Comments on: No Blood for Blubber!

No Blood for Blubber!

Kattullus — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:04:07 -0800

Bomb Iceland instead of Iran is the modest proposal of Princeton Professor of Political Economy Uwe Reinhardt in today's Daily Princetonian. Some enterprising Aussies are way ahead of him on that one. Heck, it wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. and Britain occupied Iceland. [via RÚV, the Icelandic state broadcaster]

By: vbfg

vbfg — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:25:30 -0800

Cod War 4!

By: googly

googly — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:25:33 -0800

But if one of those bombs went astray, we would be bombing ouselves, since U.S. built Keflavik airport and still partially funds it.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:36:13 -0800

I'd urge you to watch Superman and stusy up on plate tectonics first.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:38:22 -0800

~~Freedom~~Herring isn't free.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:40:03 -0800

There's a Simpsons episode where a cashier at a smoothie bar or something points out the tip jar to Homer and says "Karma, dude. Karma!". Homer says "Oh, I get it." Then doesn't tip and leaves the store.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:43:06 -0800

There was always something fishy about that place. One might say cold. Can we trust a nation with such clear complexions and access to the earths core? NO I SAY! Bjomb Bjork! Bjatches!

By: Slothrup

Slothrup — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:04:37 -0800

Icelandic chicks are hawt! I'm just sayin'...

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:13:05 -0800

I guess I never really thought about it until now, but you know what? Fuck Iceland.

By: bardic

bardic — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:24:01 -0800

A decent attempt at Swiftian satire. But to truly hit the nail on the head, you'd need to have Greenland be headed by a radical, theocratic regime that is openly hostile to America. And in taking out Iceland and installing a pro-Greenland dictatorship, you're basically ensuring that Greenland, one of the members of the so-called "Axis of Cod," will actually be the dominant power in the region for the next 50 years.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:43:29 -0800

Regarding the subject of the third link, the British and American occupation of Iceland during World War II. My mom called me while I was reading the article and she reminded me of an old family story. My grandfather made friends with an English soldier stationed in the eastern fjords of Iceland. When the UK forces were relocated, my grandfather's friend was sent to northern Africa where he was killed in action. My grandfather would often talk of his friend and how he missed him.

By: spock

spock — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 14:46:58 -0800

You mean "No Blood for COD LIVER Oil.

By: Luddite

Luddite — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:06:46 -0800

Holy cod, we invaded and occupied Iceland, a neutral country? Heh, that's one the history books I've read haven't exactly shouted about.

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:24:15 -0800

That was great. It reminds me of this little bon mot from Terry Jones - "I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush".

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:24:36 -0800

At last, payback for the time they attacked North America.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:52:43 -0800

Erm, Luddite, in that case you'll be shocked to learn that Churchill also planned to invade and occupy neutral Norway, but the Germans arrived first... Another less-than-glorious 1940 operation you probably haven't read about in your history books was Mers el-Kebir, where, after the French armistice, the Royal Navy attacked the French fleet at harbour, with a casualty count of 1300. British decisionmakers feared that the French would easily surrender their fleet to the Germans (very unfairly, as it turned out when the Germans actually tried to take over the remainder of the French fleet). Wars are nasty, WWII was particularly nasty, and 1940 was one of the nastiest years in that war...

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:53:55 -0800

It's win-win-win all around. Not quite, Professor R. It looks like you forgot to cite a source. Naughty, naughty. Bad, bad James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton. Not to mention, I think the point is sharper, without the ipso facto. Satire like that, is either a throw away one liner, or a bigger work. (At least a one act or a short story.) Anyhow, let me know if I can clear anything else up for you. My email is here.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:57:24 -0800

Gets tiring looking at blond hair all the time tho. Diversity really kicks ass in women. And, we already have bases there. And I'm sure Icelanders would be pretty blasé about it. *boom* *BOOM!* *B'boom!* "Yow, *shrug* whatefver." You want to bomb people who will care that you're bombing them. That don't subject themselves to conditions more stressful than bombing for work or fun. Someone who's used going out and fishing in sub zero hurricane winds and 23 hour darkness just isn't going to be impressed. I mean they do more damage to downtown Reykjavik on a Saturday night than a fuel air bomb. Consider: drunken vikings. (I remember being drunk with some Icelandic teenagers stuffed in the back of a Lada fishtailing down a two lane ice/salt slush covered coastal *scoff* 'highway' in a blizzard narrowly missing oncoming cars - which were similarly fishtailing and speeding - and maintaing a hairs breadth from a line of cars behind us actively trying to pass us. I asked why we didn't go faster if the people behind us were tailgating and I was told we were doing 150. Of course, I calmed down when I realized that was kilometers. But then realized that's about 95 mph. Plus they made me eat fermented shark piss-marinated shark meat. Icelanders are nuts man. Wish I could live there.)

By: jamjam

jamjam — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:08:24 -0800

The hydroelectric power possibilties of Greenland as it melts over the next few hundred years (shipped around the world in the form of hydrogen, say), not to mention oil and minerals hidden beneath the ice, and the fresh water itself, make Greenland well worth going to war over. If the total available potential wealth is not much, much greater than Iraq's I'll be surprised-- except that I'll be long dead, of course. Let's think, will the US side with Canada (how big a cut will they have to give us) or Denmark and the EU? How will the 'special relationship' fare under that kind of pressure? And yes, Iceland could be the strategic key (map) for Denmark and the EU to hold Greenland, considering how much more easily Canada could project military power there (could this have anything to do with Denmark's puzzling presence in the Coalition of the Willing?). So expect a protracted wooing of Iceland by Denmark, to be consummated by a big military base, and ever more menacing counterproposals by Canada and the US, to be consummated by a vow of perpetual military chastity by Iceland after the chastening bombing so brilliantly, if unintentionally, forecast by professor Reinhardt.

By: Atreides

Atreides — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:11:09 -0800

Taking a pessimistic view of England's chances of survival the Icelandic Government had, as early as mid-July of 1940, approached the Department of State concerning the possibility of Iceland's coming under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine and in September and December the question was again raised. If you read the last link, the United States was invited to Iceland. Not quite an invasion and occupation.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:19:21 -0800

Atreides, in case you didn't notice, the Brits (who arrived first) weren't invited. And the Icelanders would have liked the then-neutral Americans to substitute the Brits, not to complement then, as they finally ended up doing...

By: Luddite

Luddite — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:41:55 -0800

Skeptic: Actually I knew about both of those; believe it or not, Mers el-Kebir was covered in my school history lessons, and the Norway invasion plans often seem to come up as a codex to the whole heavy water derring-do thing. (Or, at least, that's the context I heard about them in.)

By: jamjam

jamjam — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:49:38 -0800

In order to sieze Greenland, Canada will need the cover of some kind of claim to it, no matter how strained or silly. The only thing that occurs to me is making a prior claim to Greenland through the indigenous indian population of Canada, who were in Greenland at least hundreds of years before any europeans. Perhaps Canada could recognize some of their indians as an internal sovereign entity, those indians could in turn claim Greenland, of which they were unlawfully dispossessed, and Canada could back that claim with military force. A lot less was sufficient for the US in Iraq.

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:03:05 -0800

Don't piss off teh Bjork... she has a new album coming out May 7!

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:23:34 -0800

Don't piss off teh Bjork...

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 10:02:59 -0800

Follow up article from The Daily Princetonian. Some Icelanders got the joke, some didn't. Most interesting is an excerpt from an Icelander living in Tehran.

By: caddis

caddis — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:22:59 -0800

Be nice to America Or we'll bring democracy to your country.