Saturday, November 24, 2007

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Snaps

During the recent election in Denmark, the strong showing by the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) and the weak performance by the Social Democrats has strengthened Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s government. This has given the West’s strongest bastion in the Counterjihad a breathing space, time to consolidate its stringent measures against further immigration and continue the resistance against PC Multiculturalism.

Given the sad news of Australia’s election, the things going on in Denmark are a balm.

Wretchard, at the Belmont Club, was in an elegiac frame of mind when he posted on Australia’s future under the coming leadership by The Green Party. Can you say “Kyoto Treaty signing as soon as possible” or “bring home the troops, double time”? Those will the new policies, among many other unpleasantries. Wretchard’s gaze is unflinching:

In the end, Howard’s loss probably has to be put down to hubris. His margin over Labor and the Left was always much thinner than his oversized image seemed to indicate. His image was so oversized, in fact, that it probably kept a new generation of leaders from rising within his party. On the other hand, Labor ran through a succession of losers until they came to Rudd, who realized he had to run to the right of his predecessors. That cut away Howard’s already thin cushion. I guess he thought the old magic would pull him through. But tonight, the magic deserted him. Howard will probably lose even his own seat of Bennelong to a celebrity Labor candidate.

Most readers can probably make a fair guess of what might happen next. The chances are we’ll be looking at Kevin Rudd reprising Nancy Pelosi. The end of the Howard era may be a good thing in the end. Labor will ultimately provide the energy for its own downfall, as the Liberals (Howard’s party) did theirs.

But no one who has been through the wars that Wretchard has — and survived them — can fail to view these events sub specie aeternitas. He ponders how things take shape under the vast canopy woven by history. Thus, he ends his rumination on the ramifications of this sad turn for his adopted country with a philosophical shrug:

I’ve learned over time not to get too disappointed about anything. Looking back, I can remember the long fight against Marcos [W. is from the Philippines — D]. So long it seemed it would never end. Most of us can still recall how dim things seemed only a few months ago, not only looking toward Iraq but pretty much everywhere. But that was then; and this is now.

So in a little bit I’m going to go and swill down a beer and think of old times. The guys who missed dodging that last raindrop. The day no one got off the bus. And as for old John Howard, well, he had a good run.

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.

I admit, I was a bit teary by the end of his post. But then…but then… our Danish correspondent TB translated an article from today’s Jyllands-Posten and sent it to the Baron. I grabbed at this news the way you pull yourself up onto the life raft that suddenly appears amidst the large waves you’d somehow been dumped into.

TB’s translation is followed by his commentary:

Danish warship to fight against pirates

The AbsalonThe government is planning to use the warship Absalon in the UN mission against pirates on the Horn of Africa.

Information from Danmarks Radio [Danish National radio].

According to the chief in command of the Danish Navy the UN have asked for Danish assistance, and the navy’s plan is to offer the new and very big [“big” according to Danish measures; no carrier battle groups here - translator] warship as a command ship in a UN mission for half a year starting from August of next year.
- - - - - - - - -
The plan has to be approved in Christiansborg [Folktinget, the parliament], where the Social Democrats’ spokesman for foreign affairs, Mogens Lykketoft, states to the national Danish radio that he feels positive about the idea.

Absalon is 137 meters long, heavily armed, and equipped with the newest technology and electronics. On the mission to Africa the crew will consist of around 150 men.

Unofficially Denmark can join the battle against pirates already as of the new year. Sources tell Radioavisen that France has asked for Danish assistance - which should be understood as a thank-you for the contribution from France in connection with the freeing of the hostages from Danica White in August.

If the French request is honored, according to the sources of Radioavisen it is the navy’s plan to use the recon-ship Thetis [normally patrolling Greenland - translator] for the French mission, which is designated as an escort for UN ships transporting first-aid for Somalia.

“All countries in the world have an interest in getting rid of these pirates, but Denmark has not only an interest but also a responsibility, because of all our shipping companies who carry 10% of the world’s goods transported by sea. That’s why we in this new government resolution have written that we will fight this nuisance. We saw in connection with the Danica White that it is also traumatic to those who are affected directly. But in the end it is a political decision,” minister of defense Søren Gade says to Ritzau.

