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Same deal here in Norway. Lots of irregularities in how the F35 got selected over Swedish SAAB Gripen. And yeah we are also incapable of saying no, to anything

Same deal here in Norway. Lots of irregularities in how the F35 got selected over Swedish SAAB Gripen. And yeah we are also incapable of saying no, to anything it seems. It has been Norwegian policy to not have US bases since end of WWII. But current conservative sell-out government has done it without any national debate. They just give the US an area of Norway where US laws applies. Criticizing the Norwegian alliance and what is being done to placate the US seems politically impossible. It is like a holy cow.

G3rn0ti 5y ago
This behavior can all be explained with the threat the Russian state still poses to the neighboring Scandinavian countries. If I were a small country afraid of a larger one I would also try to find me a big brother. We can only hope that Putin will fall one day.
- tored 5y ago
  Russia is a much smaller threat than the Soviet Union, if bases was not needed during the Cold War, they are definitely not needed now.
  - mike_d 5y ago
    Russia is effectively a criminal enterprise cosplaying as a nation state. Putin is going to die in the next 20 years and create a massive power vacuum. What you'll end up with is a dozen or so "rightful heirs" with some level of control over the military and nuclear arsenals.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      > Russia is effectively a criminal enterprise cosplaying as a nation state. There are a lot of states which are criminal enterprises, US included. There is really no reason for a country like Danemark to bend to US .
      - G3rn0ti 5y ago
        Well, Denmark is a member of NATO which is dominated by the US. As sb else argued deciding what weapons to buy and from whom has strong political inclinations. If Denmark would buy their equipment from Russia they couldn’t stay with the NATO in the long run.
        hulitu 5y ago
        Buying weapons is one thing. Giving data about your country and your citizens to another country is something terrible. When i buy a TV from you, you don't get the right to spy on my family. (i know samsung, google and other companies would dissagree)
    - mmmmmbop 5y ago
      By what definition is Russia a nation state?
      - seszett 5y ago
        I think that term is used in the US to mean basically "country". It's often used for multinational states, so I don't think it has to be taken literally.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      Russia is effectively a country powerful enough to want sovereignity but powerless to be able to enforce its will outside even in its immediate borders (compare to the US which enforces its will globally). Putin is a strongman that aside from keeping local "oligarchs" happy, has raised incredibly Russian's GDP and economy from when he got in power, and reverted the "sell everything to the highest foreign bidder" course that Yeltsin was praised for. That's the problem with Putin, not his rule, that annoys the west - which is also why they never have a problem with allies that do the same or worse. Pinochet was celebrated by the west, and accomondated by the UK until his last days, for example. Ditto for rich journalist-killing oil heirs, and so on.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - tored 5y ago
      Which country is the most likely to fall apart within the next 20 years based on current affairs, US or Russia?
- ghostDancer 5y ago
  Beware with that. We don't know if there are even worse options than Putin.Things can always get worse or crazier. BTW Spain also bought F35s. It's not just the Russian menace ,vassal states have to comply with master.
- supergirl 5y ago
  so it's better to lose sovereignty now to the US than take the risk of a hypothetical Russian invasion? all these countries that have US bases in them are practically invaded without resistance. the US is friendly now but in 30 years who knows? imagine US being in a very tough situation. it's a no brainer for them to say "America first" and take whatever resources they can take from anywhere they can. look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. they spent a lot of money on the F35 probably, instead of investing in their own fighter program and now they got nothing.
  - Sevastopol 5y ago
    > look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. Not really "on a whim." The implications/consequences of purchasing and using the S-400 were clear. It was a clear choice made by Turkey and the decision cost the US much more than Turkey ever invested in the program anyways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_procurement#Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially-kicked-out-of-f-35-program/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially...
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    The risk of a Russian invasion is close to zero, has been for a while. It's more about wanting to be friends with the big super power, and frankly about our leaders being personally coopted.
- coldtea 5y ago
  There's literally no threat from the Russian state to the neighboring Scandinavian countries - aside from that played to sell protection and arms. Russia is no USSR, and has nothing to do with the neighboring Scandinavian countries. If anything, it's the opposite: the neighboring countries, Scandinavian or not, as used as a proxy pressure to Russia.
