Russia and economic war by the west #2

Western companies didn't go to Russia for fun or to help Russia, they went because it is enormously profitable for them, so for them to leave it is generally a serious kick in the wallet to give up assets and resources and people they invested time and money in, hoping to get a return on their investment.

Leaving the Russian market will cost them dearly... if they were ideologically opposed to Russia they never would have set up business there in the first place.

Investments in the west will be the same... they would not accept investments from Russians if they were ideologically opposed to Russia and they know if they steal from Russia today, tomorrow it could be from anyone which greatly diminishes the number of people who will invest money in them.

It is dodgy people from middle east countries and countries around the world... most got their money from doing nasty things to their own people... these are the people that invest such money... Russians should not be upset at the lost wealth of very rich Russians investing in foreign markets...

I suspect it is option 3 put forward by Franco.

Even when Russia sanctioned western food exports to Russia there was a huge black market in changing the labels on the food to made in Turkey or made in Africa to sell their products in Russia anyway... lots of stuff got caught and dumped.

As I heard the Swiss banks very much resisted the order to seize bank accounts linked to Russia, so the 3rd option is not as unlikely as it seems.

But I don't know, it seems more like that it was through the CBRs efforts more than anyone else's
If it was just a fake cover story, then the Ukraine should have all the funds it could ever need. Will it or won't it? That should hopefully become clear.

Anyway with this no-one will ever keep money or property anymore in the west until the current world order exist. Only after the fall of US and EU and the rebirth of real independent European nations there will be a hope for the countries in the old continent.

Indeed. The collective "west" has shown that all rules and conventions conveniently leap out the window if U.S. interests are at play. That's the euphemistic "rules-based order" they often refer to, since referring to actual international law etc wouldn't fly, and they know it.

Anywho, all of this simply tells the world that nothing is safe if the west has any leverage over it. Their attitude can switch on a freaking dime, and you can lose it all just like that.

Thus the de-dollarization escalates and so on.

The War of Terror of a Rogue Superpower: Cui Bono?, by Pepe Escobar for Strategic Culture Foundation. 02.11.2023.

Everyone with a brain already knew the Empire did it. Now Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report not only details how Nord Stream 1 and 2 were attacked, but also names names: from the toxic Straussian neoliberal-con trio Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland all the way to the Teleprompter Reader-in-Chief.

Arguably the most incandescent nugget in Hersh’s narrative is to point ultimate responsibility directly at the White House. The CIA, for its part, gets away with it. The whole report may be read as the framing of a scapegoat. A very fragile, shoddy scapegoat – what with those classified documents in the garage, the endless stares into the void, the cornucopia of incomprehensible mumbling, and of course the whole, ghastly, years-long family corruption carousel in and around Ukraine, still to be completely unveiled.

Hersh’s report happened to pop up immediately after the deadly earthquakes in Turkey/Syria. This is an investigative journalism earthquake in itself, straddling over fault lines and revealing countless open air fissures, nuggets of truth gasping for air amidst the rubble.

But is that all there is? Does the narrative hold from start to finish? Yes and no. First of all, why now? This is a leak – essentially from one Deep State insider, Hersh’s key source. This 21st century “Deep Throat” remix may be appalled at the toxicity of the system, but at the same time he knows that whatever he says, there will be no consequences.

Cowardly Berlin – ignoring the nuts and bolts of the scheme all along – will not even squeak. After all the Green gang has been ecstatic, because the terror attack has thoroughly advanced their medieval de-industrialization agenda. In parallel, as an extra bonus, all the other European vassals receive further confirmation this is the fate that awaits them if they don’t follow His Master’s Voice.

Hersh’s narrative frames the Norwegians as the essential accessory to terror. Hardly surprising: NATO’s Jens “Peace is War” Stoltenberg has been a CIA asset for perhaps half a century. And Oslo of course had its own motives to be part of the deal; to collect loads of extra cash selling whatever spare energy it had for desperate European customers.

A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon. What was clear at the time is that an American P-8 was commuting back and forth – with mid-air refueling – from the U.S. to Bornholm island.

A positive screamer is that Hersh – rather, his key source – had the MI6 completely vanish from the narrative. SVR, Russian intel, had focused like a laser on MI6 at the time, as well as the Poles. What still cements the narrative is that the combo behind “Biden” provided the planning, the intel and coordinated the logistics, while the final act – in this case a sonar buoy detonating the C4 explosives – may have been perpetrated by the Norwegian vassals.

The problem is the buoy may have been dropped by an American P-8. And there’s no explanation of why one of the sections of Nord Stream 2 escaped intact.

Hersh’s modus operandi is legendary. From the perspective of a foreign correspondent on the ground since the mid-1990s, from the U.S. and NATOstan to all corners of Eurasia, it’s easy for someone like me to understand how he uses anonymous sources and how he accesses – and protects – his extensive list of contacts: trust works both ways. His track record is absolutely unrivalled.

But of course the possibility remains: what if he is being played? Is this no more than a limited hangout? After all, the narrative oscillates wildly between minute detail and quite a few dead ends, constantly featuring a huge paper trail and too many people in the loop – which implies exaggerated risk. The CIA hesitating too much to go for the kill is a certified red alert throughout the narrative – especially when we know that the ideal underwater actors for such an op would have come from the CIA Special Activities Division, and not the U.S. Navy.

What will Russia do?


Arguably the whole planet is thinking what will be the Russian response.

Surveying the chessboard, what the Kremlin and the Security Council see is Merkel confessing Minsk 2 was merely a ruse; the imperial attack on the Nord Streams (they got the picture, but might not have all the insider details provided by Hersh’s source); former Israeli PM Bennett on the record detailing how the Anglo-Americans killed the Ukraine peace process which was on track in Istanbul last year.

