Nobody Cares About Greenland

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump's remarks about NATO soldiers avoiding the front line in Afghanistan have infuriated people from all parties in the UK (and, I would think, elsewhere).

Trump prompts outrage with claim Nato troops avoided frontline in Afghanistan

‘Makes my flesh creep’: MPs across political spectrum condemn Trump’s claims about Nato troops – UK politics live

 

[Soen Eber]

The "Lebensraum Theory" of Nazi Germany and the colonial aspirations of the German Empire were also directly inspired by America's "Manifest Destiny".

Most definitely Lebensraum, but from what I've read on the German Empire it was more about having a "Place in the Sun" and competition with the G.B. and France. Kaiser Wilhelm was always interfering and meddling with Aunt Vickie and the U.K. to the point where he AND HIS BRASS BAND were barred from the Royal yacht races, and other trifles such as the mass killings of his African subjects. I'm sure his justification was Manifest Destiny, but the prime driver was ego and the influence of some rightist political element(s).

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Trump Threatens ‘Big Retaliation’ If Europe Sells U.S. Treasuries

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also downplayed the threat of Danish funds divesting in U.S. Treasury bonds, calling Denmark “irrelevant.”

www.forbes.com

lol

Sweden's Largest Pension Fund Dumps $8.8B in US Bonds | the deep dive

Sweden’s largest private pension fund has divested up to $8.8 billion in US Treasuries, marking the most significant withdrawal yet from American government bonds since President Donald Trump’s Greenland crisis erupted. Alecta, which manages retirement savings for 2.8 million Swedes and 37,000...

thedeepdive.ca

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Economist suggests that these two T-bond sell-offs probably won't have much effect on their own (Evernote link because paywall).

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

The Economist suggests that these two T-bond sell-offs probably won't have much effect on their own (Evernote link because paywall).

Oh I expect not; I'm just saying, obviously the threats aren't very moving, heh.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The Economist suggests that these two T-bond sell-offs probably won't have much effect on their own (Evernote link because paywall).

Not YET, but if a lot more dominos fall, this could be a big deal. I'm sure Trump would try to pretend like that was the sole cause of a recession and his trade/foreign policies that sparked them are certainly not to blame.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump's Afghanistan insult

“The trick to staying sane in the Donald Trump era is to never take the bait; never succumb to his invitation to outrage.” I wrote that for the Times column I just filed but took it out it after his comments about role played by America’s allies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

frasernelson.substack.com

A 2007 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that UK and Canadian forces in Afghanistan suffered a fatality rate of 19 per 1,000 personnel-years during the summer of 2006 - nearly four times the rate US forces were experiencing in Iraq over the same period. A separate analysis by Action on Armed Violence found a UK soldier was 26pc more likely to be killed by an IED than their American counterpart. The reason was brutally simple: where Americans flew, the British drove.

Lt Col Thorneloe was acutely aware of this. In a memo marked “NATO secret”, written weeks before his death, he observed: “I have tried to avoid griping about helicopters - we all know we don’t have enough. We cannot not move people, so this month we have conducted a great deal of administrative movement by road. This increases the IED threat and our exposure to it.” On 1 July 2009, leading a resupply convoy in a Viking armoured vehicle, he was killed by an IED. He was 39, the highest-ranking British officer killed in action since Lt Col H. Jones in the Falklands.

The Danes, with a population smaller than Scotland’s, sent 18,000 personnel to Afghanistan over the war’s duration. At peak deployment, 760 Danish soldiers served in Helmand - fighting without national caveats, alongside British troops in the most contested terrain. They suffered 43 deaths, giving Denmark the highest fatality rate per capita of any coalition nation. In August 2006, Danish troops were besieged at the Musa Qala district centre for three weeks under relentless Taliban assault. President Obama publicly thanked Denmark for its “extraordinary contributions”, noting Danish forces operated “without caveat” and had “taken significant casualties.”

Canada’s 40,000 troops who rotated through Kandahar suffered 158 military deaths - the largest toll for any Canadian mission since Korea. At its peak, over 3,000 Canadians held Kandahar province against a resurgent Taliban. Captain Nichola Goddard became the first Canadian woman killed in combat, in 2006.

These allies fought America’s war because Article 5 was invoked. They died on roads their ally could have spared them by lending helicopters. They paid in blood for a cause Trump now dismisses as if their sacrifice meant nothing. As Keir Starmer says: “It was in that context that people lost their lives or suffered terrible injuries fighting for freedom, fighting with our allies for what we believe in.”

