https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-profits-from-pipeline-terror/5795118
Who Profits from Pipeline Terror? “A NATO on NATO Attack”
Secret talks between Russia and Germany to resolve their Nord Stream 1 and 2 issues had to be averted at any cost
The War of Economic Corridors has entered incandescent, uncharted territory: Pipeline Terror.
A sophisticated military operation – that required exhaustive planning, possibly involving several actors – blew up four separate sections of the Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) gas pipelines this week in the shallow waters of the Danish straits, in the Baltic Sea, near the island of Bornholm.
Swedish seismologists estimated that the power of the explosions may have reached the equivalent of up to 700 kg of TNT. Both NS and NS2, near the strong currents around Borholm, are placed at the bottom of the sea at a depth of 60 meters.
The pipes are built with steel reinforced concrete, able to withstand impact from aircraft carrier anchors, and are basically indestructible without serious explosive charges. The operation – causing two leaks near Sweden and two near Denmark – would have to be carried out by modified underwater drones.
Every crime implies motive. The Russian government wanted – at least up to the sabotage – to sell oil and natural gas to the EU. The notion that Russian intel would destroy Gazprom pipelines is beyond ludicrous. All they had to do was to turn off the valves. NS2 was not even operational, based on a political decision from Berlin. The gas flow in NS was hampered by western sanctions. Moreover, such an act would imply Moscow losing key strategic leverage over the EU.
Diplomatic sources confirm that Berlin and Moscow were involved in a secret negotiation to solve both the NS and NS2 issues. So they had to be stopped – no holds barred. Geopolitically, the entity that had the motive to halt a deal holds anathema a possible alliance in the horizon between Germany, Russia, and China.
Whodunnit?
The possibility of an “impartial” investigation of such a monumental act of sabotage – coordinated by NATO, no less – is negligible. Fragments of the explosives/underwater drones used for the operation will certainly be found, but the evidence may be tampered with. Atlanticist fingers are already blaming Russia. That leaves us with plausible working hypotheses.
This hypothesis is eminently sound and looks to be based on information from Russian intelligence sources. Of course, Moscow already has a pretty good idea of what happened (satellites and electronic monitoring working 24/7), but they won’t make it public.
The hypothesis focuses on the Polish Navy and Special Forces as the physical perpetrators (quite plausible; the report offers very good internal details), American planning and technical support (extra plausible), and aid by the Danish and Swedish militaries (inevitable, considering this was very close to their territorial waters, even if it took place in international waters).
The hypothesis perfectly ties in with a conversation with a top German intelligence source, who told The Cradle that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND or German intelligence) was “furious” because “they were not in the loop.”
Of course not. If the hypothesis is correct, this was a glaringly anti-German operation, carrying the potential of metastasizing into an intra-NATO war.
The whole operation had to be approved by Americans, and deployed under their Divide and Rule trademark. “Americans” in this case means the Neo-conservatives and Neo-liberals running the government machinery in Washington, behind the senile teleprompter reader.
This is a declaration of war against Germany and against businesses and citizens of the EU – not against the Kafkaesque Eurocrat machine in Brussels. Don’t be mistaken: NATO runs Brussels, not European Commission (EC) head and rabid Russophobe Ursula von der Leyen, who’s just a lowly handmaiden for finance capitalism.
It’s no wonder the Germans are absolutely mum; no one from the German government, so far, has said anything substantial.
The Polish corridor
By now, assorted chattering classes are aware of former Polish Defense Minister and current MEP Radek Sirkorski’s tweet: “Thank you, USA.” But why would puny Poland be on the forefront? There’s atavic Russophobia, a number of very convoluted internal political reasons, but most of all, a concerted plan to attack Germany built on pent up resentment – including new demands for WWII reparations.
