Trump Wants Greenland? Funny? No. Dictator Perfect.

By Roger Armbrust 

August 29, 2019

Aerial view of U.S. Thule Air Base in Greenland

Do you laugh when you hear that Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland?

Don’t.

Remember this: Trump thinks like a dictator, and acts like a dictator. He prefers getting along with dictators like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un while fighting with Canada’s and the European-Union countries’ leaders. And appears proud of it.

So why would a dictator want Greenland?

Three main reasons: (1) taking Washington’s Endless War Doctrine into Space; (2) creating a New Siberia for imprisoning immigrants, journalists, and political enemies; and (3) attempting to control the rising conflict over the Arctic and its resources.

Taking Endless War into Space

First, Greenland already houses Washington’s northern-most military base: Thule Air Base.  As the website Airforce Technology tells us: “Today, the base is used for monitoring space for defense purposes.”

Space defense purposes. Got it?

Now connect that to the recent announcement that Washington will initiate today (Aug. 29) its new Space Command…a combatant operation. That’s COMBATANT. As in now moving the neocon Endless War aggression into space.

As The Hill reported:

Vice President Pence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford announced at Tuesday’s National Space Council meeting in Virginia that U.S. Space Command will officially be up and running Aug. 29.

Space Command, which will be responsible for planning and executing space operations, will have 87 units at launch next week, Dunford said.

Their capabilities will include missile warning, satellite operations, space control and space support, Dunford said.

Dunford described Space as “this critical warfighting domain. The direction is clear, we understand it and we’re moving out.”

The Unthinkable is now looming.

Now connect this with Trump’s recent exiting America from its nuclear weapons treaties, accelerating the Cold War and, with today’s technologies, increasing the threat of global devastation.

Add to that the U.S. upping the ante by beginning this month to test medium-range cruise missiles, which Russia called “escalating military tensions”.

Dunford said nothing, as you would expect, about Space Command being equipped with nuclear missiles in space. But Pence has not negated its possibility. He refused to eliminate the idea of nuclear weapons in space in October 2018. According to a report in Investor’s Business Daily:

Pence acknowledged that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons from being stationed in earth's orbit. But he didn't give a clear "no" when he was asked at a Washington Post-sponsored forum if that should always be the case.

Instead he responded: "I think that what we need to do is make sure that we provide for the common defense of the people of the United States of America," he replied. "And that's the president's determination here."

What do you think about this? And what do you think the Russians and Chinese will think? And how would you respond if you were them? Trump is proving he’s prepared to wipe out all nuclear-weapons treaties. How do you expect the Chinese and Russians to respond to that?

In 2012, seeing Barack Obama begin implementing Washington’s trillion-dollar rebirthing of its nuclear weapons program, and China’s and Russia’s responses to that, I wrote a column headlined “NukeBuild: This Will Not End Well”.

The new Space Command and its potential nuclear threat to China, Russia, and the world is the continuum of this.

And Thule Air Base in Greenland, no doubt, will be integral to the Space Command plan.

That includes involvement with non-nuclear space weapons. Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said today by email that the current concern involves kinetic or laser weapons in space that can destroy both space and ground objects – a worry for both Russia and China. Also, Washington is wary of ground weapons, like accurate intermediate-range ballistic missiles, that with kinetic force can destroy space objects.

But if Trump imagines nuclear bombs dropped into the middle of hurricanes, as several news outlets reported (he later denied saying it, as he often does), then one can bet he foresees dropping nukes from space to earth.

A New Siberia

Also, following Trump’s election, I wrote a November 2016 column headlined “Prepare to Fight Fascism: 2017 and Beyond”. Unfortunately, my predictions have proved true, including Trump’s attacks on the U.S. Constitution, the press, Congress, and anyone else who he sees as a threat to his dictatorship.

And he has continued to implement what I called his Cohn Core Principles, the way he has operated for decades: (1) Never admit to anything negative; (2) lie and use propaganda to turn every negative to a positive; (3) whenever sued (threatened), countersue. He learned these hawkish tactics from Roy Cohn, his attorney for years. They’re the perfect actions for a dictator.

Siberian inmates, 1945

What does this have to do with Greenland? A dictator can make it the New Siberia, but for America:  a desolate, forbidding landscape far from civilization, where a dictator can build prisons, labor camps, and incarcerate immigrants, journalists, and political enemies.

As described by Wikipedia:

Worldwide, Siberia is well known primarily for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F),  as well as its extensive history of use by Russian and Soviet governments as a place for prisons, labor camps, and internal exile.

The location made the camps extremely remote, important for dictators to make suppression invisible. And the grueling weather conditions added to the suffering.

Now consider Greenland and Thule Air Base. As Wikipedia tells of the geography:

Thule's arctic environment includes icebergs in North Star Bay, two islands (Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island), a polar ice sheet, and Wolstenholme Fjord – the only place on Earth where four active glaciers join together.

Now recall that Trump’s long desire for immigrants has been to imprison them on military bases. As The Daily Beast explained in June 2018:

The Trump administration’s plan for immigrant families on the southern border involves holding them together on military bases for a prolonged, uncertain period of time.

He’s also made clear his assault on the Constitution and the press as the “enemy of the people”, when actually the press is the enemy of government lying and corruption. That’s why the Constitution guarantees press freedom. But we all know dictators love to imprison editors and journalists to hide the truth from the public.

So Thule Air Base’s remote location and vast harsh surroundings would be perfect for a dictator’s political prisons.

Controlling the Arctic

On Dec. 25, 2013, I published the column “The Coming Conflict Over Santa’s Home”. The headline is light, but the topic is serious. I predicted then that Arctic inhabitants “are about to be joined by major nations’ military forces, in what could lead to conflict over possession of the North Pole’s oil, gas, and fresh-water reserves.”

The Arctic is deep in natural resources, including not only oil, gas, and fresh water, but also fish and, in the subarctic, forestlands -- all considered economic boons to the major nations. A number of those countries claim property rights to sections of the area.

  

Those sovereignties include Canada, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. They are limited to a 200-nautical-mile economic zone around their border coasts which lie within the Arctic region.

My 2013 column will give you a quick overview of the situation, which continues to develop as climate change causes the Arctic to lose ice and become more open to pillage.

National Geographic will provide you an up-to-date visual view with its highly detailed map here.

Since dictators seem to always lust for dominating the entire world, no doubt ruling the Arctic is high on Trump’s list.

Where does that leave Trump with Greenland? He offered to buy the world’s largest island, but Denmark, the owner, refused to sell. That led to a brief row between the two countries.

But now, after decades of closure, Trump is re-opening Greenland’s U.S. consulate. Says the PBS Newshour:

The State Department says in a letter to Congress that reestablishing a consulate in Greenland is part of a broader plan to increase the U.S. presence in the Arctic.

So, look for Greenland to play more in Trump’s plans as we move to and through 2020.