Phnom Penh (FN), Mar. 14 – About the only thing that is certain on the issue of the Nord Stream sabotage is that China didn’t do it. But, as global headlines declare (https://theintercept.com/2023/03/10/nord-stream-pipeline-bombing/), the plot keeps thickening as theories keep changing even that might somehow become a working theory in the future.
All joking aside, there is a valid theory put forward by Seymour Hersh (https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream)and, if it’s correct, it’s a damning indictment of the US and, in particular Biden’s administration. Hersh’s article is so incredibly detailed, it is either a brilliant work of fiction which would be worthy of a Hollywood script, or it’s absolutely true. Everyone needs to make up their own mind on this and no doubt, the truth will come out. Hersh is definitely a credible writer, he’s a Pulitzer prizewinner and an advocate of whistleblower protection. If people have a story to tell, they know if they tell it to Hersh, their anonymity will be protected. He’s well-known for exposing the My Lai massacre and torture in Abu Ghraib, both US international crimes, but he also has a history of exposing other government activities, spying, extra-judicial murder, illegal wiretapping, regime change and more, both inside and outside the USA, which they would prefer us not to have known about.
There is much criticism of Hersh from the establishment, in one example, he wrote extensively on the killing of Osama Bin Laden (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n10/seymour-m.-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden)which the history network, using an ex-CIA source, completely rebuked (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159377)but which, to me at least, still holds water, there are just too many unanswered questions about the events of that night. But, despite the criticism, there is one major point that readers should consider: he’s been proven right several times, and the people labelling him as delusional, and/or conspiratorial, have been proven wrong as many times. This alone makes what he writes worth reading.
So, when the most affected world leader gets together behind closed doors to discuss this matter with the person Hersh has accused as being responsible, the world should really take some notice and this is exactly what happened when Biden met with Scholz in early March (https://www.kwqc.com/2023/03/03/biden-scholz-huddle-ukraine-war-white-house/). Not only in private without their most senior advisors but in yet another unprecedented move, they didn’t hold a press conference afterwards. They just declared themselves to be in “lockstep” according to an anonymous source and a mere 13 line press release (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/07/readout-of-president-bidens-meeting-with-chancellor-olaf-scholz-of-germany/) was issued by the White House.
Then, just 4 days later, both the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-ukraine.html) and Germany’s Die Zeit (https://www.zeit.de/zustimmung?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2F2023-03%2Fnordstream-2-ukraine-anschlag) apparently completely unrelated, published similar stories about new evidence on the Nord Stream sabotage. It could be a complete coincidence but there is certainly a smell of something being concocted and the timing definitely fits.
This sabotage took place in September last year, there have been no leaks (a curiosity in itself) on who might have been responsible but plenty of speculation and evidence that both Biden and Victoria Nuland have said the pipeline would be stopped if Russia invaded Ukraine. Since it occurred, there have been investigations by Danes and Swedes (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/qa-nord-stream-gas-sabotage-whos-being-blamed-why-2022-09-30/) and even Germany but Russia, the owners of the pipeline, have been excluded from all these investigations. There has been suspiciously little speculation in any media about who might have been responsible or any reports on how the investigation was going. Fingers have been pointed back at Russia as being responsible but those speculations fall apart when we consider that Russia needed the income from the pipelines and that, if they wanted to stop the gas, they could have simply turned it off.
On February 8 Hersh released his article on Substack, 24 days later, Biden and Scholz met in private and then after only 4 days, American and German media outlets appear with similar stories: the German one of a group of 6 people, 5 men and a woman renting a yacht with fake passports and carrying over 1000 pounds of explosives; the US version being leaks of “New intelligence reviewed by US officials” but both suggesting a pro-Ukrainian group but without the support of the Ukrainian government.
The reports are devoid of a great deal of detail, they are supported almost exclusively by anonymous sources and they seem to have been put together without due consideration to the logistics of the event.
For example, how does a rented yacht carry all the necessary equipment, where do these saboteurs obtain training and expertise required for such a deep dive. Scuba divers (https://divedeepscuba.com/how-deep-can-scuba-divers-go/) do not normally go deeper than 18m but can, at a stretch go to 40m. The pipelines were sabotaged in about 70m of water (https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125401980/nord-stream-leaks-explosions-russia-natural-gas-sabotage) meaning specialised training and equipment as well as decompression issues would need to be considered and most importantly, how does a group of “pro-Ukrainian supporters” get its hands on as much explosive and the associated equipment to detonate it at that depth without some government intervention.
As Shakespeare wrote, the US “protesteth too much”. The timing of the “new intelligence” the clandestine nature of the leader’s meetings, the admission that Biden would stop the pipeline, the detail in Hersh’s article all add up to something very fishy indeed.
=FRESH NEWS