TB adds his own point of view to this news:

I can tell you that right now they are also discussing whether to deploy F16s and Special Forces in Afghanistan.

Soon there will be nobody but the Muslims left here in Denmark! Everybody else will be out there fighting the great fight.

Thinking about this news report, it seems to me that Denmark is evolving into part of the Anglosphere. It must be all that Danish DNA that was inserted into the English gene pool before there ever was an England. So Australia is overtaken by the greenies for the moment, but Denmark is leaving the port to take care of the pirates, just as the U.S. did in her very beginnings.

The shores of Tripoli beckon once more and good strong men answer the call.


Hat tip: madsvp

19 comments:

Mark Richardson said...

John Howard never fought for "the ashes of his fathers/and the temples of his gods".

In fact, he lifted non-European immigration into Australia to record levels (to exactly the levels requested by the business federations) and he transformed the Australian professional classes by allocating an ever larger proportion of university places to overseas fee paying students (mostly from China).

It's true that by focusing on business migration, migrants tended to come from East Asia rather than the Middle East. Even so, Arabic is now the largest of the foreign languages spoken at home in Sydney. Furthermore, despite finally placing some restrictions on African migration, Melbourne in the past year has seen its first wave of carjackings by recently arrived Sudanese migrants.

Why did Howard lose his own seat? The seat of Bennelong has been transformed by the East Asian immigration Howard encouraged. However, these migrants have followed the general pattern of voting for the left-wing Labour Party - despite generally being involved in small business, and despite being favoured by Liberal Party policies.

I don't mean to dishearten people, but realistically there is still no genuinely conservative political movement in Australia. The Liberal Party, as the name suggests, is a "right-liberal" party.

sheik yer'mami said...

Precisely!

I never liked the guy, he was pretty much a kneejerk reactivist. Yes I voted for him because I am a conservative and as a businessman Labor and the union dicks is no alternative for me.

But the gun buyback program, the continued Islamic immigration, the silence about the so-called Cronulla riots and the lack of follow-up is a shameful legacy for the Howard administration. Some of them know very well what we're up against, but all they did is throw money at the problem, that is not the way.

But it has to get a lot worse before it gets better. There is a difference between getting laid and getting screwed, that's what's happening to us now under Labor.

Homophobic Horse said...

OT: Some weeks ago in Hungary a new vaguely paramilitary force was formed, the Magyar Gárda.

He describes the swearing in of the new recruits, the use of the flag and the black and white uniform, which does, no matter how often it is ridiculed, remind people of the Nyilas party, the local Nazis who took over after the Germans had moved in and overthrew Admiral Horthy’s government in 1944.

The language used by the Guard and its supporters of semi-supporters is a little disturbing, too. Starting with the need to get rid of the Communists and the Socialists so many of them had turned into, they move on to talk of spiritual corruption and the need for cleansing and rebirth. It was not that long ago that language of that kind was last used, accompanied by mass murder.

---

While I'm extremely glad that we GoV types cannot behave like that, we have to bear in mind that these groups also describe themselves as Nationalists. We only use "Nationalism" as a political tool - as it's required to win votes in a democratic society.

Homophobic Horse said...

Here's a top blog post.

WHY I AM NOT A WHITE NATIONALIST

There, you try and avoid that.

Steen said...

Good news!

Hey, I took that picture in port of Copenhagen before Amalienborg Castle in the summer of 2005, I believe, the first in the class, not yet finished.

A Multipurpose stealth ship. Ohoy, from Denmark !

(Wikipedia borrowed it, where did you find it ?)

Steen said...

By the way:

"Danske kampvogne stoppede taleban"

"Danish tanks stopped the Taleban" - article today - from the Queens Lif Guards deployed to Afghanistan.

http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20071124/danmark/71124028

Baron Bodissey said...

Steen --

The photo is in the JP article. Follow the link.

It's credited to someone else!

Caption: "Absalon er 137 meter langt, svært bevæbnet og udstyret med den nyeste teknologi og elektronik. På missionen ved Afrikas horn vil besætningen bliver på omkring 150 mand. Arkivfoto: Thomas C.K. Priskorn"

Anonymous said...

