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    Denmark: Bernie Sanders' Socialist Utopia Functions as Banana Spy Kingdom for U.S. Empire 📂 Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on August 7, 2021, 12:33 pm

    Ron Ridenour, 6 August 2021

    Lede: Denmark's Social Democrat female leaders have followed their American
    counterparts in adopting a Russophobic discourse to justify the sell-out of
    their country

    (quote)
    France and Germany's demand last May for "full clarity" from the United States
    and Denmark concerning their spying upon its leaders fizzled out as Russophobia
    took preference during President Joe Biden's recent European tour.

    The same goes for Sweden and Norway among three dozen national leaders so
    infringed upon.

    New revelations concerning Denmark's systematic spying upon its closest neighbor
    leaders - Germany, France, Norway and Sweden - since at least 2013 were
    broadcast and published online by the public service broadcaster Danmark Radio
    (DR) on May 30. This came as a follow-up to DR reports in August and December
    2020.

    These were the first revelations brought about last year by at least one
    whistleblower within the Danish Intelligence Service (FE) about how it operates
    beyond the law and without basic democratic input:
    1. Withholding "key and crucial information to government authorities" and the
    oversight committee between 2014 and today;

    2. Illegal activities even before 2014;

    3. Telling "lies" to policymakers;

    4. Illegal surveillance on Danish citizens, including a member of the oversight
    committee. [Some of this illegal spying had been shared with unnamed sources
    (later discovered to be the U.S. National Security Agency)];

    5. Unauthorized activities have been shelved; and

    6. The FE failed to follow up on indications of espionage within areas of the
    Ministry of Defense.

    These are the current key revelations:
    1. EU/NATO allies have been spied upon for the United States by FE, the Danish
    Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste), and without the
    knowledge of parliament and most government leaders.

    2. The French, Norwegian and Swedish leaders spied upon have come forth with
    strong critiques and demands for an investigation, full clarity, and an end to
    such "grotesque" behavior. They supported Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel's
    critical statements in 2014 when Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. tapped
    into her private cell phone calls.

    3. The spying by NSA, with the approval of FE's leadership, is code-named
    Operation Dunhammer. [1]

    The Danish Intelligence Service has also been violating Denmark's constitution
    by systematically spying upon its own citizens for U.S. economic profit and
    political interests. This has nothing to do with spying upon their joint
    "enemies," e.g., Russia, China, Iran, et al.

    The FE is the equivalent to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While
    the FE jurisdiction covers military intelligence, they must not spy on Danish
    people, only foreigners and people in other countries. The Police Intelligence
    Service (PET) surveils Danes, as the FBI surveils within the U.S.
    The DR has been working with journalists from Sweden (SVT), Norway (NRK),
    Germany (Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, WDR) and France (Le Monde) on these new
    developments. Their work motivated four of the 35 national leaders known to be
    spied upon by the U.S. to protest.

    "We demand to be fully informed about matters concerning Swedish citizens,
    companies and interests. And then we have to see how the answer sounds from the
    political side in Denmark," Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told
    national broadcaster SVT.

    "We take the allegations seriously," his Norwegian counterpart Frank
    Bakke-Jensen told national broadcaster NRK.

    Both defense ministers emphasized that their Danish colleague, Defense Minister
    Trine Bramsen, has failed to inform them about Denmark and its partner, the
    National Security Agency (NSA), spying on Denmark's neighbors.

    "We did not get to know anything concrete about the case at all," Frank
    Bakke-Jensen of Norway complained.

    "The French Foreign Ministry's minister of state for European affairs, Clement
    Beaune, called the possible U.S. spying campaign on European politicians a very
    serious thing, and called for further verification of the information,... ,If
    confirmed, Beaune did not rule out 'consequences.'"

    On May 31, PM Emmanuel Macron said such behavior "is unacceptable between
    allies, and even less acceptable between allies and European partners."

    The Danish Radio (DR) wrote, "Angela Merkel backed the criticism from Macron,
    who expects to get an explanation from both the U.S. and Denmark."

    Nevertheless, there has been no explanation or apology, at least not one made
    known to reporters or the public. Denmark's Defense Minister stated: "I will not
    engage in discussions and speculation about intelligence information, but I can
    say very clearly that I have a really excellent working relationship with all my
    colleagues - including the Nordic countries."

    Both Bramsen and PM Mette Frederiksen had earlier claimed that they viewed
    systematic wiretapping of close allies as "unacceptable," choosing Macron's term
    and that of Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who added that such hostile
    conduct was "unnecessary."

    Bramsen and Frederiksen, however, did not address whether surveillance other
    than "systematic" was acceptable.

    Just why is it that the Danish government "cannot" speak publically (that is
    democratically) or even privately to its neighbor leaders about its spying is
    not forthcoming.

    Danish Intelligence Service and NSA also refuse to comment. Nor do we know if
    Barack Obama or Joe Biden apologized to Merkel. President Obama had allegedly
    told Merkel, in 2013, that tapping into her phone would not occur again.

    Concerning the new revelations, Edward Snowden stated: "Biden is well-prepared
    to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply
    involved in this scandal the first time around. There should be an explicit
    requirement for full public disclosure not only from Denmark, but their senior
    partner as well.

    Snowden had first revealed some of the spying in 2013, including against Germany
    Chancellor Merkel.

    Despite Snowden's optimism that Biden was "well-prepared to answer" European
    leaders' concerns about being spied upon, it did not happen during or since
    Biden's week-long trip June 9-16, at least that we know.

    Playing the Russia Card
    Danish leaders, like many of their counterparts, have become very adept at
    demonizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and invoking a mythic Russian threat
    to justify the expansion of mass surveillance and violation of civil liberties.

    And the media have followed suit. The DR's chief U.S. correspondent, for
    example, promoted a stark Putinphobia in his review of Joe Biden's recent trip
    to Europe. Steffen Kretz wrote that, following Biden's meeting with EU and NATO,
    he would meet the "West's evil spirit, Russia's President Vladimir Putin."

    Humiliated leaders of Germany, France, Sweden and Norway seemingly went along
    with "business as usual," welcoming "America's return to normalcy." European
    Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed European leaderships' joy
    during the G7 and NATO meetings.

    "Well, Mr. President, dear Joe, we are so pleased to welcome you in
    Brussels. You ... and America [are] back on the global scene."

    "America is back," President Biden responded. "We never fully left, but we are
    reasserting the fact that it's overwhelmingly in the interest of the United
    States of America to have a great relationship with NATO and with the EU."

    Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister (2013-19), apparently lapsed
    into psychological projection when she said that Europe needed to join with
    Biden, in order "to constrain Russia's attempts to undermine us."

    Joe Biden said he had three missions during his trip. One was to "let President
    Vladimir Putin know what he needs to hear." Three months before, Biden told CNN
    that he thought Putin was a killer and had no soul.

    NATO's secretary general, former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said
    that NATO will not simply "mirror" Russia. It will de facto outspend it and
    surround it. Surround it with multiple battle formations, since "we now have
    implemented the biggest reinforcements of our collective defense since the end
    of the Cold War."
    (/quote)
    -- Cont'd at https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/08/06/denmark-bernie-sanders-socialist-utopia-functions-as-banana-spy-kingdom-for-u-s-empire/

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