Denmark: Three Decades of War to Please USA
Demonizing Russia is central
[January 6, 2021]
Afghanistans passing opium for multiple owners, including the CIA.

 

“We perceive it as natural that once again we are on the way to war, part of our every day”, explained Vibeke Schou Tjalve, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

“People believe that if the USA says that it is wise, so it is wise for us to be with them…We have broken our hymen.” Danskerne bakker op om indsatsen mod Islamisk stat - politiken.dk

Since the 1991invasion of Iraq, Denmark has been fighting US wars, and since at least October 2, 2014 when Tjalve explained why, practically every military researcher at universities and military think tanks agree that, “Denmark is at war to please America”.

This was part of news then as Denmark sent four F-16 war jets and 300 mercenaries to Baltic States-Poland (between April and December 2014) in response to the US-led coup against Ukrainians democratic government. Sanctions against Russia followed.

I had recently committed civil obedience against Danish mercenaries return from killing Afghans. The state created “Flag Day”, in 2009, to honor its modern Vikings fighting abroad. On that day, September 5, in 2013, a parade-ceremony took place at the Queen’s Copenhagen castle (Rosenborg). As a colonel opened the ceremony, I stepped from the civilian onlookers onto the Queen’s grass, unfolded my “Stop the War” banner and shouted at the mercenaries, “Stop the Killing”.


Jumped by patriot, dragged to police in iron grip. BT foto Erik Refner.

A “patriotic” civilian leapt up and placed me in an iron grip. He and two soldiers dragged me off the holy grass to a police/military area where a leading police officer asked my birthplace and then instructed me: “You can return to America and demonstrate there, but not here.”

I refused to comply, and landed in jail. The duty officer informed me, “There is democracy in Denmark but you cannot disturb our heroes’ ceremony. You can go to Syria and see what happens when you demonstrate.”

Having prevented me from more “provocation” by demonstrating for peace against the first woman prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, I sat in a tiny cell as this Social Democrat gleefully told her Danish war adherents, standing by the government-parliament Christiansborg castle, “Denmark is one of those countries that contributes most. We are at par with the Americans, and therewith we believe Denmark is a strong, active and most solidarity NATO nation.”

New Cold War Against Russia

Denmark is not the only vassal state adhering to the US Military Empire. Every member of the Economic Union—EU is composed of 27 states, and NATO has 30 countries—follows suit. Russia is now under sanctions by EU (as are China, Iran, Venezuela and other “rogue states”), 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 US 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.”
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/&refURL=https://www.google.dk/&referrer=https://www.google.dk/

EU punishes Russia despite punishing its members, who otherwise worship “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 percent are borne by authorizing countries, 55 percent by Russia.” EU hurts itself again: Sanctions against Russia extended (news-front.info)

EU originally introduced sanctions on July 31, 2014 for one year in response to Russia’s actions of “destabilizing the situation in Ukraine.” EU extends them periodically. Nevertheless, these European “democracies” do not consider sanctioning Israel for its repeated brutality against Palestinians, the seizure of their homes and land, and invading neighboring countries. Not to mention sanctioning the US for aggressively warring upon many peoples, attempting coups in Venezuela and Nicaragua, successfully backing a coup in Bolivia, encircling China’s waters…

Denmark allows its banks to whitewash monies that come from drug and arms smuggling, refuses to plug loopholes in taxes so that the very rich can claim refunds from taxes they haven’t 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”. Eksperter: Brændstofmængde i dansk sag var afgørende for Syrien-krig | Indland | DR. Here is the company’s website: Dan-Bunkering | Global Bunker Fuel Supplier | Order 24/7 (dan-bunkering.com)

That would mean the preferred victors would have been the terrorists of IS, al Qaeda and other “milder” US-armed opposition groups. Another Libya.

In November 2020, Denmark’s government charged the company for violating EU sanction rules and is seeking not only a fine, which is the most the government every seeks for corporate crimes, but also imprisonment of those responsible.

DR (Denmark public service medium) wrote that it was US documentation and “sources” (read: NSA/CIA) that showed its government in 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. “Democratic” CIA and Pentagon back different terrorist groups fighting against the Syrian government army while also fighting one another.