So it’s no wonder that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it clear that when it comes to nuclear negotiations with the Americans, any proposed gestures of goodwill are “unjustified, untimely and uncalled for.”

The Ministry, on purpose, and somewhat ominously, was very vague on a key issue: “strategic nuclear forces objects” that have been attacked by Kiev – helped by the Americans. These attacks may have involved “military-technical and information-intelligence” aspects.

When it comes to the Global South, what the Hersh report imprints is Rogue Superpower, in giant blood red letters, as state sponsor of terrorism: the ritual burial – at the bottom of the Baltic Sea – of international law, and even the Empire’s tawdry ersatz, the “rules-based international order”.

It will take some time to fully identify which Deep State faction may have used Hersh to promote its agenda. Of course he’s aware of it – but that would never have been enough to keep him away from researching a bombshell (three months of hard work). The U.S. mainstream media will do everything to suppress, censor, demean and ignore his report; but what matters is that across the Global South it is already spreading like wildfire.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Lavrov has gone totally unplugged, much like Medvedev, denouncing how the U.S. has “unleashed a total hybrid war” against Russia, with both nuclear powers now on a path of direct confrontation. And as Washington has declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia as its goal and turned bilateral relations into a ball of fire, there can be no “business as usual” anymore.

The Russian “response” – even before Hersh’s report – has been on another level entirely; advanced de-dollarization across the spectrum, from the EAEU to BRICS and beyond; and total reorientation of trade towards Eurasia and other parts of the Global South. Russia is establishing firm conditions for further stability, already foreseeing the inevitable: the time to frontally deal with NATO.

As kinetic responses go, facts on the battleground show Russia further crushing the American/NATO proxy army in full Strategic Ambiguity mode. The terror attack on the Nord Streams of course will always be lurking in the background. There will be blowback. But that will be at a time, manner and place of Russia’s choosing.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-war-of-terror-of-a-rogue-superpower-cui-bono/

Some broken math.

What Hersh Got Wrong, by Mike Whitney for the Unz Review. 02.13.2023.

There’s something not-quite-right about Sy Hersh’s report on the destruction of Nord Stream 2. There are a number of inconsistencies in the piece that lead me to believe that Hersh was less interested in presenting ‘the unvarnished truth’ than relaying a version of events that advance a particular agenda. That is not to say that I don’t appreciate what the author has done. I do. In fact, I think it would be impossible to overstate the significance of a report that positively identifies the perpetrators of what-appears-to-be the biggest act of industrial terrorism in history. Hersh’s article has the potential to greatly undermine the credibility of the people in power and, by doing so, bring the war to a swift end. It is an incredible achievement that we should all applaud. Here’s a brief recap by political analyst Andre Damon:

On Wednesday, journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that the United States Navy, at the direction of President Joe Biden, was responsible for the September 26, 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas between Russia and Germany.

This article, which has been met with total silence in the major US publications, has blown apart the entire narrative of US involvement in the war as a response to “unprovoked Russian aggression.” It lifts the lid on far-reaching plans to use the escalating conflict with Russia to solidify US economic and military domination over Europe.

Hersh revealed that: The operation was ordered by US President Joe Biden and planned by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.” (“Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the Nord Stream bombing: A lesson and a warning”, Andre Damon, World Socialist Web Site).

This short excerpt summarizes the primary claim that is the focal point of the entire article and—in my opinion—the claim is well researched, impartially presented and extremely persuasive. But there are other parts of the article that are not nearly as convincing and will undoubtedly leave alot of fairly well-informed readers scratching their heads. For example, here’s Hersh discussing the timeline for the Nord Stream operation:

“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.” (“How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”, Seymour Hersh, Substack).

“Nine months”?

The war broke out on February 24. The pipeline was blown up on September 26. That’s seven months. So, if there were “more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to” “sabotage the pipelines” then we must assume the scheming preceeded the war. This is a crucial point, and yet Hersh skims over it like it’s ‘no big deal’. But it is a big deal because—as Andre Damon points out—it “blows apart the entire narrative of US involvement in the war as a response to “unprovoked Russian aggression.” In other words, it proves that the United States was planning to engage in acts of war against Russia regardless of developments in Ukraine. It also suggests that the Russian invasion was merely a cover for Washington to execute a plan that it had mapped out years earlier.

Later in the article, Hersh makes the same claim again without emphasizing its underlying significance. He says: “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.”

The truth—as journalist John Helmer states in a recent article—is far different than Hersh describes. Here’s Helmer to explain:

From the full text of the Hersh report, it appears that neither the source nor Hersh has “direct knowledge” of the history of US-led operations to sabotage and destroy the pipelines which became public more than a year before; they directly involved the Polish government and the Danish government. In fact, by error of omission Hersh and his man are ignorant of those operations and of that history.” (“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE HERSH REPORT ON THE NORD STREAM ATTACKS“, John Helmer, Dances With Bears).

US opposition to Nord Stream is not a recent development; it has a long history dating back to the very beginning of the project in 2011. Even back then, an article appeared in the German magazine Spiegel claiming that ” The project is aimed at ensuring the long-term security of Europe’s energy supplies, but it remains controversial”

Controversial?

Why was Nord Stream considered controversial? What is controversial about sovereign nations strengthening economic ties with other countries in order to ensure they have enough cheap energy to fuel their factories and heat their homes?

This question really cuts to the heart of the matter, and yet, Hersh eschews it altogether. Why? Here’s more from Hersh:

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...

America’s political fears were real: Putin would now have an additional and much-needed major source of income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia—while diminishing European reliance on America.” (“How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”, Seymour Hersh, Substack).

