Connect with us

News

‘Blatant Aggression’: JD Vance Slams Denmark to Promote Trump’s Greenland Takeover Bid

Published

on

Vice President JD Vance traveled to Greenland to promote President Donald Trump’s claim that America has to have the Danish territory—and that Greenlanders would be more secure under U.S. protection.

President Trump “has repeatedly suggested the U.S. should take over Greenland ‘one way or the another’ for national security purposes,” ABC News reported. On Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of: Do you think we can do without it? We can’t.”

During his visit to Greenland, Vance added, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”

The original plan appeared to be a charm offensive: Second Lady Usha Vance would travel to Greenland with one of the couple’s sons to attend cultural events in a show of support to pave the way for the administration’s efforts to annex one of the world’s largest islands.

85% of Greenlanders oppose any form of U.S. takeover of Greenland, CNN has reported. But when the advance team could find not a single Greenlander to welcome Vance and her son, that mission was scrapped.

“Amid the lack of enthusiasm among Greenland residents about the Americans’ visit, JD Vance announced in a video on X that he would be joining his wife on the trip,” USA Today reported.

READ MORE: ‘Full-On Soviet’: Trump’s ‘Improper Ideology’ Purge Blasted as ‘Fascist Thuggery’

“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said, a remark that was “at odds” with reports stating that the “Americans’ charm offensive mission has failed.”

It was the first of several calculated claims the Vice President has unleashed about Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

“The president has said clearly he doesn’t think that military force is going to be necessary,” Vance told reporters while speaking at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military base operating under NATO. “But he absolutely believes that Greenland is important part of the security, not just of the United States, but of the world, and of course, the people of Greenland, too.”

“It’s very simple. Greenland really matters for the security of the United States,” Vance continued. But he claimed that Greenland is “extremely vulnerable right now, and if the people of Greenland were willing to partner with the United States and I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States, we could make them much more secure, we could do a lot more protection, and I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”

The Vice President’s remarks were made on the same day the stock markets in the U.S. crashed, reports show inflation rising, experts are warning of “stagflation” and increasing unemployment all in anticipation of President Trump’s tariffs, more of which are set to be introduced next week.

RELATED: ‘Even the Rich Are Worried’: Experts Warn of ‘Scariest’ Signs Amid ‘Stagflation’ Fears

“This has to happen, and the reason it has to happen,” Vance threatened. “I hate to say it is because our friends in Denmark have not done their job in keeping this area safe. They they just haven’t done It . it it’s very simple for for all of our our friends in the American media who attack the administration for pointing out the obvious, what is the alternative to give up the North Atlantic, to give up the Arctic to China, to Russia, and other regimes that don’t have the best interest the American people at heart.”

“We have no other option, we need to take a significant position in Greenland to keep the people here safe, but to keep our own country safe too.”

Vance went on to say, “our friends in Denmark, I hate to say it, have not done their job in keeping this area safe.”

Dr. Jana Puglierin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), asked why the Vice President ignored NATO.

NATO solves all the concerns Vance listed. As the New York Times columnist David French explained: “We don’t have to own Greenland to protect our interests. Denmark is part of NATO. We’re bound to defend each other, and we have every ability to defend our interests without an absurd and unlawful annexation.”

“As China and Russia have taken greater and greater interest in Greenland, in this base, in the activities of the brave Americans right here,” Vance also said, “we know that too often our allies in Europe have not kept pace. They haven’t kept pace with military spending. And Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and from other nations.”

CBS News’ Jim LaPorta, who has written extensively on the military, remarked: “82 years ago. That was the last ‘aggressive incursion’ by a military force in Greenland.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned that President Trump’s frequent rhetoric promoting a U.S. takeover of Greenland is not “just some eccentric talk of the new American administration.”

Veteran and veterans activist Paul Rieckhoff blasted Vance.

“Another ridiculous and nationally embarrassing statement, position and photo op,” Reikhoff wrote. “Vance is becoming more ridiculous and shameless by the day. He makes Dan Quayle look like a superstar. This charade is a perfectly terrible bookend to the week after Noem’s disgusting debacle. Dear Greenland (and world), please know that he does not speak for most Americans.”

“This is called blatant aggression,” warns economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Anders Åslund, responding to Vance’s claim that the U.S. has “no other option.”

