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688 points hunglee2 | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.896s | source
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edenceover ◴[] No.34714741[source]
> Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norway’s prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. “He is the glove that fits the American hand,” the source said.

A lot of what he is saying here is not strictly true. Jens Stoltenberg was the leader of the labour party and while he was not a communist, describing him as a committed anti-communist is just plainly wrong. It was not part of his platform at all and one the parties in his coalition was a socialist, Marxist party.

Also he was not a hardliner on Russia. In fact during his time as a prime minister Norway and Russia peacefully and diplomatically solved the territorial dispute they had in the Barents Sea.

Neither have the Americans always completely trusted him since the Vietnam war. He was vocally anti-NATO in his youth and the Bush administration gave him a cold shoulder for the rest of it's years after he was elected prime minister in 2005. He claimed that during the congratulation call from the American president he said that he wanted all Norwegian troops out of Iraq and the the mission. The Americans were adamant he did not.

I know it's just one paragraph, but when thing gets misconstructed by the source in such a way it kinda losses credibility with me. Also the quote about Norwegians "Hating Russians" while I've never felt anything like that in my dealing with the armed forces (Norway don't have any historical grievances with Russia), really makes me question it.

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1. mzs ◴[] No.34717516[source]
Thanks, Vietnam was over in '75, Stoltenberg was 16 then. It's just all so absurd.
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2. TMWNN ◴[] No.34719537[source]
>Thanks, Vietnam was over in '75, Stoltenberg was 16 then. It's just all so absurd.

Not necessarily.

I had thought Hersh's "since the Vietnam War" line to be poorly phrased, or an editing mistake, but /u/michaelmacmanus makes an interesting point <https://np.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/10wx42b/seymour_h...>. Maybe we should take the line literally!

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3. mannerheim ◴[] No.34720136[source]
Ah, yes, the CIA were so threatened by a couple of kids throwing rocks at the American embassy, they enlisted a child to uncover the identities of the perpetrators, who presumably were punished with hard labour in the Norwegian gulags for their heinous crime of vandalism.
4. redbar0n ◴[] No.34752212[source]
Hersh possibly confused Jens with his father Thorvald Stoltenberg. Who travelled to North-Vietnam in 1970 to negotiate between them and USA, and who was commended for his negotiating skills by the am. intel community in a declassified rapport from 1980.

See my other comment for sources.