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Scandinavians, the World’s Happiest
People, Love Killing for the USA: The Russians Are Coming
[November 11, 2024]
The once peaceful Danish people have adapted to being a warring
country for Big Daddy. Even soldier-fathers’ children participate
in war exercises. [Source: denmarksveteraner.dk]
[This article is part of a six-part series providing an overview of the world’s happiest people living in five Scandinavian countries’ love affair with US-ARMEs wars (United States of America Racist Military Empire). I focus on the current proxy war in Ukraine with their aim of “taking out” Russia. U.S./NATO’s war is an existential threat to, first, Russia, and beyond to China and the Global South. The hope is to undermine the growing BRICS economic advances through cooperation. This is real competition for sharing the world’s wealth more equitably—a death threat to Western “pure” capitalist “market” economic domination. I concentrate on Denmark since I have lived there for 35 years.]
On a rare, warm summer day without rain and roaring wind, my love (Jette)
and I took a walk over a green field alongside a promontory of Køge
Bay in southeast Denmark. Another nature lover came by as we heard a
lark signaling high above its nest.
“Our larks are protecting us from the Russians,” the middle-aged
woman giggled.
I had hoped this leisurely walk would spare me reminders of the wars
being waged by greedy-sick-profiteering-narcissistic Western societies.
Not to be. I couldn’t stop myself from shouting how many hundreds
of wars and thousands of military “interventions” for “democracy”
the Yankees have engaged in during its two-and-a-half centuries.
She scurried away as I roared on about happy Danes enthusiastically
supporting the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia.
Denmark’s major media proudly announced the same day that its
country—alongside with its American mentor—is the first
to send machinery/technology to “democratic” Ukraine so
they can make their own weapons to kill Russians. The Social Democrat
Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has yet another measurement for being
one of the world’s greatest per-capita donors to the neo-fascist
Ukrainian war.
Danish
Prime Minister with U.S. puppet and war criminal Volodymyr Zelensky.
[Source: myheader.tv2.dk]
I had been procrastinating for months since I last wrote about this
war, as it approaches world war. At the same time Israeli Zionists are
committing genocide against the Palestinian people, which is leading
to another major war in the Middle East.
I felt, as I tell anyone who does not want to listen, that, if we don’t
do something to oppose these wars-for-profit-and-domination, then we
are guilty too. All I can do at this stage with waning health, and living
where no one visibly supports Russia’s sovereignty, is to write
for publication. So, I decided that I must offer my mental health to
put something on paper.
Today (September 7), I was to start writing after breakfast. As I washed
dishes my head swirled with the lead. Pictures of war headlines stacked
in a row on my long writing desk appeared: The government announced
increased militarization; The Americans intake Arhus Harbor: at dawn
they rolled out with military vehicles; Danes must take care of themselves
for three days in crises [related to if the Russians invade]; Europe
can achieve peace if we realize that war never goes away.
Dizzy, I fell. Vomit rose to my throat. Jette helped me to the toilet.
“You can’t endure this world.”
Happiest People in the World
Finland took top honors for the tenth year straight. Its 2024 overall
score is 7.741, followed in order by Denmark (7.583), Iceland (7.525),
Sweden (7.344), Israel (7.341), Netherlands (7.319), Norway (7.302).
The World Population Review (WPR) has been conducting this survey measuring
human happiness since 2002. Denmark sometimes has been number one and
all five Scandinavian countries consistently make the top ten. The world’s
greatest warring countries at this moment: Israel=5; UK=20; U.S.=23;
Russia=72; Ukraine=105.
It doesn’t bother Israelis’ happiness as they murder Palestinians. Of the 143 countries surveyed Afghanistan hits bottom after 20 years of invasion-occupation by the Yankees. WPR measures happiness using six criteria: GDP per capita/standards of living, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
When former independent politician Bernie Sanders ran
for the presidency on the Democratic Party ticket, he proudly adopted
the nomenclature “democratic socialist,” and he pointed
to Denmark as a model for his vision of an ideal American future.
“I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden
and Norway,” Sanders said in 2016, “and learn what they
have accomplished for their working people.”
So Why Are Danes So Eager for War?
My fifth article will focus on Scandinavia’s gigantic funding
of the war in multi-billions of cash and weaponry. Here is a taste.
One encounters myriad figures when searching for costs and war weaponry
sent to Ukraine; nevertheless, Denmark, Norway and Sweden always figure
in the top ten.
Denmark’s population of 5.93 million and Norway’s 5.57 million
contribute without any visible protest either the most per capita or
within the top three countries among the U.S.’s new “coalition
of the willing.” Finland comes in between 10 and 15 out of 42
countries tallied.