Why is Hersh defending the imperial mindset that economic transactions between foreign nations must somehow benefit the United States or be regarded as a national security threat? That is not the role of an impartial journalist gathering information for his readers? That is the role of a propagandist.

Yes, it is true, that Putin would have “an additional and much-needed major source of income”, because that is how the free market works: You sell your gas and you get paid. End of story. There is nothing criminal or sinister about this, and it certainly does not provide a justification for acts of terrorism.

And following this shocking statement, Hersh follows with his other concern that “Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia.”

Why does Hersh invoke this tedious “addiction” meme that is repeated ad nauseam by the political activists in the mainstream media? And what does it actually mean?

The simple fact is, that Germany was getting cheap gas from Russia which increased its competitiveness, profitability and economic prosperity. How is that a bad thing? How can access to cheap fuel be characterized as an “addiction”? If you were able to fill your gas-tank for 1 dollar per gallon, would you refuse on the basis that you might become addicted?

Of course, not. You’d be grateful that you could buy it that cheap. So, why is Hersh pushing this nonsense and why does he double-down shortly afterwards when he says:

“Nord Stream 1 was dangerous enough, in the view of NATO and Washington, but Nord Stream 2, (would) double the amount of cheap gas that would be available to Germany and Western Europe.”

Horrors! Imagine the free market actually working as it was designed to work; lifting people from poverty and spreading prosperity across national borders. Can you see how narrowly imperialistic this is?

Germany needs Russia’s cheap gas. It’s good for its industry, good for working people, and good for economic growth. And, yes, it is good for Russia, too. The only one it’s not good for is United States whose power is undermined by the German-Russian partnership. Can you see that?

And, by the way, there has never been an incident in which Putin has used Russian gas or oil for the purpose of blackmail, coercion or extortion. Never. That is a myth concocted by Washington spinmeisters who want to throw a wrench in German-Russo relations. But there’s not a word of truth to any of it. Here’s more from Hersh:

Opposition to Nord Stream 2 flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate Republicans… repeatedly raised the political threat of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as Secretary of State….

Would Biden stand up to the Germans? Blinken said yes…. “I know his strong conviction that this is a bad idea, the Nord Stream 2,” he said. “I know that he would have us use every persuasive tool that we have to convince our friends and partners, including Germany, not to move forward with it.”

A few months later, as the construction of the second pipeline neared completion, Biden blinked. That May, in a stunning turnaround, the administration waived sanctions against Nord Stream AG, with a State Department official conceding that trying to stop the pipeline through sanctions and diplomacy had “always been a long shot.” Behind the scenes, administration officials reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, by then facing a threat of Russian invasion, not to criticize the move.

There were immediate consequences. Senate Republicans, led by Cruz, announced an immediate blockade of all of Biden’s foreign policy nominees and delayed passage of the annual defense bill for months, deep into the fall. Politico later depicted Biden’s turnabout on the second Russian pipeline as “the one decision, arguably more than the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, that has imperiled Biden’s agenda.” (“How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”, Seymour Hersh, Substack)

This is interesting. We already know that Biden and his lieutenants were resolutely committed to terminating Nord Stream regardless of the risks. So, why did Biden decide to do an about-face and lift sanctions, even while his team was putting the final touches on the plan to blow up the pipeline?

Why?

Are we supposed to believe that Joe Biden suddenly changed his mind and decided to pursue a less dangerous and felonious strategy?

No, as Hersh points out, the decision to blow up the pipeline had already been made, which means the administration was merely looking for a way to hide their tracks. In other words, they were already working on a legal defense of “plausible deniability” which was reinforced by the lifting of sanctions. That was the real objective, to create as much distance between themselves and the terrorist act they had already approved and were about to launch. Here’s more from Hersh:

The administration was floundering, despite getting a reprieve on the crisis in mid-November, when Germany’s energy regulators suspended approval of the second Nord Stream pipeline. Natural gas prices surged 8% within days, amid growing fears in Germany and Europe that the pipeline suspension and the growing possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine would lead to a very much unwanted cold winter. It was not clear to Washington just where Olaf Scholz, Germany’s newly appointed chancellor, stood. Months earlier, after the fall of Afghanistan, Scholtz had publicly endorsed French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a more autonomous European foreign policy in a speech in Prague—clearly suggesting less reliance on Washington and its mercurial actions.” (“How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”, Seymour Hersh, Substack)

This is pure fiction. Of course, Scholz paid lip service to a more “autonomous European foreign policy”. What would you expect him to say to a domestic audience? And, does Hersh honestly believe that Scholz has not been in Washington’s back-pocket from the very beginning? Does he think that Scholz based his decision on Putin’s invasion and not on agreements he had made with Washington before the war had even begun?

Keep in mind, the United States has been arming, training and providing logistical support for Ukrainian forces in the east for the last 8 years, the purpose of which was to prepare for a war with Russia.

Does anyone deny that?

No, no one denies that.

Was Scholz aware of this?

Of course, he was aware of it. Every leader in Europe knew what was going on. There were even articles in the mainstream news that explained in minute detail what the United States was up-to. It was not a secret.

And this is just one inconsistency, after all, didn’t former Chancellor Angela Merkel openly admit (in an interview with a German magazine) that Germany deliberately shrugged off its obligations under the Minsk treaty in order to buy time so the Ukrainian army could get stronger so they’d be better prepared to fight the Russian invasion.

Yes, she did! So, we can be 100% certain that Scholz knew what the overall game-plan was. The plan was to lure Russia into a war in Ukraine and then claim “Unprovked aggression”. Scholz knew it, Hollande knew it, Zelensky knew it, Boris Johnson knew it, Petro Poroshenko knew it and Biden knew it. They all knew it.

