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Thread: Did US blow up Nord Stream gas lines?

  1. #91
    Canada Revokes Waiver For Russian Gas Turbines

    https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2...-gas-turbines/
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  3. #92

    How American Blew Up Russian Pipeline


  4. #93
    The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat and a dance school are across what is now a four-lane road.

    The center has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades who, once assigned to American military units worldwide, are capable of technical diving to do the good—using C4 explosives to clear harbors and beaches of debris and unexploded ordinance—as well as the bad, like blowing up foreign oil rigs, fouling intake valves for undersea power plants, destroying locks on crucial shipping canals. The Panama City center, which boasts the second largest indoor pool in America, was the perfect place to recruit the best, and most taciturn, graduates of the diving school who successfully did last summer what they had been authorized to do 260 feet under the surface of the Baltic Sea.

    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.

    Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions.

    Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.”

    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.

    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, which ran side by side for 750 miles under the Baltic Sea from two different ports in northeastern Russia near the Estonian border, passing close to the Danish island of Bornholm before ending in northern Germany.

    The direct route, which bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy, which enjoyed an abundance of cheap Russian natural gas—enough to run its factories and heat its homes while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas, at a profit, throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia. Secrecy was essential.

    From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western dominance. The holding company behind it, Nord Stream AG, was incorporated in Switzerland in 2005 in partnership with Gazprom, a publicly traded Russian company producing enormous profits for shareholders which is dominated by oligarchs known to be in the thrall of Putin. Gazprom controlled 51 percent of the company, with four European energy firms—one in France, one in the Netherlands and two in Germany—sharing the remaining 49 percent of stock, and having the right to control downstream sales of the inexpensive natural gas to local distributors in Germany and Western Europe. Gazprom’s profits were shared with the Russian government, and state gas and oil revenues were estimated in some years to amount to as much as 45 percent of Russia’s annual budget.

    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. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. Many Germans saw Nord Stream 1 as part of the deliverance of former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s famed Ostpolitik theory, which would enable postwar Germany to rehabilitate itself and other European nations destroyed in World War II by, among other initiatives, utilizing cheap Russian gas to fuel a prosperous Western European market and trading economy.

    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.

    Opposition to Nord Stream 2 flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate Republicans, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, repeatedly raised the political threat of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as Secretary of State. By then a unified Senate had successfully passed a law that, as Cruz told Blinken, “halted [the pipeline] in its tracks.” There would be enormous political and economic pressure from the German government, then headed by Angela Merkel, to get the second pipeline online.

    Would Biden stand up to the Germans? Blinken said yes, but added that he had not discussed the specifics of the incoming President’s views. “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.”

    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.

    Throughout all of this, Russian troops had been steadily and ominously building up on the borders of Ukraine, and by the end of December more than 100,000 soldiers were in position to strike from Belarus and Crimea. Alarm was growing in Washington, including an assessment from Blinken that those troop numbers could be “doubled in short order.”

    The administration’s attention once again was focused on Nord Stream. 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.

    All options were to be on the table. But only one would emerge.

    PLANNING

    In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to Putin’s impending invasion.

    It would be the first of a series of top-secret meetings, in a secure room on a top floor of the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). There was the usual back and forth chatter that eventually led to a crucial preliminary question: Would the recommendation forwarded by the group to the President be reversible—such as another layer of sanctions and currency restrictions—or irreversible—that is, kinetic actions, which could not be undone?

    What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.


    THE PLAYERS Left to right: Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan.
    Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”

    At the time, the CIA was directed by William Burns, a mild-mannered former ambassador to Russia who had served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama Administration. Burns quickly authorized an Agency working group whose ad hoc members included—by chance—someone who was familiar with the capabilities of the Navy’s deep-sea divers in Panama City. Over the next few weeks, members of the CIA’s working group began to craft a plan for a covert operation that would use deep-sea divers to trigger an explosion along the pipeline.

    Something like this had been done before. In 1971, the American intelligence community learned from still undisclosed sources that two important units of the Russian Navy were communicating via an undersea cable buried in the Sea of Okhotsk, on Russia’s Far East Coast. The cable linked a regional Navy command to the mainland headquarters at Vladivostok.

    A hand-picked team of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency operatives was assembled somewhere in the Washington area, under deep cover, and worked out a plan, using Navy divers, modified submarines and a deep-submarine rescue vehicle, that succeeded, after much trial and error, in locating the Russian cable. The divers planted a sophisticated listening device on the cable that successfully intercepted the Russian traffic and recorded it on a taping system.