The Poles, moreover, are terrified that with Russia’s partial mobilization, and the new phase of the Special Military Operation (SMO) – soon to be transformed into a Counter-Terrorism Operation (CTO) – the Ukrainian battlefield will move westward. Ukrainian electric light and heating will most certainly be smashed. Millions of new refugees in western Ukraine will attempt to cross to Poland.
At the same time there’s a sense of “victory” represented by the partial opening of the Baltic Pipe in northwest Poland – almost simultaneously with the sabotage.
Talk about timing. Baltic Pipe will carry gas from Norway to Poland via Denmark. The maximum capacity is only 10 billion cubic meters, which happens to be ten times less than the volume supplied by NS and NS2. So Baltic Pipe may be enough for Poland, but carries no value for other EU customers.
Meanwhile, the fog of war gets thicker by the minute. It has already been documented that US helicopters were overflying the sabotage nodes only a few days ago; that a UK “research” vessel was loitering in Danish waters since mid-September; that NATO tweeted about the testing of “new unmanned systems at sea” on the same day of the sabotage. Not to mention that Der Spiegel published a startling report headlined “CIA warned German government against attacks on Baltic Sea pipelines,” possibly a clever play for plausible deniability.
The Russian Foreign Ministry was sharp as a razor: “The incident took place in an area controlled by American intelligence.” The White House was forced to “clarify” that President Joe Biden – in a February video that has gone viral – did not promise to destroy NS2; he promised to “not allow” it to work. The US State Department declared that the idea the US was involved is “preposterous.”
It was up to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to offer a good dose of reality: the damage to the pipelines posed a “big problem” for Russia, essentially losing its gas supply routes to Europe. Both NS2 lines had been pumped full of gas and – crucially – were prepared to deliver it to Europe; this is Peskov cryptically admitting negotiations with Germany were ongoing.
Peskov added, “this gas is very expensive and now it is all going up in the air.” He stressed again that neither Russia nor Europe had anything to gain from the sabotage, especially Germany. This Friday, there will be a special UN Security Council session on the sabotage, called by Russia.
The attack of the Straussians
Now for the Big Picture. Pipeline Terror is part of a Straussian offensive, taking the splitting up of Russia and Germany to the ultimate level (as they see it). Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America: A Critical Appraisal, by Paul E. Gottfried (Cambridge University Press, 2011) is required reading to understand this phenomenon.
Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish philosopher who taught at the University of Chicago, is at the root of what later, in a very twisted way, became the Wolfowitz Doctrine, written in 1992 as the Defense Planning Guidance, which defined “America’s mission in the post-Cold War era.”
The Wolfowitz Doctrine goes straight to the point: any potential competitor to US hegemony, especially “advanced industrial nations” such as Germany and Japan, must be smashed. Europe should never exercise sovereignty: “We must be careful to prevent the emergence of a purely European security system that would undermine NATO, and particularly its integrated military command structure.”
Fast-forward to the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, adopted only five months ago. It establishes that Kiev has a free lunch when it comes to all arms control mechanisms. All these expensive weapons are leased by the US to the EU to be sent to Ukraine. The problem is that whatever happens in the battlefield, in the end, it is the EU that will have to pay the bills.
US Secretary of State Blinken and his underling, Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, are Straussians, now totally unleashed, having taken advantage of the black void in the White House. As it stands, there are at least three different “silos” of power in a fractured Washington. For all Straussians, a tight bipartisan op, uniting several high-profile usual suspects, destroying Germany is paramount.
One serious working hypothesis places them behind the orders to conduct Pipeline Terror. The Pentagon forcefully denied any involvement in the sabotage. There are secret back channels between Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
And dissident Beltway sources swear that the CIA is also not part of this game; Langley’s agenda would be to force the Straussians to back off on Russia reincorporating Novorossiya and allow Poland and Hungary to gobble up whatever they want in Western Ukraine before the entire US government falls into a black void.
Come see me in the Citadel
On the Grand Chessboard, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan two weeks ago dictated the framework of the multipolar world ahead. Couple it with the independence referendums in DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye, which Russian President Vladimir Putin will formally incorporate into Russia, possibly as early as Friday.
