Sabatoging Alliances
Sabatoging Alliances
Details emerge on an alleged US/Norwegian Nord Stream pipelines attack
Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh--who broke the Vietnam War’s Mai Lai massacre and the Iraq War’s Abu Ghraib prison abuse story--has long been a favourite conduit for Department of Défense leaks. Based on a single anonymous source, this week Hersh published an account of how the United States, assisted by Norway, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russian gas fields to German industry.
In the aftermath the explosion and resulting ecologically-catastrophic release of methane gas, there were weak attempts to blame Russia for blowing up their own pipeline. This idea of self-sabotage mirrored notions that the US attacked their own Twin Towers back in 2001. Recently there were reports indicating no evidence of Russian involvement. Before the article was published on Hersh’s Substack account, the conventional wisdom was that the UK and Poland carried out the attack with US leadership and approval.
Hersh’s article is based on a single—but apparently very well-informed—anonymous source. There is already much debate about who the leaker is and what his or her agenda could be. There is no doubt a faction within the Pentagon who see the Ukraine war as a diversion away from the “true” enemy China. Interestingly a week ago, Biden was seen as indecisive when challenged by a Chinese balloon. Hersh’s source had a much different point of view concerning the quality Biden’s manhood:
The source had a much more streetwise view of Biden’s decision to sabotage more than 1500 miles of Gazprom pipeline as winter approached. “Well,” he said, speaking of the President, “I gotta admit the guy has a pair of balls. He said he was going to do it, and he did.”
According to Hersh’s source, commercial interests drove the US and Norway to destroy the pipelines. Deprived of Russian gas, Europe is forced to buy American and Norwegian gas at much higher prices:
Back in Washington, planners knew they had to go to Norway. “They hated the Russians, and the Norwegian navy was full of superb sailors and divers who had generations of experience in highly profitable deep-sea oil and gas exploration,” the source said. They also could be trusted to keep the mission secret. (The Norwegians may have had other interests as well. The destruction of Nord Stream—if the Americans could pull it off—would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.)
By revealing this operation, the US puts Norway at risk of a symmetrical retaliation attack by Russia on Norwegian undersea pipelines. Just after the Nord Stream attack, Norway sagely called on NATO to help protect her pipeline infrastructure:
The EU started importing more gas from Norway after Russia cut gas supplies, but following recent leaks at the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, Norwegian authorities are also concerned that their pipelines carrying gas to Europe are at risk of sabotage.
Security experts warn that Norway and the rest of Europe are facing a new threat to its security and critical infrastructure.
"Norwegian gas supplies are likely the most important and strategic sabotage targets in all of Europe right now," said Geir Hågen Karlsen, lieutenant, and researcher at Norwegian Defence in NRK, a Norwegian public broadcaster.
A lack of security near the 9,000-kilometre Norwegian pipeline could have catastrophic consequences for Europe this winter after Russia stopped supplying gas to Europe. Norway has supplied Germany with 'as much gas as possible recently, due to German dependence on Russian gas.
With the pipelines destroyed, the US and Norway have stopped being partners in crime and are now competitors in the gas business. An eventual Russian attack on Norwegian pipelines would only further reinforce US dominance in the European gas market. One potential motive for leaking this story is to help guide the inevitable Russian response away from the US and towards the much closer and easier target Norway.
Hersh’s article contains at least one very questionable statement:
Norway was one of the original signatories of the NATO Treaty in 1949, in the early days of the Cold War. Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a committed anti-communist, who served as Norway’s prime minister for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since. “He is the glove that fits the American hand,” the source said.
Stoltenberg, the son of a prestigious Norwegian politician, was born in 1959 and so was only 16 years old when the Vietnam War ended. So unless there exists some unknown CIA-youth movement, Hersh should clarify what he meant here. Stoltenberg was well-known in Norway during his youth for throwing rocks at the American embassy and this narrative was highlighted when he was named NATO General Secretary. However, it seems that while many of the other members of his radical group got arrested, Stoltenberg never did. Perhaps through his father, young Stoltenberg had indeed been tasked to infiltrate this anti-American youth group protesting the Vietnam war?
An important aspect never mentioned in the article is the implication that one of the explosive devices failed to detonate and logically should have been recovered by the investigators. According to the source, Sweden and Denmark had been forewarned about the attack and their investigators were the first on the scene. Sweden actually denied her supposed-ally German access to the initial investigation:
Sweden has rejected plans to set up a formal joint investigation team with Denmark and Germany to look into the recent ruptures of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, a Swedish prosecutor investigating the leaks, said.
[…]
He said Sweden had rejected the proposal for a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) from judicial co-operation agency Eurojust because a such a joint investigation would include legal agreements under which Sweden would have to share information from its own investigation that it deemed confidential.
Presumably, Swedish divers, acting as so many Winston Wolfes from the movie Pulp Fiction, solved the problem by cleansing the crime scene and removing any unexploded devices.
If Hersh’s story is true, two of Germany’s NATO “allies”, seeking to boost their own economic wellbeing, have attacked Germany’s critical energy infrastructure and undermined the German economy. Before the attack, US political leaders openly threatened to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline. In a strange sort of Tell Tale Heart phenomenon, US leaders have enthusiastically celebrated its destruction afterwards. This sabotage is an act of war against both Russia and Germany. Will these two nations combine efforts to retaliate against the US, Norway and perhaps Sweden’s energy infrastructure? Probably not, it’s too soon for such an alliance. Russia on the other hand is very likely to retaliate alone in a covert manner.
Despite her obvious black eyes, at present Germany is suffering from battered woman syndrome and is “standing by her man” by not openly challenging Uncle Sam’s attack on her sovereignty. The “sunglasses” Germany is wearing involves hiding behind the narrative that Hersh’s article contains “Russian” accusations. Many Germans, suffering from geopolitical co-dependency, are in deep denial about the source of her abuse. On the other hand, after eventually being given access to the destruction site, German investigators have at least admitted there is no evidence that Russia blew up the pipelines. If the evil Russia didn’t do it then the circle of remaining suspects gets real small.
This thuggish attack on Nord Stream will create a subterranean crack in US-German relations but the actual divorce will happen in the coming years over sanctions against China. If the Ukrainian War ends with a Russian victory, Germany will have a strong economic incentive to ignore the already rising US demands to cut relations with China. The Chinese Question is already creating a rift within Europe. Wildly pro-American nations such as Norway, Sweden, Poland, the UK, etc. will be forced into escalating loyalty displays of increasingly harsh Chinese sanctions. But those European nations that ignore their Primal Father’s injunctions to sanction China may gain an economic advantage, which would only be amplified by also committing the heresy of reconnecting to cheap Russian gas. In the medium-term, Germany may break away from the NATO alliance and join the gathering global Primal Horde along with Hungary, Austria, Serbia and perhaps Croatia, and in their best-case Romania. If this happens, NATO and EU institutions will crumple—just as the Nord Stream pipeline did. And the global Primal Horde will gain a bridgehead in Western Europe.