When did we lose our balls?

[Oberleutnant]

A little essay I wrote just for fun with. Feel free to rip it to shreds, blame the author and so on. Comments would be really appreciated.


When did we lose our balls?

As I read these newspaper articles about the Iraqi people giving a heartful welcome to the advancing Coalition troops as they enter their cities, day by day I gain a more positive stand towards the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive warfare. Perhaps I’m an easy target for “western” propaganda, but maybe the hawks in Washington were right about Iraq. Better to finish off Saddam’s regime quickly as possibly, despite taking few civilian casualties along with it, than let his people suffer slowly. Who gives a damn about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass-destruction? Even if he didn’t have them and the outcome of entire campaign would mainly just profit American corporations, a Saddamless Iraq would probably still be a better place to live.

Where does my country, the small and pitiful Finland, stand? Nearly five decades of Soviet interference to our so called “neutrality” have sadly left their mark. Gone are the days of glory when our motor torpedo boats participated in the attacks against the Russian Reds in the Civil War, fighting side by side with the Royal Navy, stopping the dream of Homo Sovietus from becoming true.

When the Baltics finally gained their independence from Soviet Union in the early nineties, why didn’t our government support them more openly and condemn the Soviets as they sent tanks into Baltic cities and massacred the Lithuanians in the Vilnius TV tower? What had happened to the Finno-Baltic friendship and a commonly shared history of eastern agression that had been felt so strong before the WWII? Gone are the days of glory when our soldiers of our newly-independent country fought in the streets of Tallinn, helping the Estonians on their road to their own independence from Russia.

Hus, hush! Don’t say a bad word about Russia or they might get angry. It’s ok to criticize the decadent imperialist USA, but not Russia for their actions against Chechens. Bashing America is good, mmmkay? Or as some teenager (probably, judging by his/her use of language) said it here on an SMS chat show on the telly on Sebtember 9/11/2002: “They [USA] deserved it ‘coz they’ve killed millions and millions of innocent people around the world. Bush is an idiot!” Other like-minded teens joined him/her/it soon, and I was forced to change the channel. Even watching a Shopping TV ad for Gymform Plus, the revolutionary ‘fitness’ device that gives you Arnie-like muscles without the need to excerise, was more enjoyable than that.

After becoming more and more interested of politics, I have watched with fear what the biggest left-wing socialist of the Finnish government, our minister of foreign affairs Erkki Tuomioja, is always going to say. Tuomioja’s list of credits include the following: criticising American policy and Nato, comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany, banning the sales of Finnish-made gas masks and chemical/biological weapons detection kits to Israel, banning the sale of Finnish-made armoured vehicles to Turkey, criticising American policy and Nato even more, and sounding like a person with a bade case of holier than thou attitude. If the Social Democrats (who for the most part are ok and not too leftist) get the seat of foreign minister in our near-future government, we’ll see if Örkki* Tuomioja decides that it’s absolutely unacceptable for Finland to make a multi-million deal with the US Army about the Advanced Mortar System (AMOS), since US is after all a nation currently involved in a war.

When did we Finns lose our balls to be actively doing something, instead of sitting on our asses and complaining like a rabid Trekkie, like I’m doing at this moment? Americans, you are okay folk, at least for the most part. At least you have occasionally guts to do something about the situation.


* “örkki” means “orc” in Finnish.
Aren’t I clever?

[Warspite]

Why aren't you (Fins) helping your Baltic neighbours? Are the politics so stupid, they spend the day ranting and do nothing?

[Vympel]

Hus, hush! Don’t say a bad word about Russia or they might get angry. It’s ok to criticize the decadent imperialist USA, but not Russia for their actions against Chechens.

I don't know what it's like where you live, but Russia cops heaps of shit for that hellhole in Chechnya, from everyone, including their own media.

criticising American policy and Nato

If it was regarding Kosovo, he was right.

comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany

I'd say South Africa myself.

banning the sales of Finnish-made gas masks and chemical/biological weapons detection kits to Israel

More countries should do that until Israel decides to grow up and stop treating the Palestinians like non-citizens.

banning the sale of Finnish-made armoured vehicles to Turkey

Let me get this straight- you talk about Chechnya with disapproval but when the Turks pull the same shit on the Kurds for the same reasons, you act like it's unfair not to sell them vehicles?

criticising American policy and Nato even more and sounding like a person with a bade case of holier than thou attitude.