The Los Angeles Times wrote about this dilemma on March 27, 2016. “Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.” In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

“In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, 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.”

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.”

Fursan al Haq sometimes is with al Qaeda’s group in Syria, Al-Nusra. Al-Nusra Front.

Russia backs governments in Syria, Iran, Crimea, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, which the US and vassal states consider illegitimate and criminal unlike their Israeli butchers-of-Palestinian friends, the dictatorial-misogynic Gulf States, the list is long. So, on top of sanctions, more war weaponry is brought to Russia’s borders, and war exercises take place in anticipation of a “Russian attack”.

In 2018, NATO troops and 500 war vehicles crossed into Denmark from Germany on their way to Norway to conduct war maneuvers against a Russian invasion. Two hundred-fifty war aircraft, 65 war ships and 50,000 troops participated from 29 NATO nations plus non-member partners Sweden and Finland. Although a member, Turkey did not participate. It vacillates with its alliances.

In the autumn of 2019, the new Social Democrat government leaders wet their skirts scrambling to convince the most narcissist president in US history (only 6% of Danes think well of Donald Trump, according to polls) that they are his most loyal of all lackeys. “Great Britain” move over.

A new feminine War Minister Trine Bramsen

Merete Fredericksen heads the government. She, and her war minister, Trine Bramsen, felt the urge to make up for not being able to sell its logistically strategic colony, Greenland, to Donald Trump’s government, something he felt was a condition for his scheduled September 2019 visit.

Danish Offerings to the United States Military Empire

1. September 2, the same day that Trump would have walked beside PM Frederiksen, she instructed her war minister, Trine Bramsen, to send four F-16s to Lithuania just in case Russia decided to invade there first.

2. The same day, Frederiksen-Bramsen announced they were buying top-notch sonar so it could help search for Putin-run submarines.

3. There would also be more millions for NATO.

4. Bramsen assured us that her elite corps (comparable to Navy Seals and Frogmen) will be used to protect us against Russia. She didn’t tell us what the threat was but emphasized that her elites 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, to patrol the waters close to Russia and Iran alongside US aircraft carriers. (A Danish frigate with helicopters and 155 sailors sailed in a France-led surveillance mission in Hormuz Strait beginning in December 2019, increasing tensions.)

6. September 27, the largest military exercise on Danish soil in 15 years engaged in maneuvers against a 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 Afghan war veteran on Flag Day in Denmark gives his son a diploma for family support to soldiers fighting abroad somewhere with US to protect Denmark.

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 in 30 NATO countries.

Denmark, and EU generally, even follows US’s lead in denial that Russia/Soviet 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 fought alone for three years and when the Nazis fled its countries, Soviet troops followed them into Europe. Only then did the US enter the real war. Twenty-seven million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed (13% of its people), compared to 450,000 in the UK (1%), and 420,000 of US Americans (0.32%).

Denmark also rationalizes 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 US presidents for Wall Street, must have enemies. They serve for weapon industry profiteering and as diversions from internal problems. Sanctions against Huawei. TDC switched to Ericsson, a Swedish company.

If any Danes read this piece, most will probably think that their system is democratic, just like “America is the greatest democracy”. Russia and China are said to be anti-democratic, authoritarian, even totalitarian states. Yet the people in Europe and US do not make key decisions. I would hope that people could see that one of those key decisions is whether or not to murder other human beings. Two Danish political science researcher-professors wrote about that presumption of democracy.

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.”

Decisive to 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, exist possibilities, 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.

Greenland Not For Sale, or What?

US Homeland Security official Miles Taylor was with Donald Trump in Puerto Rico, in August 2018. After Trump fired him, 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?
Miles Taylor Confirms Trump Wanted to Sell Puerto Rico (ny1.com)

It wasn’t necessary to ask Puerto Ricans nor Greenlanders. He raised the matter with Denmark’s new PM Mette Fredericksen. Denmark’s prime ministers to not have the authority to make such a deal. When Fredericksen declined, she made the error of telling Danish media that the notion was “absurd”. This term injured Trump’s vanity so he cancelled his planned trip to Denmark on September 2, 2019. About 1000 of us gathered to demonstrate against him and Denmark’s cozy relationship with Trump anyway.

