Attack on the Nord Stream pipelines

The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was an act of war against Germany and Russia.

Legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article which could cause a lot of trouble for the U.S. government. His sources claim that the U.S. is responsible for the explosions that destroyed the North Stream pipelines. What do you think about these revelations? I've known Seymour Hersh[wp] for more than 20 years, almost a quarter of a century. And I'm proud to call this man my friend. And I put that out there in the interest of full disclosure, because I'm not an uninterested party. I have a bias towards Seymour Hersh, but that bias is grounded in a legendary career of an investigative journalist who has done a great service to the American people and the world by exposing inconvenient truths, so to speak, from the My Lai massacre[wp] to Abu Ghraib[wp] and now to Nord Stream[wp]. Very early on, Seymour Hersh also did research on me, that's how we met. I know that his methodologies are exact. I know that his sourcing is unimpeachable. I know that his fact checking is as stringent as a human being can possibly make it. I have no insight into Seymour's story. He did not call me. He did not bounce it off of me. The first time I heard about it is when I read it, just like everybody else. So I can't sit here and tell you that I have inside scoop about the sourcing and the methodology. Like everybody else, I have to trust Sey Hersh and rely on his record, trust his achievements and his unmatched journalistic integrity. Let me remind people listening to this right now. Look around you. Look at the state of mainstream media today. And ask yourself why is Seymour Hersh publishing in Substack instead of writing for the New York Times or the New Yorker. Institutions he used to write for, but which have lost any semblance of journalistic integrity, allowing the pursuit of truth to be compromised by political expediency. There are no real journalists in the world today. There are media specialists, there are propagandists, there are stenographers who basically write down that which they are dictated to from their governmental sources. And if we, the people, whether it's the American people, the German people, or anyone else out there in the world, simply rely upon the mainstream media for our news, then we need to understand that we are getting what the government wants us to hear, nothing more, nothing less. Thank God for Seymour Hersh, for his ability to see through the nonsense, find the hard facts, put them together in a cohesive, logical manner and then publish them so that we can be exposed to the truth. You said this is going to cause a problem for the American people, for the American government? Sure! But what about the German government? Because Seymour Hersh has just told you an unequivocal fashion that the United States of America together with Germany's Norwegian allies, conspired to destroy a 12 billion dollar piece of critical energy infrastructure that was vital to Germany's economic survival. Any German now whining about high energy prices now knows who to blame, right? The United States, Norway, your government. Because, frankly speaking, silence is consent. And for the German government to remain silent in the face of this clear evidence of malfeasance by it's American and Norwegian allies means that it is complicit in what has happened. Are you a democracy Germany? Will you hold your officials accountable for what they have done in your name? What they have done to you? Are you a nation of sheep who will just sit there and bleat while you're led to the slaughter by those you thought you were being protected by? According to the report, the instigators were aware that their actions would be considered an act of war if the traces of the explosion could be followed back to the US. Could that be the reason why Sweden and Germany are holding back on the results of their investigations? Let's just make it clear. It's not going to be considered an act of war if evidence is discovered. It is an act of war, plain and simple. There is no ifs and or buts about this, the United States and Norway attacked Germany and attacked Europe. It is an act of war - had Russia done so, Germany would have been able to invoke article 5 of the NATO Charter ask for collective defense. Why isn't Germany doing that now? You were attacked, Germany! You were attacked. Yeah! Germany and Sweden know the truth. No doubt Denmark knows the truth. Russia knows the truth. Everyone knows the truth. But it's an inconvenient truth. Because it's the kind of truth that lays bare the reality of the relationship between Germany, Europe and the United States - a master-slave relationship in which the United States is the master Europe is the slave - a colonial master for their colonial subjects, you exist only for the pleasure of your master. And your master was angry because you dared to say that we needed cheap Russian gas to make our economy function. We needed cheap Russian gas to ensure that our living standards were high. We needed cheap Russian gas to make sure the German economy was the powerhouse of Europe, a Europe that could rise up and challenge the United States economically on the world stage. But no, your colonial masters didn't want that. So they destroyed this 12 billion dollar piece of infrastructure and doing so, they destroyed Germany's future. Yeah. It was an act of