[Peace] Re: [Sdas] satire --> Re: Sweden -free speech to US refugees

[Marianne Brun]

More desirable  than credible!


am 02.01.2003 0:56 Uhr schrieb Margaret E. Kosal unter
nerdgirl at scs.uiuc.edu:

This article went the rounds to many lists and the majority of sophisticated
readers found it credible which suggests a fine line between reality and
satire these days.

So what happened:
1) On the e-mail circulated on another list the footnote was not the same
one - rather it said:
- Dennis Hans <mailto:HANS_D at popmail.firn.edu> files stories in the New York
Times, Washington Post, National Post (Canada) and online at TomPaine.com,
Slate and The Black World Today (tbwt.com), among other outlets. He has
taught courses in mass communications and American foreign policy at the
University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. Dennis is a contributing writer
for Liberal Slant and can be reached at mailto:HANS_D at popmail.firn.edu

2) Recently there was an article going around the list serves about Ritt
Goldstein an investigative journalist and a former leader in the movement
for US law enforcement accountability. ... who was in hiding in Sweden and
seeking asylum there http://www.8thdaycenter.org/090500.html U.S. CITIZEN
SEEKS ASYLUM FROM POLICE

Excerpt:
"In a move that stunned Amnesty International and other human rights groups,
Sweden's Immigration Board did not challenge the facts of Ritt's claim but
said that there is no need for asylum because the US is an 'internationally
recognized democracy with a just legal system.' Sweden's Alien Appeals Board
upheld this decision which led to an order for his immediate deportation to
the US. Ritt immediately went into hiding in Sweden as his case slowly
grinds its way toward the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg. He has
been described as 'the man who fled the US in search of freedom.' While
Ritt's case receives little attention in the US, it has set off a wide
debate in Europe. His supporters suspect that the Swedish immigration
service simply does not want to embarrass the US by granting him asylum."

3) Here are some excerpts from that article which provides some background
on Sweden's foreign policy position. For those familiar with the earlier
Olaf Palmer days - the Eagle has landed in Sweden as well.

http <http://nnn.se/n-model/foreign/damage.htm>
://nnn.se/n-model/foreign/damage.htm
<http://nnn.se/n-model/foreign/damage.htm>
Collateral Damage : Sweden's Legacy of Peace
Al Burke, 21 October 2001
”You know how it is: When the big guys call, one is eager to do one’s bit.”
- Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, 2000
I"NTRO:  THE SANCTITY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, the resolution of conflict by
peaceful means, the protection of weaker nations against aggression by the
more powerful, an independent foreign policy based on peaceful neutrality,
and related principles have long been cornerstones of Swedish foreign
policy. 
Not anymore. The dust had barely settled on the rubble of the World Trade
Center in New York when Prime Minister Göran Persson announced his
”unconditional support” for any measures that the United States might care
to take in response to the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Two weeks
into the massive bombing of Afghanistan, whose responsibility for the
attacks has yet to be established, the Swedish prime minister’s support for
the U.S. remains unshaken.

Here are a few excerpts from the lengthy article:
"An obvious question is whether this loss of bearings  hroughout Europe has
occurred by some remarkable coincidence, or has been guided by the world’s
sole remaining  superpower. For obvious reasons, evidence is hard to come
by, and will likely remain so until the relevant archives are opened several
decades hence, if ever. But there are some tantalizing indications...."
-----
"In Sweden’s case, the loss of bearings is intimately related to the
country’s entry into the European Union in 1995. Since then, its once
distinctive profile has suffered steady erosion as the result of at least
three factors: the display of and, in many areas, the requirement of unity
which EU membership implies; the  ideological collapse” of  social democracy
lamented by Le Monde Diplomatique; and Prime Minister Persson, whose
knowledge and understanding of foreign policy issues are (even according to
party colleagues) quite limited."

(Although one can also question the EU association as causitive, since
non-EU but NATO member Norway has also capitulated to US demands &
intentions .. sigh ... margaret)
------
"In foreign policy matters, the EU’s has always been a submissive partner in
NATO: What the United States wants, it usually gets, and the latest Balkan
tragedy was no exception. Although Sweden is not yet a member of NATO, it is
clearly being led in that direction....

"In short, the country that was once regarded as the western world’s ”one
honourable exception” in its early and forceful opposition to the Vietnam
War, is being inexorably drawn into the violent realm of Pax Americana by
the government of Göran Persson."
------------
"But during the past year, several veterans of the Palme era have pointedly
expressed their displeasure with various aspects of the Persson government’s
foreign policy."
-----------
"”Time and time again," observes Åström [former UN ambassador], "the right
of self-defence has been wrongly invoked to justify military action,
especially by the U.S. and Israel. The Security Council has on several
occasions condemned that broad interpretation. Now, a new praxis is being
introduced which may become established, and that changes the entire
situation. . . . It is an extremely important precedent which can lead to
the law of the jungle. We have already seen that Russia uses it to justify
its actions in Chechen. Israel uses the same argument to justify its
behaviour in the occupied areas, and China may start using it at any time to
crush resistance movements.

". . . What it does is to provide strong states with an excuse to go to
military attack on the pretext that they have been subjected to terrorist
actions.” 

---------------
See at end of article link to
"Things by Their Right Names. A review of the process by which "The Legacy
of Olof Palme" has been discarded by his successors."

