Force Tax Havens

FORCE IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY’S SURVIVAL IS NO SIN.
The brand new Swiss president had the impudence of moaning that “big states do not treat small states as equal”.

At first, this sounds good: the eternal lament of the weak and small being oppressed by the big and strong, something to make the righteous weep. And yet bacteria are small, but nothing to cry about.

The proximal object of the Swiss’ hypocritical whining was the unilateral French decree on January 1, 2013 to tax 5,430 tax payers who earn their living in France, but were (lightly) taxed in Switzerland (through special contracts with Swiss cantons, although they are French citizens). Under what theory is one supposed to negotiate about that?

I have a question for Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden (and other European tax havens).

What were they doing in October 1939? Hitler had just invaded Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Hitler had started a holocaust in Poland, bombing cities, focusing on flour mills, for all to see. France and Britain had started a war against Hitler. 40 French divisions were trying to break through the Nazi Westwall in a very narrow, difficult mountainous sector (they would succeed 54 months later). The French could only attack there, because Belgium and Luxembourg were “neutral”.

It’s not that they are just small: roaches may be small, but they accumulate as great masses. The total population of Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden is now 51 millions (2012). That is, larger than the population of England (although less than the UK).

What were those “small”, “neutral” countries doing in 1939? Well certainly not cooperating with France and Britain. In other words, the “neutral” were not on the side of civilization.

Switzerland was racking in the cash and valuables of millions of Europeans from Middle Europe, who were fleeing the Nazis. That included all the valuables of hundreds of thousands of Jews (conveniently the banks would later lose the records of these transactions, once their clients had been exterminated by their accomplices the Nazis). While filling up its coffers with what would turn out to be an enormous stolen capital, Switzerland was not cooperating militarily with France. This had drastic consequences, because the Maginot line, which extended along the border with Italy, did not extend along the Swiss border.

So France had forces at the ready, in case the Nazis tried to pass by the central plain of Switzerland; the dispersion of French forces on May 10, 1940, was the major factor in the defeat of May-June 1940.

(The major sea-land-air invasion of Norway and Sweden ongoing in May 1940 by elite French and British forces did not help; for example the Legion could not be deployed to help the Fourth Heavy Armored French division led by de Gaulle cut behind the Nazi Panzer army; as it is giant French heavy tanks came within a kilometer of the top Nazi generals, at night, without knowing how close they came to decapitating the German command, including general in chief Guderian, who related the situation; a few legionnaires may have made the difference; but the Legion was getting ready to invade Hitler’s collaborator, Sweden.)

The usual Francophobic rabble will laugh, at the idea of 5 million French prisoners, 200,000 French killed. However France had on her territory hundreds of thousands of political refugees fleeing Nazism. A direct consequence of the French defeat was to enable further the extermination programs directed at Poles, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies. (And soon 28 million Soviets killed.)

Those extermination programs extended the extermination program against mental retards and degenerates, which was completely official, so Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden knew very well what the Nazis were up to.

Sweden was outright intensely collaborating with Hitler by selling him enormous quantities of high grade iron ore that the bloodthirsty dictator needed for making his weapons. The ore was going through Norway along the “Iron Road” to Narvik, a special railway carrying the world’s heaviest trains.
The situation was so strategic that France and Britain decided to cut off that non-sense by force, while Hitler, anticipating this, decided to invade Norway, to secure the “Iron Road”.
Sweden could have sent the ore by a longer route to the Baltic, so France and Britain decided to invade Sweden with an army spearheaded by the French Foreign Legion. Unfortunately the Legion had to be recalled in May 1940, when the Nazis attacked through the Ardennes mountains.

Hitler, smart in the way predators are, and desperate, because his chances against the French army seemed tenuous, had concentrated all his forces on one road through the Ardennes. A Spitfire pilot saw the German armor traffic jam, reported it, and was not believed.

Meanwhile the worldwide dispersed French Air Force was not even at 50% strength over France, and could not check where exactly the main Nazi forces where. Hitler focused on a savage attack against the Netherlands, in the hope that the French would stupidly show a big heart.
The French High Command fell in the trap and, with consummate stupidity sent the Reserve Mobile army of seven armored divisions led by general Giraud to the Netherlands. While the ten Nazi Panzer divisions broke through the Meuse river, way south.
The reason Hitler broke there is that the French Maginot Line finished a few kilometers to the south. The Maginot Line could not be penetrated. It was even stronger than the Nazi Westwall, which held the five million man Western Allies for 6 months in 1944-45.