I think you should look closer at the facts of a situation to determine whether this attitude is justified or not. Talking about Turkey and armored vehicles, made me think that you weren't entirely clear.

[Oberleutnant]

criticising American policy and Nato

If it was regarding Kosovo, he was right.

No, not just Kosovo. He keeps doing it all the time, and for example says that Nato discussion in Finland is "useless and unneccessary". Not a very open-minded nor democratic way to handle an important decision like this, when all opinions and facts should be heard.

"We could call time out on this and agree that the 2004 report on security policy will not be containing any changes in Finland's line on NATO membership", said Tuomioja in an article syndicated among several Finnish provincial papers.

Already several research organisations, many of them working closely with our government and ministry of foreign affairs, have taken a different stand. This is one of those many matters in which his statements are not in accordance with the rest of the government. The official line is to "keep all doors open and wait for the 2004 report".

This man originally condemned USA's retaliation attacks against the Taliban and al-Quaeda after 9/11, though he has later changed his opinion. He is also member of Attac, an anti-globalisation organisation.

banning the sales of Finnish-made gas masks and chemical/biological weapons detection kits to Israel

More countries should do that until Israel decides to grow up and stop treating the Palestinians like non-citizens.

But these are all non-offensive equipment. At the same time the FDF is making huge acquisitions of Israeli-made UAVs, field radios and EuroSpike anti-armour missiles... and I have never heard Tuomioja condemning suicide attacks against Israeli civlians.

Sure, Israel is a fucked up country, but some of the Palestinians aren't angles either.

banning the sale of Finnish-made armoured vehicles to Turkey

Let me get this straight- you talk about Chechnya with disapproval but when the Turks pull the same shit on the Kurds for the same reasons, you act like it's unfair not to sell them vehicles?

Point conceded. I myself think that this decision was acceptable, considering how the Turks handle the situation in Kurdistan. It's not much better than the situation in Chechenya.

[Oberleutnant]

Why aren't you (Fins) helping your Baltic neighbours? Are the politics so stupid, they spend the day ranting and do nothing?

This was in 1990-91 when the Soviet Union was still around and our independence was questionable. Nowadays things are different, though. Finland is the biggest investor in Estonia and co-operation between the two countries is very strong.

[Warspite]

This was in 1990-91 when the Soviet Union was still around and our independence was questionable. Nowadays things are different, though. Finland is the biggest investor in Estonia and co-operation between the two countries is very strong.

Ah, ok. I would find most strange, if Finland completely neglected it's Baltic neighbours, with so much history in common.

[Sir Sirius]

After becoming more and more interested of politics, I have watched with fear what the biggest left-wing socialist of the Finnish government, our minister of foreign affairs Erkki Tuomioja, is always going to say. Tuomioja’s list of credits include the following: criticising American policy and Nato, comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany, banning the sales of Finnish-made gas masks and chemical/biological weapons detection kits to Israel, banning the sale of Finnish-made armoured vehicles to Turkey, criticising American policy and Nato even more, and sounding like a person with a bade case of holier than thou attitude. If the Social Democrats (who for the most part are ok and not too leftist) get the seat of foreign minister in our near-future government, we’ll see if Örkki* Tuomioja decides that it’s absolutely unacceptable for Finland to make a multi-million deal with the US Army about the Advanced Mortar System (AMOS), since US is after all a nation currently involved in a war. [I though that selling weapons to a nation currently engaged in a war is prohibited by international treaties. Might be misstaken though.]

When did we Finns lose our balls to be actively doing something, instead of sitting on our asses and complaining like a rabid Trekkie, like I’m doing at this moment?