war. Germany just doesn't have the guts to say so. This is the US government still claims that Hersh's report is a "fake and total fiction". Would Russia otherwise be forced to react? And if so, what should we expect now? Well, first of all, I don't think that Russia is depending on Seymour Hersh's reporting to draw its own conclusions. I have the highest degree of confidence that the Russian intelligence services are aware of much of what Seymour Hersh has reported. Seymour Hersh's laborers are for the benefit of we, the collective West, the ignorant masses, who allow ourselves to be misled by government-controlled mainstream media narratives. Russia is not prisoner to this. Russia has its own capabilities and Russia will make its own decisions. I mean, as an outside observer, I would say that things couldn't have gone better for Russia, to be honest. I think it would have been nice if Russia could have continued to supply Germany with 55 billion cubic meters of gas, cheap gas, that would boost its economy and the economy of Europe. That's a nice income stream, but it also came with a lot of hassle attached to that. Again Europe is not as a collective able to stand up to the dictates of their american masters. And the american masters were not happy. So from the Russian perspective, it was a complex relationship. Thanks to the United States, Russia has now been able to divorce itself from this complex mess. Russia has just opened up new gas pipelines going into China, India and Asia. These are economic relationships that are not dependent upon the foibles and the prejudices and the inconsistencies and the vagaries of an American-dominated Europe. So I think Russia is secretly thankful that this has happened, because it has solved a lot of problems for Russia. And frankly speaking, given the nature of the relationship between Europe and Russia today, Russia is in no hurry to alleviate the suffering of the European people, especially if the cause of the suffering is themselves. You know, Russia is watching the European garden turn into a jungle, to paraphrase Mr Borrell, and I think Russia is enjoying this transition. According to Hersh, Norway also played a major role in the planning and execution of the sabotage. How can the German government trust its allies if vital German interests are literally blown out of the water? How can Germany trust its allies? Germany has no allies. Germany is alone. I mean if you had allies, people would be rallying around you, supporting you, but they're not. Germany is on its own, literally on its own. How can you trust Norway, how can you trust the United States? Let me remind Germany that under President Barack Obama, that bastion of democracy, that Germany loved to welcome and continues to love welcome. You adore him. He ordered the National Security Agency to spy on your Chancellor to intercept her private phone calls. Is this what a friend does to a friend? I asked Germans to walk by the US embassy in Berlin and look up on top of the roof you'll see a little trailer type structure there. What do you think is going on inside that trailer? You think it's there for fraternal friendship? You think the American people that operate that trailer are doing it because they love you? They don't trust you. They don't like you. They're spying on you and they're using the information that they gather there to take control of your parliamentarians. What percentage of your parliamentarians are on the take? How many of them are controlled by the CIA? The answer is: a whole bunch. Is that how an ally acts? Your economy has been gutted. There's very little chance that you're going to recover in a meaningful fashion in the coming years. However, the Norwegian economy has received a boost because at the same time that Norway participated in the destruction of this 12 billion dollar critical piece of infrastructure, Norway opened up its own gas pipeline to supplant the cheap Russian gas with expensive Norwegian gas. Is that the action of a friend? Germany has no friends. Germany has no allies. Germany is not even a friend of itself. Germany can't stand up for itself. Germany won't defend itself. You know when you are basically a pathetic stray dog, because that's what Germany is a stray dog to Europe. You're not part of Europe. Europe doesn't want you, doesn't need you, doesn't like you, resents you. They kicked you. You get the scraps from the table. You don't get to sit at the table unless you stand up and start asserting yourselves. And I don't mean asserting yourselves in the manner that replicates the arrogance and the militarism of the Third Reich, as some are doing right now, in a failed effort to breathe relevance into Germany. Don't dumb that which you have promised never to become again. You aren't a strong Nation by sending Leopard[wp] tanks to Ukraine. You're a weak nation. You're a strong nation when you stand up and say we will do that which is in the best interest of Germany, and restoring the Nordstrom pipelines is in the best interests of Germany because gaining access to cheap Russian gas will make our economy strong, make our economy viable, make us the economic leaders of Europe and the world. And that's something every German should be seeking and aspiring to - instead you've chosen to be a pathetic spray dog that's kicked spat on and fed only scraps. Your choice, Germany, but Norway is not your friend, the United States is not your friend. No one in Europe is your friend.