ETA

Frank Gardner: Not only Americans risked life and limb to serve in Afghanistan

Brits, Canadians and Danes were among those who saw the toughest fighting, writes the BBC's security correspondent.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Wesleytron]

 

[Free]

Why is the baby coming out of Africa? Is there a Meryl Streep reference I'm not getting?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Economist: Donald Trump’s grab for Greenland makes no sense (Evernote because £wall)

It takes a sceptical look at the idea Greenlands rare earths and other mineral resources are readily exploitable.

ETA

It concludes

The closer you look at what Mr Trump no doubt views as the property deal of the century, the more it seems like many of his hotel and casino projects in the 1990s and 2000s: flashy at first glance, but so laden with debt and hidden costs that they soon became fiascos

 

[Beebo Brink]

Donald Trump looks at a mercator map and believes that Greenland is size of Africa. He wants to own ALL THAT LAND!!! It's about size, trophy hunting, hoarding.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Donald Trump walks back comments about UK soldiers in Afghanistan

TACO again, after Keir Starmer phoned him. Waiting for him to walk back his comments on other NATO troops, too.

Donald Trump has said UK soldiers who fought in Afghanistan were “among the greatest of all warriors” after previously drawing criticism for his claims that Nato troops stayed away from the frontlines during the conflict.

In a post on social media on Saturday, the US president said: “The great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America.

“In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors.

“It’s a bond too strong to ever be broken. The UK military, with tremendous heart and soul, is second to none (except for the USA). We love you all, and always will!”

Someone -- JD Vance? -- needs to try to explain to Trump that it's a bit counterproductive to encourage voters in the UK and EU to back MAGA-supporting far-right parties while simultaneously trashing their countries' servicemen and women who were killed or wounded fighting alongside the US in Afghanistan. It's the one thing that's guaranteed to piss everyone off quite considerably.

 

[Soen Eber]

It's not just Sweden. Ever since the middle of the Biden administration China and the Saudi's have been dumping dollars, and major investment firms have been dumping treasuries. The latter doesn't make any sense since they're losing the bond values they would have gained by holding them, which means ...


... they're expecting to lose even more by holding them.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Donald Trump walks back comments about UK soldiers in Afghanistan

TACO again, after Keir Starmer phoned him. Waiting for him to walk back his comments on other NATO troops, too.

This is a shinning example of what I keep saying about how Trump and his supporters grew up on American Exceptionalism and they really took it literally. America is the only worthy country in the world and the only real military so shitting on all our allies is fine since that's just facts! Combine this with a total lack of empathy and why wouldn't the USA just take over the whole world??? Past Presidents didn't want to do that because they were tree-hugging cowards!

Now we all get to pay the price for the dumbest approach to "patriotism" possible. The economic conservatives I know are unhappy about the tariffs but are still really underestimating how deep the damage is really going.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

economic conservatives

Oh sweet Jesus the libertarians who do not understand that these populists hate them too.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Oh sweet Jesus the libertarians who do not understand that these populists hate them too.

Yes. I think the genius of Regan and Thatcher was to convince big business and the religious populists they were on the same side for a while. ...that alliance shows some signs of crumbling lately. Note that by "big business" I mean actual rich people, as well as "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" type capitalists.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Donald Trump looks at a mercator map and believes that Greenland is size of Africa. He wants to own ALL THAT LAND!!! It's about size, trophy hunting, hoarding.

Yeah I tend to agree, I don't think Trump cares about Greenland's mineral rights. He wants all the history books to say that in 2026 America gained more America because of Donald Trump, the bestest American president of America ever. I don't expect it goes any deeper than that.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Guardian Trump’s wrecking ball pushes US allies closer to China

 

[Soen Eber]

Oh sweet Jesus the libertarians who do not understand that these populists hate them too.

It's not the tariffs. Well, that too, but it's our debt & deficit spending. Our total deficit when Volker hit the brakes in 1979 with 21% interest rates was only slight less than what we now spend every year just on interest.

 

[Anya Ristow]

It's not the tariffs.

Interesting thing about the tariffs is that there are five free trade agreements (Australia, Europe, Central America, South America and Canada/Mexico) that were built, in part, on coercion of every nation therein to pass anti-circumvention laws (of copyright and digital locks) that were against their best interests, locking them into paying American tech firms hundreds of billions of dollars, sharing their citizens' and their governments' information, and preventing them from implementing open interoperability in tech, in exchange for low or no tariffs.

And then Trump throws tariffs at them, anyway.

All of our trade partners may be incentivized to send American tech bros packing, and to move away from the dollar as reserve and trade currency.

[the video that probably won't show is corydoctorow, A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet (a speech at 39C3 in Hamburg on Dec 28, 2025)]

[by labeling this an internet thing, he under-serves his message that all things tech, from tractors to medical equipment, are harmed by digital locks]