Eh, isn't that sort of contradictory? You list ther things that Tuomioja has done and then complain that no-one has done anything. You might not agree with the actions of Tuomioja or his motives, but he has done something, as well as straightforwardly expressed his oppinion about world affairs, which is more then I can say about most Finnish politicians.

[Oberleutnant]

As Paavo Lipponen, our primer minister, put it, it's impossible to predict the situation in the year 2008, which is supposed to be the date when AMOS would enter service in US Army, if it is chosen. I've been also occasionally following the discussion going on in sfnet's maanpuolustus newsgroup, and according to the people there "in case of a war, Finland expects that it will be sold weapons". I believe that the same international law to which you refer to also states that also buying weapons from a nation currently engaged in a war is prohibited.

I already mentioned the Israeli arms deals, and before we refuse to sell military equipment to USA and Israel, we should look at our own recent acquisitions: AMRAAMs (USA), EuroSpikes (Israel), Buk M1 (Russia). All these countries are involved in different sorts of conflicts.

But you are right, I partially conflicted myself and for that I blame the lack of sleep, as always. Tuomioja has the right for free speech, but is he neccessarily the best person as our minister of foreign affairs?

[Edi]

Oberleutnant, I'm going to have to rip your piece apart, unfortunately. You've got too many things backwards.

I dislike Tuomioja intensely, and would prefer it if we had a foreign minister who hadn't been dripped in a barrel of red paint, but I will hand him this: He's definitely got more balls than the rest of the Finnish political leadership combined. He is the only one willing to criticize Israel and call a spade a spade (though like Vym said, a comparison to South Africa rather than Nazi Germany would be more appropriate), for which he has gotten flak both from the Israelis and our own homegrown jewish community (because while most of them are rather okay, the leader is a purebred Zionazi).

Tuomioja's criticism of the US has mostly been on target on the same issues that are hotly debated e.g. here, so he can't be faulted for that, and given the recent statements from defense experts, his criticism of Nato isn't all that unjustified either. I would like to see us in the Nato, but given recent developments, if there is going to be a common European defense organization, I would rather take that instead. Tuomioja is out of line with the official position on quite a few issues, sometimes with justification (Israel), and sometimes not (Nato), and his pacifistic general disposition (practicalist though, he's not a foaming at the mouth utopist) isn't doing his reputation any good in my eyes. Still, the man has balls to come out and say what he thinks, even if he is otherwise mostly useless.

Banning the sale of APCs to Turkey is quite in accordance with Finnish law and he'd be violating that law if he didn't block it, because of the way they treat the Kurds.

The deals with the US armed forces aren't likely to be blocked, simply because of their value and other political considerations, unless US foreign policy starts to turn consistently belligerent and warmongering on a larger front.

As to the 1990-91 issue with the Baltic states, former President Mauno Koivisto should go shove an electric cattleprod up his ass for his public position of supporting Russia instead of the Baltic states. Russia was no threat to us as such, and we could very well have afforded the little chill in relations supporting the Balts would have brought. Then again, Koivisto has always been a near-complete fuckwit. His opposition to the Kosovo campaign was nothing but bending over backward to suck Russian ass. Whenever confronted with a campaign of ongoing genocide, he just dodged the issue. Apparently in his world, Russia can do no wrong.

In general, Finland could very well come out and call a spade a spade a bit more often. Unfortunately it looks like our political leadership is too afraid of offending anyone to do so. They should make more of a stink in the EU too about some issues where the French (especially) and the Germans have been trying to run roughshod over everyone else, most recently the ECB decisionmaking issue.

As for the critical thinking capabilities of those Finns who oppose the US and its policies, often they are nonexistent. I've never heard so much bullshit as I did in the TV interviews of anti-war protesters on Saturday. Fuckwits, they should actually try to find out the facts instead of just insisting that there must be peace at any cost. Informed opposition I've no problem with, but when they start pulling assumptions out of their ass and ignoring everything inconvenient to their own utopistic position, I'll just tell them to go fuck themselves.

I don't think Finland is too bad in general, and our policies have been remarkably pragmatic while retaining most of the principles intact or only slightly bent, but we could use some more spine on some issues and a whole lot more of an educated electorate.

