The seizure of Iceland. Three phases, thirteen hours, 154 prisoners.
Two binders. The first says Iceland can be taken in forty-eight hours. The second says the British Isles cannot be taken at all, and lists the three reasons: the deterrent, the air defence, and sixty-eight million hostile people.
Aster interceptors light the sky over Reykjanes at 02:40 UTC. By 11:20 the British commander surrenders with his ammunition gone. By 15:30 there are armed cordons around the Althing.
Good evening. This morning American forces took control of Keflavik and of the island of Iceland. I am not going to stand here and tell you it went the way Greenland went. It did not. There was fighting. Men were killed — French servicemen, defending a positio…
The whole sky over Reykjanes just lit up. Not lightning. It went up, not down. My daughter is asking me what it is and I am telling her it is nothing.
Keflavik is under attack. Confirmed: the French air defence battery has been destroyed. There are casualties. Runway is cratered at both ends. I am fifteen kilometres away and I can see it.
I have been awake since 02:40. Everyone in this building has been awake since 02:40. There is no shelter. There is no siren. There is no procedure. We are a country that decided eighty years ago not to have any of that, and this morning we found out what that …
They destroyed the air defences first, then the aircraft, then cratered the runway, then landed. I have read that sequence in staff college papers about my own island for twenty years. Watching it executed on a NATO member at four in the morning has been the s…
Sequence as far as we can reconstruct it: 02:40 — SEAD package off the carrier. AARGM-ER and JASSM. MAMBA battery kills four, is overwhelmed by the second salvo. Radar and generators destroyed. 03:15 — Four Typhoons scramble. Two shot down BVR by F-22s staged …
Neuf militaires français ont été tués cette nuit à Keflavík par des forces des États-Unis d'Amérique. Nine French service personnel were killed last night at Keflavík by the armed forces of the United States of America.
Neuf. Nine. Nine French families were woken up this morning by an officer at the door because of a decision taken in a room in Washington by people who will never learn their names. I taught for forty years that this is how it always begins. Not with a declara…
They put a missile battery seven hundred miles from our troops and pointed it at them. I am sorry about the nine. I am. But do not ask me to pretend those men were standing on that rock by accident, or that the alternative was nobody getting hurt.
The battery was invited by a parliament, eleven days after we took Greenland by force. I have been on the side of "the mission is the mission" my whole adult life. But you do not get to move first, twice, and then call the other man's rifle provocation. That i…
Confirmed as of 12:00: - Strikes began 02:40. French SAMP/T battery destroyed, casualties confirmed. - Two RAF Typhoons shot down. Both pilots ejected over Faxaflói and were recovered. - Runway cratered both ends. - Ground fighting at the a…
It has been going for six hours. You can hear it from the city. Somebody said the British are still holding the terminal building. There is no shelter plan here. There has never needed to be one.
At 11:20 UTC the commander of the British detachment at Keflavik agreed a local capitulation under the Geneva Conventions, with ammunition exhausted and casualties sustained. 154 British and French personnel are in US military custody. The Defence Secretary wi…
He is not in Iceland. I got two words this morning. "Not there." I have read those two words about four hundred times. I am not proud of how much of my week they carried.
154 prisoners and nine dead in six hours of close fighting. I want to say something about the nine, but the number that has stopped me is 154. Those are 154 people who woke up on Sunday as allies of the men who captured them by lunchtime. There is no medical w…
Six hours, no resupply, no air cover, against a MEB with naval gunfire and Cobras, in sleet. Whatever else is said this week: 45 Commando held Keflavik for six hours. That is not a defeat anyone should be embarrassed by.
A student asked me today if we are the bad guys now. Thirteen years old, hand up, whole room quiet, completely sincere. Not being smart. Actually asking. I said history is complicated and people will argue about this for a long time. He looked at me like he kn…
There are armoured vehicles around the Alþingi. I walked past that building every day for thirty-one years. I am not going to be able to explain this to anyone who was not here.
Iceland had no army because for eighty years it did not need one, and it did not need one because of a promise. Every small country in Europe is doing the same arithmetic tonight and it is not about Iceland. It is about what a promise is worth on a Sunday morn…
Prime Minister Frostadóttir, from a secure location: Iceland is under illegal, unprovoked foreign military occupation. We call upon the United Nations and upon every democratic nation to refuse to accept it.
Good evening. This morning American forces took control of Keflavik and of the island of Iceland. — Address to the nation, the Oval Office
He said "that is where it stops". I have heard a great many men say where it stops. My husband was in Korea. I do not remember it ever stopping where they said. I hope I am wrong. I have been wrong before and I have never wanted it more.
Two of my seniors signed today. Both of them told me it was because of this morning. One of them said "they killed our guys' allies, coach" and the other said "somebody has to". I do not think either of them could tell you where Iceland is on a map. I do not t…
Three weeks ago I wrote here that I had never posted about politics. Tonight my union is voting on whether to refuse work on American-owned buildings in Copenhagen. Me. A plumber. Voting on foreign policy because there is nowhere else to put it. I do not know …
Two days ago he was handed two binders. Binder one: how to take Iceland. Executable in 48 hours. Binder two: why the United Kingdom cannot be taken. Nuclear deterrent, layered air defence, 68 million hostile people, 350,000 troops needed. The recommendation at…