  - thefounder 5y ago
    Right...but if you look at Ukraine you see a different reality
    - coldtea 5y ago
      If I look Ukraine I see a country with an old rivalry with Russia, which the US stepped on to use as another proxy against it in the area. I also see a country where the legitimate, voted for, goverment was overthrown by "orange revolution" style riots led by bona-fied neonazis and celebrated/sponsored by foreign powers. It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
      - thefounder 5y ago
        >> If I look Ukraine I see a country with an old rivalry with Russia, which the US stepped on to use as another proxy against it in the area. Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction. >> It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population. Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
        coldtea 5y ago
        >Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction. I would have seen that, if they haven't historically sized with Nazism, and the democratically elected government wasn't toppled by neonazis just now. >Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan? Does Tatarstan has some area with a large citizenry of American descent, and has an anti-American government that looks down on them have been established in the country? Was part of Tatarstan historically part of US too, for centuries even? If so, they'd certainly be justified to do so, yes, especially in that area. Then again, they they do it anyway, wherever they like, not in places they have actual borders with and a historical population of fellow ethnic Americans to protect, but 10s of thousands of miles away from their borders, where they have no history and no reason to be there, plundering and living hell-holes of civil war and destruction on their way out.
- tclover 5y ago
  wtf... What did Russia do to the Scandinavians? Why are you always afraid of Russia?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    The "independent" media tell them so.
  - widforss 5y ago
    They took Finland.
    - tclover 5y ago
      who took what
      - widforss 5y ago
        Russia annexed Finland as war reparations after the Finnish war. Sweden had problems with Russia well before that, but I'd say that most of the modern Scandinavian russophobia stems from this event.
        tclover 5y ago
        Well yes, but guess who annexed it first from Russia? (yes it was Sweden, if you want to talk history)
        CRConrad 5y ago
        "From Russia"??? How? It had never been part of Russia.
        widforss 5y ago
        Finland was part of Sweden since 1249. What are you talking about?
    - wsc981 5y ago
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  > If I were a small country afraid of a larger one I would also try to find me a big brother. USA and other world powers honour treaties only when it serves them. If you think they would aid an ally in the time of need just look at how they honoured the Vienna treaty and helped Ukraine when it was invaded. Or how the UK abandoned Poland in 1939 (yes, they declared war on Germany and that was it). Alliance/military treaties are worth as much as the piece of paper they are written on.
ElFitz 5y ago
That’s when I end up glad my country seems so bent on making their own stuff (mostly planes) no matter what. Surprisingly, they’ve even started succeeding in selling those these last few years.
- qwertox 5y ago
  France has a lot more principles than any of its bordering countries. I'm so glad that it is in the EU.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    What kind of principles are you referring to? Being themselves a massive hardware/software arms dealer so they don't have to buy from the US? (see Amesys scandal during the arab spring) To be fair though, the French government does have a huge dependency on USA corps. French government is mostly equipped with Microsoft Windows including the army, which was another huge scandal when this contract was passed a few years back. France, after decades of "neutral" stance during/post cold-war is now back with the NATO psychopaths, and driving military interventions to protect dubious regimes/interests across the globe. Meanwhile, the ONLY nationwide independent newspaper (Mediapart) reveals huge numbers of outright nazis in the army, but that's not a problem to the people in power. Dozens and dozens of officers sign a petition and go live on TV to defend a military coup d'État against our (really fucked up) colonial republic and most political parties from left to right lick their boots. Only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a centrist politician presented as a leftist despite not being against money and private property, opposes them publicly. That says a lot about how french politics shifted to the far-right since 1968 With the army rebelling, you'd think the police would remain the docile watchdogs they usually are? That they'd continue to silently beat down and murder the men of color and protesters around the country, maintaining the omerta? No, they're out there on the streets demonstrating, even going en masse in front of the presidential palace to threaten the elected psychopath Macron. They're now also publicly beating down or mudering feminists (see March 8 2020) and old people (see Zineb Redouane, Geneviève Legay, etc), publicly administering some