SPECULUM VERUM
Last week saw one of the most honest and dangerous posts yet in what should be a debate on NATO accession, but which has been a pure propaganda campaign to get Sweden into the USA:s war alliance as soon as possible.
It came in the form of disguised professional advice. A call from one of Sweden's most dangerous people to the country's formally most powerful politician, who listened with big ears.
The recommendation from Commander-in-Chief Micael Bydén to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson? Not to come up with any reservations about NATO membership - that is, the government should not say no either to permanent NATO bases in Sweden or to storing nuclear weapons on Swedish soil.
It is no small act of treason on the part of the commander-in-chief - who is so eager to hand over Swedish sovereignty over the territory to the masters in Washington that he does not want to let trifles such as nuclear weapons stand in the way. It is also typical that it is Bydén, with its distinctly northern appearance, who takes the leaf out of his mouth about what has so far been taboo in NATO propaganda.
Before the Social Democratic government's decision to apply for membership in NATO, ÖB was officially neutral. But as soon as the officers formally made the decision to throw away 200 years of peace and non-alignment at the dump turned out to be ÖB:s neutral position to be as credible as Sweden's during the Cold War.
As soon as the decision was hammered out, Bydén bragged about how he unequivocally advised the then Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist and the rest of the Swedish government to take Sweden into the US:s nuclear alliance. And unlike the social democratic politicians, Bydén can speak clearly.
The Sossetops ran over their members in a farcical internal "trial" to go against their own congressional decision on NATO. But they did not dare to talk about any nuclear weapons in Sweden, as the nuclear resistance is even stronger than the NATO resistance among the social democratic grassroots. On the contrary, it was said that there would be no talk of any nuclear weapons on Swedish soil.
Now the Norwegian foreign policy spokesperson Morgan Johansson is also demanding that the moderate defense minister Pål Jonson explain the new government's position, when both Jonsson and Prime Minister Kristersson hummed in agreement to ÖB:s advice.
But it's fake outrage from Morgan Johansson. The Sossars bear a very big responsibility for having put the country in this dangerous situation. Because here the reality behind the fog curtains and scaremongering that Russia would like to attack Sweden is revealed.
NATO is a nuclear alliance, and already in June of this year, the then Social Democratic Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote a letter to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in which she assures that "Sweden accepts NATO's approach to security and defense, which includes the critical role that nuclear weapons play”.
Nevertheless, both socialists and moderates have pretended that it would be self-evident that neither nuclear weapons nor any permanent NATO bases be placed in Sweden. Denmark and Norway have such reservations with NATO.
But we saw that for what they are worth when Norway last year signed a bilateral supplementary agreement with the US on four bases where the US military is not subject to Norwegian law. Like Denmark in direct negotiations with the US opened for US military bases in Denmark.
Nevertheless, ÖB does not want the government to even ask NATO to avoid hosting nuclear weapons, in order not to in any way reduce Sweden's chances of actually becoming a target and a front state in a possible direct war between the USA and Russia.
Sweden's increasingly lousy timing in the NATO application must also be mentioned here, as the ostensibly united transatlantic front to continue sending billions of dollars worth of arms to prolong the war in Ukraine looks increasingly fragile.
Ahead of Tuesday's mid-term elections in the United States, Joe Biden has had to deal with domestic criticism and urge Zelenskyi's government to open negotiations with Russia - if only to continue to receive support from the less enthusiastic EU countries. And after the presidential election in two years, Sweden may very well be stuck in a US-led military alliance where it is Donald Trump who once again holds the portfolio with the nuclear weapons codes.
But neither Commander-in-Chief Bydén nor Prime Minister Kristersson is concerned about that, as he was also clear in his signals last week when he announced that Sweden is considering leaving its observer status for the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The convention that Sweden first voted for 2017 but two years later no longer wanted to ratify after the United States:s and NATO pressures.
The new government has also further stepped up the bashing of the terrorist state of Turkey. These days, Kristersson is in Ankara and meets President Erdogan. Before the visit, the newly appointed foreign minister Tobias Billström distanced himself from the Kurdish organizations PYD and YPG for their ties to the PKK, labeled a terrorist by the US and the EU.
- We think there is a doubt and problem regarding those who damage our relationship with Turkey, said Billström in Ekot's Saturday interview, making clear what is the increasingly overshadowing foreign policy of the new government - to do everything to get Erdogan to approve Sweden's NATO application, regardless of the Turkish regime's crimes both inside and outside the country's borders.
- The overriding value is Sweden's membership in NATO and the importance of us achieving success in the ongoing negotiations between Turkey on the one hand and Sweden and Finland on the other, as Billström put it.
Again, it led to criticism, but that Sweden should not support the PYD and YPG is already included in the trilateral agreement between Sweden, Finland and Turkey that Ann Linde signed in connection with the NATO summit in Madrid in June this year. As well as that Sweden should once again be able to export weapons to Turkey.
But then nuclear weapons and NATO bases on Swedish soil were still something that was called exaggerations and inaccuracies, for which the few dissenting voices that could be heard in the propaganda storm were blamed. In SVT, we were instead told that it was absolutely possible for Sweden to continue working for nuclear disarmament as a NATO member.
But that's exactly what the voices of peace say: Sweden does not need NATO for peace, it is NATO that needs Sweden for war. And our ruling politicians and commander-in-chief are even lining up if it were to be a nuclear war.
We say: stop the madness before it's too late.