierluisi, were driven from office by massive street demonstrations. There are demands for the second appointed governor, the pro-Trump Wanda Vázquez Garced, to follow her predecessors and also resign.

After the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in 2017, Trump visited Puerto Rico and showed his empathy by tossing rolls of paper towels to a group of assembled Puerto Ricans. Trump also showed his ignorance about the status of the neighboring US Virgin Islands when he referred to the territory’s Governor, Kenneth Mapp, as the “President of the Virgin Islands.” What steamed the Virgin Islanders even further is that Trump’s insult came as the islands were marking the 100^th anniversary of the transfer of the Virgin Islands to the US from Denmark. Among some of the older Virgin Islanders there remains a lot of nostalgia about their rule by Denmark. Some even pine for retrocession back to the Kingdom of Denmark. After all, today, Greenlanders and the Faroese have two voting representatives in the Danish parliament and their own autonomous parliaments. Virgin Islanders, on the other hand, has a non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives and their people, US citizens, cannot vote for in the US presidential election.

Although most Greenlandic and Danish political leaders scoffed at Trump’s notion of buying self-governing Greenland from Denmark – something that would violate the Danish Constitution – there is a very dark cloud looming over Copenhagen as Trump plans to visit the Danish capital for a state visit in September of this year. Trump has often sought to punish NATO members who have not dedicated at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) for defense spending. Denmark, boosting its defense spending for fiscal year 2023 by 20 percent to reach 1.5 percent of GDP, does not reach Trump’s mandatory 2 percent threshold. Trump, like some medieval king demanding tribute from his vassal protectorates, may believe that Denmark owes the United States an exclusive deal to purchase Greenland. Trump, whose knowledge of business does not extend beyond the real estate world, sees Greenland as a target for a leveraged buy-out.

Trump, who appears ignorant of the fact that the Kingdom of Denmark is actually composed of three countries – Denmark, Greenland (known officially in the Inuit Greenlandic language as “Kalaallit Nunaat”), and the Faroe Islands – will obviously receive a harsh lesson on the reality of Denmark when he meets in Copenhagen on September 2-3 with Queen Margrethe II, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Greenland Prime Minister Kim Kielsen, and Faroese Prime Minister Aksel Johannesen. Trump, who has railed against leftists and socialists as part of his pabulum designed for his political base of political neophytes and neo-Nazi bigots, will undoubtedly be nonplussed to learn that Frederiksen, Kielsen, and Johannesen are all left-of-center social democrats. Kielsen is the leader of Siumut, which favors eventual independence for Greenland. He said in response to Trump’s plan, “Greenland is not for sale and cannot be sold.”

US President Harry S Truman tried to buy Greenland in 1946 for $100 million. In the post-war years, the United States escaped the ravages of what had befallen Europe and Asia, so it was able to make demands of other countries merely because of its newfound political and economic clout. However, Denmark let it be known that Greenland was not for sale. When US Secretary of State James Byrnes made the pitch for Greenland in 1946 to visiting Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen during a meeting in New York, Rasmussen was said to have been “shocked” by the proposal. On January 23, 1948, Denmark’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft gave a firm answer to those who were willing to part with Greenland, an answer that remains in effect today:

“Why not sell Greenland? Because it would not be in accordance with our honor and conscience to sell Greenland. The Greenlanders are and feel they are our countrymen and we feel tightly bound to them. It cannot be our generation’s task to make the Danish state smaller, and it is not in accordance with the policy of the Danish government or the wishes of the Danish people.”

Hedtoft was supported in his stance against Washington by the full array of the Danish political spectrum, from the Conservative People’s Party to the Communist Party, of which the leadership of the latter included this writer’s grandmother. Opposition to any transfer of Greenland today to the Americans remains just as strong in the Danish parliament as it was in 1946. From the far-right Danish People’s Party to the left-wing Red-Green Alliance, Danish political parties are united in rejecting Trump’s goofy proposal to buy Greenland.

Former Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen of the center right Venstre party tweeted: “It must be an April Fool’s Day joke . . . but totally out of season!” Conservative People’s Party MP Rasmus Jarlov tweeted: “Out of all things that are not going to happen, this is the most unlikely. Forget it.” Trump is scheduled to visit Denmark next month and if he brings up his Greenland proposal it will assuredly damage Washington-Copenhagen relations even further. Uffe Elbæk, the leader of the left-of-center Alternative Party, said Trump’s Greenland proposal coupled with his upcoming trip to Copenhagen will make the US presidential visit “the most absurd in living memory.” Former Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard, leader of the Danish Social Liberal Party, said Trump’s idea was “a grotesque proposal” and not based in reality.

