The US blamed Russia although it now claims it knew all alongside that “rogue” Ukrainians have been the perpetrators
Two years in the past, the Nord Stream gasoline pipelines have been destroyed in an financial and environmental terrorist assault. The explosions severed a key financial connection between Western Europe and Russia, contributing to the de-industrialization of the EU and intensifying Russia’s financial reorientation in the direction of China and India. The geopolitical ramifications have been immense, but we all know little or no about what actually occurred. How is that this attainable?
The US and its NATO allies initially insisted that Russia was actually the perpetrator, and their stenographers within the media reported confidently that “the whole lot is pointing to Russia.” No proof was introduced, but NATO even recommended the assault on its essential infrastructure may set off collective protection underneath Article 5. Apart from not directly threatening the world’s largest nuclear energy with battle, the US-led navy bloc additionally used the assault on Nord Stream to justify escalating the battle in Ukraine and to additional militarize the Baltic Sea and different seas. Strengthening NATO’s means to guard undersea infrastructure was additionally an necessary argument for why Finland and Sweden ought to be part of NATO.
The story of Russia blowing up its personal pipeline may depend on a robust consensus as all dissent to the narrative could possibly be dismissed as repeating the Kremlin’s speaking factors. Related tales akin to Russia’s alleged continued bombing of a nuclear energy plant underneath its personal management or Russia attacking the Kremlin with drones didn’t make any sense both. But, within the absence of widespread sense, the political and media elites may clarify that this was straight out of the “Russian playbook.”
Nevertheless, actuality finally asserted itself across the time of journalist Seymour Hersh’s article that blamed the US for the assault. Thereafter, the US started to shift the blame to Ukraine. In one of many newest developments, the Wall Avenue Journal reported that the US knew in regards to the Ukrainian assault prematurely and “the CIA warned Zelensky’s workplace to cease the operation.”
It appears extremely unlikely that the US was not concerned within the assault on Nord Stream, but the brand new and up to date narrative is nonetheless attention-grabbing as it’s an admission that the US knew about it forward of time. It’s an admission that the US and NATO lied to their very own populaces and your complete world after they blamed Russia, after which used that misinform escalate the battle in Ukraine, militarize the Baltic Sea, and push for additional NATO enlargement.
Our lack of information about what actually occurred to the Nord Stream gasoline pipelines is the results of the narrative being protected against actuality. Blissful ignorance has grow to be the inspiration for NATO unity, and details are thus handled as the good enemy. But, because the demand for unity additionally upholds what can solely be described because the Stockholm Syndrome, let’s assessment how the Nord Stream narrative has been spared an encounter with actuality.
The US publicizes its goal to destroy Nord Stream
Stopping the financial integration and cooperation between Russia and Germany as two key facilities of energy has been a centuries-old hegemonic goal of the US and Britain. The RAND Company, a suppose tank linked to the intelligence group, wrote a report in 2019 sponsored by the Military Quadrennial Protection Overview Workplace about easy methods to weaken Russia and make it overextend. Apart from destabilizing Russia’s borders and bleeding Moscow in Ukraine, the report outlined the target of slicing its vitality ties to Western Europe: “A primary step would contain stopping Nord Stream 2.”
The US opposition to the pipeline included political stress and financial sanctions towards the businesses of European allies who participated within the mission, a hegemonic ambition offered to the general public as defending Europe. In July 2020, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proclaimed: “We are going to do the whole lot we will to ensure that that pipeline doesn’t threaten Europe.” US Senator Tom Cotton introduced in Could 2021 that “there may be nonetheless time to cease it.… Kill Nord Stream 2 now, and let it rust beneath the waves of the Balti’.” On January 14, 2022, US Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan additionally threatened the pipeline: “Now we have made clear to the Russians that pipeline is in danger in the event that they transfer additional into Ukraine.” Senator Ted Cruz equally used very direct language calling for stopping Nord Stream: “This pipeline should be stopped and the one approach to forestall its completion is to make use of all of the instruments obtainable to try this.”
On February 7, 2022, President Biden stood subsequent to German Chancellor Scholz at a press briefing, warning that if Russia invaded Ukraine, then ”there will probably be not a Nord Stream 2. We are going to carry an finish to it.” When requested by a journalist how he would finish a mission underneath German management, Biden responded: ”I promise you, we will do this.” US spokesperson, Ned Worth, was express: “I wish to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine a method or one other, Nord Stream 2 won’t transfer ahead.” Undersecretary of State for Coverage Victoria Nuland used the very same phrases: “If Russia invades Ukraine, a method or one other, Nord Stream 2 won’t transfer ahead.”
The assault on Nord Stream and the next victory lap
On September 26, 2022, the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines have been destroyed. The previous International Minister of Poland, Radek Sikorski, tweeted: “Thanks, USA” accompanied by an image of the destroyed pipeline. The day after the assault, on September 27, 2022, leaders from Poland, Norway, and Denmark attended a ceremony in Poland to mark the opening of the brand new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe that was constructed to cut back dependence on Nord Stream.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken argued that the destruction of Nord Stream introduced “an incredible alternative to as soon as and for all take away the dependence on Russian vitality.” Blinken provided to “assist” Western Europe to interchange Russian gasoline with far more costly American gas. Nuland joined in celebrating the assault: “I’m, and I believe the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you prefer to say, a hunk of metallic on the backside of the ocean.”