Even so, Hersh wants us to believe that Scholz knew nothing about these elaborate and costly plans, but simply made his decisions as developments took place in real time. That is not true. That is not what happened and, I would argue, that Hersh knows that is not what happened.

But the biggest failing of the Hersh piece is the complete omission of the geopolitical context in which this act of terrorism took place. The US doesn’t go around the world blowing up critical energy infrastructure for nothing. No. The reason Washington embarked on this risky gambit was because it is facing an existential crisis that can only be resolved by crushing those emerging centers of power that threaten America’s dominant position in the global order. That’s what’s going on below the surface; the US is trying to roll back the clock to the glorious 1990’s after the Soviet empire had collapsed and the world was Washington’s oyster. But those days are gone forever and US power is irreversibly eroding due to its basic lack of competitiveness. If the US was still the industrial powerhouse it was following WW2—when the rest of the world was in ruins—then there would be no need to blow up pipelines to prevent European-Russian economic integration and the emergence of a massive free trade zone spanning the area from Lisbon to Vladivostok. But the fact is, the US is not as essential to global growth as it once was and, besides, other nations want to be free to pursue their own growth model. They want to implement the changes that best fit their own culture, their own religion and their own traditions. They don’t want to be told what to do. But Washington doesn’t want change. Washington wants to preserve the system bestows the greatest amount of power and wealth on itself. Hersh does not simply ignore the geopolitical factors that led to the sabotage, he proactively creates a smokescreen with his misleading explanations. Check it out:

“As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia. It was at this unsettled moment that Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to bring together an interagency group to come up with a plan.”

More baloney. Washington doesn’t care about Germany’s pathetic contribution to the war effort. What Washington cares about is power; pure, unalloyed power. And Washington’s global power was being directly challenged by European-Russian economic integration and the creation of a giant economic commons beyond its control. And the Nord Stream pipeline was at the very heart of this new bustling phenom. It was the main artery connecting the raw materials and labor of the east with the technology and industry of the west. It was a marriage of mutual interests that Washington had to destroy to maintain its grip on regional power.

Think about it: This new economic commons, (“Greater Europe”) would eventually ease trade and travel restrictions, allow the free flow of capital and labor between countries, and harmonize regulations in a way that would build trust and strengthen diplomatic ties. Here’s more from an earlier piece that sums it up:

In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO. There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts. Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power. This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream. It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in.” (“The Crisis in Ukraine Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany“, Unz Review)

It is the responsibility of a journalist to provide the context that is needed for the reader to understand the topic of discussion. Hersh doesn’t do that, which leads me to believe that John Helmer is right when he says:

This is an indictment of the Biden pipeline plot, not of the US war plan.” (“What’s Wrong with the Hersh Report”, John Helmer, Dances With Bears).

https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/what-hersh-got-wrong/

Sanctions work 

What is called in the spy jargon a 'red herring'.

Snowden: US Creates Panic Over Downed Objects to Distract Attention From Nord Stream Blast, 02.14.2023.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, who lives in Russia, said the panic over the possible alien or extraterrestrial origin of flying objects downed above the United States and Canada is designed to distract journalists from investigating Nord Stream pipeline blasts.
"It's not aliens. I wish it were aliens but it's not aliens. It's just the ol' engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring natsec reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings (à la nordstream)," Snowden wrote on Twitter.

Earlier, White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said there is no indication that recent incidents involving unknown flying objects over the United States and Canada are linked to alien or extraterrestrial activity.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh earlier published a report saying that US Navy divers during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022 planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, which Norway activated three months later. According to the report, US President Joe Biden decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team.

The US later denied its involvement in blowing up the Russian gas pipelines last year.

On September 26, 2022, three of the four strings of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were damaged after an underwater blast. The pipeline's operator Nord Stream AG reported that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the timeframe for repairs.

https://sputniknews.com/20230214/snowden-us-creates-panic-over-downed-objects-to-distract-attention-from-nord-stream-blast-1107395276.html

Russia wants UN probe into Nord Stream blasts, 02.14.2023.

A legislative proposal cites Seymour Hersh’s expose to blame US for the pipeline attack.

The Russian parliament’s committee for international relations has approved a motion to ask the UN Security Council for an investigation into last September’s explosions on the Baltic Sea pipelines, for which they blame the US. The motion was introduced on Tuesday and is expected to be approved by the State Duma later this week.

The proposal describes the blasts as “an act of international terrorism” and a “monstrous sabotage,” calling on the UN to hold accountable both those who gave the order and those who carried it out. The criminal act has threatened the security of all Eurasia, TASS reported, quoting the text of the document.

US President Joe Biden’s administration “gave the illegal order and bears full responsibility for the multi-billion-dollar damage to the infrastructure of Russia, Germany, France and the Netherlands,” according to the document. It describes the pipeline sabotage as inflicting long-term damage to the security, economy and environment of the entire region.

The lawmakers are referring to last week’s expose by American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who described how the pipelines were damaged in a joint operation between the US and Norway. US actions require “a thorough international investigation, punishment of those responsible and compensation for the damage caused.”

The committee has requested putting their proposal on the agenda of Thursday’s session of the State Duma, where it may be up for a vote.

A series of explosions heavily damaged both Nord Stream pipelines, which were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of the EU.

The blasts happened near the Danish island of Bornholm, in an area where the US Navy and its NATO allies conducted BALTOPS 22 exercises several months prior. Last week, Hersh described how American divers planted the explosives under the cover of the naval exercise, saying they were later activated by a Norwegian patrol airplane.