Here are the ten biggest providers of military aid to Ukraine, with
the Scandinavian countries in bold, as of April 2024.
U.S. $46.6 billion
Germany $19.5 billion
UK $10.0 billion
Denmark $9.4 billion
EU $6.2 billion
Netherlands $4.9 billion
Norway $4.2 billion
Poland $3.3 billion
Canada $2.3 billion
Sweden $2.2 billion
How can it be explained that, in the current European war, happy Scandinavians
are among the most hawkish? Unfortunately, the WPR survey does not ask
that pertinent question. I offer suggestions about Denmark from some
influencers and from my experience.
“I would like to make one thing clear,” Danish Prime Minister
Lars Løkke Rasmussen—leader of the “Liberal”
Party—said in response to Sanders in a speech at Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government: “Denmark is far from a socialist
planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Løkke Rasmussen is now the Moderate Party leader, and current
foreign minister in the three-party cabinet led by Social Democrat Mette
Frederiksen.
Vibeke Schou Tjalve, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies, told the liberal daily Politiken why Denmark sent four F-16
war jets and 300 mercenary troops to the Baltic States and Poland as
back-up to the U.S.’s invasion-occupation of Iraq, in 2014.
Schou Tjalve stated: “We [Danes] perceive it as natural that
once again we are on the way to war, part of our every day. 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….Denmark is at war to please America.”
This is what Danes have told me about their complacent complicity 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 after World War II. The Danish
Social Democrat government passively accepted Nazi Germany’s five-year
occupation. Only because there was an underground militant resistance,
led by communists, did the U.S. consider Denmark worthy enough.
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. Greenland
is still a colony.
3. Danes see themselves as just a “little land” needing
“security” from a big land.
4. Danish culture is passive, authoritarian faithful, conflict-averse
and indifferent.
5. Profiteering from the weapons industry and wars is always one answer,
usually the main one. Nevertheless, with the exception of a handful
of capitalists (A.P. Moeller Maersk, Terma), income from weapons and
war had been negligible in Denmark. Before the U.S.-assisted sabotage
actions in New York and elsewhere on September 11, 2001, Denmark had
only a handful of such firms. Now there are around 500. Terma even supplies
materials for the F-35A, of which Denmark bought 27 for $2.4 billion
in 2016. At that time, 53% of Danes polled were opposed to the purchase
while 31% supported it. That mood is now totally reversed.
Christian Daily wrote a thorough review of Rasmus Mariager’s
relevant book: The Soul Battle That Made Us Americans. The Danish historian
shows how Danes adapted to all things American during the Cold War,
from music, sports, language, and tourist traveling to rearmament against
the Soviet Union.
Modern-day Russia was the big bad bear even before this war. Nineteen
thousand new buildings related to NATO and its many wars were built
before 1991, including underground tunnels for political and economic
leaders.
What most people in the world don’t know about Denmark is that
it has been serving U.S. invasionary wars for more than three decades.
Denmark, along with its former colony Iceland, and Norway, were among
the first dozen countries to start NATO, in 1949.
Finland had been neutral since World War II but joined in April 2023
to fight Russians through the proxy war in Ukraine. Sweden dropped its
neutrality since 1812, and was accepted in March 2024, after initial
objections from Turkey and Hungary.
Denmark’s earliest involvement was to send a war ship to support
the U.S.’s invasion in Iraq in 1991. The world’s largest
shipping owner, AP Moeller Maersk, then sent dozens of his ships to
transport half-a-million U.S. troops and armaments gratis. This subsequently
brought him huge profits. One of his shipping lines has 56 ships based
in Virginia (2021). Twenty-two of them are used directly by the U.S.
for military operations. He also ships weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
Denmark continued its war alliance by sending troops, war jets, and
other weaponry to break Yugoslavia into five countries. Some would obediently
join NATO. Denmark followed up in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen,
even to some countries in Africa where civil wars occur, because the
U.S. and Europe control or seek to control their natural resources.
Danish
soldiers in Iraq
Denmark sided with U.S-ARME against the UN, France and Germany and invaded
Iraq in 2003. It provides war materials, pilots and troops from time
to time during the U.S.’s permanent occupation.
Thirty thousand troops and volunteer mercenaries were sent many times
to war between 1990 and 2017 (and running) as an aggressor in half-a-dozen
countries, either as part of NATO or part of the “coalition of
the willing.”
Danes killed: 64; 300 wounded; 47 suicides in 300 attempts between 1992
and 2013 (and running). No figures are available as to how many human
beings Denmark has murdered!
