Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Claims US Sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline (substack.com) 352
Seymour Hersh is a former New York Times and New Yorker reporter who won numerous awards for his investigative journalism, including a 1970 Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War. In his first post to Substack, Hersh details the covert operation the United States conducted last year to blow up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
"In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery," writes Hersh. "Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House -- but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution." We covered the news last October from an environmental standpoint as it led to what became the biggest single release of climate-damaging methane ever recorded.
In a lengthy and detailed post, citing a source with direct knowledge of the operation, Hersh describes the planning involved, operation itself, and fallout. Slashdot reader r1348 shares an excerpt from Hersh's report: Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions. Speaking about Biden's decision to sabotage the pipeline as winter approached, the source said: "I gotta admit the guy has a pair of balls. He said he was going to do it, and he did." Asked why he thought the Russians failed to respond, he said cynically, "Maybe they want the capability to do the same things the U.S. did. It was a beautiful cover story," he went on. "Behind it was a covert operation that placed experts in the field and equipment that operated on a covert signal."
In response to the report, White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: "This is false and complete fiction." Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the CIA, similarly wrote: "This claim is completely and utterly false."
"In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery," writes Hersh. "Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House -- but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution." We covered the news last October from an environmental standpoint as it led to what became the biggest single release of climate-damaging methane ever recorded.
In a lengthy and detailed post, citing a source with direct knowledge of the operation, Hersh describes the planning involved, operation itself, and fallout. Slashdot reader r1348 shares an excerpt from Hersh's report: Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions. Speaking about Biden's decision to sabotage the pipeline as winter approached, the source said: "I gotta admit the guy has a pair of balls. He said he was going to do it, and he did." Asked why he thought the Russians failed to respond, he said cynically, "Maybe they want the capability to do the same things the U.S. did. It was a beautiful cover story," he went on. "Behind it was a covert operation that placed experts in the field and equipment that operated on a covert signal."
In response to the report, White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: "This is false and complete fiction." Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the CIA, similarly wrote: "This claim is completely and utterly false."
Cui bono? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cui bono? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
The contract was e ended the day the U.S. shut off Russia from SWIFT, long before the pipeline was blown up.
No it didn't. Shutting Russia off from SWIFT does not nullify a contract. Financial contractual obligations build up in arrears.
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on your view of things, it makes some sense to me why Russia would blow up all but one pipeline. Germany has made itself reliant on Russian resources, and one can argue, that there is plenty of forced bureaucracy and undermining Ukraine, probably in order to not overly offend Russia. I think the case that Russia did it was probably more to twist Germany's arm into deciding 'who's side are they on...'
While ultimately I have no clue who did it, there's lots of motives around which make sense, but I
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This has nothing to do with NATO.
The US has been hard-selling it's LPG to the EU for over a decade. The EU refused to take the offer due to price. Putins war was a perfect opportunity to kill off the competition.
If you want more motives, think what country would profit the most from a close of the russian pipes.
And as the EU is still slow on the uptake, pivoting towards renewables, (today) the US decided it will undercut EUs R&D into renewables by playing the protectionism card.
The US is an untrustworth
Re: Cui bono? (Score:2)
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You can see in the chart on this page [cgtn.com] that the U.S. exported more than Russia to Europe mostly because Russia's output decreased, not because U.S. output increased.
In fact, the Freeport LNG terminal explosion suddenly reduced U.S. export capacity by 16%. [spglobal.com] (Huh -- I thought it was more.) You can also see there and in this PDF [energy.gov] that U.S. output has not recovered to pre-Freeport-explosion levels. In fact, the most recent total export
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II don't see how the US benefits at all..
Then you are willfully blind. Russia had control over the gas, they could turn it on or off whenever they wanted. They could use that power as a weapon to influence its European customers. There was a reason for Biden's promise and there was a reason the US would carry it out. It took away Russia's control and with it their ability to use gas as a weapon.
His logic flawed even as good fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:His logic flawed even as good fiction (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the gas that Europe was buying was going via other pipelines already, one Nordstream was never used, the other was shut down for "maintenance" most of the time
it did nothing to stop the flow of gas, but the flow stopped due to political pressure inside Europe not a lack of gas
Europe had nothing to gain, USA had nothing to gain, Russia had a useless pipeline they didn't need ...
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Nordstream was not providing much gas and pretty much shut off by the time it was blown up.