    The NSA learned that senior Russian navy officers, convinced of the security of their communication link, chatted away with their peers without encryption. The recording device and its tape had to be replaced monthly and the project rolled on merrily for a decade until it was compromised by a forty-four-year-old civilian NSA technician named Ronald Pelton who was fluent in Russian. Pelton was betrayed by a Russian defector in 1985 and sentenced to prison. He was paid just $5,000 by the Russians for his revelations about the operation, along with $35,000 for other Russian operational data he provided that was never made public.

    That underwater success, codenamed Ivy Bells, was innovative and risky, and produced invaluable intelligence about the Russian Navy's intentions and planning.

    Still, the interagency group was initially skeptical of the CIA’s enthusiasm for a covert deep-sea attack. There were too many unanswered questions. The waters of the Baltic Sea were heavily patrolled by the Russian navy, and there were no oil rigs that could be used as cover for a diving operation. Would the divers have to go to Estonia, right across the border from Russia’s natural gas loading docks, to train for the mission? “It would be a goat $#@!,” the Agency was told.

    Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

    Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

    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.”


    Several of those involved in planning the pipeline mission were dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the attack.

    “It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source said. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored it.”

    Biden’s and Nuland’s indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”

    The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained, “There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now is just do it—but it still had to be secret. The Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea.”

    The Agency working group members had no direct contact with the White House, and were eager to find out if the President meant what he’d said—that is, if the mission was now a go. The source recalled, “Bill Burns comes back and says, ‘Do it.’”


    “The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow water a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island . . .”
    THE OPERATION

    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. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access to a series of long-range listening sites inside China.

    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.

    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.

    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.)

    Sometime in March, a few members of the team flew to Norway to meet with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy. One of the key questions was where exactly in the Baltic Sea was the best place to plant the explosives. Nord Stream 1 and 2, each with two sets of pipelines, were separated much of the way by little more than a mile as they made their run to the port of Greifswald in the far northeast of Germany.

    The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island. The pipelines ran more than a mile apart along a seafloor that was only 260 feet deep. That would be well within the range of the divers, who, operating from a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter, would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete protective covers. It would be tedious, time consuming and dangerous work, but the waters off Bornholm had another advantage: there were no major tidal currents, which would have made the task of diving much more difficult.


    After a bit of research, the Americans were all in.

    At this point, the Navy’s obscure deep-diving group in Panama City once again came into play. The deep-sea schools at Panama City, whose trainees participated in Ivy Bells, are seen as an unwanted backwater by the elite graduates of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, who typically seek the glory of being assigned as a Seal, fighter pilot, or submariner. If one must become a “Black Shoe”—that is, a member of the less desirable surface ship command—there is always at least duty on a destroyer, cruiser or amphibious ship. The least glamorous of all is mine warfare. Its divers never appear in Hollywood movies, or on the cover of popular magazines.

    “The best divers with deep diving qualifications are a tight community, and only the very best are recruited for the operation and told to be prepared to be summoned to the CIA in Washington,” the source said.

    The Norwegians and Americans had a location and the operatives, but there was another concern: any unusual underwater activity in the waters off Bornholm might draw the attention of the Swedish or Danish navies, which could report it.

    Denmark had also been one of the original NATO signatories and was known in the intelligence community for its special ties to the United Kingdom. Sweden had applied for membership into NATO, and had demonstrated its great skill in managing its underwater sound and magnetic sensor systems that successfully tracked Russian submarines that would occasionally show up in remote waters of the Swedish archipelago and be forced to the surface.

    The Norwegians joined the Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity in the area. In that way, someone higher up could intervene and keep a report out of the chain of command, thus insulating the pipeline operation. “What they were told and what they knew were purposely different,” the source told me. (The Norwegian embassy, asked to comment on this story, did not respond.)

    The Norwegians were key to solving other hurdles. The Russian navy was known to possess surveillance technology capable of spotting, and triggering, underwater mines. The American explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water. The Norwegians had a fix.

    The Norwegians also had a solution to the crucial question of when the operation should take place. Every June, for the past 21 years, the American Sixth Fleet, whose flagship is based in Gaeta, Italy, south of Rome, has sponsored a major NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea involving scores of allied ships throughout the region. The current exercise, held in June, would be known as Baltic Operations 22, or BALTOPS 22. The Norwegians proposed this would be the ideal cover to plant the mines.

