DEFENCE DECISION DELAYED
The controversial defence decision has been delayed until tomorrow to give the Social
Democrats more time to broker a deal with the Communists. Hopes are to keep the unit
in Arvidsjaur in order to avoid unemployment there. You can read more about it
here.
I listened to part of the parliament debate on the defence proposition this morning,
and was pleasantly surprised by the Green Party's MP Lars Ångström. Unpredictably he
defended interventions without a UN Security Council decision if many people's lives
were under threat and some country (he consistently examplified by mentioning China) threw
down it's veto to block any decision. It was a nice surprise to see that at least some
Greens has realised that the Security Council doesn't always act morally. Of course, he did
feel it neccesary to point out that the American decision to dethrone Saddam Hussein wasn't
acceptable, but I can live with that.
Mr Ångström also threw a punch at the Communists for saying one thing and doing something
else in this matter. The Communists demand Security Council endorsements but still voted in
favour of sending peacekeepers to Macedonia despite the fact that China had used it's veto
in the Security Council. To this Alice Åström (Communist Party) said that it was the Greens
who went with double standards. She pointed out that they support this defence proposition
which says that Sweden's supposed to act under EU command while at the same time demanding
that Sweden leave the EU. Mr Ångström managed to dodge that without any greater difficulty.
The opposition managed to make a few good points in the debate. I unfortunatly missed the Conservative
Party's statement, but Allan Widmark (Liberal Party) pulled off a good performance. His main point
was that with a policy of non-alliance Sweden has to have all neccesary military competenses in
our own army, and that costs more than the government want to admit. Urban Ahlin, Social Democrat,
avoided answering any of the sharp questions and compensated by throwing all sorts of insults
left, right and centre (though admittedly mostly to the right).
The perspective of national security was, as usual, strangely absent in the debate, with only
a few exceptions.
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