You mean people weren't using much gas in the summer/fall? You can say that they were cutting their usage for political reasons, but it's very obvious that it's also a time of year when demand is lower.
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Maybe, maybe not (Score:2)
On the one hand it helps to further pressure on the Russian economy, but on the other hand Russia was threatening to cut it off and was selling it at below market costs to India, China and probably others.
Dysfunctional administration (Score:4, Interesting)
Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration effectively greenlit operation of Nordstream 2 by lifting Trump-era sanctions levied against it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
The lifting of those sanctions clearly signaled to Putin that he could continue to deliver natural gas to Germany and other parts of Europe, even in the event that pipelines leading through Ukraine were somehow cut off.
Putin then pressed his advantage and invaded Ukraine while the Biden administration sat idly by and did nothing.
If this report is true, it either means the current administration realized too late what the pipeline actually represented or something far worse.
Re:Dysfunctional administration (Score:4, Informative)
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And yet they lifted sanctions. Why?
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All of this is irrelevant as they bombed Nord Strem 1 and left half of Nord Stream 2 intact. So the project they opposed is very much even now with this conspiracy theory behind us capable of delivery 27 million cubes / year to Europe.
If anything when the first conspiracies about the attack broke it seemed like it was done in order to ensure that Nord Stream 2 actually goes into operation, something Germany had refused to do given the war. Given Putin's constant excuses that "equipment failure" were the rea
Re:Dysfunctional administration (Score:4, Interesting)
That assumes Hirsch is right. And if he is then it unfortunately lends credence to the idea that the Biden administration deliberately signaled to Putin that he could invade without consequence, hoping to trap him in a war of attrition.
Putin was an idiot for playing along.
Russian Trolls gonna be here by the hundred (Score:5, Insightful)
This story was released at exactly the same time as the Kremlin pushed the same line through other channels. It's another fake propaganda blitz aligned with a renewed invasion on the ground. Distraction and disinformation are their strongest suits and they play them hard.
Expect lots of:
"There are two sides to every story"
"There are better sources of information available"
"NATO will stop at nothing to destroy Russia"
"My taxes could be used for better purposes"
"Tens of thousands of innocent Donetsk civilians were murdered and the West did nothing"
"NATO said they would never expand East"
"Ukraine leadership is corrupt and made up entirely of drug addicts"
There are others.
Their trolls work as groups such as the Internet Research Agency. They each run 5 - 15 IDs concurrently. When they make a media post they quickly upvote a post to push it high in the ranks. They downvote all opposition. When the object is just to create a toxic debate (often) they post in an inflammatory manner on both sides of a dispute simply to disgust and cause grief. All fair in their view of warfare. Constant war and endless enemies are need to sustain autocracies.
RAND's view: https://www.rand.org/pubs/pers... [rand.org]
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Motivation (Score:5, Interesting)
"but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage"
Germany was pressuring Russia contractually to deliver gas (in Nordstream1). Each day the gas wasn't delivered, Russia had to pay a fine. When the pipeline exploded, that got Russia out of their contract. That might not be what happened, but I'm not impressed by someone who claims Russia had no motive.
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Exactly. This was Russia's vested interest in destroying it. They hadn't planned on a long war and wanted to exert pressure quickly and decisively.
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I'm thinking who ever didn't blow them up is secretly glad it happened.
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I see the trolls are out in force (Score:2, Insightful)
Hersh has a formidable reputation for uncovering nasty facts the US government wants to keep hidden. He's hammered both parties, by the way. He doesn't pick sides.
So I read a few comments on Slashdot and what do I see? Various flavours of, "He's lying" without a shred of evidence to support the contention. Hersh protects his sources, and over the years they've come through for him. I don't see why this situation would be any different, though I'd certainly be open to some kind of debunking more worthy
Re:I see the trolls are out in force (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hersh" had a formidable reputation until he made a fool of himself with his reporting on Syria.
https://www.prospectmagazine.c... [prospectmagazine.co.uk]
https://www.haaretz.com/us-new... [haaretz.com]
This article headline was prescient:
Seymour Hersh "Will Get Fooled Again"
https://www.bellingcat.com/new... [bellingcat.com]
Plausible (Score:2)
There has to be a reason the direct neighbors looked away quite intently. The only reasonable explanation is they knew in advance.
Incidentally, this is an act of war against the EU.