    The Americans provided one vital element: they convinced the Sixth Fleet planners to add a research and development exercise to the program. The exercise, as made public by the Navy, involved the Sixth Fleet in collaboration with the Navy’s “research and warfare centers.” The at-sea event would be held off the coast of Bornholm Island and involve NATO teams of divers planting mines, with competing teams using the latest underwater technology to find and destroy them.

    It was both a useful exercise and ingenious cover. The Panama City boys would do their thing and the C4 explosives would be in place by the end of BALTOPS22, with a 48-hour timer attached. All of the Americans and Norwegians would be long gone by the first explosion.

    The days were counting down. “The clock was ticking, and we were nearing mission accomplished,” the source said.

    And then: Washington had second thoughts. The bombs would still be planted during BALTOPS, but the White House worried that a two-day window for their detonation would be too close to the end of the exercise, and it would be obvious that America had been involved.

    Instead, the White House had a new request: “Can the guys in the field come up with some way to blow the pipelines later on command?”

    Some members of the planning team were angered and frustrated by the President’s seeming indecision. The Panama City divers had repeatedly practiced planting the C4 on pipelines, as they would during BALTOPS, but now the team in Norway had to come up with a way to give Biden what he wanted—the ability to issue a successful execution order at a time of his choosing.

    Being tasked with an arbitrary, last-minute change was something the CIA was accustomed to managing. But it also renewed the concerns some shared over the necessity, and legality, of the entire operation.

    The President’s secret orders also evoked the CIA’s dilemma in the Vietnam War days, when President Johnson, confronted by growing anti-Vietnam War sentiment, ordered the Agency to violate its charter—which specifically barred it from operating inside America—by spying on antiwar leaders to determine whether they were being controlled by Communist Russia.

    The agency ultimately acquiesced, and throughout the 1970s it became clear just how far it had been willing to go. There were subsequent newspaper revelations in the aftermath of the Watergate scandals about the Agency’s spying on American citizens, its involvement in the assassination of foreign leaders and its undermining of the socialist government of Salvador Allende.

    Those revelations led to a dramatic series of hearings in the mid-1970s in the Senate, led by Frank Church of Idaho, that made it clear that Richard Helms, the Agency director at the time, accepted that he had an obligation to do what the President wanted, even if it meant violating the law.

    In unpublished, closed-door testimony, Helms ruefully explained that “you almost have an Immaculate Conception when you do something” under secret orders from a President. “Whether it’s right that you should have it, or wrong that you shall have it, [the CIA] works under different rules and ground rules than any other part of the government.” He was essentially telling the Senators that he, as head of the CIA, understood that he had been working for the Crown, and not the Constitution.

    The Americans at work in Norway operated under the same dynamic, and dutifully began working on the new problem—how to remotely detonate the C4 explosives on Biden’s order. It was a much more demanding assignment than those in Washington understood. There was no way for the team in Norway to know when the President might push the button. Would it be in a few weeks, in many months or in half a year or longer?

    The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea—from near and distant ships, underwater drilling, seismic events, waves and even sea creatures. To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds—much like those emitted by a flute or a piano—that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives. (“You want a signal that is robust enough so that no other signal could accidentally send a pulse that detonated the explosives,” I was told by Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy at MIT. Postol, who has served as the science adviser to the Pentagon’s Chief of Naval Operations, said the issue facing the group in Norway because of Biden’s delay was one of chance: “The longer the explosives are in the water the greater risk there would be of a random signal that would launch the bombs.”)

    On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place.

    FALLOUT

    In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution. A few months later, when it emerged that Russian authorities had been quietly getting estimates for the cost to repair the pipelines, the New York Times described the news as “complicating theories about who was behind” the attack. No major American newspaper dug into the earlier threats to the pipelines made by Biden and Undersecretary of State Nuland.

    While it was never clear why Russia would seek to destroy its own lucrative pipeline, a more telling rationale for the President’s action came from Secretary of State Blinken.

    Asked at a press conference last September about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, Blinken described the moment as a potentially good one:

    “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs. That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come, but meanwhile we’re determined to do everything we possibly can to make sure the consequences of all of this are not borne by citizens in our countries or, for that matter, around the world.”

    More recently, Victoria Nuland expressed satisfaction at the demise of the newest of the pipelines. Testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January she told Senator Ted Cruz, “​Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

    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.”

    Asked why he thought the Russians failed to respond, he said cynically, “Maybe they want the capability to do the same things the U.S. did.

    “It was a beautiful cover story,” he went on. “Behind it was a covert operation that placed experts in the field and equipment that operated on a covert signal.