– Scott Ritter[wp]

It is fascinating to follow the coverage of the Western media these days. Seymour Hersh has reported in his article how the US government, with the support of Norway, has blown up the Nord Streams and just on the day of the publication of Hersh's article, the former Norwegian head of government and current NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg[wp] was with US Secretary of State Blinken[wp]. The two even faced the press after their meeting, but the "critical" journalists did not ask a single question about the Nord Stream blast. The journalists accredited to the White House also found other topics more interesting and did not bug them with questions about Nord Stream. The German press is behaving the same way. Instead of taking up the Hersh investigation, doing their own research on it and then supplementing it with facts (or even refuting it), Hersh is vilified in the German media and the German media do not ask the German government any critical questions. I, for example, would like to ask Chancellor Scholz what he thought when Biden stood next to Scholz a year ago and openly said: Quote: «If Russia invades, meaning tanks or troops cross the border to Ukraine again, there will be no more Nord Stream. We will put an end to that.» But the German media are behaving just like the US media and not asking their government any inconvenient questions. TASS expert Andrei Zhitov, who worked as a correspondent in the US for three decades and therefore knows the US media scene from the inside and is very well connected in the US, has written a very interesting analysis about this, which I have translated: Quote: «The Hersh Inquiry and Freedom of the Press in the USA: Who Needs It, This Truth? America proudly calls itself the "country founded on the idea of democratic rights and freedoms". One of the most important of these is freedom of the press, the right and duty of independent media to tell the truth to the people and the government. But who decides what the truth is and what truth the people need? And who should be responsible for that truth? Two important journalistic investigations published in the USA force one to think about this. Two stories One of the two stories is widely known. The legendary Seymour Hersh, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his honest account of the American military's massacre of Songmi village residents during the Vietnam War, has just published another sensation: a detailed account of how US intelligence, on the personal orders of President Joe Biden[wp] and with the help of Norwegian NATO allies, sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea six months ago. Note: «Other research by Hersh Hersh has always been interested in the work of US intelligence agencies. In 1975, for example, he wrote about a covert CIA operation to recover the Soviet submarine K-129 from the bottom of the Pacific. He also investigated issues such as the overthrow of the socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the provoked penetration of Soviet airspace by the downed South Korean Boeing (1983) and the torture and execution of prisoners at the US Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war (2004); the raid by US special forces in Pakistan to eliminate the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group Osama bin Laden[wp] (2011); the chemical weapons incidents in Syria (2013 and 2017); the story of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK (2018), and so on and so forth.» The second publication went largely unnoticed outside of professional circles: Jeff Gerth[wp], a long-time friend and colleague of Hersh's who was once hired at the New York Times on his recommendation, printed an extensive article in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) on "Press Against the President", i.e. how the US mainstream media created and inflated the myth of Russian "interference" in the 2016 US election on the side of Republican Donald Trump[wp]. Published by Columbia University in New York, CJR is considered almost the bible of traditional American journalism and lays direct claim to being the "intellectual leader" of the US media industry. Gerth may not be as famous as Hersh, but he is also a professional with half a century of experience and a Pulitzer Prize. For the new research, which took a year and a half, he had to dig through a mountain of publications, books and documents, including transcripts of parliamentary hearings and court hearings. He also conducted dozens of face-to-face interviews, including with Trump and his entourage, as well as with fellow journalists, including another living legend, Bob Woodward[wp] of the Washington Post. He spoke not only with supporters of the former president, but also with his "enemies". The latter included former FBI official Peter Strozk, who launched investigations into Trump for alleged "collusion" with Russia, and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was hired by Trump's rival Hillary Clinton[wp] to gather dirt on the Republican and compile the infamous dossier on him. Everywhere, venerable journalists have tried to look behind the scenes instead of settling for the official versions, and everywhere their efforts have either been silenced or rebuffed by governments. Hersh says