Seymour Hersh says is batshit crazy (Score:5, Informative)
He thinks Trump is smart [thenation.com]. He subscribes to conspiracy theories about the raid against Osama bin Laden [bbc.com]. He continues to defend the Assad regime, pretending that it didn't use poison gas [al-bab.com].
I don't know if he's gone senile or just nutcase, but the man isn't right in the head anymore. In 2011, for instance, he suggested that Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, and the leadership of the US Joint Special Operations Forces were "all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta.” Which not only isn't supported by any evidence, but WTF are the "Knights of Malta" and who cares? Even if it were true (which it's not), Malta has zero to do with Afghanistan.
It seems like there's not an anti-American conspiracy theory he doesn't credulously latch onto, despite it making absolutely no sense.
So NO, I don't believe his latest pap for one second. He positively makes Chomsky look sane.
Re:Seymour Hersh says is batshit crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
He thinks Trump is smart [thenation.com]. He subscribes to conspiracy theories about the raid against Osama bin Laden [bbc.com]. He continues to defend the Assad regime, pretending that it didn't use poison gas [al-bab.com].
I don't know if he's gone senile or just nutcase, but the man isn't right in the head anymore.
This.
The fact that he exposed a big cover-up in 1970 gave him some credibility.
But the far more recent and extensive pattern of endorsing nonsensical conspiracy theories kinda blows all that credibility away.
All we have now is an outlandish statement from a person with a recent history of making outlandish (and unverified) statements.
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Re the Knights of Malta, he was probably referring to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a legitimate organization descended from the Knights Hospitaller. They do humanitarian work, so who knows, maybe they were involved in Afghanistan.
They're vaguely sovereign (recognized by a bunch of countries), but their territory seems to consist of a building in Rome, located between a Hermes and a Jimmy Choo.
Putin and Russia are two different things (Score:5, Insightful)
Failure to distinguish Putin's interests from "Russian" interests is confusing the majority of people.
Blowing up Nord Stream wouldn't be in Russia's interests, certainly. It would hurt Russia's economy and damage Russians' quality of life. But Putin likely thought it was in his own interest. Why?
In the two months before Nord Stream blew up, Nord Sstream was running at about 20% of capacity -- according to Russia, this was due to a lack to turbine equipment. At first, Canada didn't want to send repaired turbines due to sanctions. But when it waived sanctions and sent a turbine, Russia refused to accept it. [www.cbc.ca] (source 2 [reuters.com], source 3 [businessinsider.com]). Finally they shut off gas completely. [carnegieendowment.org] Technical difficulties, they claimed, but no one who was paying attention was buying it.
Soon after the decision to keep the gas off, Putin was at a fork in the road as the Ukrainians had just retaken the Kharkiv region (due mainly due to a lack of manpower in the Russian forces). Many observers including myself thought Putin would most likely respond by pulling back to the Donbass region after "regouping" his Kharkiv forces, take over a little more land, declare victory, and give up on confronting the west. That would've been the most rational response. Instead he doubled down.
We know that he doubled down on attacking Ukraine by conscripting 300,000 new soldiers (officially). But was that all he did? According to observers of Russia's regime such as Vlad Vexler [youtube.com], Putin believes the West is structurally weak and in decline. Since he's surrounded by loyalists and yes-men there is likely no one willing to tell him he's wrong. Just as he expected to take Kyiv in 3 days [bbc.com], I think he had other wrong expectations too. Most people don't reevaluate their whole life when one or two plans go awry, and so Putin probably thought he could still take over Eastern Ukraine after mobilization -- and perhaps, by other means, cripple Europe at the same time. Putin sees himself as being in a war with the entire West, and Russia propagandists routinely deliver that same message on state TV. So he thinks he has some ability to "beat" the west but he can't afford to do anything openly that might trigger NATO Article 5 (military confrontation). It would make sense in this context to secretly blow up Nord Stream and cut some internet cables [datacenterdynamics.com] as long as Russia can plausibly deny involvement. By doing so he's hurting Europe -- not more than Russia, but more than himself.
Secrecy is paramount, however.
Consider what would happen if Putin simply keeps the pipeline off: Russians would know that Putin is hurting Russia's revenue by keeping the gas off. But since the pipeline mysteriously blew up, Russian propaganda is free to tell everyone that the U.S. did it. Blaming foreign enemies (real or imagined) is a proven technique to increase nationalist feelings and bolster the Dear Leader. Similarly, if Putin openly blows up the pipeline, not only would Russians rightly question this decision, but the West might respond agressively to such a provocation.