    “The only flaw was the decision to do it.”

  5. #94
    The British did it. Confirmed when Liz Truss's phone was hacked. She sent a text a minute after it blew. "it's done"

  6. #95
    It's all described right there, by none other than Seymour Hersh.

    Joint US/Norwegian, on President and CIA Director's orders.

    Just more reasons for Russia and China to perma-distrust the U.S.

    Along with dozens of other countries now unwilling to do business with us.

    The US is loathed.
    "When Sombart says: "Capitalism is born from the money-loan", I should like to add to this: Capitalism actually exists only in the money-loan;" - Theodor Fritsch

  7. #96
    WASHINGTON, February 8. /TASS/. The White House on Wednesday categorically rejected information that US Navy divers, under the cover of the Baltops exercise, had planted explosive devices beneath Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline last June.
    "This is utterly false and complete fiction," White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson told TASS in reply to a request to comment on the abovementioned version, which had been previously voiced by an unnamed source to US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
    In his article, Hersh wrote that the decision on the operation was made personally by US President Joe Biden after nine months of discussions with administration officials dealing with national security: US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, and others.
    The press services of the State Department, the Pentagon, and the US Navy have not yet responded to a request from TASS to comment on the information provided by Hersh.
    Nord Stream AG reported that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage on September 27. Swedish seismologists later revealed that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. After that, investigators from Russia’s Federal Security Service initiated an probe into this act of international terrorism in connection with the explosions.

    TASS is the MOST official Russian government news site. More official than Sputnik, RT, or Ria Novosti.
    Only the in-house Ministry of Defense site is more official, and they don't even cover news.

    Huge front page. More lies from the White House.
    Russia is one sliver away from NFG land. It might just go ahead and start hitting US overseas.
    Do not be one bit surprised. Plus cyber.

    https://tass.com/world/1573463
    "When Sombart says: "Capitalism is born from the money-loan", I should like to add to this: Capitalism actually exists only in the money-loan;" - Theodor Fritsch



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  9. #97


    Boo.

    What kind of negative Nellie nonsense is the OP peddling here?

    Everything is fine...our government would never do anything like this.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  10. #98
    Tucker Carlson covering this now.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  11. #99
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post




    Boo.

    What kind of negative Nellie nonsense is the OP peddling here?

    Everything is fine...our government would never do anything like this.
    (Revenge! lol)

  12. #100
    But I was told it was the Russians who blew up their own pipeline.
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  13. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    BALTOPS 22 Multinational Exercise Kicks Off In The Baltic Sea
    Fourteen NATO allies, two NATO partner nations, over 45 ships, more than 75 aircraft, and approximately 7,000 personnel kick off Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 22) from Stockholm on 05 June 2022.
    Naval News Staff 06 Jun 2022

    U.S. Navy press release
    Yep.

    How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

    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.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  14. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Globalist View Post
    But I was told it was the Russians who blew up their own pipeline.
    You can be sure that when leftists and Democrats accuse someone of something, it is something they themselves are guilty of.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  15. #103
    I can't wait for the Hollywood dramatic reenactment. It must have been some of those MAGA people. I bet they even said this is MAGA country when they did it.

    Trump was right about the Nordstream pipeline. They should have cut off gas revenue a long time ago. Atleast now the NATO is starting to pay their fair share.

    Trump: Just look at the chart. Take a look at the chart. It’s public. And many countries are not paying what they should. And, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up. It’s massive amounts of money is owed. The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody. This has gone on for decades, by the way. This has gone on for many Presidents. But no other President brought it up like I bring it up. So something has to be done, and the Secretary General has been working on it very hard.

    Trump: Well, I have to say, I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. So we’re protecting Germany. We’re protecting France. We’re protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia, where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia.

  16. #104
    'Those behind Nord Stream blasts must be punished': Russia
    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world...944790279.html

    "He also worked for Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.[8]"
    Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan (Jake Sullivan) Yale Law, Oxford, Rhodes Scholar
    Sullivan married Margaret Maggie Goodlander, a former speechwriter to Senator Joe Lieberman and senior policy advisor to Senator John McCain.
    Yale Law. It was Jake Sullivan, Hersch reports, according to a source, who intended to concoct a plan to destroy two of the Nord Stream pipelines.
    Durham Probe: "Hawley specifically named National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his wife Margaret Goodlander, who is counsel to AG Garland"
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/haw...m-probe-recuse

