The Dutch are America’s continental lapdog

"Mr Balkenende decided to join the "coalition of the willing" assembled by US President George W Bush because, he said, Saddam Hussein had consistently flouted UN resolutions and possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The Dutch parliament opposed the decision to back the invasion.

Committee chairman, Willibrord Davids, said the Netherlands' loyalty to its alliance with the US and UK had taken precedence over the need to ensure the legality of the invasion" (BBC, 12 January 2010).

Oh – suffer those little children of Daddy Washington! This author takes great pleasure to see especially European leaders squirm for their blind obedience to Washington. This author watched parts of Tony Blair’s grilling yesterday – and the atmosphere of the Iraq War Inquiry panel had the flavor of a criminal trial or deposition, which was very pleasing to see. Pity that Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende, as well as George Bush, can’t face the same criminal-type proceedings for their part in the criminal war and invasion of Iraq.

It would really be fun to see them in The Hague, the capital of Europe’s most fanatical Atlanticist country – which appears ready and willing itself to forsake international laws, national laws, human rights, as well as common sense in the name of “American interests.”  We saw this with Slovenia and its actions in American instigation of “Kosovo independence” when the Americans dictated to the Slovenians how they would run their Council Presidency in the first half of 2008. 

This author is now engaging in the beginning phases of research that will lead to a report that will profile the national identity of the Netherlands. There is one thing for certain from the early research: The Dutch are America’s continental lapdog. The Dutch could now be getting themselves mixed up in the Russia-Georgia quagmire, where they appear to be poised to take sides with Georgia.

The Netherlands’ embassy in Tbilisi talks about reforms of Georgia that it is involved in “ongoing economic and political reforms of Georgia and Armenia in their transition to a market economy and pluriform democracy.” The aim of Dutch activity in Georgia appears to be business in nature. We see a report of the Dutch, along side of their American bosses, attempting to bring the Netherlands and Georgia even more diplomatically close in the form of enegry deals, but this could mean re-arming Georgia so it can become a menace again in the region.

According to the EU sponsored report, no nation that is friendly to either side should be a part of the EU mission in Georgia:

“It has also become apparent that the effectiveness of monitoring, peacekeeping and other stabilizing institutions and arrangements depends to a large extent on the trust and confidence in which they are being held by the parties to the conflict. This is in most cases directly related to the impartiality which the parties attribute to them, and this in turn is immediately linked to their country of origin or to the country thought to be in control. This is the case whether there is in reality bias or not.

No party to the conflict or party which is considered to be strongly supportive of any of the sides should assume a position of command, or chair, or arbiter nor exercise any other control of an operation which rests on the notion of impartiality and even-handedness in order to be effective.”

If it turns out to be the case that the Netherlands is favorable to the Georgian side, no Dutchman can have any leadership control over the EU mission in Georgia. In fact, all Dutchmen should be removed from the EU mission – along with the nationals of other nations that show favor to either side, especially the aggressive   Georgian side.

It should not surprise us that the Dutch favored a Peter Semneby, a frequent participant in Atlanticist meetings, has implied that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were "occupied territories." Semneby's connections to Eastern Euroepan nations and forums that supported Georgia and continue to support Mikheil Saakashvili, the war-mongering lunatic president of Georgia, should exclude him from being an EU "Special Representative for the South Caucasus" in the first place.  The presence of this possible Atlanticist spoils the impartiality of the European Union in its role as an honest broker. We should question Semneby's loyalties and can suspect that he can actually be acting on behalf of Washington not the peaceful interests of Brussels.

The Dutch are helping, yes helping, America in its “War on Drugs,” which is coming to be despised by most Americans  The so-called “war on drugs” has taken a horrible toll on American society with massive incarceration and human costs, such as conflict between gangs on America’s southern border.
The Dutch are allowing the Americans to use airstrips in Curacao and Aruba for “drug interdiction” activities,” even as many anti-drug war advocates celebrate the Netherlands’ policies of marijuana liberalization and drug addiction as a medical problem.This participation by the Netherlands in America’s “drug war” demonstrates that in order to "be pleasing to the Americans” rational leaders of especially European nations will defy their own best interests, international law, norms of civilized conduct, provoke wars and conflicts in their blind obedience to America It is a sick pecking order in Europe, one in which leaders are willing to lie, cheat and kill for their "American friends" and forsake European values and international standards of conduct.