It doesn't make sense for the U.S. to attack the gas supply of its own allies. You'd have to believe that the U.S. is willing to ha
Re:Putin and Russia are two different things (Score:5, Interesting)
As for this article by Hersh, the only evidence Hersh cites for his claims is "a source with direct knowledge". Okay. And how many people have evaluated the credibility of this source? Well, only Hersh himself. I've never heard of Hersh, so let's see what Wikipedia is says about him:
So, you could believe him, and lots of people will. He did win a prestigious prize 53 years ago. But his recent work doesn't sound to me like it has the same quality
how come (Score:2)
How come they use the word 'claims'? They never use that when saying Trump did this or that. That's always stated as fact.
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
"According to documents recently declassified by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), former President Donald Trump posted a classified satellite image of a failed rocket launch in Iran"
Wow documents are talking, they are cited as a source! It wasn't some leftist claiming Donald Trump did this, documents actually came alive and stated withou
Pulitzer prize winning doesnt mean what you think (Score:2)
Remember the NYT won a Pulitzer for publishing genocide denial propaganda on behalf of the USSR during the Holodomor.
I'm shocked! Round up the usual suspects. (Score:2)
We need a task force to investigate this, possibly a Republican led Committee in the House can coordinate with a Democratic led one in the Senate, and coordinate with the DOJ in seeking an inquiry from those at the CIA tasked with oversight of those overseeing the managers of foreign operations.
But not if that would impede the investigations, we wouldn't want to slow them down.
In the itetersets of Ukraine, Poland by their ally (Score:3, Informative)
Unreliable (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia about Hersh: 'His stories, often alleging vast and shadowy conspiracies, have made startling — and often internally inconsistent — accusations, based on little or no proof beyond a handful of anonymous "officials"'. With a lot [wikipedia.org] of samples.
Lots of possibilitys (Score:3)
Could make sense if it was the US. What better way to snap Germany out of their reliance on Russia than to blow up the pipeline?
That said, I could the culprit being pretty much every any country in Europe since most of them were getting quite pissed off with Germany. The Baltic countries in particular would have the means and motivation and have been vociferous in their criticism of Nord Stream & Russian intentions for years. The EU were fools for making themselves so dependent on Russia in no small part thanks to Germany and the likes of Gerhard Schroder.
It doesn't make sense to me that Russia would do it, but who knows. Maybe they saw holding supply to ransom wasn't working and decided to blow it up hoping they might cause a major rift between Germany and other nations. If that was the intention it clearly didn't work out that way.
That Was My Guess Too (Score:3)
A single anonymous source (Score:4, Insightful)
Some guy wrote a substack article based on a single anonymous source, and because he's a "journalist" everyone takes it as gospel. Want to know why it was on substack? Because no reputable publication would go to press on such a flimsily sourced article.
It plays well with cognitive biases. A certain class of person believes that their government is always lying to them, and they have the REAL truth. It's a way of bringing order to a chaotic world they don't understand, and feeling better about themselves. And it plays right into the hands of tyrants.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds more likely to me that this journalist guy fell for a russian disinformation operation
My country (the US) has engaged in some extremely shady stuff in the past, but I find it hard to believe they would engage in such a direct attack on a NATO ally. The risks outweigh the rewards by several orders of magnitude.
Re:I'm shocked. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm shocked. (Score:4, Funny)
People have been talking about "bringing an end to Nord Stream 2", all over the media, since before it was even built. Calls rung out from the hilltops for its cancellation due to the climate impact, energy independence from Russia, and more.
Factor in that the pipeline has never been operational, and it's not clear at all he's talking about an explosion, rather than discontinuing the project.
Not to mention the dude can barely speak. A literal reading of his sentence would mean lengthening the pipeline.
There were bombs on it as far back as 2015 (Score:3)
> People have been talking about "bringing an end to Nord Stream 2", all over the media, since before it was even built.
True, but an explosive-laden drone was found next to it as far back as 2015 [pipeline-journal.net], so it's likely that there have been people thinking about destroying it for at least that long.
Of course Putin has only himself to thank for this since it was his choice to invade Ukraine...