that the White House, from which he sought comment, called his text a "fake and complete fabrication"; the CIA responded that his claims were "completely and utterly false". No questions? In my opinion, nothing else was to be expected. Again, the author himself writes that in discussing with the political leadership and security forces in Washington various options for attacking the pipelines, "everyone realised how much was at stake". And he quotes his source (he makes no secret of the fact that it was a person "directly familiar with the planning of the operation"): "This is no child's play. If the attack can be traced back to the US, it is an act of war". In Russia, of course, they are also aware of the seriousness of the situation. And at the highest levels, including through Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov[wp], it is stressed that Hersh's article "shows once again the need for an open international investigation into this unprecedented attack on international critical infrastructure." "Leaving this unsolved, not exposing the perpetrators to punishment, is impossible," Peskov told reporters. "But we see the opposite, there are attempts to quietly prevent these international investigations." At the same time, the presidential spokesman expressed surprise that the sensational publication had "not been widely reported" in the Western media, that is, it had not been picked up by them, at least not as a subject for further investigation. And this is exactly what I am concerned with. Here is a concrete example: Hersh's article appeared on the morning of 8 February and a few hours later, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken[wp] held talks in his office with NATO Secretary General and former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg[wp]. At the end of the meeting, they went out together to answer journalists' questions. The topics were aid to Ukraine and the prospects for Alliance enlargement, the Chinese balloon and the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. But on the Nord Stream sabotage they were asked.... no question, even though they were both named in the sensational revelation as key participants in the events. Feigned outrage When I read about it, I - honestly - couldn't believe my eyes at first. I remember how reporters usually behave at press conferences at the State Department and the White House; how they pick up breaking news spontaneously, how they go into the smallest details, how they proudly ask questions, even uncomfortable ones for the officials. But here - in this case - they were silent. I even asked a long-time acquaintance from the press pool of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs afterwards how this could have happened. He replied tersely that he himself was not present at this press conference and could not speak for others. Since we were talking about the transatlantic practice of officials communicating with journalists, I can add that a question in itself is no guarantee of an answer, although in this case it would have been almost impossible for Blinken and Stoltenberg to dodge it (incidentally, that may be why the question was not asked). The speakers have what I call a played indignation in store for such cases: the assumption itself is so outrageous and unacceptable that we will not "dignify it with an answer". In principle, we are now experiencing something similar: no one is openly saying that they did not do what they are accused of. As I have heard from the speakers themselves, they try to avoid explicitness altogether: First, they understand that they cannot know everything themselves. Secondly, they do not want to set a precedent: If you answer once, you will be asked to do the same in countless other situations. And finally, they simply take precautions and leave themselves a way out, just in case. One more addition to this topic: I am sure that no one will sue Hersh. In a country that boasts of the so-called Bill of Rights in its constitution, arguing with a journalist in court does too much damage. I remember three decades ago, in the early days of my own journalistic work in the US, a shady "businessman" from among our former compatriots tried to threaten me with legal action. I told the man, who was trying to exploit a troupe of Russian circus performers with gagging contracts, that I would probably have to publicly repeat and justify what he did not like about my text. Thereupon he left me alone. "Death to the media!" It is something else to demand of journalists, of course, if only to avoid irresponsibility and moral diktat. Gerth reminds us of this in his paper by concluding it with a quote from the famous former writer and publicist Walter Lippmann[wp] (who is credited with coining the phrase "cold war"). In his 1920 book Freedom and the News, Lippmann warned that democracy cannot work (is unworkable) if journalists arrogate to themselves the right to judge what should be reported and for what purpose. It is clear that this was said as a defence of restrictions on press freedom by unofficial censorship, it is about professional standards that require objectivity, impartiality, careful cross-checking of data, the right of critics to defend their positions, and a clear separation of facts and commentary. Gerth himself tries