>>18352519

Thanks Baker

How to Blow Up a Pipeline - A conversation with Seymour Hersh

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

In the late 1960s, Seymour Hersh established himself as one of America’s most courageous investigative journalists, exposing covert US chemical and biological weapons programs and uncovering the massacre of civilians in Mỹ Lai. He went on to work for the New Yorker and New York Times, breaking stories on the CIA’s domestic spying operations, the Watergate scandal, and the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. His 1991 book The Samson Option detailed the secret methods by which Israel acquired its nuclear arsenal. Over the past decade, essays for the London Review of Books have examined US involvement in the Middle East: challenging the official account of Bin Laden’s killing and highlighting fractures within the American security state over the Syrian war.

Hersh’s latest article ‘How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline’, was published on Substack last week. Citing a source with direct knowledge of the operation, it claims that US Navy divers – acting on orders from the Biden administration – used remotely triggered explosives to destroy the natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. If this is true, the attack – targeting the crucial energy infrastructure of an ally – would constitute a major violation of sovereignty, if not an outright act of war. It would also mean that the US government is culpable for a major environmental catastrophe: the release of 300,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere – perhaps the largest leak in history.

The White House initially described the Nord Stream explosion as an ‘act of sabotage’, with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm suggesting that Putin was responsible. Her claim was echoed by a chorus of European leaders, intensifying the demand for further escalation in Ukraine. Yet, by the end of the 2022, Western officials conceded there was no evidence that Russia had detonated its own pipeline, nor was there any plausible motive for it to do so.

Since the appearance of Hersh’s story, the Kremlin has appealed for an international investigation into the attack, while Washington has dismissed his narrative as ‘utterly false and complete fiction’. Earlier this week, Hersh spoke to NLR editor Alexander Zevin about the possible rationale for the Nord Stream operation, the conflict within the Biden administration over the war in Ukraine, and the current state of the American media landscape.

OP-ED - Rachel Marsden: ‘Silence around new Nord Stream explosion reporting is disconcerting’

Hartford Courant Feb 15, 2023

https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-marsden-nordstream-explosion-reporting-20230215-belr2mixsjcprltp2m4rgutmia-story.html

PARIS — Pulitzer Prize and five-time Polk Award winning American journalist Seymour Hersh, who has spent a career destroying government narratives on everything from the cover-up of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia to misbehavior of U.S. guards at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison during the US-led Iraq War, now paints the picture of a terrorist act – not against an enemy of Washington, but against one of its closest allies: the European Union. On Sept. 26, 2022, a series of explosions ripped through Europe’s economic lifelines: the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany. At that point, Europe had sanctioned its own gas supply from Russia in a misguided effort to curtail Russia’s revenues, but there was always a chance that Europe could drop their sanctions and resume the supply flow. That thought clearly rubbed the Biden administration the wrong way. On Feb. 7, 2022, even before the conflict in Ukraine went red hot, Biden said that the U.S. would “bring an end” to Nord Stream 2 if Russia engaged militarily in Ukraine. He confidently spoke the words while standing right next to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country was most heavily dependent on gas from Russia as Europe’s primary economic engine. Now Hersh, citing backroom sources, suggests that Scholz didn’t object. Biden’s remarks echoed those of Victoria Nuland, State Department Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (and previously for European and Eurasian Affairs): “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” Nuland said. Hersh describes a U.S.-led plan, concocted by the Biden administration, CIA, and Pentagon officials, around December 2021 and early 2022, for Navy divers to plant explosives near the pipelines while using last summer’s NATO exercise, BALTOPS 22, as cover. The blowup would later be triggered remotely, adding that there was dissent within the CIA and State Department, with some cautioning against a “political nightmare” if the clandestine plan ever came to light. Norwegian secret services and military were also implicated in the plan, he says, notably in site selection and placement of the explosives. Oslo was also allegedly used by Washington to run interference with neighboring Sweden and Denmark to ensure that eyebrows wouldn’t be raised in the event that divers were spotted where they normally shouldn’t be off the coast of these countries. But why would Norway even care to get involved? Oslo had already proven itself to a reliable anti-Russian ally. It had recently allowed Washington to place a radar station in Norway. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko expressed concern last April “over the continuing construction of the radar station in the immediate vicinity of the Russian border.” Hersh says that Norway, like Washington, also had designs on selling their own gas to the rest of Europe, which cheap Russian gas had previously prevented them from doing. And how exactly has that turned out for both countries? Norway’s gas revenues last year were estimated to have jumped from $27 billion in 2021 to $109 billion as a result of increased sales to Europe, to the point where Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has even accused Norway of war profiteering over that windfall.