of the baton-grenades-flashball formula ten years ago was only applied in the non-white ghetto suburbs. But besides the usual murders committed by police worldwide, french police has been involved in murdering protesters, without ever being held accountable, which is quite unusual for a pretend-democracy. To my knowledge in the USA, police doesn't dare murder protesters, and instead leaves this task to the fascist militias. Here, Vital Michalon, Malik Oussekine or Rémi Fraisse are just "things that happen" when you take part in a demonstration. But if that were criticized from within, they'd have to react, right? Ask the VIGI police union members who've been suspended and harassed for denouncing their higher-ups covering up police abuse and rampant racism. But surely a historical nazi Unterseeboot used as a police sign (as in Lorient) is a scandal, right? Well not really, because there was not EVER a denazification in France. Racial hierarchies, political repression and homophobia were already very widespread under the French colonial republic long before the Nazis came to power. After Paris was liberated by the Spanish antifascist troops (contrary to popular beliefs, the Americans did NOT liberate most of Paris), the nazi-collaborator State apparatus mostly stayed in place. Notably, the police prefects who organized the "counter-insurrection" in Algeria were previously working for the nazi regime, and were never held accountable for anything. Don't even get me started on the policy of murder, robbery and exploitation of Françafrique and the dark alliances between secret services and businesses around the Jacques Foccart ("Mr. Africa") networks and how that has benefited (and continues to benefit) proto-fascist CEOs like Bolloré and the nuclear/military industrial complex. And if you think the universities are somehow a safe haven because after the bloodshed and deaths of May 68, the government would never dare attacks the universities, think again. Not only is the police attacking any form of university occupation, the whole intelligentsia is now on TVs everywhere denouncing the "islamo-leftists" and maneuvering to restore in the universities the good-old values of capitalism, authoritarianism, patriarchy and white-supremacy. Anyway, that's just a short overview. There's a lot more that's broken with France. And i know there's a lot worse happening elsewhere on earth and we french folks (especially we whites) are very privileged on a global scale, but please never take France as a moral compass. As pleasing as they sound, human rights have NEVER been applied in France (though it's a good export product). As a conclusion, i'll leave here some quotes from the human rights declaration of 1793, which despite being adopted by referendum as part of the 1st republic constitution, was never applied: "The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern. (...) Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man. (...) There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed. (...) When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."
wsc981 5y ago
The same happened in The Netherlands with regards to the F35 even though at the time several media outlets already reported that both the Eurofighter or Saab Gripen might be better choices. At the time there was a very popular right-wing politician in The Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn) who was very much not in favor of the F35 purchase. And perhaps if he didn’t get killed by a left-wing activist, he might have chosen for one of the other planes. However, he got killed and his second in command (Mat Herben) took over the party and agreed with the F35 purchase. The Guardian reported that some associates of Pim Fortuyn thought that Mat Herben was an establishment infiltrant: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/28/thefarright.politics https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/28/thefarright.po...
- correcthorse123 5y ago
  As a sidenote; Leefbaar Nederland and later Lijst Pim Fortuyn (the political parties he was with) were barely right wing compared to the utter crap we've got now though. Unless openly thinking about the problem of improving the integration process so immigrants have a better chance at a good job and happier lives (as opposed to "welcoming" them with neglect - I'd guess having mostly cheap labor in mind - under the guise of multiculturalism) is right wing. I was a bit too young to understand the political context back then, though in hindsight, AFAIK I think he really meant to help these people as opposed to the hateful unproductive stuff spouted today by PVV and the like, mainly appealing to a part of the voterbase that's into that, and furthering segregation and polarization. I guess openly addressing religious fundamentalism was considered quite right wing at the time though. Specifically the Lagerhuis broadcast with Marcel van Dam comes to mind. (I might be misclassifying him though; I don't recall his actual policy proposals regarding these topics, but the Guardian article claiming he was a fiercely anti-immigration libertarian does not rhyme with my admittedly ill-informed recollection of his politics)
fpoling 5y ago
US gets a lot of ammunitions and other weapons from Norway making Norway one of the leading weapons exporter in dollars-per-capita metric. So Norway in practice cannot say no to F-35 as that risks loosing those lucrative weapons contracts.