to strictly follow these rules, especially by conscientiously citing sources, even in cases where colleagues have refused to speak to him. According to him, by the way, this happened in about half of the cases; more than that, none of the major newspapers named one of their executives (an editorial director) as a contact person for him to answer his questions. Chronologically, the events covered by the research range from Trump's entry into the presidential race in 2015 to the attempted storming of Congress by his supporters in 2021, but the author symbolically narrows them down to the period from 6 January 2017 to 6 January 2021. January 2021, that is, from the meeting at which President Trump, already elected but not yet inaugurated, heard FBI Director James Comey's report on the contents of the infamous "Steele dossier" to that "riot outside the walls of the Capitol" that, as Gerth writes, "sealed Trump's legacy for much of the media." In Russian, one would say that the final nail was hammered into the coffin lid. During the "riot", Trumpists painted and scratched the slogan "Death to the media!" on the walls, among other calls. A reflection of fornication It is unnecessary to repeat the contents of the report as it does not in itself contain any news. Although, for example, I did not know or forgot that the same Steele was offered about a million dollars by the FBI back in autumn 2016 for concrete evidence and proof that would confirm the data in his dossier. None was found; on the contrary, it was confirmed that the compilation was based on "rumour and speculation". The compilation could also serve to illustrate the central point of the report - the double standard of the US mainstream media towards Trump compared to the Democrats. The dossier included salacious details, up to and including allegations that prostitutes were called to his hotel in Moscow to allegedly "rain golden rain on the bed" in the room where Barack Obama, the US Democratic president, had previously stayed. All this was splashed across the front pages of American newspapers, so that Trump, as he himself later admitted, had to justify himself not only to voters but also to his own wife. "Then a mirror image of this story about Trump and Russia emerges," Gerth recalls. The New York Post printed a series of articles about "juicy" details of Hunter Biden's[wp] (the son of the sitting US president) private life, as well as insider correspondence about his business dealings in Ukraine and China. It all came from the contents of the laptop allegedly left in a garage in [Biden's home state of] Delaware in 2019." "The same reporters who dug up all the details of the FBI investigation into Trump's campaign were unable or unwilling to confirm the Justice Department's investigation into the president-elect's son," he continued. "While the specter of Trump's alleged ties to Russia had previously sparked an explosion of interest among journalists and social media, this time Twitter and Facebook temporarily curtailed the New York Post's coverage." Incidentally, we are now also learning after the fact from Elon Musk, the company's new owner, how the anti-Russian censorship was introduced on Twitter at the time. "Statement of claim" or leniency? Perhaps Gerth could be suspected of bias himself based on the quoted passage. But he is, as mentioned above, a bird in the hand, having worked for the New York Times for almost 30 years. And when he researches the workings of the press for a professional newspaper, he explicitly refrains from making his own value judgments and trusts his sources. Woodward told him, for example, that in his opinion the Russiagate coverage "wasn't handled well", that readers and viewers were "cheated" by it, and that editors would do well to "take the painful path of introspection". This is, as they say, a retrospective debriefing; so far, far from all of them have done so. Although in 2019, shortly after the announcement that special investigator Robert Mueller had found no trace of Trump's collusion with Russia, the then editor-in-chief of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, publicly joked in exasperation that his newspaper had been caught "a little tiny bit flat-footed". I should add that I myself find Gerth's work far from flawless. In my opinion, its most important flaw is what is not in it. The research shows what happens, but it does not explain why or how. It does, however, make clear that the Steele dossier was commissioned by Clinton's people because she herself had certain connections with Russia. It also lays out the actions of the intelligence agencies that carried out the White House's orders. But who directed the work of the press and how is left out. The report is excessively long and detailed, so much so that, as one critic put it, sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. The text is even divided into six chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. In my opinion, the author intended to write a book, but the result is neither fish nor fowl: less than a book, but more than an article. CJR editor-in-chief Kyle Pope called the publication "an encyclopedic look at one of the most significant moments in American media history." An encyclopaedia, however, should be completely accurate. For example, I just chuckled