The portion of the Maginot Line that was supposed to be built in Belgium, going north, had never been built, although it was supposed to be built, by treaty with France. This non construction of crucial fortifications was a particularly fatal treachery of “neutral” Belgium.

The initial Nazi plan called for a double pronged attack through Belgium. It had been fully anticipated by the French High Command. Had the Nazis done this they would have encountered head-on the French and British army, and be defeated. French and British armor was superior to the Nazi one, with much bigger tanks. The rare pitched tank battles with the French and the British brought systematic Nazi defeats (it’s only by going AROUND French and British armor that the Nazis won in May 1940!)
However a plane carrying the Nazi plan crash landed in Belgium, and the Nazis had to change to the crazy plan that worked.

There is a contemporary lesson therein: plans do not resist contact with the enemy, that’s well known. Less known is the fact that a vastly inferior enemy, as the Nazis in May 1940, can win by trying something crazy, as the Nazis did in May 1940. The admonishment is that the Western Allies should not underestimate, again, what potential enemies are capable of. Ballistic missiles, satellite and cyber attacks should be prepared against.

To come back to the initial subject, had the Netherlands, Belgium. Norway and Sweden declared war to Hitler during Fall 1939, Hitler would have certainly lost.

So we can conclude two things:
1) countries that still claim to be neutral, such as Sweden and Switzerland, should be sanctioned against, on that ground alone. They are, in truth vile, always anxious to serve the worst, most profitable master they can find. (See the WikiLeaks story with Sweden or Switzerland’s anxious pandering to Qaddafi, as ongoing symptoms of baseness.)
2) countries that are “neutral” when civilization, basic human rights, or the right to life are at stake (as was the case in 1939), are actually followers of the Dark Side.

Some will say:”Grow up, we are not in 1939 anymore, this is not relevant today.” But nothing could be further from the truth. The order established worldwide, is primarily military. It is symbolized by the United Nations, and was established by the democracies during World War Two (as the SDN’s idea got started in France in 1916; the SDN was the ill fated predecessor of the UN).

Taxation precedes militarization, which precedes democratization (this point of view was argued in these terms in Athens 2,500 years ago, leading to the construction and manning of a 200 triremes fleet, and, at enormous human, financial and ecological cost, the victories of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea… Against a particularly parodic version of the Dark Side. Thus civilization won over fascization.

For decades, Switzerland and the Benelux have played tax havens (it varies from canton to canton; Luxembourg or Zug are particularly abject, the Netherlands milder, but bigger by two orders of magnitude!).

Tax havens are not just draining the bigger states from tax revenues. As I always mention, the withdrawal of the legions from Britain, Germany and Gaul in 400 CE was directly caused by lack of revenues (the Roman plutocrats refused to pay tax, they felt reasonably confident that, protected by their own private armies, they could resist the small invading German bands). The crisis had been long in coming (Marcus Aurelius confronted it already in 160 CE). The “Occidental” Roman empire collapsed within six years.

By draining tax revenues from the bigger, leading DEMOCRACIES (there are about ten of those, led by the nuclear armed USA, France and Britain), the smaller states, the tax havens, are actually conducting CHRONIC hostile operations against democracy, republic, civilization, basic human rights, or the right to life.

Thus, whenever Occidental democracy confronts an enemy, Switzerland, whether conscious of it or not, is an objective ally of said enemy.

So Mr. Swiss president, by choosing the Dark Side, your country is not just small, vile and ugly, but should also be treated as a hostile alien. Such is the lesson from 1940. As France, Germany, Italy, the USA, maybe even Great Britain are presently requesting Switzerland to surrender tax evading plutocrats, they should hesitate to use force (as they have been doing increasingly).

The other lesson is that France and Britain should have invaded Narvik and perfidious Sweden in 1939, instead of waiting passively, and stupidly, for Hitler to attack Norway. (If the Norwegians wanted to fight the Foreign Legion, well, tough luck for them.) Cutting the “Iron Road” in 1939 would have fatally weakened the Nazis.

Right now the galaxy of small and despicable tax havens, worldwide, greatly weakens the big democracies, and is at the root of the ongoing Greater Depression. Tax havens enable gangsterism, banksterism, and tax avoidance by the largest international corporations, while leeching off the military power and order established by the leading democracies.

Tax havens should be viewed as terrorist organizations, as they enfeeble those who fight the enemies of the Open Society, and treated as such. That means, they should be treated with democratically imposed military force, precisely what the plutocrats do not want to pay for anymore than they did in 400 CE.
***
Patrice Ayme

Tags: Force, Law enforcement, Military, Tax Havens