Morning over there!
Woke up to good news this morning. Following the nice political event last week the first post-election opinion poll was made public today. It shows that the VKO has strengthened its position. They have the absolute majority completely independant of Ny Alliance (Naser Khaders party), the Faroe Islands- and Greenland- MPs.
http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20071125/politik/111241322/

Steen said...

a closer look , the weather was different in my picture, and the bakvground also -as far as I can tell from the small photo. (Blogger can make them bigger, can´t they ?)

They are very fancifull ships, multipurpose - here in english:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalon-class_command_and_support_ships

Mikael said...

It won't be the fist time the Danish Navy have fought Muslim pirates. Back in 1751 a squadron of warships was sent to the Mediterranean off the shores of Morocco and Algiers to put a stop to the slave-taking of Danish seamen on merhcant ship in those waters.
The mission was mixed success, but it did manage to cut a deal with the pirate princes in the area.

The - rather fascinating if you're into history - story can be read here (In English.)

eatyourbeans said...

If and when our poor dollar gets up from its sickbed, I'd like to visit the brave nations. Denmark in, Sweden of course out. The UK, sadly, out. Germany out, but Poland in, unless their new government grovels too low to Brussels. Despite everything I see real potential in Russia, but it's too early to put her in the in column. And Switzerland is a definite in.

By the way, why isn't the splendid victory of the SVP getting more play here?

Paul said...

Good for the Danes. Finally, somebody with some courage, willing to not only stand up and tell the yahoos to 'shove it', but also with the guts to put words into action.

As I recall, when the Cambodian Communists started murdering everyone in sight that didn't agree with them, the US sent military aircraft in and sank every last one of Cambodia's nasty little ships. Shouldn't the same thing be done now to the heroic pirates of Somalia? Let 'em eat dates if they can find any.

Way to go Denmark.

Man, it feels good to express and opinion sometimes.

PapaBear said...

The US could handle the pirate situation with a couple of Predator UAVs. With their long (> 22 hours) loiter time, there could always be one or two on station. Whenever a Somali vessel approaches a merchant ship, it could simply be rocketed and sunk

Ed Mahmoud said...

If that is a 5"/54 gun on that ship, it is as large as any US Navy destroyer. Just by the shape, might even be designed for reduced radar signature.

Ed Mahmoud said...

Yup, the Absalom is a pretty big ship.


Well, big by modern standards, 630o tons, and pretty well armed.

Ed Mahmoud said...

I doubt the Predator has surface search radar, so you'd have to have a pretty good idea where to look for the pirates.


Also would need a place to base them from, and for multiple small craft, easier just to light them up with shipboard weapons, up to and including the 5" gun.

Ed Mahmoud said...

Hey, the Absalom can also carry/deploy 10 Leopard battle tanks.

Henrik R Clausen said...

Actually it's a natural to send the navy to battle pirates. This, exactly, is what the navy was invented to do in the first place - protect the trading fleet.

There's a bit of background to this. Back in August, when the Danish vessel White Star was hijacked, it became a big issue here. I attended a meeting with Morten Messerschmidt, who's EU spokesman for Dansk Folkeparti, and our members just kept asking about this, that we should be *much* tougher, and instead of sending ransom money send explosive at high velocities. Some of these people were of course sailors, not far-flung academics, and they were really pissed that they had to run the risk of piracy when going to work.

After the meeting I discussed it a bit further with Messerschmidt, who's a specialist in law, suggesting that in case of piracy it would be acceptable to violate the boundaries of national seawaters. He rejected the idea as 'probably illegal'.

However, a few days later (August 29th, to be exact), came a press release concerning this matter, calling for the fleet to be dispatched, and stating that violation of national seawater boundaries would be in order if the state in question did not deal responsibly with piracy.

I'm glad to see this take place, and am taking it as an example that politicians - at least the good ones - actually listen to what their voters say at meetings. And, by implication, that going to such meetings and speaking up is worthwhile.

Henrik R Clausen said...

homophobic horse, it's urgent that the decent politicians in Hungary start tackling the issues that gives these militants some support.

If the real politicians do that, the extremists will fade into obscurity.