Edi

[Oberleutnant]

I too would like to see a common European defence organisation come true. Sadly, given the Finns' phobia towards anything that chains our sacred defence forces to an outside organisation, we would be probably left out of it. According to this, only 48% of our population supports a common European defence policy - the lowest number in EU. Tossers!

If Sweden joins Nato someday, which will probably happen before Finland might, support for our Nato membership would probably suddenly skyrocket. "It's okay if Sweden does it as well..." Some people said the same about EU membership. God knows where we would be now if I had stayed outside EU in the year 1995, so that we could first see how the things go in Sweden. I'm so tired of hearing uneducated Nato criticism: "If we join Nato our soldiers would have to die in some desert country!"

FFS, how many Germans, Italians, Norwegians, Portugese etc. are now in Iraq? Don't these people understand that even if we as a Nato member would decide to send troops into some hotzone, everyone of those soldiers, (excluding the officers and contract soldiers, of course) would be conscripts who originally volunteered for Nato missions when their military training ended - precisely the same method as currently used in the our international rapid deployment force.


By the way, you didn't "rip my piece apart", Edi. You agreed with me on everything else except the Turkish APC sale - which was a big blunder on my own part. I didn't want to imply in my originally post that I didn't agree with Tuomioja on this.

I really like Lipponen (who promised to Bush that we would be part of the post-war Iraq effort - that takes balls) for being "my kind of social democrat" who is not too much on the left, like Tuomioja. That guy should be in National Coalition.

Edit: fixed the link

[Sea Skimmer]

Given the state of the Swedish armed forces, I doubt they’d see a point to a common European Defense policy. They went from 27 to less then one active brigade, and a couple years it was seriously considered to make the Swedish navy a regular 9 to 5 job with sailors going home at the end of the day and only a skeleton night shift that wouldn’t conduct any operations.

[Edi]

I too would like to see a common European defence organisation come true. Sadly, given the Finns' phobia towards anything that chains our sacred defence forces to an outside organisation, we would be probably left out of it. According to this, only 48% of our population supports a common European defence policy - the lowest number in EU. Tossers!

If Sweden joins Nato someday, which will probably happen before Finland might, support for our Nato membership would probably suddenly skyrocket. "It's okay if Sweden does it as well..." Some people said the same about EU membership. God knows where we would be now if I had stayed outside EU in the year 1995, so that we could first see how the things go in Sweden. I'm so tired of hearing uneducated Nato criticism: "If we join Nato our soldiers would have to die in some desert country!"

FFS, how many Germans, Italians, Norwegians, Portugese etc. are now in Iraq? Don't these people understand that even if we as a Nato member would decide to send troops into some hotzone, everyone of those soldiers, (excluding the officers and contract soldiers, of course) would be conscripts who originally volunteered for Nato missions when their military training ended - precisely the same method as currently used in the our international rapid deployment force.


By the way, you didn't "rip my piece apart", Edi. You agreed with me on everything else except the Turkish APC sale - which was a big blunder on my own part. I didn't want to imply in my originally post that I didn't agree with Tuomioja on this.

I really like Lipponen (who promised to Bush that we would be part of the post-war Iraq effort - that takes balls) for being "my kind of social democrat" who is not too much on the left, like Tuomioja. That guy should be in National Coalition.

Edit: fixed the link

Yeah, well, turned out different than I thought it would, and besides, Vympel already did all the ripping apart stuff that needed to get done...

I agree with you about the sheep mentality re "Let's follow the Swedes", as if we couldn't make our own choices. Their military isn't all that impressive, and it's not like they needed it all that much in the first place, we've always been their first line of defense...

As for Lipponen, I agree that he has made some good choices and the way he dealt with the Green Witch of the Center on the Iraq issue was delicious to watch. However, I'm generally not a great fan of his, he's far too dictatorial without bothering to give good reasons. At least Niinistö always gave a solid backing to everything he said when he laid the smackdown on critics. Shame he left...

Edi