Last October, French President Emmanuel Macron also chastised the U.S. and Norway for making “superprofits” from gas sales to Europe. Macron also pointed out that “American gas is 3-4 times cheaper on the domestic market than the price [of LNG] at which they offer it to Europeans,” echoing Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, who has pointed out that “some countries, including friendly ones, sometimes achieve astronomical prices [for their gas],” in reference to the problem.

What’s disturbing, however, is the lack of discussion and debate around the reporting, whether it’s for fear of harming Western unity or of playing into Russia’s hands by evoking a narrative other than, “Russia/Putin bad.” There’s a troubling lack of interest amid the Ukraine conflict in questioning U.S. and allied government actions which hasn’t been the case in previous conflicts. How convenient that avoiding questions of accountability also lets the most powerful off the hook.–

CIA Flew Decompression Chamber To Ship Allegedly Involved In Nord Stream Blast -Journalist

The CIA has flown a decompression chamber to the Norwegian ship allegedly engaged in the Nord Stream pipeline blasts, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said on Wednesday

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/cia-flew-decompression-chamber-to-ship-allege-1643613.html

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th February, 2023) The CIA has flown a decompression chamber to the Norwegian ship allegedly engaged in the Nord Stream pipeline blasts, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said on Wednesday. "Not only did that ship have, was in operation , it also had a decompression chamber that had been flown by the CIA," Hersh said. "The Norwegians found the lowest level." Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who blew the whistle on US atrocities in Vietnam War and more recently on prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, wrote in a blog post last week that American deep-water divers had planted explosives under three of the four Nord Stream pipelines that were detonated remotely last September at the order of President Joe Biden. Sweden, Denmark along with Germany, the main beneficiary of Russian gas, opened separate probes into the blasts. Hersh wrote that cheap Russian gas had been a boon for the German economy, fueling its post-war rise to prosperity while diminishing Europe's dependence on the United States. He cited a source with direct knowledge of the US operational planning as saying that Norway played a key role in helping the US organize the attack and keep the Swedish and Danish navies in the dark. Both the United States and Norway dismissed the allegations as lies. Russia said it was no surprise that Hersh's report was largely overlooked by Western mainstream media despite Biden and Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland outright warning Russia months before the attack that the pipeline would be dealt with if it launched a military operation in Ukraine. On September 26, 2022, three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were damaged after an underwater blast.

Nord Stream explosions hard to cover up

Award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has exposed the Biden administration’s role in sabotaging the pipelines

https://asiatimes.com/2023/02/nord-stream-explosions-hard-to-cover-up/

The report “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Seymour Hersh states beyond any reasonable doubt that US President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. Thus if it wasn’t clear before, it is emphatically clear now that the US will impose its proprietary version of “rules-based international order” by any means possible including committing a crime against humanity. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines are jointly owned by the Russian energy corporation Gazprom and four European energy companies. Nord Stream 1 had been providing low-cost natural gas from Russia to Germany, which redistributed some of it to other parts of Europe. Nord Stream 2 was in the process of coming on stream and would have doubled the supply to Europe. The explosions that took place on September 26, 2022, stopped the flow of Russian gas, and left hundreds of millions of Europeans facing the prospects of a cold winter. The economic consequences of the Nord Stream sabotage were the quadrupling of energy costs and triggering rampant inflation in Europe the likes of which hadn’t been seen for decades. President Biden wanted to make sure that Germany would strongly support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. Blowing up the pipelines would ensure that Russia could no longer supply cheap energy to Europe and Germany wouldn’t have natural gas from Russia as a source of distraction from its support for Ukraine. Biden had absolutely no justification for destroying property that did not belong to the US. Doing so would be naked aggression, an act of war, devoid of concern that the people and economies of friendly allies would suffer. He wouldn’t care that to achieve his sense of security for the US required committing a war crime.

