"This letter is sheer madness.

"A sitting US President openly declares that his commitment to peace depends on whether he personally receives a prize—petulant narcissism elevated to state doctrine. ...

"Worse, the letter rejects sovereignty itself. Questioning Denmark’s ownership of Greenland because 'boats landed there' is pre-modern barbarism. By that logic, no country owns anything—only whoever has the power to seize it. ...

"The phrase 'Complete and Total Control' is the tell. It is an explicit claim that world security requires American domination of foreign territory. No advocate of liberty, no defender of objective law, and no serious supporter of the American constitutional order can accept that premise.

"All of this is wrapped in a protection-racket view of alliances. ...

"It is a worldview that treats the United States as Trump’s personal property, international laws that prohibit aggression as optional, and force as the final arbiter of right. Such a worldview is incompatible with liberty. It is incompatible with objective law. And it is incompatible with the moral foundations of the American republic.

"Anyone still defending this man and his movement is not defending America. They are defending the ravings of a would-be king, stripped of reason, law, and moral restraint. And they should be ashamed."

~ Nicholas Provenzo from his post 'Mad Donald's Letter and the Mind of a Would-Be King'

"Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize."

~ Anne Applebaum from her article 'Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw'

 

"For all of my life Russia has tried to decouple Europe from America and break the North Atlantic Alliance. It never succeeded. ... But now success is staring the Kremlin in the face. All thanks to Donald Trump. ... 

"Nobody should underestimate the catastrophic consequences for NATO if its leading member annexed the territory of a smaller member. It would be the abnegation of everything NATO is meant to stand for. Nobody denies Greenland is gaining in strategic importance to America. ... 

"But the crucial point is that, in security terms, America can have whatever it wants in Greenland without annexing an ally against its will. ... [T]he 1951 Greenland Defence Agreement (renewed in 2004).... gives the US the right to build as many bases as it wants and station unlimited numbers of military folk there. During the Cold War around 15,000 US person were based in Greenland. It’s now 200. 

"Trump claims Greenland is under threat from imminent takeover by China and/or Russia. It isn't, of course. They haven’t seen a Chinese ship up there for 12 years. But if Trump truly believes it, there's nothing to stop him from ramping up US military assets in Greenland back to Cold War levels or more. Moreover his European Nato allies are on side ... 

"The Trump administration depicts Greenland as a defenceless frozen waste in danger of being picked off by NATO’s enemies. It’s a nonsense. Greenland is a self-governing Danish protectorate. As such it is fully covered by NATO security guarantees, including the all-important Article 5 — which says an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Yet Trump still wants to grab Greenland, all part of his mission not just to be Imperial President of the USA but Imperial Overlord of the whole Western Hemisphere. ... 

"Under Trump America is on the brink of becoming the enemy, not our most important ally. As a lifelong supporter of the US it is chilling to write and say such words. "The stakes could not be higher. As I speak there is despair in European capitals and delight in Moscow. That should tell you everything about the dangerous watershed we’ve now reached."

~ Andrew Neil

"Trump's letter to Norway's Prime Minister makes clear it is Trump — not America — with a psychological need to own Greenland."

~ John Bolton 

"[You say that] 'J6 should’ve been the last straw.' Pardoning the J6 criminals should’ve been the really last straw. 

"Republicans can’t get enough straw."

~ FT

"A lot of good people [sic] are on a hook over Donald Trump. They voted for him for understandable reasons [sic]: to stop Hillary or Kamala, to prevent court-packing, to move the embassy to Jerusalem, to reduce regulations. They rightly applauded [sic] his toughening of immigration policy. ...

"They began to feel invested in him. Sure, he was boorish and bombastic [and also utterly incapable of recognising Constitutional restraints - Ed.], but he was delivering most of what he was elected to do. Naturally, they bridled at criticism from people they disliked, some of which was indeed absurd.But he has plainly now lost his mind. There is no other way of reading 'I am going to threaten an ally with invasion because I didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize.' It is impossible to exaggerate how high the stakes are. If Putin had put an agent in the White House, what would would be doing differently? We are talking about the survival of the Western way of life, about the world order of which the United States is the chief exemplar and beneficiary. That, surely, matters more than 'liberal tears.' Doesn’t it? Because if it doesn’t, we are all damned."

~ Daniel Hannan

PS:

"The most [surely "one of the many"? - Ed.] irritating aspect of the Greenland farce is that it's a distraction from the tragedy of Iran."

~ Niall Ferguson

"The fate of a 2,500-year-old nation and its 93 million inhabitants rests, for now, in the hands of Donald Trump.

On at least eight occasions over the past three weeks, Trump encouraged Iranian protesters to go into the streets, assuring them that the United States had their back and that “help is on the way.” He threatened that if the Iranian regime killed protesters, the U.S. was “locked and loaded” to take action.

“If they start killing people like they have in the past,” he warned, “we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts.”

Despite Trump’s threats, the Islamic Republic commenced what is almost certainly its bloodiest killing binge since its inception, in 1979. The regime itself admitted to 2,000 deaths; human-rights organizations believe that the figure could be higher than 12,000. This death toll likely dwarfs the number of protesters killed by the shah over the 13 months leading to the 1979 revolution.

Trump now confronts a fateful choice. He can make good on his promise and risk the always-unpredictable consequences of military action, or he can face the shame of having given false encouragement to freedom fighters and emboldened one of America’s fiercest adversaries.

If Trump chooses not to act, his encouragement of the Iranian people to rise up, his repeated promises of U.S. support, and his subsequent abandonment of them will be remembered as one of the most callous examples of presidential betrayal in modern history. Expressing moral support for protesters was the right thing to do. But inciting them to rise up and promising intervention, only to watch them get mowed down by the thousands, will be counted as an act of cruelty."

~ Karim Sadjadpour from his article 'Trump’s Fateful Choice in Iran'

PPS:

"We just reviewed Trump’s recent National Security Strategy and Greenland isn’t even mentioned once. Remember this when Trump officials talk about how conquering Greenland is a top national security priority. They are lying to you."

~ Trump Lie Tracker

ST. PAUL, MN — According to sources, membership at a local pentecostal church failed to notice when protestors stormed the building and began screaming at everyone because it wasn't at all dissimilar from a typical pentecostal service.