By Danny Weller
According to a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published Wednesday, February 7, it was the US Navy who blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline on September 26 2022, the result of a mission that had been planned even before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Seymour Hersh is one of the world’s leading investigative journalists. Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Hersh does not report his sources in the name of their security, and his accusations cannot be independently verified.
In September 2022, a series of underwater explosions destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which supplied Germany with natural gas from Russia. Although no nation or group has claimed responsibility for the action, US officials have expressed their satisfaction with the destroyed pipeline.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland said in congressional testimony, “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.”
According to Hersh’s source, who reportedly has direct knowledge of the operational planning, in June 2022, Navy divers planted remotely triggered explosives that, in three months, would destroy three of the four Nord Stream pipelines.
This action was reportedly disguised by a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, which involved dozens of warships and thousands of personnel. Hersh’s source claims that Biden made the decision not to trigger the explosions.
immediately, but they should be activated later in September.
The explosions destroyed civilian infrastructure valued at over $20 billion and resulted in significant environmental damage, releasing 14.6 million tons of CO2. The attack also resulted in a surge in energy prices throughout the world.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also been a long-term opponent of the Nord Stream pipelines. Speaking on incoming President Biden’s views on the matter, he said, “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.”
In his report, Hersh explained the economic consequences of the Nord Stream pipeline for the US:
“From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western dominance….”
“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…
“America’s political fears were real: [Russian President] 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….”
“As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington feared that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia.”
Following the attack, 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.”
According to Hersh, this attack was planned and conducted by the US Navy. If these accusations prove true, this will constitute an attack on Germany as a beneficiary of the pipeline, a NATO ally of the US. As Hersh himself writes, if this attack were linked back to the US, it would be “an act of war.”
With Putin ramping up his invasion plans, in December 2021, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a meeting of the newly formed task force, made up of members of men the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments, to gather recommendations on the best responses to Putin’s potential invasion.
According to Hersh’s report, Sullivan proposed a “plan for the destruction” of the Nord Stream pipelines, stating that he was “delivering on the desires of the President.”
On February 7, ahead of the invasion, US President Joe Biden declared publicly, “If Russia invades … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
The White House has denied Hersh’s allegations, with White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson saying in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” They have been similarly rejected by Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, “This claim is completely and utterly false.”
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has responded to the denials from the White House, “Can you think of any examples from the history of a secret operation that the White House was responsible for, but strongly denied? Besides, you know, that little ‘mass surveillance’ kerfuffle.” Here Snowden is referring to the illegal mass surveillance program carried out by the National Security Agency, which he exposed in 2013.
The White House continues to treat the explosion as a mystery.
PHOTO: US Navy
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