When Hersh asked the US government for comment, it denounced the story as “fiction” and “false.” It has received little to no media attention in the West since. On Monday, NATO’s secretary-general – and former Norwegian prime minister – Jens Stoltenberg announced the formation of a new “coordination cell” to work on securing undersea infrastructure.

https://www.rt.com/russia/571484-duma-un-nordstream-probe/

I think the article is right with some of the criticism of Seymour Hersh. One does not get to be this acclaimed investigative journalist, without at least self-censoring oneself in accordance with the party line and keeping the more controversial of conclusions private.

But in my opinion the author makes a couple of its own leaps of faith, and even contradicts himself; whereas Hersh's article was at least self-consistent.

The former when discussing Scholz and him being in the know about everything all along. So did he know about the Nord Stream bombing in advance then? And what of his conflict with Baerbock, due to her overly-bellicose language on Russia and then her role in tricking Scholz to agreeing to Leopard 2 deliveries?

And the contradiction being when the article, after all this damning of the German leadership - then concludes that Nord Stream 2 was destroyed to prevent this free trade area from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Umm.. hasn't the whole article just been arguing that every European leader was party to this plot to goad Russia into a war with the Ukraine, with the inevitable implication that the EU-Russia free trade plan has been a dead parrot for years now?
The author should make up his mind.

IMO Germany just wanted to have its cake and eat it too, and was still hoping for cheap gas supplies from Russia through Nord Stream 2, maybe after Putin was overthrown, but even if he stayed in power. That's pretty much the simplest explanation and the best fitting one too.
As for Scholz; he is just a figurehead and not a particularly bright one. He wasn't in command of all the facts at the start of his tenure, but he loyally did as his advisers said, and when he tried to push back over the tank deliveries, then found out that the US owns his own foreign minister and probably a bunch of other people, and proceeded to quickly remind him of Germany's own limited sovereignty. It ultimately doesn't matter what he did or didn't know.

Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens, by Pepe Escobar for Strategic Culture Foundation.02.14.2023.

Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report on how the United States government blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September continues to generate rippling geopolitical waves all across the spectrum.

Except, of course, in the parallel bubble of U.S. mainstream media, which has totally ignored it, or in a few select cases, decided to shoot the messenger, dismissing Hersh as a “discredited” journalist, a “blogger”, and a “conspiracy theorist”.

I have offered an initial approach, focused on the plentiful merits of a seemingly thorough report, but also noting some serious inconsistencies.

Old school Moscow-based foreign correspondent John Helmer has gone even further; and what he uncovered may be as incandescent as Sy Hersh’s own narrative.

The heart of the matter in Hersh’s report concerns attribution of responsibility for a de facto industrial terror attack. Surprisingly, no CIA; that falls straight on the toxic planning trio of Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland – neoliberal-cons part of the “Biden” combo. And the final green light comes from the Ultimate Decider: the senile, teleprompt-reading President himself. The Norwegians feature as minor helpers.

That poses the first serious problem: nowhere in his narrative Hersh refers to MI6, the Poles (government, Navy), the Danes, and even the German government.

There’s a mention that on January 2022, “after some wobbling”, Chancellor Scholz “was now firmly on the American team”. Well, by now the plan had been under discussion, according to Hersh’s source, for at least a few months. That also means that Scholz remained “on the American team” all the way to the terror attack, on September 2022.

As for the Brits, the Poles and all NATO games being played off Bornhom Island more than a year before the attack, that had been extensively reported by Russian media – from Kommersant to RIA Novosti.

The Special Military Operation (SMO) was launched on February 24, almost a year ago. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 blow up happened on September 26. Hersh assures there were “more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to ‘sabotage the pipelines’”.

So that confirms that the terror attack planning preceded, by months, not only the SMO but, crucially, the letters sent by Moscow to Washington on December 2022, requesting a serious discussion on “indivisibility of security” involving NATO, Russia and the post-Soviet space. The request was met by a dismissive American non-response response.

While he was writing the story of a terror response to a serious geopolitical issue, it does raise eyebrows that a first-rate pro like Hersh does not even bother to examine the complex geopolitical background.

In a nutshell: the ultimate Mackinderian anathema for the U.S. ruling classes – and that’s bipartisan – is a Germany-Russia alliance, extended to China: that would mean the U.S. expelled from Eurasia, and that conditions everything any American government thinks and does in terms of NATO and Russia.

Hersh should also have noticed that the timing of the preparation to “sabotage the pipelines” completely blows apart the official United States government narrative, according to which this a collective West effort to help Ukraine against “unprovoked Russian aggression”.

That elusive source

The narrative leaves no doubt that Hersh’s source – if not the journalist himself – supports what is considered a lawful U.S. policy: to fight Russia’s “threat to Western dominance [in Europe].”

So what seems a U.S. Navy covert op, according to the narrative, may have been misguided not because of serious geopolitical reasons; but because the attack planning intentionally evaded U.S. law “requiring Congress to be informed”. That’s an extremely parochial interpretation of international relations. Or, to be blunt: that’s an apology of Exceptionalism.

And that brings us to what may be the Rosebud in this Orson Welles-worthy saga. Hersh refers to a “secure room on the top floor of the Old Executive Office Building …that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board”.

This was supposedly the place where the terror attack planning was being discussed.

So welcome to PIAB: the President Intelligence Advisory Board. All members are appointed by the current POTUS, in this case Joe Biden. If we examine the list of current members of PIAB, we should, in theory, find Hersh’s source (see, for instance, “President Biden Announces Appointments to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and the National Science Board”; “President Biden Announces Key Appointments”; “President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions”; “President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions”; and “President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions”.