Pernille Skipper of the Red-Green Alliance said, “It says a lot about Trump that he actually thinks you can buy a whole country and a whole people. Greenland is the Greenlanders, and this is not the 19th century. Not for sale.” Christian Juhl of the Red-Green Alliance said, “Trump can instead offer to pay rent for the Thule base, which until now has been made available to the US for free.” Soren Espersen, foreign affairs spokesman for the nationalist Danish People’s Party told Danish Radio, “If he is truly contemplating this, then this is final proof, that he has gone mad. The thought of Denmark selling 50,000 citizens to the United States is completely ridiculous.”

Greenlandic political leaders were just as critical about Trump’s scheme. Greenland Foreign Minister Ane Lone Bagger stated that, “We’re open for business, but we’re not for sale.” Danish parliament member Aaja Chemnitz Larsen of the socialist pro-independence Inuit Ataqatigiit party of Greenland, said, “I am sure a majority in Greenland believes it is better to have a relation to Denmark than the United States, in the long term.” Her Siumut counterpart, Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, said, “Denmark doesn’t own Greenland in any way, and you can’t sell something you do not own.”

The US military presence at the Thule and Sondestrom airbases, as well as other locations on the island has left toxic and radioactive US trash being scattered about Greenland. As the Greenland ice sheet continues to rapidly melt, canisters of poisonous and radioactive material are becoming exposed to the air and water. Yet, Trump administration neocons are claiming that the US must supplant growing Chinese interest in Greenland by increasing the Pentagon’s trash-laden presence on the island.

Ask most Greenlanders what they think about the United States and they will tell you that Washington has used their island as a gigantic garbage dump. Trump’s proposal to buy Greenland should be tossed into one of Greenland’s numerous “Made-by-America” garbage heaps.

Greenland left the EU in 1984 while not leaving the Kingdom of Denmark — an EU member state. This was an unprecedented situation. There was no mechanism in place in those days for pulling out of the bloc but this island did it. This proves that Scotland and Northern Ireland could find a way to remain simultaneously parts of the UK and the EU if they wanted to. There’s no need for hard choices; they could have both.

Greenland was granted home rule in 1979 and self-rule in 2009. Denmark's constitution recognizes its right to become a sovereign nation but it would then lose the subsidies it receives from Copenhagen, which make up about 60% of the island’s annual budget.

Greenland isn’t green. Roughly 80% of its land is covered by ice, but that percentage is diminishing each year, paving the way for crops and scenery that brings in tourists. Iceland has recently made big strides toward becoming a tourist destination. Greenland could take a page out of its book.

Tourist infrastructure and mining can help bring Greenlanders closer to their goal of becoming a self-sufficient country. Rare-earth elements could turn it into a diplomatic flash point. China’s influence is strong and will probably grow, as Greenland badly needs foreign investment.

But in that case it would have to leave NATO, casting doubt over the fate of the US Air Force base in Thule, which is a component of NORAD and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. Last year the US completed a significant upgrade of that site. The island is going to leave Denmark and NATO at just about the same time that the US Navy is accelerating its plan to beef up its Arctic capability.

The melting ice offers more than just new economic opportunities. It is also revealing the danger to the environment posed by a US top-secret Cold War military base where toxic agents were stored. The site was abandoned in 1967 under the assumption that it would remain eternally frozen. Now it is rising to the surface as its ice covering melts. This problem is not making the local population more warmly disposed to the US. The idea of the two countries working together militarily is not popular. Former Greenlandic Foreign Minister Vittus Qujaukitsoq believes that "The American presence has been nothing but trouble, nothing but environmental pollution, and it has created a crisis of trust between Greenland and Denmark."

Once it loses Greenland, Denmark will no longer be an Arctic state, but China could have a proxy vote in Arctic matters, as Paula Briscoe, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, put it. As an independent state and a new member of the Arctic Council, Greenland will have to cooperate with Russia, the world leader in icebreaker construction. Moscow can share its wealth of experience finding profit in the region — something Greenland will badly need. The Russian-Chinese relationship is warming up in the Arctic, and Greenland could benefit from that. Once it is independent, it will not have to abide by the sanctions against Russia, thus paving the way for a thriving economic relationship with that country, spurred by the lucrative opportunities that are emerging as the snow continues to melt.

Greenland’s independence will no doubt inspire secessionist movements in Denmark (such as the Faroese independence movement) and across Europe, where aspirations for independence are on the rise. Scotland, Catalonia, Basque, Flanders, Veneto — the list can go on. With the opportunities for economic prosperity about to open up and the relations between the Arctic Five regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Greenland will not have to choose between the West or the East. It could freely define its own national interests and do the right thing as interpreted in Nuuk, not in the capitals of the NATO member states. Equipped with a reliable base of resources, it could take the best from its Arctic partners, Russia, China, Australia, or anyone with a lucrative deal to offer. Greenland will be able to make its own decisions as to whether it needs other nation’s military bases on its territory that only make it a target in the event of an armed conflict that doesn’t concern Nuuk.