Washington may take a short pause in rejoicing over the destruction of Europe’s essential vitality infrastructure to reassure the world that it should have been the Russians who attacked their very own pipelines. Russia had first invested billions into its evil plan of constructing Western Europe depending on its vitality after which transitioned into its new evil plan of blowing up the pipelines. Moscow may alternatively have turned off the valves and saved billion {dollars}’ value of infrastructure, however the Russian playbook works in mysterious methods. Western European politicians entrusted with defending their nationwide pursuits and the media – which is meant to report on actuality – insisted that solely Russia would have carried out such a horrendous assault. Anybody suggesting the US may have been the perpetrator was smeared by the political and media elites as spreading “Russian propaganda.”
Blaming Ukraine
Hersh then reported that the US had coordinated the assaults with using a US Navy diving crew. The report was largely ignored by the media. When it was talked about, it was principally ridiculed and the reliability of the writer undermined. The legendary investigative journalist – who uncovered the quilt up of the My Lai bloodbath in Vietnam and detailed the US navy’s torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq – was out of the blue offered to the general public as a senile outdated discredited conspiracy theorist carrying water for Putin.
Then, the US started to shift the blame to Ukraine. The Washington Publish reported in June 2023 about leaked CIA paperwork revealing that US intelligence and the Biden administration knew at the very least three months earlier than the assault on Nord Stream that the “Ukrainian navy had deliberate a covert assault on the undersea community, utilizing a small crew of divers who reported on to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.” How may the media report on the US mendacity about Russia being behind the assault, and how much narrative could possibly be constructed when the one two suspects are the US and Ukraine? When the narrative-driven media didn’t have a story, the answer was merely a media blackout. German Protection Minister Boris Pistorius, dedicated to creating excuses for the attackers and as a substitute blaming Russia, recommended that it was too quickly accountable Ukraine because the assault on Nord Stream may have been a “false flag” assault accountable Ukraine. Different Western European politicians merely concluded that it was finest to cease digging as they might not like what they might discover. The identical EU officers who had for years spoken in regards to the goal of “European sovereignty” now displayed full subordination to Washington.
The US was nonetheless cautious to not delegitimize the Ukrainian authorities, blaming as a substitute rogue Ukrainian parts who had acquired a sailboat with diving gear. This story was uncritically introduced to the general public after it had been defined for months that solely a state actor could possibly be behind such an advanced operation. But, the media was urged to not interact in hypothesis till EU nations had accomplished their investigations and shared their findings with the world. Then, Sweden introduced in October 2022 that it could not set up a joint investigation crew with allies akin to Germany because of nationwide safety. In February 2024, Stockholm introduced it had closed its probe into the assault on Nord Stream because the case didn’t fall underneath its jurisdiction.
As Russia was blocked from collaborating within the investigations, it put ahead a decision to the UN Safety Council calling for the institution of a world impartial investigative fee into the assault. Western nations rejected this and blocked the UN decision. In any case, an impartial fact-finding mission may threaten the narrative that NATO unity rests upon.
By August 2024, the Nord Stream narrative advanced but once more, because the Wall Avenue Journal reported that Zelensky had been concerned within the assault and that the CIA had allegedly tried to cease it. The German authorities reassured its companions that the alleged Ukrainian assault on Nord Stream and Berlin’s weapon provides to Ukraine have been two separate points, and the Nord Stream investigation wouldn’t have any bearing on assist for Ukraine.
Actuality threatens the unifying narrative
With no Russian perpetrator as the inspiration for solidarity, the Western Europeans have begun to activate one another. Narrative management has subsequently grow to be tough. A German official has claimed that Poland sabotaged investigations into the Nord Stream assault by not arresting a suspected Ukrainian diver named “Volodymyr Z,” as a substitute permitting him to flee again to Ukraine. August Hanning, the previous head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, has accused each Poland and Ukraine of being concerned. Hanning has additionally questioned the sailboat narrative as: “operations of such dimensions are inconceivable with out the approval of the political leaders of the nations concerned.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to the Germans: “To all of the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and a pair of. The one factor you must do right now about it’s apologise and preserve quiet”. The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, argued that if Ukraine was behind the assault on Nord Stream, then it was a official goal. The narrative is thus shifting from denial to justification of the terrorist assault. Germany continues to be humiliated by its key companions and allies, some that have been behind the operation and others justifying the assault on its essential infrastructure. That is all occurring whereas Germany’s energy-intensive industries collapse and its financial system subsequently falters.
Nevertheless, the Stockholm Syndrome phenomenon shouldn’t be underestimated. Western Europeans will memory-hole these uncomfortable details and proceed to disregard their very own pursuits. There’ll quickly be a brand new script to be adopted diligently and a swift return to the easy and comfy worldview of fine versus evil, by which liberal democracies stand united underneath the management of the benign management of the US towards the evil Russians.
This piece was first revealed on Glenn Diesen’s Substack and edited by the RT crew.