    In January, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland — one of the main players during the 2014 Maidan Coup in Ukraine and wife of Robert Kagan, the founder of the neoconservative Project for a New American Century — issued a stern warning against the pipeline. "If Russia invades, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 Will. Not. Move. Forward."
    https://fair.org/home/us-medias-inte...stream-attack/

    Robert Kagan, chief neocon ideolog and husband of Victoria Nuland (doubtless still giggling over Nord Stream sabotage), regurgiates the same cliches and tropes he has been peddling for the past thirty years, calls on the US to keep going until Ukrainian victory so as to achieve a "free world."
    https://oliverboydbarrett.substack.c...kraine-updates

    The Institute for the Study of War was founded in 2007 in Washington by military historian Kimberly Kagan. Frederick Kagan is the brother of journalist and political strategist Robert Kagan. Robert, in turn, is married to US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
    https://europerenaissance.com/2022/0...ar-in-ukraine/

    Victoria Nuland, the hawkish and Neocon woman who brazenly declared "$#@! the EU," is now Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Secretary Antony Blinken tweeted: ... Neocons like Nuland and Kagan are descendants of the Khazars whose original stomping ground was… wait for it… Ukraine! Their enmity to Russia goes back to 965 when...
    https://www.veteranstoday.com/2021/0...ted-neo-nazis/

    Much of this "strategy" is personified by a single Washington power couple: arch-neocon Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and an early advocate of the Iraq War, and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who engineered last year's coup in Ukraine...
    http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/arch...-of-the-world/

    The 'Nuland-Kagan Plan' To Kill The Minsk-2 Peace Agreement
    https://thephaser.com/2015/04/the-nu...ace-agreement/

    Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call - BBC News
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

    Brookings Institution
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution
    https://www.brookings.edu/

    Project for the New American Century
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projec...erican_Century
    http://newamericancentury.org/

    Institute for the Study of War
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instit...e_Study_of_War
    http://understandingwar.org/
    "When Sombart says: "Capitalism is born from the money-loan", I should like to add to this: Capitalism actually exists only in the money-loan;" - Theodor Fritsch



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  18. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by 69360 View Post
    The British did it. Confirmed when Liz Truss's phone was hacked. She sent a text a minute after it blew. "it's done"
    That could very well be. It seems most likely that it was conducted by NATO member(s).

    The people who thought that Russia did it were more retarded than a Fetterman-Kamala love child.
    "I shall bring justice to Westeros. Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. They have made my kingdom bleed, and I do not forget that."
    -Stannis Baratheon

  19. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Globalist View Post
    But I was told it was the Russians who blew up their own pipeline.
    Rather than just shutting it down and using it as a bargaining chip at a later date. Makes perfect sense.
    "I shall bring justice to Westeros. Every man shall reap what he has sown, from the highest lord to the lowest gutter rat. They have made my kingdom bleed, and I do not forget that."
    -Stannis Baratheon

  20. #107
    It's a gas pipeline.... it probably just blew up on its own
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
    - Kim Kardashian

    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  21. #108
    And let's not forget that loss of Russian natural gas, either through market forces, war or pipeline sabotage is why the Germans are now strip mining coal to generate electricity.

    And let's also not forgot what used to be common knowledge: there are multiple grades of coal, just like crude oil.

    The Germans do not have the vast reserves of high bituminous and anthracite coal that we do, which is much more energy dense and cleaner burning.

    No, the majority of their coal use is lignite, which a dirty and low energy precursor to coal.

    Which only goes to show that this green Marxism is just that: a tool of political tyranny.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  22. #109

  23. #110
    Jake Sullivan be one of worlds biggest Environmental Terrorist

    That a rotten Yalie, I tell ya

  24. #111

  25. #112
    Renowned Journalist Reports US Role in Nord Stream & Gets Attacked, Truth About Fetterman, & More | SYSTEM UPDATE #39
    "Last night’s show discussed Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream report, his history of prize-winning, adversarial journalism, and the cowardly corporate media’s desperation to cast him aside." -- @SystemUpdate_
    https://rumble.com/v291nvo-system-update-show-39.html


    CLIP:

    Renowned Journalist Publishes Blockbuster Report on US Role in Nord Stream | SYSTEM UPDATE
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AIFmAyVv_g
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 02-11-2023 at 12:05 PM.



