SV: [lbo-talk] Re: Swedish foreign minister stabbed

Lif, Johan Johan.Lif at vlt.se
Fri Sep 12 01:50:10 PDT 2003


Wojtek:
>But she had a reputation of being tough on the US, no?

An undeserved reputation, if so. "It is not for me to comment on the political strategies of NATO", Anna Lindh said during the 1999 Yugoslavia bombings, to which the Swedish government lent its critical support. She did very little to oppose the way the UN's anti-terror resolutions affected Swedish citizens (three Swedes of Somalian origin were relentlessly persecuted, had their assets frozen, etc), even going so far as to say that national laws should be changed to accomodate the UN. She supported the sanctions against Iraq. The government took the cowardly "UN line" towards the Iraq war, sanctioning a US-led attack if weapons of mass destructions were found. It took the massive mobilisation of anti-war protesters on February 15 to get Anna Lindh to make the statement that, had Sweden been in the security council, it would have voted against the war. In short, Anna Lindh was a good social democrat, always in accord with the party line. She could be critical of the US on occasions but neither she nor the government she represented ever did anything to seriously challenge American hegemony (when you think of Olof Palme marching in the front line of a Vietnam demonstration in 1968, it's easy to see how much Swedish foreign policies have changed for the worse).

Johan



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