Whoops A Daisy

Just two weeks before Swedish Air Force Wing F17 Blekinge was scheduled to participate in a Nato military exercise 8 months in the planning they were informed that they were to be yanked from participating by the Swedish government - due to the late announcement of Israeli participation in the games.

The sanitized official objective of the exercise was to train for any future international peacekeeping operations. But details of Israeli involvement changed the conditions of Sweden's participation, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Israelis are pissed off and and duly embarrassed. When push comes to shove, Israeli officialdom obviously has more convincing to do if its meticulously cultivated matrix of apologetics de violence and territorial expropriation are to be fully accepted in circumstances beyond the most convenient of such.

The Swedish Ambassador to Israel was summoned by
Israel's Foreign Ministry Director and was treated to an earful for withdrawing from the exercises under the pretext that Israel is not qualified to participate because it is not peace seeking.

Israel's Foreign Ministry Director General Prosor admonished Sweden that "declaring that Israel does not seek peace puts its credibility at risk." He added that, given such a worrisome position, doubt arises as to Sweden's ability to play a significant role in the peace process in future.

What we at SMC find mildly interesting beyond the ironies of Prosor's rebuking seminar on peace processes is that Sweden has already participated with Israel in similar war games without such joint excercises making so much as a blip on the Skankanavian media's radar de convenience.

Last summer Swedish Air Force assets and 10 F-16 fighter jets and about 150 air crew from Israel's Air Force meshed with NATO units in the Maple Flag XXXVIII war games staged in Canada's Cold Lake region of Alberta where such counter-insurgency related vectors as moving and time-sensitive targets were introduced to the exercises.

It is possibly worthy of some shy note that the Isreali Air Force had by the time of the exercises hosted by Canada already an impeccable record of using bombs and missiles against civilians in the occupied territories and against a UN protected camp in Qanaa Lebanon. The Israeli Air Force had already notched up a CV worthy a front row seat at some court in the Hague of extra-judicial assassinations violating various bodies of internationally recognized laws and codes. Superfluous to the discussion is of course the incidental circumstance that last year wasn't an election year in Sweden. This year is.

Anyways...