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  27. #113
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst

  28. #114
    White House denies they blew up the pipeline:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...se-2023-02-08/
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst

  29. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Collins View Post
    White House denies they blew up the pipeline:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...se-2023-02-08/
    Of course they're going to deny it
    ''There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 300 million and the two top guys are Trump and Biden. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong.'' ~ Mort Sahl

  30. #116
    Obviously, It Was America I Part Of The Problem 962
    On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie discuss the recent article by Seymour Hersh, detailing the operations taken by U.S. Special Forces months earlier that led to the explosion that destroyed the Nord stream Two Pipeline. This Episode Was Recorded On 2.10.23
    https://rumble.com/v2975op-obviously...oblem-962.html

  31. #117
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Hidden Meanings In NYT's Nord Stream 'Revelations'



    On Tuesday the New York Times published an incendiary story - based on anonymous Biden Administration officials - that the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was carried out not by the US military, as Seymour Hersh has discovered, but rather by Ukrainian forces not associated with President Zelensky. Why put out such a transparently bogus counter-narrative? Many reasons. Also today: more revelations about Fauci's malfeasance come out in House Covid hearings. Finally - what does yesterday's Syria vote mean?
    Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say
    New intelligence reporting amounts to the first significant known lead about who was responsible for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/u...e-ukraine.html
    [archive link: https://archive.is/Kt2gE]
    Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes, & Adam Goldman (07 March 2023)

    WASHINGTON — New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months.

    U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.

    The brazen attack on the natural gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe, fueled public speculation about who was to blame, from Moscow to Kyiv and London to Washington, and it has remained one of the most consequential unsolved mysteries of Russia’s year-old war in Ukraine.

    Ukraine and its allies have been seen by some officials as having the most logical potential motive to attack the pipelines. They have opposed the project for years, calling it a national security threat because it would allow Russia to sell gas more easily to Europe.

    Ukrainian government and military intelligence officials say they had no role in the attack and do not know who carried it out. After this article was published, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Mr. Zelensky, posted on Twitter that Ukraine “has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap.” He added that he had no information about pro-Ukrainian “sabotage groups.”

    U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations. The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation.

    U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.

    Some initial U.S. and European speculation centered on possible Russian culpability, especially given its prowess in undersea operations, though it is unclear what motivation the Kremlin would have in sabotaging the pipelines given that they have been an important source of revenue and a means for Moscow to exert influence over Europe. One estimate put the cost of repairing the pipelines starting at about $500 million. U.S. officials say they have not found any evidence of involvement by the Russian government in the attack.

    Officials who have reviewed the intelligence said they believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two. U.S. officials said no American or British nationals were involved.

    The pipelines were ripped apart by deep sea explosions in September, in what U.S. officials described at the time as an act of sabotage. European officials have publicly said they believe the operation that targeted Nord Stream was probably state sponsored, possibly because of the sophistication with which the perpetrators planted and detonated the explosives on the floor of the Baltic Sea without being detected. U.S. officials have not stated publicly that they believe the operation was sponsored by a state.

    The explosives were most likely planted with the help of experienced divers who did not appear to be working for military or intelligence services, U.S. officials who have reviewed the new intelligence said. But it is possible that the perpetrators received specialized government training in the past.

    Officials said there were still enormous gaps in what U.S. spy agencies and their European partners knew about what transpired. But officials said it might constitute the first significant lead to emerge from several closely guarded investigations, the conclusions of which could have profound implications for the coalition supporting Ukraine.

    Any suggestion of Ukrainian involvement, whether direct or indirect, could upset the delicate relationship between Ukraine and Germany, souring support among a German public that has swallowed high energy prices in the name of solidarity.

    U.S. officials who have been briefed on the intelligence are divided about how much weight to put on the new information. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence and matters of sensitive diplomacy.

    U.S. officials said the new intelligence reporting has increased their optimism that American spy agencies and their partners in Europe can find more information, which could allow them to reach a firm conclusion about the perpetrators. It is unclear how long that process will take. American officials recently discussed the intelligence with their European counterparts, who have taken the lead in investigating the attack.

    A spokeswoman for the C.I.A. declined to comment. A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council referred questions about the pipelines to the European authorities, who have been conducting their own investigations.

    After this report was published, Russia attacked the credibility of the intelligence, complaining that it had been prevented from taking part in the investigations. “This is obviously a coordinated spread of disinformation in the media,” Dmitry S. Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told the state-backed Sputnik news agency.

    Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, as the two pipelines are known, stretch 760 miles from the northwest coast of Russia to Lubmin in northeast Germany. The first cost more than $12 billion to build and was completed in 2011.

