No Blood for Blubber!
April 9, 2007 1:04 PM Subscribe
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]
But if one of those bombs went astray, we would be bombing ouselves, since U.S. built Keflavik airport and still partially funds it.
posted by googly at 1:25 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by googly at 1:25 PM on April 9, 2007
I'd urge you to watch Superman and stusy up on plate tectonics first.
posted by Artw at 1:36 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by Artw at 1:36 PM on April 9, 2007
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!
posted by tkchrist at 1:43 PM on April 9, 2007
Bjomb Bjork! Bjatches!
posted by tkchrist at 1:43 PM on April 9, 2007
I guess I never really thought about it until now, but you know what? Fuck Iceland.
posted by The Straightener at 2:13 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by The Straightener at 2:13 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by bardic at 2:24 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by bardic at 2:24 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by Kattullus at 2:43 PM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by Kattullus at 2:43 PM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
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.
posted by Luddite at 3:06 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by Luddite at 3:06 PM on April 9, 2007
That was great. It reminds me of this little bon mot from Terry Jones - "I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush".
posted by caddis at 3:24 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by caddis at 3:24 PM on April 9, 2007
At last, payback for the time they attacked North America.
posted by homunculus at 3:24 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by homunculus at 3:24 PM on April 9, 2007
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...
posted by Skeptic at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2007
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...
posted by Skeptic at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by Skygazer at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by Skygazer at 3:53 PM on April 9, 2007
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.)
posted by Smedleyman at 3:57 PM on April 9, 2007
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.)
posted by Smedleyman at 3:57 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by jamjam at 4:08 PM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
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.
posted by jamjam at 4:08 PM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]
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.
posted by Atreides at 4:11 PM on April 9, 2007
If you read the last link, the United States was invited to Iceland. Not quite an invasion and occupation.
posted by Atreides at 4:11 PM on April 9, 2007
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...
posted by Skeptic at 4:19 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by Skeptic at 4:19 PM on April 9, 2007
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.)
posted by Luddite at 4:41 PM on April 9, 2007
posted by Luddite at 4:41 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by jamjam at 4:49 PM on April 9, 2007
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.
posted by jamjam at 4:49 PM on April 9, 2007
Don't piss off teh Bjork... she has a new album coming out May 7!
posted by hermitosis at 7:03 AM on April 10, 2007
posted by hermitosis at 7:03 AM on April 10, 2007
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.
posted by Kattullus at 10:02 AM on April 11, 2007
posted by Kattullus at 10:02 AM on April 11, 2007
Be nice to America
Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
posted by caddis at 12:22 PM on April 11, 2007
Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
posted by caddis at 12:22 PM on April 11, 2007
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posted by vbfg at 1:25 PM on April 9, 2007