Re:I'm shocked. (Score:4, Insightful)
Like I said, I have no illusions that my country is an angel, but this would have been an absolutely crazy gamble by Biden. Yeah, Nord Stream is 51% russian, but the other 49% is owned by our allies. 30% German owned. If the US did this, the blowback will last for years or decades. Not that Europe is gonna turn towards Russia - I think they’ve finally realized that depending on Russia for ANYTHING is stupid.
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Bring an end to it would be a lot easier to do using diplomatic pressure. Shut down that pipeline and we'll speed up deliveries of other interesting stuff to you - including a couple of gas tankers to compensate for it.
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Re:I'm shocked. (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8
Here is the entire comment, with both the US and Germany answering the question.
https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=155
Here is Germany saying that they, the US, and their allies already have plans on what to do moving forward, and that everything will be done in joint plan.
I'm not saying it's impossible the US didn't do it, but only showing half the answer isn't helping to make it seem like it's so open and shut.
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You're a fucking imbecile dude.
Nord Stream 2 is the second - as yet uncompleted - pipeline. Which means that Biden's talking about bringing an end to that particular project.
It's notable that Germany - one of the primary beneficiaries of the project - suspended certification of Nord Stream 2 in early 2022 because of Russia's annexation of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
So seriously, you fucking morons need to read and have the faintest fucking idea what you're talking about before shitting out yet anoth
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What news sources do you track?
If you didn't hear Biden threaten NS2, did you hear Neuland talking about how great the destruction was? How about Ted Cruz doing a victory dance if you're more receptive to Team Red? (It's all Kayfabe anyway).
Did you read the RAND report about boosting US manufacturing by sabotaging Germany's manufacturing and moving their factories here?
Are you aware of the subject of Anthony Blinken's PhD dissertation?
Epistemology time.
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+1 I would need a link to this video with Biden bragging about it too... it seems like +5 BS not insightful
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Not a problem. Look at that smirk after he answers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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There are no facts, only interpretations. All that matters is how Europeans and Germans in particular will interpret this report, and if they will become suspicious whether the US is really looking after the best interest of their nations.
Re: I'm shocked. (Score:2)
Heres my post labeled flamebait where I said the US bombed the pipeline. Was called comrad.
Lets assign them points.
https://m.slashdot.org/thread/... [slashdot.org]
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Let me Google that for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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My country (the US) has engaged in some extremely shady stuff in the past, but I find it hard to believe they would engage in such a direct attack on a NATO ally
NATO allies may have given the green light to USA. European leaders didn't look too surprised: "Oh it's broken! Who did this? We are going to investigate, see you later". Then we never heard about this anymore. They even didn't really try to blame russia for it. No need to be have a phd in conspiracy to find this story fishy. We will have to wait 50 years to know the truth.
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Churchill didn't say that and I don't think anyone's so worried about Germany taking over Europe that they blew up a pipeline.
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"NATO Leader ADMITS We’re Sacrificing Ukraine To Bleed Russia!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Maybe, there’s a slight possibility that the world has changed since then. Just a tad.
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Re: I'm shocked. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't thi k it was so much about making them dependent on US gas as much as it was about making it so Europe had less inventive to let Russia have what it wants.
It quite likely worked too.
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Much of that petroleum was sold to China.
https://www.instituteforenergy... [institutef...search.org]
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At the time the pipelines were already shut down and it would make a lot more sense if the US just had used diplomatic pressure on Germany to not open them.
Destroying things without claiming responsibility has been a Russian method for a long time - instill Fear and Uncertainty about what will happen next so that a lot of effort will be used to protect many potential objects and therefore disperse a potential opposition.
If the US had been there to destroy the pipeline it would have been extremely risky sinc
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If the US had been there to destroy the pipeline it would have been extremely risky since if the were discovered as being guilty it would cause a heavy diplomatic incident and also cause huge tensions within NATO, especially at that location.
Even if, behind closed doors, the EU powers knew for sure it was the USA that committed this act of sabotage, would they publicly say anything? Would this actually harm relations between USA and EU? I doubt it. The USA is like a force of nature, they get away with whatever they want, especially with the powers that are supposedly on the same side, the good old 'western democracies'. As if Germany could condemn the USA for this sabotage. LOL.
So, heavy diplomatic incident? No, I don't think so.
Re:I'm shocked. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not quite. The actual reason why there were exactly four nations with enough interest in blowing up Nord Stream is in long term geopolitics of the region, not so much hydrocarbon trade. US, UK, Poland and Ukraine.