Namaste,
Margaret

At 00:38 1/2/2003 +0100, Marianne Brun wrote:

----------
Von: linda kaucher <lindakaucher at hotmail.com>
Antworten an: lindakaucher at hotmail.com
Datum: Wed, 01 Jan 2003 11:49:54 +0000
An: wilpf-news at igc.topica.com, ukwilpf at egroups.com
Betreff: wilpf-news Sweden -free speech to US refugees

Sweden offers Free Speech Refuge to US Officials


Sweden Offers Free-speech Refuge To U.S. Officials
By Dennis Hans | http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0212/S00082.htm
From: Editor <changingplanet at supremalex.org
[Changing Planet] Sweden Offers Free-speech Refuge To U.S. Officials

Sweden Providing Platform for U.S. Officials Cowed by Bush

Intimidated bureaucrats regain their voice as protected guests of a
genuinely democratic regime.
By: Dennis Hans - 12/11/02
Also Published at www.liberalslant.com <http://www.liberalslant.com/>

STOCKHOLM - Blaine Williams hasn't stopped grinning since he arrived in
Sweden two weeks ago. Several times a day he'll approach a complete
stranger,
offer a handshake and a smile, introduce himself as a former CIA analyst
from America, and proceed to tell the bewildered Swede all the things he
knows that
directly contradict President George W. Bush's declarations about Saddam
Hussein's intentions and capabilities.

"Free at last!" Williams exclaimed to a reporter as he sat on his front
porch and waved to new neighbors. "I was stuck in a totalitarian bureaucracy
for 14
months. What a relief it is to say in public who I am and what I think."

Williams is the first of dozens of former U.S. government employees expected
to take refuge in Sweden over the next several months, courtesy of a bold
project of the new social democratic government.

On October 15, the Swedish Parliament appropriated 500 million dollars for
the "Palme Plan." Named for former Swedish president Olaf Palme, it promotes
the virtues of free and honest speech among government officials in
underdeveloped democracies.

"Swedes have always been generous in providing economic aid to countries
with underdeveloped economies," said Erland Carlsson, the parliamentarian
who
conceived the Palme Plan. "But we've done little to promote democratic
development in underdeveloped democracies."

Some leaders of underdeveloped democracies have welcomed Sweden's "democracy
teams," encouraging their efforts to create a culture of candor and
transparency in the corridors of power. Those efforts comprise the overt
component of the Palme Plan. The covert component kicks in when a leader is
hostile
to the very notions of candor and transparency.

Palme, who was Carlsson's political mentor, believed his greatest failure as
president was his inability, during the Vietnam War, to persuade U.S.
officialdom of
the virtues of public candor. "Palme believed that if the national security
bureaucracy had not been cowed into silence in the face of a torrent of
deceit from a
determined White House, the U.S. would never have invaded and destroyed
Vietnam," Carlsson said.

An October 8 story in the Houston Chronicle, by Jonathan Landy and Warren
Strobel ( http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1607676), convinced
Carlsson that the same suffocating environment had enveloped key sectors of
the Bush administration.

Thirteen officials from the CIA, State Department and Pentagon, many with
vast experience in the Middle East and South Asia, told Landy and Strobel
the same
thing: The White House has squelched dissent, imposed conformity and
silence, demanded skewed analyses to justify its hard line, and repeatedly
exaggerated
or falsified intelligence information to inflate the Saddam threat.

What most alarmed the Swedish MP was that none of the analysts were willing
to be quoted by name. Some were too frightened even to be quoted
anonymously.

"I couldn't help thinking that if these informed, respected patriots could
raise their voices openly and in unison, they'd stop the administration's
chicken hawks
in their tracks," Carlsson said. "Public and congressional support for the
war path would whither, and the president would be exposed as the world's
most
crooked 'straight shooter.'"

Borrowing Bush's Brilliant Idea

When Bush insisted that U.N. weapons inspectors be able to take Iraqi
scientists and their families outside of Iraq for interviews, thus
protecting the scientists
from possible retaliation by Saddam's secret police, Carlsson had the
solution that had eluded Palme so many years ago.

"That's it!" he told a colleague. "We'll offer U.S. bureaucrats and their
families safe passage to Sweden and a secure environment from which they can
speak
freely and publicly to the folks back home. They can stay here at our
expense until a climate of openness and honesty prevails in the Bush
administration."

In addition to Williams, 28 other bureaucrats and their families are en
route to Stockholm. All were spirited out of Washington by a team of Swedish
secret
agents who had honed their rescue skills in Yugoslavia and the Congo.

Once the former officials settle into their new homes and get comfortable
with saying who they are and what they think, they'll spend their time
giving speeches
an interviews.

Former CIA analyst Williams is already a sensation on Swedish TV as a
regular guest on the top-rated chat show, Nugen Farger ("Hard Rugby"). On a
recent
edition, he parsed a string of Bush's statements on Iraq, including
assertions at a Republican fundraiser that Saddam Hussein hopes to deploy al
Qaeda as his
"forward army" against the West, and that "we need to think about Saddam
Hussein using al Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints
behind."

"I can assure you," Williams told Swedish viewers, "that no one at CIA
believes a word Bush said. What's more, no one at CIA believes that Bush
believes a
word Bush said."

Strong words, and Williams anticipates an echo chamber as more of Sweden's
newest residents regain their voice. But he wonders if members of the U.S.
news
media, particularly those he calls "the boobs on the tube," will dare to
listen.



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