VIDEO - Sweden a voluntary vassal state of US

From Assange to NATO, Sweden a voluntary vassal state of US SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=085JbHikPyk [ Uploaded on 13 Feb 2011 ]  RT's Anissa Naouai interviews: Dr Brian Palmer "Dr Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist from Uppsala University, believes that Julian Assange is safer in the UK than in Sweden.  RT has asked him about why Sweden wants the WikiLeaks founder so badly and his fate if he were to be extradited." [ ... Introduction ... see particulars above ] Reporter Sweden has been in the spotlight quite a bit lately, with the WikiLeaks scandal and the spy and sex probes into Julian Assange.  Why does Sweden want Julian Assange to be extradited?  Is it just for - to be questioned, rather, for the sex crimes alleged against him? Dr Brian Palmer It's hard to say.  Certainly, sexual misconduct is taken seriously in Sweden, but few cases get anywhere near the kind of judicial energy behind them as this had.  So there seems to also be other factors at play.  It may be partly the prosecutors and lawyers involved, and issues of their careers.  It may also be that there's some pressure from the foreign policy establishment in Sweden and even from the United States that's played a role. Reporter Do you think that eventually Assange will, in fact, be extradited to Sweden? Dr Brian Palmer It wouldn't surprise me if he is in the end, but I would say that he and his lawyers have a fighting chance of keeping him there and suggesting that whatever questioning of him the Swedish prosecutors want to do can easily be done by video link. Reporter Many critics say that once, and if, Assange is extradited to Sweden that it would be very easy for the US to get him into custody.  Do you agree with that? Dr Brian Palmer I think that's quite right; that it would be easier to get him to the US from Sweden than from Britain.  The Swedish government has shown itself to be more pliant than the British, surprisingly, given the so-called special relationship of trust between Britain and the USA, and the Swedish press has been - and Swedish public intellectuals - have been less vocal in defending WikiLeaks than many people and many papers in Britain, so I think he's safer there. Reporter Why do you think that the media has been reluctant to - am I understanding correctly - openly cover WikiLeaks or cover it in a way that looks like Assange has a fair chance? Dr Brian Palmer There's been a lot of coverage of WikiLeaks and Assange in Sweden, but he doesn't have that many high profile champions.  It's partly because allegations of sexual misconduct weigh so heavily here, that it is a country where feminist ideals are maybe stronger than anywhere else on Earth and, one wishes that no-one would be judged in a case until they had been tried, but there's some hesitation to come to his defence on those grounds; and then, so much of our media in Sweden is owned by a few conservative leaning media houses, particularly Bonniers, a media group that's right leaning and has every interest in not raising these questions, and they're the largest player in the media market in Sweden. Reporter You wrote a biography of the Swedish Prime Minister [Fredrik Reinfeldt] and it's no secret you wrote about this:  that the Prime Minister has been - or is being advised - by US republican strategist Karl Rove.  Why one of America's most notorious neocons and the man, of course, most credited with getting Bush into the White House? Dr Brian Palmer It's an interesting question, because the conservative party (called the Moderates) have plenty of Machiavellian strategists of their own - plenty of Karl Roves of their own - but Rove has a long-term relationship with the Moderates.  Already in the 1980s he came to Sweden to advise them and then he's been back before the election in 2006 and even more recently.  He himself has some Swedish roots, and I think it may be partly initiative from his side that he wants to be involved in politics here.  And then what the Moderates accomplished before the 2006 election had something in common with Bush's electoral victory in 2000.  The problem for both George Bush and Fredrik Reinfeldt was to win the votes of groups who wouldn't necessarily benefit from having a right-wing, tax cutting regime in power.  Bush succeeded so well in wooing working-class votes that in the ... 2004 election, Bush won the white working-class by a 23% margin.  So working-class voters were really the backbone of his victory.  Reinfeldt acknowledged that he was impressed by Bush's campaign and his struggle was also to get working-class voters to support his party (which they hadn't done in the past), and so it's logical that he would have wanted to bring in some of the people from Bush's campaign to help with that - and, not least, Karl Rove. Reporter You've said that the method is linguistic innovations, media manipulation and the art of bringing smear campaigns.  Is that what Sweden wants to take from a strategist like Karl Rove? Dr Brian Palmer The Moderates won the past two elections very much because of the negative image of Fredrik Reinfeldt's opponent in both elections.  It was very much the weakness of the opponent the people were voting against, rather than attraction to Reinfeldt.  And how to accomplish that through different kinds of negative campaigning, in the broad meaning of campaigning that focuses on the deficits of the other candidate, was something that Rove has been very good at, so he would be a relevant adviser there.  Another thing that Rove has been something of a genius at is finding peripheral issues that will mobilise the right voter groups to support the Republicans, and that strategy has also been somewhat effective in Sweden. Reporter Is it normal for Karl Rove to be doing this kind of international advising? Dr Brian Palmer No.  On his own website he notes that Sweden is his only international assignment.  The Moderate party in Sweden is the only foreign party that he's worked for; so, as far a I know, he's a pretty US-focused person.  But then again, as mentioned, he himself has Swedish roots and he may feel a particular obligation to be involved here - or interest to be involved here. Reporter How much influence do you think the US, on a whole - from Assange to NATO to asylum seekers being taken into custody - have on Sweden? Dr Brian Palmer Enormous influence and, in a way, almost puzzlingly so at this historical moment that Sweden should be so eager to host NATO military exercises in the north, to share intelligence information at a very high level with the US and NATO that Fredrik Reinfeldt was so very eager to visit Bush, it was one of his first major international visits after he became Prime Minister in 2006.  All of that is a bit puzzling when the US is no longer so central to Sweden's exports, for example, as it has been at certain periods, when European relations ought to be more central to Sweden in certain ways, and all of this is a far cry from the Sweden of the 1970s and early 80s when Olof Palme was Prime Minister and when the most important relations were often with developing nations - with the South African freedom movement; with India, with the Non-Aligned Movement - the once very progressive Sweden has become something of a voluntary apprentice state, some would say vassal state, of the USA. Reporter And why do you think Sweden took those kind of policy moves Dr Brian Palmer I think a lot of it is admiration for the United States among the foreign policy elite in Sweden,  many of whose members have studied at top universities in the US and had spent time there, and have a good network of personal friendships in the US, and now with the conservative governments in 2006 those ties have become even stronger.  The motto of one of the young people's divisions of the conservative party over many years was we would like things to be like in the USA - vi vill har du som USA, in Swedish - so an open wish to see a more Americanised Sweden, which is exactly what we're seeing. Reporter Thank you very much for being with us. Dr Brian Palmer My pleasure. COMMENT NOTE I don't speak Swedish, so 'Vi vill har du som USA' (referred to above) is just a best guess at what Palmer has said in Swedish. The transcription could do with one more check of audio against text, but I need to switch tasks because my brain's just about crawled to a stop.  LOL Will have to come back to check and comment. Before I split, I'll link an article that I also found interesting. Bush, Rove Tied to Effort to Dismantle Sweden’s Social Welfare Program Tuesday, December 9, 2008 http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/9/bush_rove_tied_to_effort_to And one more ...      Partner At Firm Counseling Assange’s Accusers Helped In CIA Torture Rendition January 12, 2011 By Andrew Kreig http://ctwatchdog.com/govt/how-much-did-lawyer-for-wikileaks-accusers-help-cia-in-torture-rendition That's it.  I'm done for now.