    Nord Stream 2 cost slightly less than the first pipeline and was completed in 2021, over objections from officials in the United States, Britain, Poland and Ukraine, among others, who warned that it would increase German reliance on Russian gas. During a future diplomatic crisis between the West and Russia, these officials argued, Moscow could blackmail Berlin by threatening to curtail gas supplies, on which the Germans had depended heavily, especially during the winter months. (Germany has weaned itself off reliance on Russian gas over the past year.)

    Early last year, President Biden, after meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany at the White House, said Mr. Putin’s decision about whether to attack Ukraine would determine the fate of Nord Stream 2. “If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Mr. Biden said. “We will bring an end to it.”

    When asked exactly how that would be accomplished, Mr. Biden cryptically said, “I promise you we’ll be able to do it.”

    A couple weeks later, Mr. Scholz announced that his government would block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from becoming operational. Two days after that, Russia launched the much-anticipated invasion.

    Since the explosions along the pipelines in September, there has been rampant speculation about what transpired on the sea floor near the Danish island of Bornholm.

    Poland and Ukraine immediately accused Russia of planting the explosives, but they offered no evidence.

    Russia, in turn, accused Britain of carrying out the operation — also without evidence. Russia and Britain have denied any involvement in the explosions.

    Last month, the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on the newsletter platform Substack concluding that the United States carried out the operation at the direction of Mr. Biden. In making his case, Mr. Hersh cited the president’s preinvasion threat to “bring an end” to Nord Stream 2, and similar statements by other senior U.S. officials.

    U.S. officials say Mr. Biden and his top aides did not authorize a mission to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, and they say there was no U.S. involvement.

    Any findings that put blame on Kyiv or Ukrainian proxies could prompt a backlash in Europe and make it harder for the West to maintain a united front in support of Ukraine.

    U.S. officials and intelligence agencies acknowledge that they have limited visibility into Ukrainian decision-making.

    Despite Ukraine’s deep dependence on the United States for military, intelligence and diplomatic support, Ukrainian officials are not always transparent with their American counterparts about their military operations, especially those against Russian targets behind enemy lines. Those operations have frustrated U.S. officials, who believe that they have not measurably improved Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, but have risked alienating European allies and widening the war.

    The operations that have unnerved the United States included a strike in early August on Russia’s Saki Air Base on the western coast of Crimea, a truck bombing in October that destroyed part of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Russia to Crimea, and drone strikes in December aimed at Russian military bases in Ryazan and Engels, about 300 miles beyond the Ukrainian border.

    But there have been other acts of sabotage and violence of more ambiguous provenance that U.S. intelligence agencies have had a harder time attributing to Ukrainian security services.

    One of those was a car bomb near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist.

    Kyiv denied any involvement but U.S. intelligence agencies eventually came to believe that the killing was authorized by what officials called “elements” of the Ukrainian government. In response to the finding, the Biden administration privately rebuked the Ukrainians and warned them against taking similar actions.

    The explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines took place five weeks after Ms. Dugina’s killing. After the Nord Stream operation, there was hushed speculation — and worry — in Washington that parts of the Ukrainian government might have been involved in that operation as well.

    The new intelligence provided no evidence so far of the Ukrainian government’s complicity in the attack on the pipelines, and U.S. officials say the Biden administration’s level of trust in Mr. Zelensky and his senior national security team has been steadily increasing.

    Days after the explosion, Denmark, Sweden and Germany began their own separate investigations into the Nord Stream operation.

    Intelligence and law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have had difficulty obtaining concrete evidence about what happened on the sea floor in the hours, days and weeks before the explosions.

    The pipelines themselves were not closely monitored, by either commercial or government sensors. Moreover, finding the vessel or vessels involved has been complicated by the fact that the explosions took place in a heavily trafficked area.

    That said, investigators have many leads to pursue.

    According to a European lawmaker briefed late last year by his country’s main foreign intelligence service, investigators have been gathering information about an estimated 45 “ghost ships” whose location transponders were not on or were not working when they passed through the area, possibly to cloak their movements.

    The lawmaker was also told that more than 1,000 pounds of “military grade” explosives were used by the perpetrators.

    Spokespeople for the Danish government had no immediate comment. Spokespeople for the German government declined to comment.

    Mats Ljungqvist, a senior prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation, told The New York Times late last month that his country’s hunt for the perpetrators was continuing.

    “It’s my job to find those who blew up Nord Stream. To help me, I have our country’s Security Service,” Mr. Ljungqvist said. “Do I think it was Russia that blew up Nord Stream? I never thought so. It’s not logical. But as in the case of a murder, you have to be open to all possibilities.”