Also see:

Independent Experts Blame Georgia for South Ossetia War

Curaçao opposition wants rid of US base -

The “Dutch Word” on the Davids Report on Early Dutch Iraq Policy

Balkenende rejects Iraq enquiry criticism

Netherlands Antilles puts off Venezuelan visit


Dutch inquiry says Iraq war had no mandate

EU Boosts Ties with Georgia

Moscow voices grievances with EU's post-conflict monitoring mission in Georgia

The Netherlands Compared With The United States (drug policies)

Ron Paul foreign security policy

First of all - why is this even relevant on a blog about the European Union?

That's the trouble with Europe, especially the Netherlands and the UK, they are joined at the hip across the Atlantic with Washington. Some American politics are relivent for the EU.

 I find that Dr. Paul's domestic policy would turn America into a even more of a backwards country than it is now. Dr. Paul wants to eliminate the Department of Education - and with it a free public education for all American young people. Illiteracy and poor education in America would be rampant. This is how many, modern Republicans are, including the Tea Baggers, who would not mind if America resembled what many Latin America countries are and used to be; thousands of Americans homeless, living in cardboard boxes, and even hunger. And -- the European Union and Atlanticist Europeans, including the phony "Christian Democrats" of the EPP, would not utter a peep... and those that dare to will be labeled as "anti-American."

You see - America is exempt from criticism for its human rights abuses that the rest of the world is held to - and Atlanticist European leaders often see to that...

However - I totally agree with Dr. Paul's take on American foreign and security policy. Paul once said that America "should keep out of other people's business abroad and mind its own business at home."

I also subscribe to Paul's assessment that American power projection and actions in all parts of the world are partly responsible for radicalization and terrorism (I would also add that Islamophobia and hostility toward religious minorities in Europe can also be causing this), and the violent hate that some hold toward America and "the west." We should agree with Dr. Paul's stance that putting an end to what he calls "interventionist policies" of military power projection and provocative activities against others in the international system. This would save money, lots and lots of it, and that can be better spent at home.

With that - we shoulod put an end to American lapdogism in Europe, like the UK and the Nertherlands...

Abolish the “no fly” list!

“Underwear bomber” proves that we need to focus on WHAT, not WHO.

In 2007, I did a research project for one of my grad classes on the effects of various American policies and public support for counterterrorism policies in a democracy. The thing that I kept seeing again and again as offensive to both the public and to a free society was the so-called “no fly” list. I also kept seeing cases where people were being added to the list because of their politics; they were peace activists, anti-war activists, authors, or in some way “did not have the right attitude about America” and had views that were left-leaning. Peaceful Catholic nuns that promote pacifism were told that they were seen as a “threat to aviation.” There were also babies, dead people and even sky marshals and pilots that were on the “no fly” list too.

The “no fly” list is a sick joke on what is a seriously dangerous trend in a supposedly free society in America. The American “no fly” list, in the past and perhaps now, has been used as a political instrument to harass American political dissenters of mainly the left-wing persuasion, news reporters, especially those that actually do stories on the airline security, and perhaps the entire country of Ireland is on America’s “no fly” list. The “no fly” list is a useless harassment against the American people at best and at its worst is an instrument of political harassment and a travel ban aimed against mainly left-leaning political dissenters.

The so-called “underwear bomber” was on the radar of the UK authorities, but not the Americans. My argument is this: so what! This is, I suspect, because America’s “no fly” list is not intended for individualized suspicions that are based on evidence that can be presented and challenged in a court of law. NOPE! The “no fly” list is intended as a harassment of American political dissents (chiefly leftists) and nonsensical functions, such as harassment of people with Irish surnames, to appear as if “we are doing something for airline safety.” No son of a prominent Nigerian banker would even think of “attacking America!” Not a banker?! He’s the son of a hard-working conservative, like us American conservatives of the Republican Party!

It matters not is who the “underwear bomber” is, his religion, what country he comes from, and what kind of radical and violent viewpoints he believes in. Let me make this point clear: No viewpoints and political opinions have ever harmed passenger airliners, anywhere and at anytime. A person or persons with radical and violent ideas, onboard a passenger airliner is not a threat to the airliner. A mentally unbalanced person on board an airliner that somehow believes it would be nice to blow himself up is not, in itself, a threat to the airliner without dangerous instrumentality.  Motivated individuals without the means and instrumentality in the form of bombs, guns, poisons, and the like, to carry out violence and harm are just motivated individuals with crazy ideas. Again, crazy, radical and violent viewpoints have never harmed airliners, or trains, buses or people.

What is a threat to an airliner is instrumentality and what is brought onboard, in the cargo-hold and in carry-ons, and the like, that can actually harm the airliner. In the instance of the “underwear bomber,” what matters is that the instrumentality he attempted to use, his “underwear bomb,” malfunctioned, and the airplane landed safely. This proves that passengers with radical and violent viewpoints don’t harm airliners, but the means to do harm that are brought onboard are what we should focus on. It is not WHO is on the airliner – but WHAT is on the airliner that is the threat to the airliner.