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

Trump’s ambassador to Denmark, Carla Sands, wrote, “Unlike Russia and the People’s Republic [of China] America’s vision for the Artic area is based on transparency, cooperation and democratic values.” USA giver 83 millioner kroner til projekter i Grønland | Indland | DR
Sands also wrote this money would “screen Greenlanders from malicious influence and extortion by Russia and China.”

She encouraged Denmark to spend more to protect Greenland; buy more F-35s. Twenty-seven are already contracted, which 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 US rejects dialogue and cooperation preferring “confrontation politics” oriented “to achieve domination”.

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

Unlimited consumerism is causing the melting of all the Artic’s glaciers within a few years. The nations around it (Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, China, Russia) should see the need to cooperate with what the future will bring and not bring. At least one Danish politician complained about the Danish government’s acquiescence to USA’s increasing influence in Greenland.

Member-of-Parliament for SF (People’s Socialists) Karsten Hoenge unable to buy the colony, Trump seeks “to massage Greenland’s public so that it will become natural at some point to choose it as its cooperation partner.”

Greenlanders remember what most others do not about how dangerous flying about 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.

Denmark has had a no nuclear policy since 1957. Not only does Denmark not have its own nuclear weapons, it does not allow any such weaponry on its territory. The US had moved Greenlanders from Thule village during WWII to build the base. After the war, and possessing nuclear weaponry, the enemy was again the Soviet Union. Since then, the US flies and sails with nuclear missiles regardless of any nation’s laws. Danish politicians cover up the fact that the US has nuclear weaponry on its territory.

Following the crash, teams of Danes and US Americans conducted as much clean-up of nuclear wastes 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. In 1995, Danish survivors of the clean-up (“Operation Chrome Dome”) sued for compensation. Survivors received of grand total $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”. 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash (enacademic.com)

Cover-up is what the Danish governments’ Defense Department does by illegally spying on all its inhabitants, its European neighbors, a Danish weapons firm, Terma, even the Ministry of Finance all to please NSA and Lockheed Martin.

(See my piece, "Outposts of the U.S. Surveillance Empire: Denmark and Beyond", CovertAction Magazine.)

Mette Swinging with Trump

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

Frederiksen-Trump swinging at NATO meeting London

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

1. More military focus and money in Greenland’s Artic area for “national security”.
2. Double its war aircraft for NATO disposal from four to eight in honor of its 70th birthday.

Denmark’s current military might for 5.7 million inhabitants:

1. $3 billion “Defense” budget, 3% of 2019 Financial Budget. 20% increase in military spending over a six-year period.

2. Mercenaries in Afghanistan (160) plus police. $50 million for what is admittedly Afghanistan’s corrupt police corp. Aircraft and war vehicles come and go.

3. Iraq (150). Denmark is sending another 50 as it takes charge of the remaining NATO countries 500 “advisors”. This is Denmark’s third mission in Iraq. Its first 2003-7 was 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.

4. Baltic (200-300). It is said Danes are there to keep “Putin’s troops away.” The three Baltic countries are in NATO and EU making it ludicrous to believe that Russians would invade.

5. Bosnia (400) and Kosovo (three dozen).

Danish Active Foreign Policy

Denmark accepted Nazi Germany’s occupation immediately as its tanks rolled in, April 9, 1940. Its government, usually led by Social Democrats, turned over Danish resistance fighters to the Nazis. 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 English troops marched into Denmark liberation day May 5, 1945, Danish politicians eagerly embraced them, and decided to follow the lead of United States. The economy was rebuilt with Marshall Plan funding. Much of that was repaid in Danish currency once the economy grew.

Denmark had 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. However, Denmark did not participate in US 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 PM Anker Joergensen led governments most of the time between 1972-82. He had been a union activist and warehouse worker, and opposed the war. When Vietnam retook its land from the invaders, PM Joergensen expressed support for their liberation, adding that US’s foreign policy has a “false ideological foundation.”

Editors of two of the three major newspapers (Jyllands Posten and Berlingske Tidende) were outraged. They wrote that he is rude to the United States and does not speak for Denmark. That was the opinion of the traditional bourgeois parties.

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 US installed their new deadly ware, millions of Europeans resisted, especially in Germany. In September 1981, tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin against visiting US 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”. Poster Detail (sovietposters.com)
Many Europeans did not believe that the United States Military Empire had the right to force them to fight for their wars rather than for peace.

