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struggle4progress

(125,855 posts)
Sun Feb 22, 2026, 08:50 PM Sunday

Re-reading the hospital ship story in context [View all]

Yesterday (Saturday 21 February) the Danish Joint Arctic Command used a Danish Seahawk helicopter to evacuate a crew member from a US nuclear submarine, transporting the member to the local health authorities and a Nuuk hospital

See: Danish military evacuates US submariner
Joint Arctic Command evacuates US submarine crew member

Why did no one in power consider a grateful official Thank you! as the natural response?

Of course, to thank the Danes would undermine the administration's narrative that we must seize Greenland because those dumb Danes can't do a damn thing right.

If we thank them, we have to admit it's great that they took an American to a public hospital in the government health system there, which is an inconvenient narrative when people in the US are losing healh care coverage as measles spreads -- and it invites the question, Why can't we have free health care like they do?

If we thank them, we have to admit they rescued someone from a US submarine, while Hegseth was doing heaven-knows-what: endangering air traffic by aiming laser pointers at birthday balloons? getting top us brass together in one place where a single enemy strike could take them all out? using insecure chats to plan military operation?

If we thank them, we have to admit that the Danes care more about our military members than we do: Kristi Noem, for exampe, diverted search-and-rescue assets from an attempt to locate an overboard crew member, in order to increase deportations

See: Noem's use of Coast Guard resources

So instead of a public Thank You! we get a deranged social media post that claims the US will send a hospital ship to help all the sick Greenlander -- when actually both of the Navy's hospital ships are in dry dock

So we must ask the right questions about this story:

Why are we pissing on our allies? Why can't we have free health care? Why are the Republicans throwing people off healthcare? Why are these fuckwits allowing this damn measles epidemic? Why are Hegseth and Noem smashing things up?


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