Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.08.2013, Síða 18

Hell, since the 2008 banking collapse,
Icelanders have even run off to volunteer
for the Norwegian military, citing the
lack of economic opportunity at home
as a reason to take up arms in Pashtuni-
stan. While Icelanders might no longer
be afforded the chance to plunder British
savings accounts, they can still be party
to other sorts of destruction—through a
war that has, in many respects, continued
unabated since 1979.
Feminist psyops
But a little-noticed cable published by
WikiLeaks reveals that Iceland's in-
volvement would be even greater if Ice-
landic diplomats were a tad more gull-
ible. Internal deliberations show that
then U.S. Ambassador Carol von Voorst
told her superiors at the State Depart-
ment to push some pretty manipulative
pro-war talking points on then Foreign
Minister and Social Democratic Alli-
ance head Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir.
Before Ingibjörg embarked on a trip to
Washington for official business in April
2008, van Voorst wrote:
“We should push the Icelanders to
greatly step up their support for police
training, which may also allow them to
blend in elements relating to the status of
women (a heartfelt personal concern of
Gisladottir's).”
The advice—which described In-
gibjörg as “a shrewd politician with an
activist streak” that “tackled well” as
Foreign Minister, even though she “came
in with expectations of being able to take
lengthy vacations in the Nordic tradi-
tion”—did not lead to any sort of Ice-
landic surge, however. Iceland had been
winding down its involvement in the
war before May 2007, when an election
resulted in a Social Democrat-Indepen-
dence Party coalition government. As
von Voorst noted in the very same cable,
Ingibjörg's predecessor (former Progres-
sive Party MP Valgerður Sverrisdóttir)
had “pulled Iceland's mobile liaison
team out of PRT [Provincial Reconstruc-
tion Team] Chaghcharan” the month be-
fore the election, and Ingibjörg could not
be persuaded to reverse that decision.
A May 2008 “scenesetter” van
Voorst sent to then Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice a month after the D.C.
trip made no mention of increased Ice-
landic participation in Afghanistan—nor
did van Voorst tell Rice that she should
try to persuade her Icelandic counterpart
to step up intervention. Ingibjörg then
presided over even more downsizing in
August 2008. In response to a Ministry
of Foreign Affairs report about a 2004
suicide attack that wounded four Iceland
Crisis Response Unit members, she for-
bade Icelandic peacekeepers in Afghani-
stan from carrying weapons, except for
“rare circumstances,” and ordered troops
to be replaced by “unarmed specialists”
at the next opportunity. The “status of
women” propaganda tack, if followed by
the U.S. State Department in actual dis-
cussions, didn't move Ingibjörg, it seems.
“Activist streak”
Even if Ingibjörg had ramped up Ice-
land's official mission to Afghanistan,
any escalation would have almost cer-
tainly been quickly reversed after Prime
Minister Geir Haarde ordered God to
Bless Iceland in October 2008 (this a ref-
erence to the financial collapse, kreppa
scholar neophytes). In November of that
year, van Voorst told Washington that
Iceland's “newly established defense
budget will be slashed.” In 2009, after
Ingibjörg stepped down from the min-
istry (and then from politics altogether
after falling ill in September 2008), then
acting Foreign Minister Össur Skar-
phéðinsson informed van Voorst in April
that she “should be happy” (van Voorst's
words) that Icelandic troops weren't
called home immediately after the Left-
Greens joined the coalition government
just after the New Year.
And although she was described as
having an “activist streak,” Ingibjörg and
the Social Democrats hardly protested
all of the excesses of American Nation-
al Security while in power. In another
WikiLeaks cable from 2007, van Voorst
wrote that Ingibjörg's foreign ministry
conducted an inquiry into alleged CIA
extraordinary renditions that passed
through Iceland as “an attempt to take
the issue away from the opposition”—“an
exercise in transparency,” in the words of
one ministry official, with no legal bite.
In January 2008, Left-Green leader Ste-
ingrímur J. Sigfússon cited a Danish TV
documentary on the issue as evidence that
an independent investigation was needed.
He was rebuffed by Ingibjörg who insist-
ed the matter had been settled, and that
the documentary detailed Iceland's scru-
tiny of the flights. Either way, the debate
shows that the crisis probably did more in
2008 for Iceland's anti-war activists than
any one politician could do.