With the window of opportunity closing fast for a Kiev breakthrough before the first stirrings of a cold winter, and Russia’s partial mobilization soon to enter the revamped SMO and add to generalized western panic, Pipeline Terror at least would carry the “merit” of solidifying a Straussian tactical victory: Germany and Russia fatally separated.
Yet blowback will be inevitable – in unexpected ways – even as Europe becomes increasingly Ukrainized and even Polandized: an intrinsically neo-fascist, unabashed puppet of the US as predator, not partner. Vey few across the EU are not brainwashed enough to understand how Europe is being set up for the ultimate fall.
The war, by those Straussians ensconced in the Deep State – neocons and neoliberals alike – won’t relent. It is a war against Russia, China, Germany and assorted Eurasian powers. Germany has just been felled. China is currently observing, carefully. And Russia – nuclear and hypersonic – won’t be bullied.
Poetry grandmaster C.P. Cavafy, in Waiting for the Barbarians, wrote “And now what will become of us, without any barbarians? Those people were some kind of a solution.” The barbarians are not at the gates, not anymore. They are inside their golden Citadel.
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https://stephenlendman.org/2022/10/03/signs-of-us-western-desperation/
Signs of US/Western Desperation
Despite everything US/Western regimes throw at Russia as part of their longstanding rage to weaken, undermine and isolate the country, the Kremlin is standing tall economically, politically and militarily in Ukraine and Donbass — despite minor setbacks to be reversed ahead.
With US dirty hands all over rendering Nord Stream I and II gas pipelines to Germany inoperable at least for months, Russia has willing non-Western buyers of its energy — notably China and India.
According to Russia’s envoy to India weeks earlier, Denis Alipov, exports of its energy to the country “surged in recent months,” adding:
“There is every reason to believe that (the trend) will continue to be positive, since it is in the interests of our countries.”
According to Bloomberg News, Beijing greatly increased its reliance on Russia crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and coal.
In August alone, Chinese imports of Russian energy were 68% higher year-over-year, Bloomberg noting:
“Russia is likely to ship more crude and products to destinations including China in the coming months as Europe tightens sanctions.”
Last month, Russia’s Finance Ministry projected an increase of $6.67 billion in revenue from energy exports in September.
In August, energy analysts estimated a 38% year-over-year increase in Russian revenue to over $337 billion from exports of oil, gas, coal, petrochemicals and related products.
Following democracy in action referendums last month in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye — followed by Vladimir Putin’s stirring address and Kremlin signing ceremony last Friday — Russia’s Constitutional Court approved ratification treaties for the above regions.
On Monday, Russia’s lower House State Duma will convene a plenary session to approve four draft constitutional law for accession of the above regions to the Motherland.
According to First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma’s Construction and Legislation Committee, Daniil Bessarabov, the body’s lawmakers intend to adopt all four draft constitutional laws in three readings at the same time.
On Tuesday, Russia’s upper house Federation Council will follow suit, its Speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, saying the following:
“We will respect the decision by residents of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions.”
“We do not leave our own behind.”
Over 130 observers from dozens of nations affirmed that referendums in the above regions were scrupulously open, free and fair with no irregularities.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry stressed the following:
“(R)eferendums were held in strict compliance with the rules and principles of international law.”
“The people of Donbass and southern Ukraine exercised their legal right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter, the 1966 International Covenants on human rights, the 1975 CSCE Helsinki Final Act, and the July 22, 2010 (Advisory) Opinion of the UN International Court of Justice on Kosovo…confirm(ing) that a unilateral declaration of independence by part of a state does not violate any rule of international law.”
“Despite provocations of the Kiev regime, which gave criminal orders to launch massive artillery strikes on crowded places and civilian structures, the people were not scared to come to polling stations and express their will.”