Here are the members of PIAB appointed by Biden: Sandy Winnefeld; Gilman Louie; Janet Napolitano; Richard Verma; Evan Bayh; Anne Finucane; Mark Angelson; Margaret Hamburg; Kim Cobb; and Kneeland Youngblood.

Hersh’s source, according to his narrative, asserts, without a shadow of a doubt, that “Russian troops had been steadily and ominously building up on the borders of Ukraine” and that “alarm was growing in Washington”. It’s beggars belief that this supposedly well informed lot didn’t know about the massing of NATO-led Ukrainian troops across the line of contact, getting ready to launch a blitzkrieg against Donbass.

What everyone already knew by then – as the record shows even on YouTube – is that the combo behind “Biden” were dead set on terminating the Nord Streams by whatever means necessary. After the start of the SMO, the only thing missing was to find a mechanism for plausible deniability.

For all its meticulous reporting, the inescapable feeling remains that what Hersh’s narrative indicts is the Biden combo terror gambit, and never the overall U.S. plan to provoke Russia into a proxy war with NATO using Ukraine as cannon fodder.

Moreover, Hersh’s source may be eminently flawed. He – or she – said, according to Hersh, that Russia “failed to respond” to the pipeline terror attack because “maybe they want the capability to do the same things the U.S. did”.

In itself, this may prove that the source was not even a member of PIAB, and did not receive the classified PIAB report assessing Putin’s crucial speech of September 30, which identifies the “responsible” party. If that’s the case, the source is just connected (italics mine) to some PIAB member; was not invited to the months-long situation-room planning; and certainly is not aware of the finer details of this administration’s war in Ukraine.

Considering Sy Hersh’s stellar track record in investigative journalism, it would be quite refreshing for him to elucidate these inconsistencies. That would get rid of the fog of rumors depicting the report as a mere limited hangout.

Considering there are several “silos” of intel within the U.S. oligarchy, with their corresponding apparatuses, and Hersh has cultivated his contacts among nearly all of them for decades, there’s no question the allegedly privileged information on the Nord Stream saga came from a very precise address – with a very precise agenda.

So we should see who the story really indicts: certainly the Straussian neo-con/neoliberal-con combo behind “Biden”, and the wobbly President himself. As I pointed out in my initial analysis, the CIA gets away with flying colors.

And we should not forget that the Big Narrative is changing fast: the RAND report, the looming NATO humiliation in Ukraine, Balloon Hysteria, UFO psy op. The real “threat” is – who else – China. What’s left for all of us is to swim in a swamp crammed with derelict patsies, dodgy cover stories and intel debris. Knowing that those who really run the show never show their hand.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/nord-stream-terror-attack-the-plot-thickens/

Biden postponed the Nord Stream explosion out of fear, Hersh said, 02.14.2023.

Hersh: Biden, out of fear, postponed the undermining of Nord Stream from June to September 2022.

US President Joe Biden, out of fear, postponed the bombing of Nord Stream from June to September 2022, while many participants in this operation considered it insane, Seymour Hersh, a well-known American investigative journalist, said in an interview with Berliner Zeitung.

An article appeared on Hersh's website last Wednesday alleging that US Navy divers planted explosives under the Nord Stream gas pipelines last summer , and the Norwegians activated them three months later.

"Yes, they (American miner divers. - Ed.) did it towards the end of the exercise. <...> But at the last moment the White House got nervous. The President said he was afraid to do it. He changed his mind and issued new orders , making it possible to remotely detonate bombs at any time," the journalist explained.

According to Hersh, Biden "ordered it to be done in September," and many of the participants in this operation, who held "high positions in the security services," opposed the project, "considering it insane." At the same time, due to the delay, only six bombs out of the eight laid down worked, he specified.

The journalist added that the American leader was afraid of the likely withdrawal of Germany from the sanctions against Moscow against the backdrop of the unfortunate state of affairs in the conflict in Ukraine for the West, and therefore came to the decision to arrange sabotage.

“Nord Stream 2 was suspended by Germany itself, not by international restrictions, and the United States feared that Germany would lift sanctions due to the cold winter,” Hersh concluded.

From the analysis of the tracks in the Flightradar24 archive, conducted by RIA Novosti, it follows that the aircraft of the US and German navies in June 2022, during the Baltops-22 exercises, regularly circled over the sites of future explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines. According to the portal, from June 8 to 16, the German P-3 Orion and the American P-8 Poseidon performed regular flights in this area. At the same time, the military aircraft descended to low altitudes and almost always turned off the transponders, so some of their trajectories did not fall into the Flightradar tracks.

Explosions at once on two Nord Streams thundered on September 26. The operator Nord Stream AG reported that the emergency on the pipelines is unprecedented and it is impossible to estimate the repair time. Vladimir Putin called the incident an obvious terrorist attack.

https://ria.ru/20230215/podryv-1852055648.html

Seymour Hersh: Only 6 Out of 8 Bombs Planted Under Nord Stream Pipelines Were Detonated, 02.15.2023.

BERLIN (Sputnik) - Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said on Tuesday that only six out of eight bombs planted under the Nord Stream pipelines went off as US President Joe Biden postponed the special operation and the bombs were under water for too long.

Last week, Hersh published a report saying that US Navy divers during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022 planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, which Norway activated three months later. According to the report, Biden decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team.

"It was the story I wanted to tell. At the end of September 2022, eight bombs were to be blown up off the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, and six of them exploded," Hersh said in an interview with German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, citing an unnamed source.

He added that the two bombs did not explode as they spent too much time underwater because Biden postponed the special operation on the destruction of the pipelines.

The journalist said that Biden did not have an elaborate plan for the blowing up of pipelines during the meriting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022.

