Neutral Sweden enters the fray with eight fighter jets at Sigonella
Flight International reports today that on Saturday and yesterday Sweden deployed eight of its Saab Gripen fighters to Sigonella air base in Sicily to participate in the NATO-led Operation Unified Protector. It has also deployed one Lockheed Martin KC-130H tanker and a reconnaissance aircraft.
Sweden, which has had a foreign policy of neutrality in armed conflicts since 1812 (and stayed neutral throughout WWII but sold iron ore and steel to Nazi Germany), has joined Denmark, Italy, Spain, the United States, Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the UK in this operation.
The Swedish parliament gave its approval last Tuesday, committing its air force for up to three months in this campaign.
Around 130 Swedish military personnel will be involved, including 10 Gripen pilots.
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U ejja, all this fuss, imsieken ahna, we only have ”one airport”!
This whole issue is incredible and so pathetic.
We have truly lost our soul. Shame.
We have not lost our soul ion this case; we have simply sold it to the devil.
Not the first time it has gone to war since 1945 – the Swedes are in Afghanistan too – but the first time it has deployed combat aircraft since the UN intervention in the Congo in 1962-63.
Unlike us, the Swedes do not conflate neutrality and pacifism. Goes to show that Lutheranism beats MUSEUM any time.
Excellently put! Neutrality and Pacifism are not the same thing!
In the 1930s and early 40s, Chamberlain was a pacifist, Franco was neutral.
[Daphne – Dear God, we’ve got a Far Right Nationalist on our hands. Tell me something, my dear, did your parents/grandparents root for Franco and Mussolini? Strange, isn’t it, how this Libyan crisis has clearly split opinion among Nationalist supporters along historic political lines. Obviously, if you come from stock that admired the dictators of the 1930s you’re going to have a different attitude to mine where Gaddafi – and more pointedly, what to do about him – is concerned.]
I think you misunderstand Reporter. As I see it, he’s saying that Chamberlain wanted to avoid war at all costs, and wanted to keep military expenditure to a minimum, while Franco strengthened the armed forces but refused to be drawn into the Second World War. I disagree with his assessment of Chamberlain, but I don’t think Reporter’s comment betrays any far-right sentiment – just the usual Maltese household factoids (like IRA, Falklands, Chamberlain, Thatcher, the war in Algeria, the works).
[Daphne – Reporter has been popping in here repeatedly to justify the prime minister’s stance and Maltese neutrality. It gets a little bit tiring because he begins his arguments from the standpoint that the prime minister/Nationalist Party is always right. If you start off like that, your logic is invariably going to be faulty. I did not mean ‘far right’ in the context of the overall political spectrum, but far right within the PN, the spiritual descendants of the Mussolini/Italian lovers of the mid-20th century. They are clearly distinct from more recent arrivals like myself, and it takes something like this to show up the very obvious division in attitude and mindset.]
Franco was not exactly neutral in WWII; he sent a Spanish army division (Blue Division) as cannon fodder to the Russian front in support of the Wehrmacht. What the Russians did not kill, the Russian winter did.
ON AL JAZEERA TODAY.
”Speaking from Athens, John Psaropoulous, editor of the Greek magazine Odyssey, told Al Jazeera that close ties between the two governments date back to the 1980s.”
(…) ”Given the poor state of the Greek economy, he added, its government is currently particularly susceptible to incentives from Libya, such as cheap oil.”
Oooh that’s good, we’re in great company – makes that TWO qhab f’nofs il-Mediterran.
Amazing reasoning. Are these the descendants of Aristotle and Plato?
The descendants of Aristotle and Plato are the Sicilians – Magna Graecia… look at the astonishing numbers of thinkers and other intellectuals hailing from Sicily and the virtual absence of such people hailing from the Hellenic Republic.
[Daphne – Such ignorance. There are so many holes in that statement that I can’t be bothered tackling them.]
Since we’re on the subject of doing things in style:
http://www.bfbs.com/news/uk/hms-triumph-returns-after-libyan-mission-46313.html
If we suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine AFM submariners returning to Grand Harbour after a combat mission, everyone and his dog would be calling on them to do penance and flog themselves through the Republic Street.
The crew would be called murderers by some in Malta. In my books, they are gods.
That Jolly Roger reminds me of HMS Conqueror returning up the Clyde to Faslane after sinking the Belgrano during the Falklands war.
This chap has panache written all over him.
http://paimages.s3.amazonaws.com/categories/news/480×385/10476999.jpg
It’s the sort of expression of national sentiment that would be totally alien to Maltese politicians. Ours follow the bleating and cackling on Xarabank and The Times and think they have their hands on the nation’s pulse. Boy are they ever so wrong.
We can’t even get our act together on humanitarian aid. Medicins Sans Frontieres is shipping the injured to Sfax in Tunisia and Turkey has sent a hospital ship under armed guard:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110404
I haven’t posted in a while but I have been following this blog religiously as always.
I am afraid Malta’s expertise has always been navel-gazing. We do not have an international outlook on anything except ‘biex nidhlu fl-Ewropa ghall-ġobs barra minn Malta.’ It’s always been Me! Me! Me! on an individual and collective level.
Sabiha l-bandiera tal-Isvezja! Salib isfar fuq sfond izraq. Interessanti li dawn it-tip ta bnadar (bhal ma hi tal-Ingilterra .. is-salib ta San Gorg fuq sfond abjad) originaw mill-krucjati.
Ahna wkoll fuq il-bandiera Maltija ghandna salib … il-midalja ta San Gorg li nghatat ghall-qlubija tal-Maltin.
Imbaghad tigi dil-klassi dominanti ta’ issa li minhabba interpretazzjoni patetika tan-newtralita titradixxi l-kuragg tal-kavallieri (gejjin mill-krucjati wkoll) w il-qlubija ta missirijietna li rebhulna l-George Cross.
Gonzi u Joseph Muscat ..ISTHU!
Il-midalja mhix ta San Gorg imma tar-Re Gorg.
Veru … ahjar ktibt “midalja b’San Gorg” minflok “ta San Gorg”
And the US is stepping back.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LIBYA_NATO?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-04-12-47-58
[Daphne – Well, John, the United States launched 190 Tomahawk missiles and ‘stepped back’. The UK launched seven (or was it nine?) and carries on. Same difference.]
At least twelve were fired. And the Royal Navy is short of Tomahawks. The total arsenal is 64, and they don’t come cheap. The Triumph-class submarine can only carry 20 missiles so even the British wanted to unleash hellfire on Libya, they’d be limited by practical considerations. Behold the importance of technical details in deciding policy.
I understand, appreciate and admire the disciplined behaviour of the USA. That was how much they could give…… in return for the disco and the Lockerbie killings of its soldiers.
The US is still contributing but not in a leading role.
May I remind you that the US did not enter into the WW II fray before it was attacked at Pearl Harbor, and did not enter WW I until the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo.
It’s quite safe for you when you throw stones at others from other people’s homes.
Then Malta should have been in the first wave of Operation Odyssey Dawn, since we’ve been screwed by Gaddafi at least since 1971.