In response to unanimity about democracy in action as it should be by foreign observers, the Ministry added:
“We say thank you to foreign experts, bloggers, journalists, and representatives of public organizations for their courage, honesty and objectivity.”
“A critical period of cooperation to fulfill the wishes of the people of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions to be together with Russia will take place in the near future.”
Liberation of the above regions from the scourge of Nazified Kiev control didn’t go down well in the US-dominated West — their ruling regimes smarting from defeat by Russia.
In response, EU and UK vassal states to US hegemony are imposing illegal sanctions on foreign observers.
According to spokesman, Peter Stano, for the EU’s so-called foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell:
“There will be consequences for all people who” dared support democracy in action — a notion virtually banned throughout the US-controlled West.
Britain’s Truss regime made a similar announcement.
According to grayzone.com last Thursday:
European parliament member, Nathalie Loiseau, delivered a letter to Borrell, “demanding (that EU regimes sanction) all international observers of” Sept. 23 – 27 referendum voting.
Loiseau mentioned redoubtable British journalist, Vanessa Beeley, by name.
In response to her involvement in observing referendum voting, Loiseau turned reality on its head as follows, saying:
She spread “fake news about Syria (sic) and act(s) as a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin and Bashar el (sic) Assad (sic)…”
The Gray Zone quoted Beeley’s straight-talk response, saying:
“Imposing sanctions on global citizens for bearing witness to a legal process that reflects the self-determination of the people of Donbass is fascism.”
“Should the EU proceed with this campaign, I believe there will be serious consequences because the essence of freedom of speech and thought is under attack.”
Russia’s liberating SMO, accession of four regions to the Motherland this week and related events threaten the drive for hegemony by the empire of lies and forever wars, as well as its Western vassals.
Responses by their ruling regimes and press agent MSM reflect desperation.
Multilateralism is triumphing over their unipolar moment.
And there’s not a damn thing they can do to reverse things.
Everything they tried, with more of the same surely coming, failed.
Short of mutually assured destruction by global war with nukes, all US-dominated Western regimes’ horses and men can’t put dissolving humpty dumpty hegemony back together again.
Responses of US-controlled Western vassal states to unfolding events are signs of desperation indeed.
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https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/developing-developments/
Developing Developments
“Joe Biden” screws the pooch on Western Civ. He can’t help himself. His helpers can’t help him. Who will help us?
Message found in fortune cookie from Panda Take-out reminds us: “The dildo of consequence is seldom lubricated.” Please apply this ancient wisdom to “Joe Biden’s” sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natgas pipelines. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spun the deed as a “tremendous opportunity” to reduce fuel use in Euroland, and shift its prior dependence on affordable Russian energy to ruinously-priced American liquid natural gas (LNG) — a supposed boon to US producers. Lucky us and them!
Let’s get a few technical matters straight about natgas. Gas pipelines allow for cheap gas, without costly intervening shipping procedures. Flows are continuous from producer to customer. LNG requires compression of the gas at super-cold temperatures and costly-to-build LNG tanker ships to keep that gas cold and compressed in transit. Each tanker can carry only so-much gas and the flow is not continuous. At each end of the energy-losing journey there is a costly LNG terminal to load and unload the gas. Bottom line: Euroland customers can’t afford US LNG, though for now they’ll be getting it good and hard to struggle through the first winter of a permanent depression that will feel more like the forecourt of a new dark age. Also bear in mind that American shale gas is a finite resource; that we need plenty of it ourselves; and that the earliest-developed US shale gas fields are crapping out one-by-one.
Secretary Blinken pretends that Europe’s deadly predicament will segue crisply into a new “green renewable” disposition of things as well as a stable-and-balanced new cold war between US-led NATO and Russia, like the 1950s. Secretary Blinken is, of course, completely insane. Germany’s industry will now collapse, the Euro currency will collapse with it, and the exchange rate with the dollars Euroland needs to buy in order to purchase US LNG will bankrupt them further. It will also probably blow up the European Union, which is chiefly a trade scaffold. With industrial production sinking, trade sinks too, and the flimsy cooperative arrangements between nations turn into a desperate competition as each nation of Euroland struggles to stay alive.
