As usual, the Fogh Rasmussen government went into full denial mode: Claim that there is no evidence, claim that DR is biased, claim that the documentary is politically motivated, claim that it's a smear campaign and throw a general temper tantrum for good measure. Nothing new under the sun. They've done that before - on several occasions, in fact - most recently with a documentary that convincingly documented that the Danish mission in Afghanistan had turned prisoners of war over to the United States of America without taking adequate measures to protect said prisoners against being tortured by the Americans - despite the use of torture being official American policy at the time. (As I write this, I realise how sad it is that it should even be necessary to 'take adequate measures' to protect someone from being tortured at the hands of our American allies. But I digress.)

Back then, their coalition with the Popular Party held, and they weathered the storm. But this time, there are three - maybe four - differences.

First, the government has lost a Conservative MP to a succession crisis (the Conservatives have been in a perpetual succession crisis since 1993 - that they only lost one MP this time is actually something of an improvement, and they didn't even have to purge her; she left voluntarily).

Second, New Alliance has suffered a fairly spectacular meltdown along precisely the political fault line that I outlined just after the election: Gitte Seeberg left, she took a good chunk of the party's grassroots with her and she wasn't particularly quiet about it either.

A digression is in order here, I believe: The above-mentioned changes in parliamentary reality mean that the seats are now 87 for VKO, 2 independents, 82 for the opposition, 4 for Y, 3 Atlantic seats that are firmly in the opposition's camp and one Atlantic seat that may or may not support the government. In other words, the government needs the support of either New Alliance or both the independents and the liberal Faroe Islander.

The third difference is that this time the scandal involves Greenland. The Greenland home rule is considerably to the left of the Danish parliament (let alone the Danish government). And quite a lot of people on Greenland remember - and take exception to - the high-handed way the Danish and American governments decided to permit NATO (read: US Air Force) to station nuclear weapons and strategic radars on Greenland without asking the locals first.

The possible fourth difference is that the Danish housing market has finally tanked. In point of fact, according to independent experts, it has collapsed. Precisely what this is going to mean for the real economy is impossible to say at this point - it might be anything from a few more foreclosures to a major blowup. Oh, and the subprime meltdown has killed off its first Danish bank, likely with more to follow. And the labour unions are mobilising (or have, in some cases, already mobilised) for a general strike, come spring. Interesting Times are ahead of us...

"Now, Jake," I hear you say, "that's a very nice update on the political situation, but what's that got to do with the evidence of the torture flights?" Well, nothing, really. And yet everything.

Because what we have now is a concrete accusation that involves areas under the jurisdiction of the semi-independent Greenland Home Rule, which means that the usual motives for not digging too deeply into the Bushist torture programme might not apply - after all, given the American and Danish attitude in the past, it's far from certain that the Greenland authorities were notified of the little fact that their airports and airspace was used in ways that violated international law. And in political terms, the Home Rule is much more closely aligned with the opposition than the government.

Now in the ordinary course of events, that might not matter a great deal, because the Danish government could almost certainly put the kibosh on any attempt by the Home Rule to launch anything remotely looking like it might be able to get within a kilometer of finding anything slightly embarrassing.

But right now, due to the precarious parliamentary situation, that's not the government's call. Effectively, it's New Alliance's call. And considering their demonstrated lack of skill at manipulating the media, the opposition is going to crucify them if they support such a hopelessly bad cause as suppressing not only an independent investigation, but an independent investigation launched by a quasi-independent governmental body within Rigsfælleskabet (the Danish Commonwealth) that is scheduled for full independence within less than a decade.

And New Alliance is already on the brink of irrelevance.

Way I see it, if the Home Rule has enough guts and gumption to carry through with this investigation, we either gain valuable evidence of and insight into one of the most disgusting American black ops since Watergate, or we get the perfect opportunity to erase New Alliance from Danish political history. I'd really prefer the former, but the latter will be sweet none the less.

- Jake