1. Balkans=33,691 Danes invaders; 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 (2003-2007).
4. Libya=629 pilots+, none killed or wounded (2011).
5. Lebanon=1,551; one killed; none 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.
During Mette Frederiksen’s first one-party Social Democrat government
(June 2019-December 2022), President Donald Trump had scheduled a trip,
but when Frederiksen rejected his ridiculous offer to buy Greenland,
he declined the invitation. She met him in London during a NATO meeting,
December 2019. 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 together.”
Mette
Frederiksen and Donald Trump at the 2019 NATO summit in London. [Source:
commons.wikimedia.org]
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 included:
• 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 six million inhabitants
include:
• $3 billion military budget, a 20% increase in military spending
over a six-year period.
• More mercenaries in Afghanistan (160) plus Danish police instructors;
$50 million for Afghanistan’s openly corrupt police corps; aircraft
and war vehicles come and go.
• More troops in Iraq (150) to lead the remaining NATO countries’
500 “advisers.” This is Denmark’s third mission in
Iraq. Its first delegation (2003-2007) 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 Iraq mission.
• 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 and, thus, it is ludicrous to believe the Russians
would invade.
• Mercenaries in Bosnia (400) and Kosovo (three dozen).
War Consequences Pre-Nord Stream Sabotage
Self-imposed sanctions against Russia are so extensive that the “chickens
are coming home to roost.” Gas, oil and electricity rates soared
by the hour—between two and eleven times normal the first year.
City governments reduced heat in schools, and turned off street lamps
at night to be able to stop using Russia’s cheap natural gas.
Darkened neighborhood streets encourage thieves and rapists.
More dirty coal is being dug in Germany and England. Germany and Sweden
are reopening nuclear energy power plants. One of the most polluting
of all fossil fuels, fracking shale rock, is big business in the U.S.,
which is now transporting the liquid gas to Germany and elsewhere in
Europe, and England has lifted its ban to do the same.
As fossil fuel and electricity rates increase dramatically, so do food prices. Inflation skyrockets. Major capitalists scoop up record profits, surpassing previous records, yet the government won’t tax them more. My heating bill increased 50% overnight.
Health workers tell us that anxiety and stress—uncertainty for our future—is the major health problem. A recent study shows that half of teenage girls don’t like themselves. Waiting lists for psychological help is one to two years. Welfare programs have been reduced. The health system is faltering for lack of funds.
My family doctor ordered an x-ray of my hands. They are falling asleep,
pricking and tickling. The x-ray indicated I should have a further investigation
that could lead to a minor operation. She ordered such. Six months passed
until I was offered a further investigation in two years.
Too few and overworked nurses and doctors are exhausted—all because
Western governments think it best to support the U.S.-ARME in its fanaticism
to be the world’s policeman. Denmark has allowed Danish mercenaries
to enter Ukraine through Poland and fight Russians. Besides what war
materials and money Denmark sends to Ukraine, it has doubled funds for
its own military budget, and allocated $7 billion to rebuild its war
fleet into, “a superpower naval force.”
Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen[Source: indybay.org]
Danish activists Lars Grenaa and Rune Eltard-Sørensen splashed
ecologic red paint over PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister
Per Stig Møller, March 18, 2003, following Rasmussen’s
declaration of war against Iraq. Denmark was the only country to actually
declare “war”, its first actual war since 1864 against Germany.
The activists were given 70 days in jail and forced to pay $25,000 in
fines.
To make up for uncontrollable free market price hikes, the government
made a $12 billion bank loan guarantee for energy corporations. This,
when their profits have never been so great.
At the cost of much more money, the government sent two F-16 jets, massive
weaponry including tanks, and 1,000 troops to “defend the Baltic
States and Poland against a Russian invasion.” It doesn’t
occur to politicians and MSM that if Russians were so dumb as to invade
a NATO country, then 31 others would retaliate. One country alone would
be thoroughly crushed.
Some Danish analysts consider that the Social Democrats are outdoing
the more traditionally warring “liberal” (Venstre) bourgeois
party. Former PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was promoted to head NATO after
he actually declared war against Iraq—the only country to do so—based
upon the lie that it had weapons of mass destruction. (And, in any case,
why should that be a reason to make war, given that scores of countries
have such weapons?) Following his two terms as prime minister, Norwegian
Jens Stoltenberg was promoted to the post where he has the distinction
of having rejected every Russian proposal to find a peaceful solution.
[First published at Covert Action Magazine, November 11, 2024]
Copyright © 2006-2012 Ronridenour.com