  32. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    U.S. officials said the new intelligence reporting has increased their optimism that American spy agencies and their partners in Europe can find more information, which could allow them to reach a firm conclusion about the perpetrators. It is unclear how long that process will take.
    LOL

    Translation: "We haven't decided who we want to pin it on yet - but once we do, we'll be sure to let you know ..."

    U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.
    " ... and, hell, who knows? Maybe Zelenskyy himself was in on it. If he was, he just might need to be replaced with someone a bit more sensible. It all depends. We'll just have to wait and see ..."

    U.S. officials and intelligence agencies acknowledge that they have limited visibility into Ukrainian decision-making.
    Yeah, okay - that and over 150 billion dollars will buy you a hell of a lot of cups of coffee.

  33. #119
    "I’m Telling You, He Did It": Seymour Hersh Blames Biden For Nord Stream Attack
    Says he made the decision in order to bolster his re-election chances as a war president.
    https://summit.news/2023/03/16/im-te...stream-attack/
    Paul Joseph Watson (16 March 2023)

    Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh told the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Joe Biden made the decision to blow up Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines because he saw being a war president as giving him a better chance at re-election.

    Last month, Hersh published a report asserting that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation.

    According to Hersh’s sources, the explosives were planted in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise and were detonated three months later with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy.

    One source told Hersh that the plotters knew the covert operation was an “act of war,” with some in the CIA and State Department warning, “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.”

    Last week, the New York Times reported that a “pro-Ukrainian group” had sabotaged the pipelines, using a team with as few as six people involved in the mission, contradicting previous assumptions that only a state would have had the resources to carry out the operation.

    According to Hersh, referring to Biden, “He did it. He did it, I’m telling you, he did it, adding, The Biden game is to wait it out and never say yes.”

    The journalist claimed that Biden wanted to escalate the conflict in order to position himself as a war president.

    SY HERSH Meets the Press - Live from the National Press Club, Washington DC
    (Audio comes through clearly from 1 minute and 40 seconds in)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYRcVF8frc

    “I think Biden also saw beating up Russia as a ticket. Jack Kennedy is a classic example – presidents always did well politically in wars,” he said.

    Hersh claimed that Biden made the decision in January 2022 to “see if we can find a way to blow… those pipelines, and put [the Russians] back in the dark ages.”

    The Pulitzer-Prize winner went on to savage the legacy media for completely failing to follow up on his report that the U.S. was responsible for the attack, which took out three of the four pipelines.

    Meanwhile, China has reacted with skepticism towards the explanation that a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible for the blasts.

    During a press briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called for “an objective, impartial and professional investigation” into the bombing.

    “We have noted that some Western media have been mysteriously quiet after Hersh reported that the US was behind the Nord Stream blast. But now these media are unusually simultaneous in making their voice heard. How would the US account for such abnormality? Is there anything hidden behind the scene?” Wang asked.

    New reports also reveal that a German spy ship was in the area where the attack occurred at the time of the blasts on September 26.

    According to a report by German magazine Der Spiegel, the CIA warned Berlin about a potential attack on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea weeks before it happened.

    As we highlighted yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin branded claims that the Nord Stream pipeline attack was the work of pro-Ukrainian activists “nonsense,” arguing the blasts must have been carried out by a state power.

  34. #120
    THE COVER-UP
    The Biden Administration continues to conceal its responsibility for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines
    https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-cover-up
    Seymour Hersh (22 March 2023)

    It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany. The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.

    Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps. There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally “task” the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.

    Sarah Miller—an energy expert and an editor at Energy Intelligence, which publishes leading trade journals—explained to me in an interview why the pipeline story has been big news in Germany and Western Europe. “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September led to a further surge of natural gas prices that were already six or more times pre-crisis levels,” she said. “Nord Stream was blown up in late September. German gas imports peaked a month later, in October, at 10 times pre-crisis levels. Electricity prices across Europe were pulled up, and governments spent as much as 800 billion euros, by some estimates, shielding households and businesses from the impact. Gas prices, reflecting the mild winter in Europe, have now fallen back to roughly a quarter of the October peak, but they are still between two and three times pre-crisis levels and are more than three times current US rates. Over the last year, German and other European manufacturers closed their most energy-intensive operations, such as fertilizer and glass production, and it’s unclear when, if ever, those plants will reopen. Europe is scrambling to get solar and wind capacity in place, but it may not come soon enough to save large chunks of German industry.” (Miller writes a blog on Medium.)

    In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.

    [... subscribe to Seymour Hersh to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives ...]



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