Let’s not forget the reason that “Joe Biden” blew up the Nord Streams: to foreclose any chance of Germany wriggling out of US sanctions against Russia. Just prior to the Nord Stream strike, protests were rising in several German cities, the common folk already chafing under the Russian gas delivery shut-down and soaring price of desperately-needed gas. If the US stood by while Germany made a separate peace with Russia, how would that affect the NATO countries’ commitment to the US-provoked conflict between Ukraine and Russia? How much cash support would Euroland continue to dish out to Mr. Zelenskyy’s sketchy money-laundering operation?
What no government official can acknowledge — even among the Euroland victim nations of this awesome stupidity — is that the US demolition of the Nord Streams was an act-of-war against our own allies. By the way, the blogger who styles himself as “Monkey Werx,” notable for tracking the world-wide military flight movements, presents a comprehensive play-by-play of just exactly how the mission was accomplished. I’ll summarize but you can read his full report (click here) for yourself.
MW reports that overnight on the 26th of September, a Navy P8 Poseidon submarine-hunter jet flew out of the US to the Baltic. It did not land in the UK to refuel — thus avoiding any tracking complications — but rather rendezvoused over Grudziadz, Poland, with a US Bart-12 mid-air refueling plane, which it hooked up with for more than an hour. The P8 was equipped with Mk54 air-launched torpedoes. After un-docking from the Bart-12 refueler, the P8 followed a route west along the Nord Stream pipelines, descended to bomb-run altitude, and dropped its weapons. Kaboom. Then, fully refueled, the P8 flew directly back to the USA. Days later, when confronted at the UN by Russia with a yes-or-no question as to US responsibility for the Nord Stream caper, the US representatives refused to answer one way or another. Cute.
So, the questions loom: How many more days before Germany and the rest of Euroland begin to apprehend how they have been hosed by America into an economic collapse scenario? (How many days before a team of competent professionals hunts down Klaus Schwab and his colleagues somewhere in Switzerland?) When will the Eurofolk turn on their idiot government leaders and flush them out of office? When will all (except for psychotic Poland) bail out of the USA’s Ukraine crusade? I will tell you: this will all begin pretty darn soon. And if so, that will be the end of the NATO alliance.
Meanwhile, the US-led propaganda campaign has Russia utterly on-the-ropes against a raging and triumphant Ukraine army. Nothing could be further from the truth. Russia made a few tactical retreats the past month in preparation for a final systematic and methodical mopping-up of the remaining Ukraine army. Russia is bringing in Iskander hypersonic missiles, not necessarily nuclear-armed, and will assemble Russian army regulars to replace the mash-up of Donbas militia volunteers who have borne the brunt on the thinly defended line leading to the much talked-about tactical retreat around the Kharkov-Izium-Lyman front. The Russian negotiation table is open for business. Failing to report to it, Ukraine will have to decide what sort of rump state it will become — a merely half-assed agricultural backwater or a fully ass-blown-off failed state.
Meanwhile, Western Europe descends into the cold and dark, with the USA not far behind. What’s up next here in Homeyland? Try a trucking fuel crisis. Kerosene is becoming scarce — there’s none, for instance, at the Hudson Valley’s Albany storage facility. The winter trucking fuel mix is 70-percent diesel and 30-percent kerosene, which is added to lighten the fuel and keep it flowing under freezing weather conditions. This shortage suggests a supply-line collapse for just about everything, but especially food. Doesn’t sound too peachy for Christmastime. “Joe Biden” and Company are destroying the USA at just about every level. Thirty-five days to the midterm election. So, let’s send a few more billion dollars to the sucking chest wound that is Ukraine.
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