{"id":185673,"date":"2021-05-24T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=185673"},"modified":"2021-05-27T03:47:24","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T02:47:24","slug":"fame-or-shame-norway-and-the-nobel-peace-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/05\/fame-or-shame-norway-and-the-nobel-peace-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Fame or Shame? Norway and the Nobel Peace Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

USS \u201cStoltenberg\u201d \u2013 Norway, now the newest US aircraft carrier<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

24 May 2021 – <\/em>Some years back Norwegian foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg took wise steps to reduce confrontation with Russia through a Barents Council for civilian cooperation. This was in prolongation of a long Labor tradition, initiated by the legendary Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen, who started a policy of low tension with the neighboring Soviet Union: No foreign bases, restraint with military exercises in the North, no nuclear weapons in Norway or our waters.<\/p>\n

Last week Stoltenberg\u00b4s son, Jens, now leader of NATO, dishonored a high-level meeting for civilian corporation in the Arctic Council in Reykjavik by NATO holding a large navy maneuver in that part of the Atlantic. Many countries participated in the tension-building provocation that has become standard Norwegian policy in later years. Unbelievably, the Conservative-led cabinet of Erna Solberg, has retained the RAND corporation as consultant on the future development of the Norwegian military.<\/p>\n

The foreseeable results are now coming to light. The Norwegian government has just concluded treaties of an entirely new kind with the USA, providing for transferal of control of parts of our territory to the US as bases for US military personnel and equipment, enjoying immunity and placed under US self-jurisdiction, and to permit stationing of long-range bomber planes in mid-Norway, extensive military exercises, let submarines with nuclear weapons dock in the North, in the middle of Tromsoe harbor. In spindoctorial Newspeak the ministers for foreign affairs (S\u00f8reide) and the military (Bakke-Jensen) declare that \u201cOur policy on foreign bases remains unchanged\u201d.<\/em> A language displaying a so brazen disrespect for truth and facts means the end of democracy as we used to know it.<\/p>\n

All this pretends to be necessary responses to an increasingly aggressive Russia. To any reasonably balanced observer, however, this is Western imperialism escalating tension in yet another chapter of Russia\u00b4s borders.[i]<\/a> It is dangerous; it has been a surprise move, not preceded by open democratic processes. The politicians behind such policies are far from suited for managing the Nobel Prize, established to promote global disarmament.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Defrocking the Nobel Peace Prize<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is an obvious truth: eternal arms races and wars cost astronomic amounts and threaten us with extinction \u2013 if we think about it. So, why don\u00b4t we? My new book, Fame or Shame?<\/em>, seeks to raise an urgently needed debate about militarism in Norway and the world:<\/p>\n