The jagged peaks of Greenland create a landscape of freedom.  Your eye sees the vast open sky overhead, the birds freely soaring on the wind, open terrain without walls or fences for miles, the icy ocean crashing however it pleases on the beach.  This the primeval freedom of an explorer setting foot on new lands, or the Ice Age hunters who first saw the Americas.  A mountaineer, standing on high mountain peak, knows this euphoria of standing before the vast landscape below.  

      When Trump threatens Greenland, he flouts international norms, devastates NATO, and smears American credibility worldwide.  Greenland is more than rock and ice, it is a rich and vibrant ancient culture wanting freedom.  Heated rhetoric about "acquiring" Greenland is a direct attack on the freedom of self-determination.  The fate of Greenland belongs to the people who have lived there for millennia. 

        Threatening a close ally violates bedrock international principles, such as sovereignty and self-determination.  Diplomacy is now based on understanding that borders are not just lines altered at Trump's whims.  Those borders are the result of centuries of Inuit hunters and Viking explorers.  Threatening those boundaries threatens a deep and powerful heritage. 

       Greenland is now a part of America's ally Denmark, just as Hawaii and Alaska are part of the United States.  Denmark, a member of NATO,  fought by the United States in World War II, Iraq and Afghanistan.  They lost more people per capita than the United States.  NATO views an attack on one member as an attack on all, so even attacking one small country has a huge ripple effect, devastating the world's most important alliance.  

       Trump has said America needs Greenland for security, but he is really decreasing security.  NATO restrains China and Russia, both of whom would welcome NATO fracturing.  Worse, America already has military installations in Greenland, so pushing away allies weakens American strength instead of improving it.

        The United States has damaged its moral authority.  People once looked up to America's Constitution.  Immigrants from all over the world poured in, to live under that Constitution.  Other constitutions quoted our founding documents, and looked to them as examples of human rights in action.  Now, America is seen more and more as trampling on those same rights and freedoms.

       Attacking Greenland would be like raping your own wife.  Its brutal.  Its stupid.  Its not a fair or honorable fight.  It betrays the faithful loyalty of a close friend.  And you get nothing you wouldn't get in the first place.