Seymour Hersh on How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday February 13, 2023 23:30 by 1 of Indy

The ongoing sacriface and extortion of Europe by the USA

Seymour Hersh the veteran US investigate journalist who in the past broke many major stories from the Watergate, CIA Assassinations, My Lai Massacre, Israeli nuclear weapons, Abu Ghraib, Syrian False Flag Chemical Weapon, Killing Bin Laden. And now he strikes again with an article on how the Americans carried out the destruction of the Russian-German Nordstream I and II pipelines.

Nordstream I was supplying the German economy with huge quantities of gas and Nordstream II which had been completed but not yet put into action was permanently put of action by the sabotage. This forced Germany to buy far more expensive liquidified natural gas, making their industry far less competitive and cutting off any reapproachment with Russia. The US government had repeatedly tried to block the construction of NordStream II and had stated one way or another it would not go ahead. Yet when the pipeline was blown up, Germany did nothing and took in lying down. An once proud nation reduced to an obedient subservient vassal state

In Hersh's article which he published on his substack because mainstream media has long ceased to carry any truth and this was the most effective way to get the story out, documents step by step on how they planned, implemented and carried out the attack. The consequence of this news story have rippled around the world but not in the collective West that have done their level best to make sure the news was not reported. The opening paragraph begins:

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

You can read the full article over at: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

First lets be clear. It was obvious from the outset that the USA were responsible so there is no surprise there. What is likely is that there are factions in the US deep state that have made the leaks to Hersh because they are unhappy with how things have unfolded and they are pushing their own agenda, although Hersh would be fully aware of that too.

Here are some quotes:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning. . . .

Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible.

There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.

And

President Biden and his foreign policy team—National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy—had been vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines.....

....From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western dominance....

Nord Stream 1 was dangerous enough, in the view of NATO and Washington, but Nord Stream 2, whose construction was completed in September of 2021, would, if approved by German regulators, double the amount of cheap gas that would be available to Germany and Western Europe. The second pipeline also would provide enough gas for more than 50 percent of Germany’s annual consumption. Tensions were constantly escalating between Russia and NATO, backed by the aggressive foreign policy of the Biden Administration.

What came next was stunning. On February 7, less than three weeks before the seemingly inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden met in his White House office with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after some wobbling, was now firmly on the American team. At the press briefing that followed, Biden defiantly said, “If Russia invades . . . there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Twenty days earlier, Undersecretary Nuland had delivered essentially the same message at a State Department briefing, with little press coverage. “I want to be very clear to you today,” she said in response to a question. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

Then Hersh goes onto explain the role of Norway...

Norway was the perfect place to base the mission.

In the past few years of East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway. ....

A newly refurbished American submarine base, which had been under construction for years, had become operational and more American submarines were now able to work closely with their Norwegian colleagues to monitor and spy on a major Russian nuclear redoubt 250 miles to the east, on the Kola Peninsula. America also has vastly expanded a Norwegian air base in the north and delivered to the Norwegian air force a fleet of Boeing-built P8 Poseidon patrol planes to bolster its long-range spying on all things Russia.

In return, the Norwegian government angered liberals and some moderates in its parliament last November by passing the Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA). Under the new deal, the U.S. legal system would have jurisdiction in certain “agreed areas” in the North over American soldiers accused of crimes off base, as well as over those Norwegian citizens accused or suspected of interfering with the work at the base.

..

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.)