G3rn0ti 5y ago

This behavior can all be explained with the threat the Russian state still poses to the neighboring Scandinavian countries. If I were a small country afraid of a larger one I would also try to find me a big brother. We can only hope that Putin will fall one day.

tored 5y ago
Russia is a much smaller threat than the Soviet Union, if bases was not needed during the Cold War, they are definitely not needed now.
- mike_d 5y ago
  Russia is effectively a criminal enterprise cosplaying as a nation state. Putin is going to die in the next 20 years and create a massive power vacuum. What you'll end up with is a dozen or so "rightful heirs" with some level of control over the military and nuclear arsenals.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    > Russia is effectively a criminal enterprise cosplaying as a nation state. There are a lot of states which are criminal enterprises, US included. There is really no reason for a country like Danemark to bend to US .
    - G3rn0ti 5y ago
      Well, Denmark is a member of NATO which is dominated by the US. As sb else argued deciding what weapons to buy and from whom has strong political inclinations. If Denmark would buy their equipment from Russia they couldn’t stay with the NATO in the long run.
      - hulitu 5y ago
        Buying weapons is one thing. Giving data about your country and your citizens to another country is something terrible. When i buy a TV from you, you don't get the right to spy on my family. (i know samsung, google and other companies would dissagree)
  - mmmmmbop 5y ago
    By what definition is Russia a nation state?
    - seszett 5y ago
      I think that term is used in the US to mean basically "country". It's often used for multinational states, so I don't think it has to be taken literally.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Russia is effectively a country powerful enough to want sovereignity but powerless to be able to enforce its will outside even in its immediate borders (compare to the US which enforces its will globally). Putin is a strongman that aside from keeping local "oligarchs" happy, has raised incredibly Russian's GDP and economy from when he got in power, and reverted the "sell everything to the highest foreign bidder" course that Yeltsin was praised for. That's the problem with Putin, not his rule, that annoys the west - which is also why they never have a problem with allies that do the same or worse. Pinochet was celebrated by the west, and accomondated by the UK until his last days, for example. Ditto for rich journalist-killing oil heirs, and so on.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tored 5y ago
    Which country is the most likely to fall apart within the next 20 years based on current affairs, US or Russia?
ghostDancer 5y ago
Beware with that. We don't know if there are even worse options than Putin.Things can always get worse or crazier. BTW Spain also bought F35s. It's not just the Russian menace ,vassal states have to comply with master.
supergirl 5y ago
so it's better to lose sovereignty now to the US than take the risk of a hypothetical Russian invasion? all these countries that have US bases in them are practically invaded without resistance. the US is friendly now but in 30 years who knows? imagine US being in a very tough situation. it's a no brainer for them to say "America first" and take whatever resources they can take from anywhere they can. look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. they spent a lot of money on the F35 probably, instead of investing in their own fighter program and now they got nothing.
- Sevastopol 5y ago
  > look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. Not really "on a whim." The implications/consequences of purchasing and using the S-400 were clear. It was a clear choice made by Turkey and the decision cost the US much more than Turkey ever invested in the program anyways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_procurement#Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning... https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially-kicked-out-of-f-35-program/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially...