German and Russian history over entire existence of Germany as a nation state is basically two stages in infinite loop. Warfare stage, where inherent geopolitical conflict between the two causes a massive pan-European war that demolishes both. And peacemaking stage, where both Russia and Germany try to bind the other to themselves as strongly as possible through trade ties in a desperate effort to avoid slipping into the warfare stage again.
It's an open secret that Germany and Russia were in under the table talks of Russia directing gas supplies through Nord Stream 2 directly to Germany, bypassing hostile nations of Ukraine and Poland in exchange for Germany de facto leaving the pro-Ukrainian alliance. This was during the time where pretty much entirety of NATO supply to Ukraine went through Ramstein Air Base, so if Germany was out, supply lines to Ukraine would have been de facto severed.
Since then US did two things. First was the obvious, sever the possibility of Russia being able to supply Germany without Polish and Ukrainian veto. That is done by "someone" blowing up 3/4 Nord Stream 2 pipes just in time. Second was moving the European reception point of supply chain from Ramstein to Polish air bases. This was done in late 2022. Supply is still coordinated mostly from Ramstein, but aircraft land in specific Polish bases now, that had a massive logistical build up to handle the traffic in 2022.
Regardless of what you think about what happened, US played the cards it had brilliantly. Almost a year after the war started, Ukraine is still holding and performing it's primary role for US to perfection. That of being the region where Russia will be stuck fighting a war of attrition until it dies as a conventional military power and a nation state. And unlike idiotic wars of post 9/11, this one is being conducted with no US soldiers having to fight.
Now you can expect all the people conditioned by the propaganda machine that was revealed on twitter a few weeks ago that specifically planted stories in mainstream media that everything that disagrees with mainstream narrative is "Russian propaganda" hit full throttle. To the point where one of the best journalists in existence will be called a "Russian puppet" and whatnot, and on the face idiotic narrative of "Russia totally blew the Nord Stream pipeline because... err, they needed to show us just how evil they are by blowing up their own pipeline that was necessary for their geostrategic goals".
It is what it is. Doesn't change the fact that blowing up the pipeline has been a massive W for US, UK, Poland and Ukraine and massive L for Russia and Germany.
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By your definition, "one of the best journalist in existence" = "won a Pulitzer prize 53 years ago". Also, check his Wikipedia page on "Criticism and controversy", the guy has a habit of making big claims with no evidence.
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Why Nord Stream 2? Why not Nord Stream 1? It sounds like you buy Russia's story that Nord Stream 1 was shut off for the first time ever due to "technical difficulties" that just happen to coincide with the Ukraine war. Canada tried to give Russia's turbines back; Russia refused to take them.
You're saying German
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It feels fictional, and in all likeliness unless someone is charged with a crime, it didn't happen. The other version of "how it was blown up" says it was Russia in it's entirety.
Do believe either source? No. Because we have no reason to believe either. For all we know, both are true. The Americans+ Danish+ Norwegians did it to blame the Russians before the Russians had a chance to do it and blame NATO.
But the thing is, I don't trust the source, this reads like fiction. It doesn't seem to matter who did it
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It was probably the western powers that blew the pipelines, just so that when the winter cold hit Europeans couldn't falter in their sanctions towards Russia.
As a European, I like to think it was German intelligence that did it. To stop their own government from committing a war crime by supporting Russia with even more fossil funds.
As a Swede I wish it was Swedish intelligence that did it, because that would have been "just excellent", to use a John Oliver quote.
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The US blowing it up makes no sense.
Germany was already working its way off the Russian gas.
Russia kept having to come up with new technical excuses why they were not delivering the gas. The news coverage and made up excuses were making Russia look like they were the bad guy. Russia blowing up the pipeline gives them the ultimate excuse and lets them attempt to blame it on someone else. Russia blowing the pipeline up eliminated the news coverage painting them as the bad guy, so blowing up the pipeline ac
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Fake story planted at Reuters today.
Who would think that an organisation that can plant a spy at the head of the NRA can plant a story at Reuters?
The journalist they used is shit-bag anti-west, anti-USA money grubber.
FSB standard tactic.
Gonna be lots of posts by the IRA troll-bot army today.
Re: I'm shocked. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because he was "the real deal" once doesn't mean that he's always going to get right. Feed people enough FUD and you'll have them in your hand. Especially in cases where you have been making sure that the FUD is consistent enough to make sense - something that Russia are experts at.
