Iceland Minister Rats on FBI

The US sent a “planeload of FBI agents” to Iceland in 2011 to frame WikiLeaks and its co-founder Julian Assange, according to a former Icelandic minister of interior, who refused them any cooperation and asked them to cease their activities.

In June 2011, Obama administration implied to Iceland's authorities they had knowledge of hackers wanting to destroy software systems in the country, and offered help, then-Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, said in an interview with the Katoikos publication.

However, Jonasson said he instantly became “suspicious” of the US good intentions, “well aware that a helping hand might easily become a manipulating hand.”

  RT

The rest of the world knows us so well.

Later in the summer 2011, the US “sent a planeload of FBI agents to Iceland seeking our cooperation in what I understood as an operation set up to frame Julian Assange and WikiLeaks,” Jonasson said.

[...]

“Since they had not been authorized by the Icelandic authorities to carry out police work in Iceland and since a crack-down on WikiLeaks was not on my agenda, to say the least, I ordered that all cooperation with them be promptly terminated and I also made it clear that they should cease all activities in Iceland immediately,” the politician said.

[...]

“If I had to take sides with either WikiLeaks or the FBI or CIA, I would have no difficulty in choosing: I would be on the side of WikiLeaks,” he said.

Should this guy be in a witness protection program?

Jonasson says that while the country debated whether to grant asylum/citizenship to Ed Snowden, “Iceland is part of NATO and such a decision would be strongly objected to by the US.”

Indeed, and with attending consequences.

Here's the entire interview at Katoikos.

When asked how Iceland managed to come through the 2008 financial debacle in decent shape, Jonasson said this:

"Iceland was assertive. Who was to pay for the private debts of the banks, the taxpayers or the investors and capital owners? The British and the Dutch governments tried to force us to make the taxpayer foot the bill, but in the end this was taken to a referendum and the majority of the people said “No, we are not paying”.

[...]

"[I]n times of crisis limits should be place on the extent to which difficulties in the world of finance can be shifted onto the shoulders of the general public. What we did – and this proved to be crucial in saving us from ruin – was to make a clear dividing line between the real economy and the world of speculation. We did not allow the taxpayer to pay for the mistakes of the bondholders.

[...]

"In Iceland the bankers, or “banksters”, as they were often referred to, were prosecuted and held accountable. Many of them are now in prison.

"I’m not joyful about that, but it is important in the eyes of the public that justice should be served."

  Ogmundur Jonasson @ Katoikos

And what about national security in today's world?

"Before meeting security challenges, we must ask why we are facing these challenges. And in seeking the answer we should get hold of some useful working tools: I suggest a mirror."

I like this guy.