THE WHO, WHY AND HOW OF THE NORDSTREAM GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSIONS

Once again the greatest conspiracy theorist in the world, Alex Jones, has been proven right. On 26 Sep 2022 Russian undersea natural gas pipelines Nordstrean I and II were blown up. Two days later, Alex Jones said it was the Americans that did it. All on simple deductive work based on the preponderance of motivation, capability and opportunity. The pipelines bringing gas from Russia to Germany immediately rules out both countries for the lunacy to self-destroy their economies. Of course the US and the European Union tried to pin it on Russia, and many are the suckers who took that in.

According to Alex, Nordstream will enslave EU economically to Russian energy, especially Germany, a scenario the US will never allow. Americans have the naval deep sea capability to plant the bombs. The annual Nato naval exercise BALTOPS 22 in June 2022 placed the US in the vicinity. 

Key US giveaways

Some time Nov 2021, when war drums were beating and Russian troops built up near Ukraine borders, according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, Biden authorised Jake Sullivan to put together a plan for Nordstream.

18 Jan 2022 USEC Victoria Nuland at a State Department briefing said :
“I want to be very clear to you today, if Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward." (Watch here).

7 Feb 2022 Biden at a joint news conference with new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz :
"If Russia invades  (Ukraine)... again, then there will be longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." (Watch here)

30 Sep 2022 (after the explosion) at a Press Conference with Canadian Foreign Minister, whilst denying US involvement in the bombing of Nordstream, Blinken said :
"It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs". (Read here)

The plan and execution

85-year old Seymour Hersh is a celebrated investigative reporter who has won Pulitzer Prize for his famous breaking news works such as the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Watergate and Abu Ghraib war crimes. If you read mainstream media, including Reuters, they all carry articles trying hard to discredit an old celebrated reporter respected and envied by his peers for his contacts and ability to feret out truth.

You can read Hersh's detailed report on how the CIA planned and executed the sabotage of Nordstream pipelines here. 

Very briefly, Jake Sullivan was given the green light to take down Nordstream by all means possible but in a manner that will not point back to the US. All covert operations of the US are undertaken by the Special Operations Command which required Congressional oversight. This job was to be so secretive it had to be undertaken without Congressional approval. CIA and NSA organised the group.

The decision was to make use of a special naval diving team trained out of a special nondescript training school in Panama City. These are navy guys but not under the Special Operations Command allowing the endeavour to bypass Congress. The plan was to plant C-4 explosives to be remotely detonated at a deferred time.

US needed someone to do the ground work of determining the best spot. The perfect partner was Norway. The Norwegians hold strong anti-Russian sentiments, had benefited tremendously from US military tie ups, they have excellent underwater expertise from their vast oilfield works, and most importantly, stopping Nordstream can only have good paybacks for their own gas supply to Europe. Norway is not a member of EU, thus providing a higher confidence level of secrecy to US. The Norwegians identified a spot some miles off the island of Bornholm. At this point the 2 pipelines are just a mile apart, there are no strong undercurrents, and its a shallow spot just 260 feet deep.

Under cover of the annual NATO-US joint naval exercise BALTOPS 22 in June, the US naval team placed the explosives. But they had to wait for a long while before setting the bombs off as the US must not be seen to be in the vicinity. This waiting time imposed a high risk of accidental explosion by some other natural sources of sound waves setting off the detonation device. So a device was specially constructed. The special sonar buoy used to set off the device was airdropped by the Norwegians on 26 September 2022 during a routine flight. Sonar waves from the buoy then triggered the detonating devices that set off the explosions 3 months after the US were ever in the area.

The geopolitics of Nordstream

In the aftermath of WWII, West Germans proposed rapprochement with East Germany as a pathway to a peaceful co-existence. The idea developed into what was called Nordpolitik or Ospolitik, a normalisation of relations with Eastern EU countries and using the cheap gas supply from Russia to rebuild the economies of the countries destroyed by the war. It has taken decades, but  eventually Russian gas flowed in pipelines to EU through Ukraine. Nordstrean1 was commission in 2011. Nordstream2 was nearing completion by 2021 and would have brought tremendous amount of cheap natural gas supply to Europe via Germany.

Since the breakup of the USSR, Ukraine-Russia relationship has been mired in complex and complicated knots, principally relating to the splitting of Soviet military assets, the huge debt for gas supplied by Russia, and the Russian diaspora in Eastern Ukraine. Old pipelines supplying Russian gas to EU run through Ukraine. Nordstream means Russian major gas supply to EU will bypass Ukraine.

For Ukraine, Nordstream means Ukraine loses huge income from transmission fees and more importantly, a large bargaining chip in any security negotiations with Russia and loss of support from EU. 

President Viktor Yanukovych's policies leaned toward Russia, but everything changed in 2014. The complications of dividing the Black Sea feet and naval facilities led to tensions in Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014 after a local Referendum. The Ukrainian Revolution, engineered by Obama admin, and in which ambassador Victoria Nuland played a big role, brought US-sponsored Petro Poroshenko to power in 2014. Who can forget this video clip of  Senators John Mccain and Lindsey Graham prepping Ukraine to go to war against Russia back in 2016.

For Russia, Nordstream2 promises substantial revenue flow to develop the economy in the manner of Putinomic loyalist capitalism.

For Angela Merkel, Nordstream undersea pipeline terminals at Greifswald and piped overland to various EU destinations mean Germany will continue to hold leadership position and considerable sway over EU politics.

For the old establishment US policy makers, Nordstream will mean American leadership role in EU will diminish. With the Russian-Ukraine relationship deteriorating in Obama's second term, the US were concerned dependency on Russian natural gas will see EU countries reluctant to provide support and arms shipment to Ukraine in an eventual conflict.

Difference between Trump and Putin

An isolationist Trump warned EU of the dangers of Nordstream2 and over-reliance on cheap Russian natural gas. He sided with EU states that were worried about the security threat of over-reliance on Russian energy. On a bi-partisan Senate sponsored bill, Trump implemented sanction on the construction of Nordstream2 in 2019. The project came to a halt and Trump offered US gas to support EU needs at a time when US was a net-gas supplier.

Biden wanted a return to Obama policy of engagement in EU. "America is back", remember the battle cry. Wary of loosing Merkel's support, Biden flipped on Trump's Nordstream2 sanction. By mid 2021 Biden lifted the sanctions on Nordstream2 with a proviso with Angela Merkel that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will be met with a return to sanctions. As Russian forces build up and an invasion appeared imminent, an EU dependent on Russian gas will mean no Nato financial or military aid for Ukraine. After Merkel was replaced by Olaf Scholz in Dec 2021, the Americans were not very sure of the new Chancellor's commitment to the Nordstream2 agreement with Merkel.  Biden admin then made fall back plans to destroy the pipelines. Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 Feb 2022, the US bombed Nordstream on 26 Sep 2022. Biden's energy policy had killed US gas output from day 1 of his inauguration. He offered EU gas from US national stockpiles.

Conclusion

A sabotage against the economic assets of a country one is not at war with is considered an act of war. Biden's bombing of Nordstream was an act of war. It was also an act of terrorism. It was also an act of environmental sabotage with the release of massive methane gas into the atmosphere. I wonder what is the view of our Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

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