"We Americans did not have a plan worked out at the time, but we knew we had an opportunity to implement it," Hersh said, referring to January-February 2022.

He said it was clear to the White House team they could blow up the pipelines using an "incredibly powerful" explosive called C4, adding that the detonation could be controlled remotely by underwater hydroacoustic instruments. In early January, according to Hersh, the option was reported to the White House, and two or three weeks later, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland herself said that Washington "could do it."

The operation was top secret, and the president should not have told anyone about US capabilities, but "he likes to talk and sometimes says things he should not say," Hersh told the media, adding that Scholz at the time found nothing to object to and expressed himself very "vaguely."

Moreover, the journalist added that Biden decided to go on with the operation out of fear that Germany could lift sanctions, imposed against Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine.

"I think the reason for this decision was that the war was not going well for the West, and they were afraid of the coming winter. Nord Stream 2 was suspended by Germany itself, not by international sanctions, and the US feared that Germany would lift the sanctions because of the cold winter," Hersh said, claiming that "Biden decided to let the Germans freeze this winter. The president of the United States would rather have Germany frozen than that Germany possibly stops supporting Ukraine."

The US government has repeatedly denied involvement in the blowing up of the Russian pipelines, while the Russian government has said the United States should explain itself and an open investigation into the blast needs to be undertaken.

On September 26, 2022, three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were damaged after an underwater blast.

https://sputniknews.com/20230215/seymour-hersh-only-6-out-of-8-bombs-planted-under-nord-stream-pipelines-were-detonated-1107443240.html

A bare-faced, indecent lie:

State Department rejects allegations of US involvement in undermining Nord Stream, 02.15.2023.

The United States rejects accusations of undermining Nord Stream, Washington leaves the investigation to those countries in whose jurisdiction the incident occurred, the US State Department said.

https://russian.rt.com/world/news/1111876-ssha-podryv-severnyh-potokov

And Sy Hersh has already announced that more will come!

Hersh called his investigation of the Nord Stream bombing the first stage, 02.15.2023.

Hersh, the author of an article about Washington's bombing of Nord Stream, called it the first stage.

MOSCOW, February 15 - RIA Novosti. The American journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, who published an article about US involvement in the sabotage of the Russian Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, urged "not to switch" and said that "this is only the first stage."

Earlier it was reported that Hersh accused the leading American media and authorities of hushing up the story of Washington's involvement in undermining the Nord Stream.

"Don't switch. We're only at first base," Hersh wrote on his blog, using a baseball term. "We can probably learn more about (US President) Joe Biden's decision not to leave the German government options to think about the lack of cheap gas this winter," the journalist added.
Hersh's investigation, which he posted on his own blog, was largely ignored by the mainstream US media, and the US authorities repeated that they had nothing to do with last year's explosions on the seabed.

Hersh noted that the New York Times and the Washington Post, which had provided him with a platform many times in the past, this time "didn't publish a word about the pipeline story, didn't even quote the White House rebuttal." "Similarly, calls for a full-fledged investigation ... from officials in Russia and China have been ignored by the US media," he added.

https://ria.ru/20230215/diversiya-1852211015.html

The biggest problem behind this scandal is the persistence of impunity after the assertion of exceptionalism, something contrary to reason as proclaimed by advanced civilizations!

Russia convenes UN Security Council on sabotage at Nord Stream, 02.15.2023.

Russia convened the UN Security Council on sabotage at Nord Stream on February 22.

Russia is convening a meeting of the UN Security Council on February 22 regarding the sabotage of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.


Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, announced this, TASS reports .


The meeting is convened in connection with new data concerning sabotage on gas pipelines. It should take place at 15.00 New York time (23.00 Moscow time) on February 22, Polyansky said.


We will remind, earlier the American journalist Seymour Hersh said that US Navy divers installed  explosives. 


The incidents took place in the fall of 2022, later Russian President Vladimir Putin  pointed out that this was a terrorist attack.

https://vz.ru/news/2023/2/15/1199457.html

We demand that Russia and China follow our interpretation of international law when it suits us, but any incident we are involved in cannot even be investigated and should not even be talked about apart from the initial denial of course.

The West.

And we should not forget that the Big Narrative is changing fast: the RAND report, the looming NATO humiliation in Ukraine, Balloon Hysteria, UFO psy op. The real “threat” is – who else – China.

Well 200D chess master Putin obviously planned to prepare Russia for a collision course with the west as a precursor to get the west to be more open about its imperialism and colonialism so when they got around to confronting China... which was inevidible... as is US confrontation with any country that becomes too powerful and a potential rival to is position.

Thing is that western sanctions and tantrums have started the destruction of the US dollar and of course the USs perceived hold on the world economic system and other international systems.

Russia has weakened the west and started the creation of alternatives to western dominated organisation... and the US attacks on China will finish them... or give the west a chance collectively to realise the evil of those they let into power in the west and backtrack to what they claimed they were... the civilised and human focused leaders of the free world... ie the future.

Should be interesting to watch.

Anybody with a brain knew the US did it. Seymour Hersh's article -along with his notable credit- is more like confirmation.
It's a shame that German willfully accept US abuse, over and over, without even try to resist.

It's a shame that German willfully accept US abuse, over and over, without even try to resist.

We'll, so Vicky 'Fu*k the EU' Nuland played an active role in it, didn't she? So with that cow it's 'Fu*k Germany ' all the way round!

Germany is an occupied country.
Dot.
There is no need for other explanation.
Its status is much weaker to let's say Korea.

New evidence emerges of US involvement in blowing up Nord Stream, 02.16.2023.

American journalist John Dugan presented new data on the undermining of the US Nord Stream.