If we do the reasonable and sensibly thing, that is, remove the focus on WHO is boarding an airliner – toward WHAT is being brought on the airliner, we can work to abolish the dangerous and problematic “no fly” list, along with its temptations for use as a form of political, ethnic, religious harassment and profiling. Profiling is a failed practice. This danger to our freedom presented by the “no fly” list includes the secret methodology and lack of due process for those trapped on the “no fly” list that is unbecoming of a free society. The "no fly" list belongs back in the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Belerus, Cuba and other tyrannical, anti-democratic regimes. No European Union nation should - in anyway - provide support and aid to America's tyrannical "no fly" list! To protect our civil and human rights, and our free way of life, we must work to abolish the “no fly” list, which represents the most dangerous threat to our freedoms since the founding of the American Nation!

Also see:

Yale Law Review - Making the No Fly List Fly: A Due Process Model for Terrorist Watchlists

Grounding the flying nun - Salon.com

Grounded: The Government's Air Passenger Blacklist - Alternet

New “No-Fly Blacklist” Targets Activists - Democracy Now!

Frequently Asked Questions About the No-Fly List

ACLU Files First Nationwide Challenge to ""No-Fly"" List, Saying Government List Violates Passengers' Rights

TSA and FBI Ordered to Pay $200,000 to Settle "No Fly" Lawsuit

Why's a Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel on the "No-Fly" List?

Politics and the no-fly list

DHS chief accused of using no-fly list for political payback

Switzerland minarets freedom Europe

More to say about the Swiss minarets ban: The arguement that "we can't build churches in Saudi Arabia" is a lame-brained arguement!

Good freedom -loving people need to wake up and oppose this ban and oppose the advance of the right-wing extremist parties that want to undermine basic human rights and religious freedom.
There is NO rational argument that can be made duplicating the Swiss ban in European nations that claim to be 'free societies." The inability to build Christian churches in Muslim lands is not an excuse to ban the building of Islamic religious structures in modern, free, democratic societies. So, we now should have policies that discriminate and and abolish the religious freedom of Swiss European Muslims, who are largely citizens of the European nations they reside in?

The "we can't build Christian churches in Saudi Arabia" is a, well, lame argument. You imply that the Muslims in Switzerland and the rest of Europe and not actually citizens of their European nations. The "we can't build Christian churches" argument also assumes that European Muslim citizens have some attachment and loyalty to Muslim lands.

I am currently doing a research project on the new right-wing extremism in Europe along side of another research project on challenging the notion that Muslim populations in Europe are somehow threatening and that "islamification" is occurring. When you read studies that are alarmist written and only count and calculate numbers of "Muslims" these studies do not take into account individual Muslim communities in Europe. "Muslims" are not some kind of "united mass" of people that have come to destroy.

People who celebrate this ban are on the wrong side of freedom and liberty for all people.

What also must be opposed and codified into international law is that popular votes should not be taken that vote away fundamental freedoms and liberties enshrined in international human rights conventions. Don't put direct democracy before human freedom and liberty, both individual and collective liberty. When you con vote away another's freedom - you place your own freedom in jeopardy. This undermine of religious liberty rightfully had Jews, Christians, including Catholics, and other outraged, as especially European Jews know full well about what loss of religious freedom means.

Common cause has now been found between European Jews and Christians with their fellow Muslim citizens. This common cause in restoring religious freedom in Switzerland and defending it in the rest of Europe should become bedrock against the right-wing radical ilk, like the Swiss People's Party?

Who's funding the Swiss People' Party? This smacks like the Irish NO vote against the Lisbon Treaty, which was believed to have been funded by the American right-wing.

Guillaume Morand Swiss minaret ban

A brave shoe chain owner, Guillaume Morand, protests against Swiss minaret ban and fights for religious freedom.
Sometimes standing up for freedom is not easy, especially for religious freedom these days in Europe. However, one Swiss businessman has decided to brave fines, police, and racist insults to protest Switzerland's minaret ban. Guillaume Morand, who is not Muslim, decided to turn a chimney on a building over his office into a mock minaret as a “message of peace and tolerance.”
In shame, Mr. Morand said: “Now we [the Swiss] have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful.”

Mr. Morand is a hero and a fighter for freedom. Standing up like this will be hard and the road in the climate of religious bigotry in Europe will be dangerous.

Let's see more protest  minarets go up around Switzerland!