Afghan women
Whatever the case, Iceland wasn't alone
in facing down the American feminist
PsyOps tactics. According to a March
2010 CIA report (also published by
WikiLeaks), American officials wanted
to exploit the plight of Afghan women in
capitals across Western Europe.
“Afghan women could serve as ideal
messengers in humanizing the ISAF
role in combating the Taliban because
of women’s ability to speak personally
and credibly about their experiences un-
der the Taliban, their aspirations for the
future, and their fears of a Taliban vic-
tory. Outreach initiatives that create me-
dia opportunities for Afghan women to
share their stories with French, German,
and other European women could help to
overcome pervasive skepticism among
women in Western Europe toward the
ISAF mission.”
But Icelanders and their continental
counterparts, to their credit, have appar-
ently been able to see through the shame-
lessness and the logical fallacies. The
Pentagon, the State Department, and the
CIA haven't been particularly perturbed
by the treatment of women in Saudi Ara-
bia—the oil-gushing U.S. ally home to
fifteen out of nineteen 9/11 hijackers and
a theocracy suspected by former Ameri-
can Senators of playing a central role
orchestrating the attacks. Nor has U.S.
intervention improved the lot of Iraqi
women, who have seen and continue to
see their personal security, quality of life
and legal status diminish since the fall of
Saddam Hussein.
Nor does the American military ap-
pear particularly concerned about Af-
ghan women themselves, either. A fa-
mously outspoken Afghan woman and
former Parliamentarian named Malalai
Joya said recently that the U.S. and its
NATO allies “were not fighting on be-
half of women, because they have put
into power the reactionary warlords who
are sworn enemies of women.”
Women in Afghanistan don't need
to wait for ISAF to withdraw to feel the
coercive grip of homegrown patriarchy.
U.S. backed officialdom is piling on in-
grained cultural attitudes grinding Af-
ghan women down. According to the Af-
ghan Interior Ministry's own statistics,
600 women were in prison for “moral
crimes” in May 2013 – an increase of
50 percent since October 2011. These
egregious violations of law, according
to Human Rights Watch, include “be-
ing victims of forced marriage, domestic
violence, and rape.”
And some of these women could have
been arrested by men trained by Icelan-
dic “support for police trainers” too, if
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir had swal-
lowed Carol von Voorst's PR gumdrop.
18The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 12 — 2013
Step into
the Viking Age
Experience Viking-Age Reykja­vík a­t the
new Settlement Exhibition. The focus of the
exhibition is a­n exca­va­ted longhouse site which
da­tes from the 10th century ad. It includes
relics of huma­n ha­bita­tion from a­bout 871, the
oldest such site found in Icela­nd.

Multimedia­ techniques bring Reykja­vík’s
pa­st to life, providing visitors with insights
into how people lived in the Viking Age, a­nd
wha­t the Reykja­vík environment looked like
to the first settlers.
The exhibition a­nd
museum shop a­re open
da­ily 10–17
Aða­lstræti 16
101 Reykja­vík / Icela­nd
Phone +(354) 411 6370
www.reykja­vikmuseum.is
List of licenced Tour
Operators and Travel
Agencies on:
visiticeland.com
Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
Every Thug Needs A Lady
U.S. Ambassador suggested feminist Afghan war propaganda
by Sam Knight
Remember the war in Afghanistan? Of course you do. Not only does it have the distinc-
tion of being the longest U.S.-fought war in history (“Vietnam” has finally been defeated!
U-S-A!), but Iceland has had a role since the start. Three Icelanders are still a part of the
so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), toiling away alongside their
freedom-lovin' allies in the Graveyard of Empires.
Iceland | War
We should push the
Icelanders to greatly
step up their support
for police training,
which may also allow
them to blend in ele-
ments relating to the
status of women (a
heartfelt personal con-
cern of Gisladottir's).
“
„ Helgi Finnbogason