Thousands of demonstrations occurred during the 80s. During a week of actions in April 1983, a key peace leader and theologian Helmust Gollwitzer accused Chancellor Helmut Kohl of “selling out West Germany to the United States President.”

In October 1983, I was with Danes demonstrating with two million Germans and other Europeans in several German cities where the US had placed nuclear missiles. During ten days in October, hundreds of thousands more protested in London, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, and Rome (100,000).
In Bonn, half-a-million people heard Social Democrat Party Chairman, former Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt speak.

Although he did not mention Ronald Reagan by name, he asked rhetorically why Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s offer to destroy some intermediate nuclear missiles (SS20) to begin de-escalation was not reciprocated.
In Stockholm, tens of thousands linked arms in front of US, Soviet, British and French embassies. Prime Minister Olof Palme participated.

The largest hand-linking demonstration, over 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 US 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.

“The remarkable lack of violent disturbance was traced by police authorities to superb cooperation with leaders of the peace movement,” William Drozdiak wrote. "More Than a Million Protest Missiles in Western Europe" - The Washington Post

One of many actions against more missiles in Europe. Here are NATO soldiers who say no. Deutsche Welle photo.

Missiles meant to “protect” the west against the east also kill themselves. On January 12, 1985, a solid-fuel motor of an unarmed Pershing 2 missile located at Waldheide base caught fire and killed three US soldiers and injured seven others. 3 G.I.'S DIE AT GERMAN BASE WHEN MISSILE CATCHES FIRE - The New York Times (nytimes.com).

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 1200 delegates from 84 nations met in Versailles to plan actions against the US war in Southeast Asia. In October 1986, twice that many delegates—2200 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 Copenhagen’s conference as co-chair of the journalist workshop. We were 254 journalists covering from inside. We 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.”

Conferees’ main goal was to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to dismantle those existent. UN General Secretary Javier Perez Cuellar, India PM Rajiv Gandhi, and US Senator Edward Kennedy sent greetings. Copenhagen mayor Egon Weidekamp, a Social Democrat, opened the conference. “We can be of many convictions, but the desire for peace unites us.”

Despite our numbers, our breadth and peaceful vision, the entire Danish media, with the exception of the then Communist Party media, vilified us, even the progressive daily Information, which had been an underground resistance newspaper during Nazi occupation. Why?

Soviet’s peace organization, World Peace Council, was present, and the Soviet leader Mikjail Gorbachev had declared the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons. Unlike US-American leaders, he did not think economic and political systems led by elites were more important than peace. So, in the minds of the owners and editors of mass media, if Russians wanted peace there must be something fishy about that.

Despite the mass media’s reluctance to support world peace efforts, our resistance 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 the world’s nuclear weapons. He convinced Reagan to meet in Reykjavik to discuss deescalating 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. Russia reduced by half its long-range nuclear missiles. On December 8, 1987, the INF treaty was signed; passed by the US Senate on 27 May 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.
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the INF treaty in October 2018.

Despite the headway decreasing atomic weaponry, Denmark’s right-wing parties, and a majority of voters would not risk confronting the United States laissez-faire attitude about where their atomic weapons should be. US war ships docking in Denmark were known to contain nuclear missiles.

When a US nuclear missile-carrying war vessel docked in Copenhagen harbor, in the spring of 1988, SD leader Sven Auken demanded that Conservative Party PM Poul Schluter deliver a letter to the captain explaining Denmark’s policy prohibiting the presence of any nuclear weapons on/over Danish territory. President Reagan made it clear that no such letter would be accepted. For the only time in Danish history, a government called for an early election based upon foreign policy. The right-wing had won the regular election nine months before, and on May 10, 1988, a majority of voters returned the right-wing government to power. This led to the replacing “footnote” foreign policy with an “active” one.

Denmark’s subservience to US/NATO had a higher priority than the threat of nuclear war. Henceforth to this day, either all or nearly all Denmark’s political parties, including Social Democrats under bourgeois leadership, are at war wherever the US dictates. The vast majority of the population have accepted domination by the United States.

The first war Denmark participated in was Bush I’s invasion of Iraq, in 1991.