- Grustaf 5y ago
  The risk of a Russian invasion is close to zero, has been for a while. It's more about wanting to be friends with the big super power, and frankly about our leaders being personally coopted.
coldtea 5y ago
There's literally no threat from the Russian state to the neighboring Scandinavian countries - aside from that played to sell protection and arms. Russia is no USSR, and has nothing to do with the neighboring Scandinavian countries. If anything, it's the opposite: the neighboring countries, Scandinavian or not, as used as a proxy pressure to Russia.
- thefounder 5y ago
  Right...but if you look at Ukraine you see a different reality
  - coldtea 5y ago
    If I look Ukraine I see a country with an old rivalry with Russia, which the US stepped on to use as another proxy against it in the area. I also see a country where the legitimate, voted for, goverment was overthrown by "orange revolution" style riots led by bona-fied neonazis and celebrated/sponsored by foreign powers. It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
    - thefounder 5y ago
      >> If I look Ukraine I see a country with an old rivalry with Russia, which the US stepped on to use as another proxy against it in the area. Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction. >> It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population. Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
      - coldtea 5y ago
        >Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction. I would have seen that, if they haven't historically sized with Nazism, and the democratically elected government wasn't toppled by neonazis just now. >Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan? Does Tatarstan has some area with a large citizenry of American descent, and has an anti-American government that looks down on them have been established in the country? Was part of Tatarstan historically part of US too, for centuries even? If so, they'd certainly be justified to do so, yes, especially in that area. Then again, they they do it anyway, wherever they like, not in places they have actual borders with and a historical population of fellow ethnic Americans to protect, but 10s of thousands of miles away from their borders, where they have no history and no reason to be there, plundering and living hell-holes of civil war and destruction on their way out.
tclover 5y ago
wtf... What did Russia do to the Scandinavians? Why are you always afraid of Russia?
- coldtea 5y ago
  The "independent" media tell them so.
- widforss 5y ago
  They took Finland.
  - tclover 5y ago
    who took what
    - widforss 5y ago
      Russia annexed Finland as war reparations after the Finnish war. Sweden had problems with Russia well before that, but I'd say that most of the modern Scandinavian russophobia stems from this event.
      - tclover 5y ago
        Well yes, but guess who annexed it first from Russia? (yes it was Sweden, if you want to talk history)
        CRConrad 5y ago
        "From Russia"??? How? It had never been part of Russia.
        widforss 5y ago
        Finland was part of Sweden since 1249. What are you talking about?
  - wsc981 5y ago
bitcharmer 5y ago
> If I were a small country afraid of a larger one I would also try to find me a big brother. USA and other world powers honour treaties only when it serves them. If you think they would aid an ally in the time of need just look at how they honoured the Vienna treaty and helped Ukraine when it was invaded. Or how the UK abandoned Poland in 1939 (yes, they declared war on Germany and that was it). Alliance/military treaties are worth as much as the piece of paper they are written on.

