We have been fed the line that the object of the NATO expansion eastward was to cause regime change in Russia. That’s a much better rational than to admit the truth, that it was all about hamstringing the Germans.
After the destruction of the pipeline, the US began selling LNG to the German’s are exorbitant prices.
peloni1986
How do we know the US didn’t blow up the Nordstream Pipeline? The CIA told us they didn’t.
I don’t know if that is suppose to be a joke but it strikes me as being particularly humorous.
In fact, the US has been trying to capture the European gas market since the time when Reagan was recently inaugurated. I recall the struggles which took place when the Soviets, yes the real bad guys, announced to the world that they were going to build a pipeline supplying energy to the West, to which the US said no while Europe said yes. The influence of American oil industry bolstered by the independence of Europe to challenge the US opposition left Reagan with little choice but to accept defeat on this topic.
From that time til now, however, it has remained an important geopolitcal objective for the US to rid Europe of the cheap Russian energy alternative, and this became even more acutely true after Russia was no longer run by the Soviets. Of course, during the age of Reagan, we had a statesman who was quite competent and refrained from such war crimes as blowing up foreign infrastructures to achieve American policy objectives.
Alternatively, when the radicals took power in an American coup in 2020, it would seem nothing was too bold and nothing too rash so long as it satisfied the Gotham like impulses of the ruling radicals. Indeed, in an age where Soviet political show trials have been imported to the US to distract from the fraud which was put in place to steal the national election, something which was supported by the false testimony of the DOJ and the Stasi-like operations of the FBI, putting an end to Russia’s pipeline westward might be seen as being a far less extreme action. This would not only leave Russia without the means to regain easy access to its European market, it would also leave its allies in Europe in a far less competitive, and thereby independent, position vis a vis America.
So like the question of who burned Rome or Persepholis, one might make an attempt to explain why the answer to the question Cui Bono? is not relevant, but using the CIA, which does the dirty business of the US to vouch for the US not having done this deed, only makes the reality that the US did do this deed all the more certain…as Hersh explains in the excerpt I shared earlier.
peloni1986
…The intelligence expert listed all the elements needed before any individual or group could charter an expensive yacht. “You cannot just walk off the street with a fake passport and lease a boat. You either need to accept a captain who was supplied by the leasing agent or owner of the yacht, or have a captain who comes with a certificate of competency as mandated by maritime law. Anyone who’s ever chartered a yacht would know that.” Similar proof of expertise and competence for deep sea diving involving the use of Nitox, a specialized mix of oxygen and nitrogen would be required by the divers and the doctor.
The expert had more questions about the alleged yacht. “How does a 49-foot sailboat find the pipelines in the Baltic Sea? The pipelines are not that big and they are not on the charts that come with the lease. Maybe the thought was to put the two divers into the water”—not very easy to do so from a small yacht—“and let the divers look for it. How long can a diver stay down in their suits? Maybe fifteen minutes. Which means it would take the diver four years to search one square mile.
“None of these questions is asked by the media. So you have six people on the yacht—two divers, two helpers, a doctor and a captain leasing the boat. One thing is missing—who is going to crew the yacht? Or cook? What about the logbook that the leasing company must keep for legal reasons?
“None of this happened,” the expert told me. “Stop trying to link this to reality. It’s a parody.”
The stories in the New York Times and the European press have given no indication that any journalist was able to board and physically examine the yacht in question. Nor do they explain why any passengers on a yacht would leave passports, fraudulent or otherwise, on board after a rental. There have been photographs of a sailboat in dry dock named Andromeda published.
None of this can save a bad cover story, the intelligence export told me. “The effort to turn fiction into truth will go on forever. Now it’s a picture of a sailboat that appears after the investigation that can’t be traced—with no license number where it legally should be. The Andromeda has replaced the Piltdown man in the press.”
The expert had one final thought: “In the world of professional analysts and operators everyone will universally and correctly conclude from your story that the devilish CIA concocted a counter-op that is on its face so ridiculous and childish that the real purpose was to reinforce the truth.”
Bear Klein
SEPTEMBER 28, 2023 AT 12:28 AM
The European intelligence made clear that the would-be attackers were not rogue operatives. All those involved reported directly to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, who was put in charge so that the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wouldn’t know about the operation, the intelligence report said.
Bear Klein
SEPTEMBER 28, 2023 AT 12:27 AM
U.S. had intelligence of detailed Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream pipeline
THE DISCORD LEAKS | The CIA learned last June, via a European spy agency, that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to sabotage the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project .
Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what’s true, false or in-between in politics.
Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.
@Raphael.
Loved your rant.
@Ted Belman – It’s good to see Israpundit back up again.
–
@peloni1986 –
Here’s another good meme: Q: How do you know when the government is lying to you? A: If its lips are moving.
–
@Bear Klein –
Maybe there is credible evidence that Ukraine blew up NS II, but my money is still on the US. The six guys in a boat theory just doesn’t “float” for me. Ha Ha.
–
I was a bit surprised at the idea that the purpose of destroying NS II was for the US to capture the European LNG market. That might have worked short-term, but Europe would have found a cheaper work-around sooner or later (i.e. gas from Israel/Lebanon via Cyprus?).
Now, to the main point, namely that China has found a way to foil the west’s plans to cut off Europe from Russia, while getting its foot in the door to Europe in a big way. I can only smile as I think of the squirming going on in Washington.
–
My perennial rant:
It is painful to see what this country has become. We once held the economic, social, and moral high ground. Everyone listened to us and wanted to emulate us. Now, see what we have become! We are a totalitarian bully, with no credibility abroad, and with crippling societal and governmental corruption at home. Elections are no longer honest. The legal system has been weaponized against the ruling party’s political opponents and against common citizens. The Constitution is twisted or ignored. Our rights and freedoms have been stripped away. The government all but forces us to be injected with toxic substances, the full effects of which are still to be seen. The institutions of society, the media, academia, medicine, and jurisprudence, among others, have all been co-opted. Every word the government utters is a lie.
America had the potential to be a beacon on a hill for the whole world, but instead we have become a toxic cesspool. Our days of greatness have come to an end. What a pity. The only good that can come of this is for other countries or empires to examine where we went wrong, and maybe, if they can, avoid falling into the same pit.