“Hitler did the same before attacking Poland in 1939 & so did Putin before his full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022,” Åslund said.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Canadians Slash US Travel as Prime Minister Says ‘Old’ Relationship With America Is ‘Over’

 

Image via Reuters

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

FBI Witnesses in Georgia Case Didn’t Understand ‘How Elections Work’ Says Expert

Published

on

An election expert told a federal judge that the witnesses the FBI relied on during its investigation that led to the seizure of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, misunderstood elections.

Former U.S. Election Assistance Commission official Ryan Macias, “testified that the list of irregularities the FBI identified didn’t represent a crime and that the witnesses the government based their investigation on appeared misinformed,” NBC News reported.

The witnesses the FBI cited “use contradictory terminology and it represents a misunderstanding of how elections work,” Macias said.

Macias also told a judge that the evidence the Bureau used to justify the controversial seizure of the ballots “doesn’t make sense.”

READ MORE: ‘Wrong Answer’: Conservative CPAC Audience Cheers Impeachment

Fulton County officials submitted a sworn declaration from Macias, who had advised the county during the 2020 election, the Associated Press reported. He said the Justice Department’s affidavit contains “a multitude of false or misleading statements and omissions” and offered explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”

Fulton County is suing to force the return of its election materials. Its attorney, Abbe Lowell “criticized the government’s witnesses and information, which were laid out in a since-unsealed sworn affidavit that is ‘full of inaccuracies,'” NBC reported.

Lowell also argued that the government’s witness list couldn’t be trusted because it included “someone who was sanctioned twice by the courts for lying about elections.”

The person Lowell referred to, NBC reported, was Kurt Olsen, “a Republican who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Olsen was appointed by President Donald Trump to investigate the 2020 election from within his administration.”

Lowell also told the judge that there was no crime because there was no proof of intentional wrongdoing.

“The only element that turns normal election irregularities into crime is intent,” he said.

READ MORE: Rubio Vows to ‘Destroy’ Parts of Iran’s Military Trump Bragged Were Already Decimated

 

Image via Reuters 

Continue Reading

News

Rubio Vows to ‘Destroy’ Parts of Iran’s Military Trump Bragged Were Already Decimated

Published

on

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to contradict the commander-in-chief on Friday, speaking on the administration’s war efforts in Iran.

“We’re going to destroy their navy, we are going to destroy their air force, and we are going to significantly destroy their missile launchers so they can never hide behind these things to get a nuclear weapon,” Secretary Rubio said, according to CNN. He also insisted the U.S. military is “ahead of schedule” on these goals.

But according to President Donald Trump, those goals were already completed.

“We’re having, by the way, a tremendous success, as you know, in Iran,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “We had one in Venezuela, and now we’re having one in Iran.”

“They have no Navy left. They have no Air Force left. They have no anti aircraft equipment left, no radar left, no leaders left. The leaders are all gone,” he said.

“Nobody knows who to talk to,” Trump continued, despite having also insisted that he is in productive negotiations with Iran. “But we’re actually talking to the right people and they want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal.”

Iran has publicly denied it is negotiating with the United States.

CNN also reported that Rubio said “that the US can achieve its objectives in the Iran war ‘without any ground troops,’ as more than 1000 extra service members have been ordered to deploy to the region.”

READ MORE: ‘Wrong Answer’: Conservative CPAC Audience Cheers Impeachment

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

Continue Reading

News

‘Wrong Answer’: Conservative CPAC Audience Cheers Impeachment

Published

on

The chairman of the influential Conservative Political Action Conference was stunned on Friday when his audience delivered an unexpectedly awkward response.

“How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?” Matt Schlapp asked.

The audience cheered, applauded, and cried, “yeah!”

Schlapp quickly cut them off.

“No. That was the wrong answer,” he retorted, appearing somewhat embarrassed.

“How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings?” Schlapp was forced to ask again.

“No,” he quickly directed.

Things did not appear to be going as planned.

“Can someone bring some coffee out?” Schlapp asked.

“We’ve got to keep this House majority!” he then declared, apparently cognizant that impeachment of the president could be possible were Republicans to lose control.

READ MORE: The GOP’s Secret Weapon? A ‘Known Unknown’ That Could Swing the Midterms: Columnist

 

Image via Reuters 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.