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I'm pretty confident the NSA and CIA and their many dupes inhabiting US mainstream media are much easier led.
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The journalist broke the Mai Lai massacre story and won a Pulitzer prize. You might not like that he calls out the US for its shitty actions but he's the real deal.
I don't mean to badmouth him, but as others have said, we can't take his past accomplishments to mean he is totally reliable today. There is a well known phenomenon [wikipedia.org] where some Nobel laureates have taken positions that are downright crazy. (Note: that page lists controversial and unfounded opinions along with the ones that are downright crazy, but the fact remains that a person can be at the top of his or her field, then a few decades later claiming water has memory of poisons it doesn't actually contain and
Re: I'm shocked. (Score:3)
I really wouldn't call this a shitty action. At all. In fact, this was a very good thing . Whoever did it did Ukraine a massive favor. Sure it pissed off Russia and Germany, but if it hadn't been done, Germany would still be happily funding Putin's wermacht. And they know it. We knew, just as Germany knew, that they could stop giving him money if they really wanted to. But they didn't. Cheap gas meant more to them. Even idiots from Germany were posting here on slashdot (and yes, they ARE idiots) stupidly tr
Europeans are responding (Score:3, Interesting)
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by printing Eurodollars. The ECB is authorized to create dollars. To do so they create Euros and then utilize the existing US-Euro swap facility to hold the exchange rate steady in effect creating dollars. That means inflation created in EU due to lack of Russian gas gets exported to the US and food becomes more expensive in US. Sharing the pain as they say. Next time you get sticker shock at the grocery store dont forget to thank Biden.
No. Fed swap lines FAQ https://www.federalreserve.gov... [federalreserve.gov]
Re:Only surpris, Europeans aren't livid. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Europeans I talk to (Polish) haven't mentioned being frozen. I haven't asked them about their gas bill, but if it was some earth-shattering hardship they would have at least mentioned it.
There are certainly actors who would like for them to be livid. Whoever that is probably blew up the pipeline. Probably the same one whose domestic state-run TV is currently promoting and gloating over the idea of "freezing Europeans". The ones who started the war.
Maybe there could be a CIA conspiracy. But Occam's razor suggests no conspiracy is needed, due to Russia pushing towards the identical goal, completely out in the open.
Have a look at some subtitled Russian state TV some time. You'll get a lot of insight into what they're really pushing, particularly since you are not the intended audience. They assume English-speakers will never see it. When they speak in English, they speak a bit differently.
Re:Only surpris, Europeans aren't livid. (Score:5, Informative)
I am European, East European (Romania) and I am definitely not frozen. And the energy bills didn't "go up a thousand percent", not even one hundred percent (obviously, they increased quite a bit and there are some government compensation programs).
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I would imagine quite a few Germans will be upset to have this confirmed. Enough to sway policy? Unlikely. But bleed people enough ..
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Is the EU dosing the drinking water with thorazine? You'd think people that will riot over a soccer game would get upset over being frozen and having their energy costs go up a thousand percent.
Well, I suppose if we all believed crazy conspiracies, the whole world would be livid for all kinds of batshit reasons.
Wait a minute...
Europeans Are Burning Trees to Keep Warm
https://www.wired.com/story/eu... [wired.com]
I guess you were the brother or sister that believed their woodcutter father, when he said they were just going for a short walk in the woods.
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That was two different quotes, from two different people, though.
> White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: "This is false and complete fiction."
> Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the CIA, similarly wrote: "This claim is completely and utterly false."
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Norway was complicit; selling more gas a motive (Score:2)
Plenty of countries and politician are waiting in line to profit from this misery.
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You'd rather believe that a country that has been right at every step of the way, predicting Russia's every move with nearly complete accuracy, would just decide out of the
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This part of the post reads much better if you can imagine a chunk of spittle flying out of Nice Guy Eddie's mouth and his eyes getting really big like in Reservoir Dogs as he says it.
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Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this claim was completely unsupported by any kind of evidence. Post-invasion, there was a huge amount of hand-wringing by Western powers in deciding to send tanks to Ukraine. Sure seems like they weren't planning to send them without some kind of provocation by your employer. Now those tanks are getting sent to Ukraine [cnn.com] and NATO has two additional Russia
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Vatnik shills have found Slashdot with predictable results.
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The claim (or rather lie) was about Germany and central Europe...