Denmark’s War Reality: The Toll

Thirty thousand troops and mercenaries sent out 67,371 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”. Danish troops have also been in two dozen countries as part of UN peacekeeping forces.

Modern Danish Viking warriors got their feet wet during the Gulf War (August 1990-February 1991) by invading Iraq over a dispute with Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production conflicts.

On August 2, 1990, Denmark sent its Olfert Fischer corvette to blockade Iraq and relieve US and UK warships. Smashwords – Scandinavia on the Skids: The Failure of Social Democracy – a book by Ron Ridenour, chapter seven, “Denmark, Return of the Vikings”.

The world’s largest ship owner, A.P. Moeller-Maersk (APMM), was disappointed that his government offered so little to help the US-led war that he demanded and received direct contact with US military.

APMM sent dozens of ships to transport half-a-million US troops and armaments free of charge. This bought him future war contracts in the many billions. One of Maersk’s shipping lines, Maersk Line Limited, is in Norfolk, Virginia. His 56 ships there fly the US stars and stripes. Twenty-two of them are used directly by the US for military operations.

When Lockheed Martin decided to build 1,763 F-35 super jets following the September 11, 2001 attacks, A.P. Moeller-Maersk was right there. He offered the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project his ships and expertise, and this 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.

Denmark’s next mission was to assist in breaking up Yugoslavia, which succeeded by dividing the socialistic-led state into five separate capitalist states, in the 1990s.

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 Danish mercenaries of many thousands were sent to fight beside the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Nine F-16s accompanied them. KLA was a drug-smuggling band and was on US and European terrorist lists in 1998. When KLA attacked socialist-led Serbian forces, it became an ally.

Denmark still occupies Bosnia and Kosovo. Hashim Thaci just resigned the presidency after charged in November 2020 on ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

December 2001, Denmark joined the US in its invasion of Afghanistan. It started with over 100 Danish mercenaries to kill Afghanis, because the government would not deliver what the US said were al Qaeda forces hiding in Afghanistan. The US refused to offer the Taliban government, which the it had helped gain power, any proof that those Saudi Arabian al Qaeda forces were responsible for the terrorist actions on September 11.

Denmark has flown over 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 other than the US—three billion dollars between 2002-2015, and counting still.

Queen Margrethe II is not supposed to speak politically, as the “royal family” has been so limited by the current constitution. During her annual end of the year speech, she couldn’t resist, in 2001, commenting on the need for war against Afghanistan.

“Nor do we allow ourselves to be intimidated into being just ourselves. We continue participating in activities and commitments to the international community [read: the United States]. This was recently emphasized when Denmark decided shortly before Christmas to make Danish military forces available for international operations [read: US aggressive war] in Afghanistan. We are noticed, and we are heard. One counts on us and one can count on us.”

On March 21, 2003, Denmark became the only government to actually declare war on Iraq. PM Anders Fogh Rassmusen’s public posture was that Iraq possessed weapons of massive destruction (WMD) as if that is an international crime warranting “regime change”. No one seems to ask why Denmark doesn’t invade other countries possessing WMD. The truth was Iraq did not have WMD. Rasmussen’s own Defense Intelligence Service knew that and so informed him. Whistleblower Major Frank Grevil was sent to prison; Rasmussen became NATO’s Secretary General.

The greatest act of civil disobedience took place when the prime minister walks the corridor of parliament and two young anti-war activist covered him and his foreign minister with eclogic red paint for the blood on their hands.

Denmark first sent a submarine and a warship, and then contracted the US mercenary private firm Blackwater to “protect” 400 Danish soldiers initially dispatched. Later, it sent seven F-16s.

Peace activism had been tepid for most of the years since 9/11 and the beginning of the “war on terror”. A notable exception occurred on February 15-16, 2003 when millions rallied in 600 cities in 60 countries, the largest protest in human history. The purpose was to prevent the myopic Bush regime from invading Iraq following the takeover of Afghanistan. I was among ca. 40,000 people in Copenhagen rallying before the seat of power.

We were 50,000 in five major Danish cities, the largest demo since the Vietnam War. Some of the largest actions took place in Europe. Three million in Rome was the largest in history, so listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

According to BBC News between six and eleven million people took part in protests. Other estimates range from eight million to thirty million world wide.

