<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/31/trump-greenland-us-morally-wrong-strategy-disastrous>
"Elon Musk and Donald Trump inherited a state with unprecedented power and
functionality, and are taking it apart. They also inherited a set of alliances
and relationships that underpinned the largest economy in world history. This
too they are breaking.
The American vice-president, JD Vance, visited a US base in Greenland for three
hours on Friday, along with his wife. National security adviser Mike Waltz and
his wife also went along. Fresh from using an unsafe social media platform to
carry out an entirely unnecessary group chat in which they leaked sensitive
data about an ongoing military attack to a reporter, and thereby allegedly
breaking the law, Waltz and Vance perhaps hoped to change the subject by
tagging along on a trip that was initially billed as Vance’s wife watching a
dogsled race.
The overall context was Trump’s persistent claim that America must take
Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark. The original plan had been
that Usha Vance would visit Greenlanders, apparently on the logic that the
second lady would be an effective animatrice of colonial subjection; but none
of them wanted to see her, and Greenland’s businesses refused to serve as a
backdrop to photo ops or even to serve the uninvited Americans. So, instead,
the US couples made a very quick visit to Pituffik space base. (Pete Hegseth,
another group chatter, stayed home; but his wife was in the news as well, as an
unorthodox participant in sensitive military discussions.)
At the base, in the far north of the island, the US visitors had pictures taken
of themselves and ate lunch with servicemen and women. They treated the base as
the backdrop to a press conference where they could say things they already
thought; nothing was experienced, nothing was learned, nothing sensible was
said. Vance, who never left the base, and has never before visited Greenland,
was quite sure how Greenlanders should live. He made a political appeal to
Greenlanders, none of whom was present, or anywhere near him. He claimed that
Denmark was not protecting the security of Greenlanders in the Arctic, and that
the US would. Greenland should therefore join the US.
It takes some patience to unwind all of the nonsense here."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