ElFitz 5y ago

That’s when I end up glad my country seems so bent on making their own stuff (mostly planes) no matter what. Surprisingly, they’ve even started succeeding in selling those these last few years.

qwertox 5y ago
France has a lot more principles than any of its bordering countries. I'm so glad that it is in the EU.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  What kind of principles are you referring to? Being themselves a massive hardware/software arms dealer so they don't have to buy from the US? (see Amesys scandal during the arab spring) To be fair though, the French government does have a huge dependency on USA corps. French government is mostly equipped with Microsoft Windows including the army, which was another huge scandal when this contract was passed a few years back. France, after decades of "neutral" stance during/post cold-war is now back with the NATO psychopaths, and driving military interventions to protect dubious regimes/interests across the globe. Meanwhile, the ONLY nationwide independent newspaper (Mediapart) reveals huge numbers of outright nazis in the army, but that's not a problem to the people in power. Dozens and dozens of officers sign a petition and go live on TV to defend a military coup d'État against our (really fucked up) colonial republic and most political parties from left to right lick their boots. Only Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a centrist politician presented as a leftist despite not being against money and private property, opposes them publicly. That says a lot about how french politics shifted to the far-right since 1968 With the army rebelling, you'd think the police would remain the docile watchdogs they usually are? That they'd continue to silently beat down and murder the men of color and protesters around the country, maintaining the omerta? No, they're out there on the streets demonstrating, even going en masse in front of the presidential palace to threaten the elected psychopath Macron. They're now also publicly beating down or mudering feminists (see March 8 2020) and old people (see Zineb Redouane, Geneviève Legay, etc), publicly administering some of the baton-grenades-flashball formula ten years ago was only applied in the non-white ghetto suburbs. But besides the usual murders committed by police worldwide, french police has been involved in murdering protesters, without ever being held accountable, which is quite unusual for a pretend-democracy. To my knowledge in the USA, police doesn't dare murder protesters, and instead leaves this task to the fascist militias. Here, Vital Michalon, Malik Oussekine or Rémi Fraisse are just "things that happen" when you take part in a demonstration. But if that were criticized from within, they'd have to react, right? Ask the VIGI police union members who've been suspended and harassed for denouncing their higher-ups covering up police abuse and rampant racism. But surely a historical nazi Unterseeboot used as a police sign (as in Lorient) is a scandal, right? Well not really, because there was not EVER a denazification in France. Racial hierarchies, political repression and homophobia were already very widespread under the French colonial republic long before the Nazis came to power. After Paris was liberated by the Spanish antifascist troops (contrary to popular beliefs, the Americans did NOT liberate most of Paris), the nazi-collaborator State apparatus mostly stayed in place. Notably, the police prefects who organized the "counter-insurrection" in Algeria were previously working for the nazi regime, and were never held accountable for anything. Don't even get me started on the policy of murder, robbery and exploitation of Françafrique and the dark alliances between secret services and businesses around the Jacques Foccart ("Mr. Africa") networks and how that has benefited (and continues to benefit) proto-fascist CEOs like Bolloré and the nuclear/military industrial complex. And if you think the universities are somehow a safe haven because after the bloodshed and deaths of May 68, the government would never dare attacks the universities, think again. Not only is the police attacking any form of university occupation, the whole intelligentsia is now on TVs everywhere denouncing the "islamo-leftists" and maneuvering to restore in the universities the good-old values of capitalism, authoritarianism, patriarchy and white-supremacy. Anyway, that's just a short overview. There's a lot more that's broken with France. And i know there's a lot worse happening elsewhere on earth and we french folks (especially we whites) are very privileged on a global scale, but please never take France as a moral compass. As pleasing as they sound, human rights have NEVER been applied in France (though it's a good export product). As a conclusion, i'll leave here some quotes from the human rights declaration of 1793, which despite being adopted by referendum as part of the 1st republic constitution, was never applied: "The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern. (...) Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man. (...) There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed. (...) When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."

wsc981 5y ago

The same happened in The Netherlands with regards to the F35 even though at the time several media outlets already reported that both the Eurofighter or Saab Gripen might be better choices. At the time there was a very popular right-wing politician in The Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn) who was very much not in favor of the F35 purchase. And perhaps if he didn’t get killed by a left-wing activist, he might have chosen for one of the other planes. However, he got killed and his second in command (Mat Herben) took over the party and agreed with the F35 purchase. The Guardian reported that some associates of Pim Fortuyn thought that Mat Herben was an establishment infiltrant: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/28/thefarright.politics https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/28/thefarright.po...

correcthorse123 5y ago
As a sidenote; Leefbaar Nederland and later Lijst Pim Fortuyn (the political parties he was with) were barely right wing compared to the utter crap we've got now though. Unless openly thinking about the problem of improving the integration process so immigrants have a better chance at a good job and happier lives (as opposed to "welcoming" them with neglect - I'd guess having mostly cheap labor in mind - under the guise of multiculturalism) is right wing. I was a bit too young to understand the political context back then, though in hindsight, AFAIK I think he really meant to help these people as opposed to the hateful unproductive stuff spouted today by PVV and the like, mainly appealing to a part of the voterbase that's into that, and furthering segregation and polarization. I guess openly addressing religious fundamentalism was considered quite right wing at the time though. Specifically the Lagerhuis broadcast with Marcel van Dam comes to mind. (I might be misclassifying him though; I don't recall his actual policy proposals regarding these topics, but the Guardian article claiming he was a fiercely anti-immigration libertarian does not rhyme with my admittedly ill-informed recollection of his politics)

fpoling 5y ago

US gets a lot of ammunitions and other weapons from Norway making Norway one of the leading weapons exporter in dollars-per-capita metric. So Norway in practice cannot say no to F-35 as that risks loosing those lucrative weapons contracts.