MOSCOW, February 16 - RIA Novosti. NATO exercises Baltops-2022, which took place last summer near the Danish island of Bornholm, involved American divers with deep-sea equipment, according to an anonymous letter received by American journalist John Dugan.

He provided the text of the letter to RIA Novosti. According to Dugan, he has every reason to trust an anonymous source, as he presented evidence - photos from the exercises and documents. But he asked not to distribute them, for fear of revealing his identity. The letter was sent from a disposable email box on October 2nd. Dugan tried to contact the author, but was unsuccessful.

"I completely trust the letter. It contains details that only a person who is well acquainted with the Baltops-2022 exercises and deep-sea equipment could provide. Everything was correct," the RIA Novosti journalist said.

The author of the letter claims to have participated in the Baltops exercise last June. According to him, on June 15, a helicopter delivered a group of Americans in civilian clothes.

"My first thought: they looked like a group of terrorists," the letter says.

The author explains that their hairstyles, mustaches and beards, as well as the absence of name tokens, seemed strange to him.

The divers were greeted by a Vice Admiral of the US Navy's Sixth Fleet and a group of plainclothes men. The author of the letter did not hear their conversation because of the noise of the helicopter.

An eyewitness said that he noticed Americans wearing MK-29 rebreathers that use an oxygen-helium mixture for deep-sea diving. In addition, they had other highly professional and expensive equipment that regular naval units do not use. In addition, they brought small boxes.

The divers themselves said that they would participate in mine clearance exercises: they had to sail on a rubber boat to a certain area, find and defuse anti-ship mines. However, they did not have the equipment for this. And after a conversation with the vice admiral, the author of the letter claims, they did not go to the exercise area and were absent for quite a long time.

“They left the boat in their rebreathers and disappeared underwater for more than six hours. There is no autonomous equipment that will allow a diver to stay underwater for six hours. With the latest military systems, three or four hours maximum,” the letter says. According to the author, the US military returned without the boxes, then they were picked up by a helicopter.

At a briefing before the start of Baltops-2022, the commander of the Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral Eugene Black, said that the exercise program included the development of underwater mining. But since the author of the letter could not be contacted, Dugan was unable to confirm the identity of the Vice Admiral referred to in the letter.

Last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh published an article about an investigation into the accident on Russian export gas pipelines laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. According to him, American divers planted explosives under Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 during Baltops-2022, and three months later the Norwegians set it off. Moreover, President Joe Biden decided on sabotage after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team, the journalist claims. In his opinion, the reason was Biden's fears that Germany, which receives gas from Russia through Nord Stream, would not want to participate in military assistance to Ukraine.

Washington categorically denies these accusations.

The attacks on Russian export pipelines took place on September 26, when a gas leak was discovered in four places at once. Sweden, Denmark and Germany are conducting investigations, but they have not yet led to any concrete results. The Kremlin called the accident an act of international terrorism.

https://ria.ru/20230216/vodolazy-1852456054.html

It's a shame that German willfully accept US abuse, over and over, without even try to resist.

The German people will continue to be abused by the US until it hurts so much they can't take it any more... and of course by then it will be too late... they will have no energy and all their companies will have HQs in Germany... though they might move them to Ireland to get better tax breaks, but all their industry will be in the US because of US subsidies that the EU wont be able to afford because their energy cost increases are permanent.

If they don't wake up soon they probably need not bother waking up... burn with the house would be a mercy...

But then 80 odd years ago they fucked over Russia so who cares.

Regarding who actually did it.... who cares... getting rid of a cheap efficient way of supplying gas to Germany does not really effect Russia at all, it is Germany that suffers in that situation... the US and her bitches didn't screw Russia... they screwed their own European allies... all of them... and the fact that they remain silent about it suggests they like it and want some more... give it to them America...

@GB

i wouldn't go that far. In international politics there is no love just national interests. And in interest of Russia strong but friendly Germany is very important. Germany is screwed now because still is under US occupation. I hope Germans will use global shits to reclaim their independence. Same as Russia is doing right now.

Seymour Hersh predicted the collapse of NATO due to the undermining of the "Nord streams", by Alexandra Yudina for VZGLYAD. 02.17.2023.

Journalist Seymour Hersh spoke about the enormous consequences for the United States due to the undermining of the Nord Stream.

US actions to undermine Nord Stream will have dire consequences for themselves, journalist Seymour Hersh said in an interview with Democracy Now.

According to him, the White House continues to hush up the topic of the investigation and even receive approval in the press - The New York Times no longer writes on this topic. All this will lead to consequences in the long term, up to the withdrawal of some countries from NATO, RIA Novosti reports.

At the same time, Hersh emphasized that such a prospect is not so terrible for Biden, it is more important for him to “continue the military conflict in which he will not win.”

During the interview, Hersh called the Nord Stream bombing a diversion directed against Europe in order to demonstrate its absolute dependence on the United States.

The journalist also recalled the statement of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said that Russia "will no longer be able to use its gas as a weapon."

Such an idea, according to Hersh, has dominated the US for more than 20 years, since Russian oil and gas "always scared the hell out of Washington."

Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh  described in detail  the scheme to undermine the Nord Stream, in which, according to the journalist, the United States is directly involved.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin  said that after Hersh's publication, the US media fell into a state of "collective aphasia."

Russia  qualified  the explosions of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines as an act of international terrorism.

https://vz.ru/news/2023/2/17/1199659.html

Their level of unprofessionalism and amateurishness is unbelievable! Kagan is now expecting retaliation from Russia but has the slightest clue as to where and when. So that's why in anticipation his wife, the Nuland (Fu*k the EU) cow, is now threatening strikes on Crimea.
Russia has all the aces in its hand, including EU and particularly Germany. So play the hand beautifully!