Ron Ridenour, amerikansk journalist, der har boet 35 år i Danmark beskriver dansk imperialismes binding til USA og deltagelsen USA’s krige og invasioner.
The once peaceful Danish people have adapted to being a warring country for big daddy. Even soldier fathers’ children participate in war exercises.
The Russians Are Coming
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 Koege 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-age 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-one half centuries.
She scurried away as I roared on about happy Danes enthusiastically supporting the US-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 Frederickson, has yet another measurement for being one of the world’s greatest per-capita donor to the neo-fascist Ukrainian war.
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 doesn’t want to listen, that if we don’t do something to oppose these wars-for-profit-for 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 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).
“WorldPopulationReview.com [WPR] is an independent for-profit organization committed to delivering up-to-date global population data and demographics.”
The WPR has been conducting this survey 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 placed: Israel=5; UK=20; US=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 a myriad of 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 out of U.S.’s new “coalition of the willing.” Finland comes in between 10 and 15 out of 42 countries tallied.
Here is a brief overview of three of the countries’ military output as of February 2024, according to https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-10-biggest-providers-of-military-aid/a-68861057
US=$46.6 billion
Germany=$19.54
UK=$10
Denmark=$9.36
EU=$6.18
Netherlands=$4.9
Norway=$4.2
Poland=$3.3
Canada=$2.3
Sweden=$2.24
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 Lokke Rasmussen—leader of the “Liberal” party—said in response to Sanders during in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government: “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Lokke-Rasmussen is now the Moderate Party leaders, and current foreign minister in the three-party cabinet led by Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen.
Vibeke Schou Tjalve, 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 backup to U.S.’s invasion-occupation of Iraq, in 2014.
“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.
- 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 WWII. 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.
- 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.
- Danes see themselves as just a “little land” needing “security” from a big land.
- Danish culture is passive, authoritarian faithful, conflict-adverse and indifferent.
- 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, September 11, 2001, Denmark had only a handful of such firms. Now there are around 500. Terma even supplies materials for F-35A, which Denmark bought 27 for $2.4 billions, in 2016. At that time, 53.3% of Danes polled were opposed to the purchase to 30.8% for. That mood is totally reversed.
Christian Daily wrote a thorough review of Rasmus Mariager 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, tourist traveling to rearmament against the Soviet Union. Modern day Russia is still the big bad bear even long 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 over 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 WWII 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 by Turkey and Hungary.
Denmark’s earliest involvement was to send a war ship to support U.S.’s invasion in Iraq, 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 brought him huge profits in the near future. 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.
First of 27 F-35 landed in Denmark September 2023. Denmark bought them in 2016 for ca. $90 million each. In all $2.4 billion. Six will remain in U.S. to train Danish pilots. They replace 44 F-16s Denmark bought in the 70s-80s.
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 U.S. and Europe control or seek to control their natural resources.
Denmark sided with US-ARME against the UN, France and Germany and invaded Iraq in 2003. It provides war materials, pilots and troops from time to time during U.S.’s permanent occupation.
Thirty thousand troops and volunteer mercenaries (1) were 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.”
Danes killed: 64; 300 wounded; 47 suicides in 300 attempts between 1992-2013 (and running). No figures are available of how many human beings Denmark has murdered!
1. Balkans=33,691 Danes invaders; 12 Danes killed; 35 wounded. 1992-today.
(1 Mercenaries because soldiers are not forced to fight unless Denmark declares war)
2. Afghanistan=20,000 Danes; 43 killed; 214 wounded. 2002-today
3. Iraq=9,605 troops; 8 killed; 19 wounded. 2003-07
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
During Mette Frederiksen’s first one-party Social Democrat government (June 2019-December 2022), President Donald Trump had scheduled a trip but when Frederisken rejected his 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.”