wryly when I read that the phrase "enemy of the people", which Trump likes to use to brand journalists and media outlets that are not sympathetic to him, was coined by the late American political scientist Pat Caddell[wp] "over a decade ago". And I agree with Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of the conservative magazine The National Review, who pointed out the logical gap: if Trump really did try to collude with Moscow in 2016, then by definition there could have been no meeting of his closest associates in Trump Tower with an alleged "Kremlin liaison". Notwithstanding, the same Lowry hails the appearance of Gerth's piece as a welcome step in the right direction; his commentary is titled: "Of course Jeff Gerth is right about Russiagate - Finally some media accountability". The commentator's only fear is that the effect might be the opposite of what was intended, and that the research will not be perceived as an "indictment" but rather as a kind of indulgence: So the debriefing is now complete and there is no longer anything to worry about. "Dwindling trust and polarisation" The author himself sees the point of his work as a warning to his colleagues for the future. Gerth reminds us that America is facing a new pre-election cycle that will inevitably bring "intense political coverage" and warns that mistakes not learned from the past will "almost certainly" be repeated. Indeed, I also see the main value and relevance of his work in the fact that the US is heading for another election under the same, if not worse, conditions as 2016 and 2020, and that Biden and Trump could clash again in the final. In the introduction to his work, Gerth laments that the US ranks last among 46 countries surveyed in the Reuter Institute's 2022 Profile Study of Journalism in terms of trust in the press (26 %). In the epilogue, he points out that most Americans (60 %) would like to have unbiased news sources, but almost all (86 %) consider their media to be biased. And they pick their facts according to their beliefs: 83% of Fox News viewers are pro-Republican, 91% of New York Times readers are pro-Democrat. "I am alarmed by the diminishing trust in journalism and the increasing polarisation in society. I believe these two trends are linked," Gerth writes. And he adds, "My main conclusion is that the core functions of journalism - to inform the public and challenge state power - are being undermined by an erosion of journalistic standards and a lack of transparency by the media about its own work." Not even a hint of reconciliation The problems are well known and alarming to many. The Spectator called CJR's publication "Vietnam for the American media" and changed the definition of Russiagate: "From Trump's questionable contacts with the Kremlin to a protracted media campaign to remove a sitting president from office." Even before the research became public, I had read a commentary by historian and political scientist Michael Barone[wp] in the Washington Examiner calling for "truth and reconciliation with [Trump's] phony collusion with Russia." But there is no sign of reconciliation. Reactions to this publication in liberal newspapers and social media are full of outrage: what was such a thing written for and why did the CJR agree to print it? Mother Jones magazine, which first brought the Steele dossier to the attention of the US media, bluntly accuses Gerth of sabotage. It says he missed the main point: Whatever the special investigator decides about collusion, malicious Russian interference in the election has taken place, this should be communicated to the people, and the press has rightly pointed it out, does and will continue to do so. When I read these kinds of arguments, I can't help feeling that no one is learning or wants to learn lessons from the past. So now Seymour Hersh has openly written what everyone already knew, and now what? Recently it was the 20th anniversary of Colin Powell's[wp] famous speech to the UN justifying the Iraq war, and again, so what? No one has been held accountable for their actions, and I fear no one ever will be. A lesson for the good guys I called Hersh and asked him what he thought of the reaction to his article. He responded by quoting a "young but bright" friend of his who called him a "master of deconstructing the obvious". And he said he was "waiting for something to break" in the developments. You can understand this however you want. Personally, I understand it in the sense of the Russian proverb "waiting for the weather by the sea". However, it seems that Hersh not only threw a net into the sea of information, but also pulled out a goldfish. But there are also more modern texts about the same things. Do you remember the famous parable by Vladimir Vysotsky[wp], in which the pure truth is not only stolen but also slandered by a clumsy lie? And in Leonid Filatov's[wp] tale, the Tsar first demands to "report everything as it is" and then warns, "However, if this news is bad, you can go to prison for ten years for this truth!" As the saying goes: a fairy tale is a lie, but there is a breath in it....»

– Thomas Röper (Anti-Spiegel)

Weblinks

• Reporter Seymour Hersh on "How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline": Exclusive TV Interview - Democracy Now! (February 15, 2023) (Size: 33:23 min.)