George Bush turned a deaf ear. He only cared about oil for the US and war industry profits.

On March 18, 2011, the Danish parliament voted unanimously to go to war against Libya. They sent six F-16s and a transport aircraft to stop Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi from “crushing civilian opposition” armed in Benghazi, something that groups associated with al Qaeda claimed would soon happen. Among the parties voting for the invasion was the Red/Green party—Enhedslisten was formed right after the fall of the Soviet Union by the pro-Moscow Communist Party, Trotsykist communists, and Left Socialists. By 2008, it had become a social democratic party backing the official Social Democrats, and ceased anti-war activities.

Tens of thousands demonstrating in Copenhagen against war in Iraq.

Denmark dropped 1000 bombs, 17% of all the 26,500 flight missions. The “brave pilots” as the media called them had no risk as Libya’s air force was crushed. Not one Danish invader was killed. Denmark spent over $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 TN news.

In Syria, April 2014, Denmark ships transported 1,300 tons of chemical weaponry from Syria’s government to a US location, the country with the most chemical and biological weaponry. Denmark also sent F-16s on a few missions inside Syria against all laws of sovereignty. In January 2017, Denmark sent 60 Special Forces. Jets and special troops crossed back and forth between Syria and Iraq. Denmark has focused on “donating” tax money to “opposition” “humanitarian” groups, such as “White Helmets” embedded in IS held territory, and “friendly” militia fighters against the government. Denmark says deploying special forces to Syria against Islamic State | Reuters

The same month that Denmark began aiding terrorism in Syria, it flew four F-16s to aid Estonia from being invaded by Russia. This intrepid action was linked to support the neo-fascist Ukrainian government. Denmark continues its “peace-keeping mission” in the Baltics.

The Tally 1990-2017 (and running) war-making results: Danes killed, 68; wounded, ca. 300; 47 suicides in 300 attempts between 1992-2013 (and running); No figures are known or kept of how many human beings Denmark has murdered!

1. Balkans=33,691 Danish troops; 12 Danes killed; 35 wounded. 1992-today.

2. Afghanistan=20,000 Danish mercenaries; 43 Danes killed; 214 wounded. 2002-today

3. Iraq=9,605 troops; 8 D 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?

Two readers have asked me why I contend that Danes are so willing to bow to United States wishes. As with most peoples and governments in the capitalist world, profiteering from 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 negotiable in Denmark. Only 3% of the annual budget goes to “Defense”.

It would take a whole essay or book, to properly answer this question, something like: why are so many people immoral, lack solidarity, ignore the sufferings of others? Why are institutional Christians, for example, so anti-Christ, if Jesus was the peacemaker the bible contends he was.

Can Danes really believe that the Russians will invade them if the US wasn’t behind them militarily? Would the US drop its support of Denmark if its governments refused to fight the Yankees’ wars? No, I strongly doubt that it would. Not all 30 NATO countries and the 27 in EU are such obedient pets as are the Danes.

Danes want to be first in line, side by side with the United States. In fact, “shoulder to shoulder” was how yet another social democrat prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, expressed Danes support for US wars following the convenient terror attack on September 11, 2001, which allowed US governments to wet their pants over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and later more lands. (SD did vote against warring against Iraq but since have voted for weaponry and troops sent there.)

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

1. We had to do what the US wanted of us so we would come in out of the cold, and get Marshall Plan benefits.

2. Danes profited from colonialism/slavery. Much of Denmark’s wealth down to the present comes from being oppressors. Danes, being passive while enjoying the comforts, don’t want to confront that past, which is clearly seen on many monuments/statues/street names around the country, and abjectly so in its Greenland colony.

3. Denmark is now just a little land and needs “security” from a big land.

4. Danish culture for a long time has been passive, authoritarian faithful, conflict-adverse and indifferent. The word for indifference/I don’t care in Danish is ligeglad. In 1984, I wrote a commentary for the daily newspaper Information. It started as an underground resistance medium during WWII.

Upon victory, it took over the building previously occupied by the Nazi newspaper “Fatherland”. My article was entitled, “Indifference is the most typical Danish word.” Today, that is still the case, even more so. One example is Information’s move to the right.