“We’re going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not,” says President Trump.
Apparently it doesn’t matter how Greenlanders or Danes feel about that. President Trump says acquiring Greenland is a national security issue for the United States, so we’re getting it either the “easy way” or the “hard way.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says our preferred option would be for Denmark to sell us Greenland, but both Denmark and Greenland say it’s not for sale. The President doesn’t care, however. As Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed out, “the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.” Leavitt is like an old white man whispering in Queen Victoria’s ear, “Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll have India all locked up soon.” Apparently neither courtier nor Queen thought that was kind of weird. Not at all. Colonialism seemed natural and even good to them then, as it apparently does to Donald Trump now. He is a master at walking us backwards.
In TrumpWorld, imperialistic ventures are simply foreign policy goals. Might makes right as far as they’re concerned, and no one- including Danes and Greenlanders - are doubting that now.
I’ve noticed the President isn’t talking about a third term these days, presumably because someone told him he’s old. That seems to have had a pointed effect on his personality, hasn’t it? He wants to get everything done and done quickly.
President Trump apparently likes invading places now. He doesn’t look quite as giddy about it as Lindsey Graham, mind you, but close. It’s his new thing. After Venezuela, he’s all, “Let’s GOOOO!!” He’s no longer the man who ran for President on the idea of stopping foreign wars. He’s the President who has plans for a few of them. Where you and I might say, “I’ll take one butternut caramel, one coconut cream, one chocolate peanut butter crunch, one pistachio paradise, and one strawberry delight,” he says, “I’ll take one Venezuela, one Colombia, one Cuba, one Mexico, and one Greenland.” All in good time.
Being seen as a war-monger or an imperialist is not considered an insult to the Trump team. Where we see international criminals, they see tough guys who mean business. This is also someone, remember, who when he was campaigning for President said about nuclear bombs, “What’s the point in having all this stuff if you don’t use it?
Trump says we need to acquire Greenland in order to “protect it,” but as one Danish Parliamentarian pointed out, the US. is the only one threatening it! This has nothing to do with our national security; as usual, the administration distorts the truth. According to the Danes, we can lease the land…we can station as many troops there as we want…and if the island were threatened by Russia or China, the United States and Europe would defend it together! But Trump says “leasing” Greenland isn’t enough for him. In his mind it’s like a high end condo. He wants to own.
Danes and Greenlanders are understandably unhappy about all of this. The Danish Prime Minister says U.S. threats have got to stop, though by now she realizes the seriousness of Trump’s intentions. Austria’s NATO Enlargement Committee Chairman warns that if America invades Greenland, our troops and bases will be made to leave Austria. Obviously other European countries could follow their lead. Greenlanders say things like “We just want to be left alone,” or as one woman told the press, “He’s crazy.
She’s not the first person to posit that theory, of course, but it hardly matters. He’s President of the United States, and he feels no moral compunction about grabbing someone else’s country whether they like it or not. He warned us he was going into Venezuela and he did. Now he’s warning us he’s getting Greenland. We’d be foolish to doubt either his intention or his will.
According to military experts, America’s overwhelming military capacity would make for a ruthless invasion of Greenland. But the invasion would possibly be bloodless, as it’s unlikely that many, or even any of its 58,000 inhabitants would put up real resistance. They might not resist us, but there’s no way they wouldn’t resent us. And Europeans, who steadfastly support their neighbors in saying that only Denmark and Greenland should determine Greenland’s future, would be furious. As in Venezuela, the President just says, “We’re gonna go in there and take things over, see…,” without the slightest consideration about how other people feel or what comes next.
The most likely reason Trump is so fixated on Greenland is the same reason he was fixed on Venezuela: all that “money in the ground.” The President doesn’t just want troops there; he wants American corporations there. In Venezuela it’s oil, and in Greenland it’s rare earth minerals. In all colonial ventures, you don’t just go there to go there. You go someplace to get what you want, perhaps drop a few crumbs to the people who live there, and make a whole lot of money on the resources you stole.
Most times I love it when I’m pretty sure I’m right, but this time it breaks my heart.
And this man wants a Nobel Peace Prize?!? He also recently said he’s not constrained by the “international order.” His own “mind” and his own “morality” are all he answers to. In which case we are doomed.
Yes Marianne...more than anything else this is heart-breaking. At some point this blindness and delusion will be ended. The courage to hold to love, peace and a social contract based on honouring the sacred value of each person will be required in measures we don't yet know. Of course we have the social contract already in the Constitution, but the courage to hold it and protect it is what the founders knew would be hard, and what those countless men and women who already died to honour it understood. As you have already said many many times, the moment is now to hold to the sacred. Bless you.