Shining beacon no more

Now, the world sees that Fortress America is corrupt, dishonest and shameless. The US suppresses other countries by force, intimidation or sanctions or a mixture of the above. Other nations comply with our demands not because they admire us but because they fear us. If the US did indeed destroy the pipelines as Hersh reports, some in the inner circle of the Biden administration might try to defend its action by claiming that it was a reprisal for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. In fact, according to Hersh, planning to blow up the pipelines was under way months before the Russian invasion began. He further explained that the government of Norway was enlisted to help with the execution of the sabotage. One of the reasons for recruiting Norway was that it knew the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea better than anyone. “On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy,” Hersh reports. “The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission.”

In a podcast interview subsequent to his exposé of the Nord Stream explosion, Hersh said that putting the story together was not difficult. Any reasonably competent investigative reporter could have followed the trail of telltale clues leading directly to the White House. For months before the invasion of Ukraine and the explosion of the pipelines, President Biden and his foreign-policy team – national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for policy – had been vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines.

Biden gave the secret away

Biden and Nuland even publicly hinted to the media that the pipelines would “go away.” At the press briefing that followed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ visit to Washington in February last year, Biden said, “If Russia invades … there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Undersecretary Nuland also said at a State Department briefing, lightly covered by the media, “I want to be very clear to you today. If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The reason the mainstream media did not bother to ask the obvious question as to who blew up the pipelines and why was either being lazy and uninquisitive or because they knew the answer and did not want to embarrass the Biden White House. Even after the publication of Hersh’s report, mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times did not even bother to contact him and interview him.

‘The US and Norway Blew Up Nord Stream,’ Controversial Journalist Says

In a self-published investigative report, Seymour Hersh, argues that Washington was behind the “act of war,”

Kyiv Post February 14, 2023

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/12139

The U.S., with the help of Norway, sabotaged the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany in a covert operation last September, according to a report by renowned but controversial American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, published Feb. 8 on his Substack page. The White House has categorically denied Hersh’s claim as “false, a complete fiction.” The CIA also responded to the reporter’s request for comment in no uncertain terms: “This claim is completely and utterly false.” The original pipeline, Nord Stream 1, went into service in 2011. A second pipeline, Nord Stream 2, had just been completed in 2022, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Combined, the two pipelines would provide Germany with more than half of their gas needs. Nord Stream AG, the holding company that runs the pipeline is 51-percent controlled by Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom, the rest by four European energy companies. The pipeline has been a source of controversy since its inception. The Trump administration had imposed sanctions on companies working to build Nord Stream 2, and the Biden Administration reluctantly removed those sanction in 2021. On Sept. 26, 2022, multiple ruptures in both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines were detected, with methane gas bubbling up to the surface of the Baltic Sea.

How Hersh says it was done

The details of Hersh’s report read like the treatment for an action thriller. The original plan was supposedly to blow up the pipeline within days of concluding the BALOPS 22 exercises. The explosive charges, placed by specially trained divers, would be detonated by remote control. At the last minute, Biden wanted the possibility of setting off the charges at a much later date. The extended time frame risked having the charges detonated inadvertently by underwater activity. Roughly two months after the charges were first placed on the pipeline, according to Hersh’s reconstruction, Biden gave the green light to blow up the pipeline. On Sept. 26, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The buoy would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds that would be recognized by a timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1.

Cui bono?

While it must be emphasized that Hersh’s account is based entirely on a single unnamed source – which does not meet basic journalistic standards and perhaps accounted for the fact that he didn’t publish it in any major newspaper – the report’s plausibility is hard to overlook. This is especially true when considering who is to gain. If Germany is forced to look for other sources of natural gas, then two of the largest exporters of natural gas ready to fill the shortfall are Norway and the U.S. Indeed, in 2022 Norway provided 33 percent of Germany’s natural gas needs, replacing Russia as the largest supplier of gas to Germany. The previous year, imports from Norway accounted for just under 20 percent of Germany’s supply. In January of this year, the first U.S. tanker carrying liquified natural gas (LNG) arrived in Germany. U.S.-produced LNG, which is more expensive than the gas Germany had been receiving from Russia, will now make up an increasing portion of Germany’s energy mix.

Pipelines as spying platforms

Apart from economic incentives to bringing an end to gas flowing from Russia, there is also a tactical consideration. Pipelines nowadays are often used to spy on other countries, and Russian has long been at the forefront of such activities. Andrii Ryzhenko, a former officer in the Ukrainian Navy and a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, has written extensively on the efforts of the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research (GUGI), a highly secret Russian military unit, and Moscow’s pursuit of Russian national interests in the underwater domain, particularly in surveillance of NATOs communications cables. For security reasons, gas pipelines have specially designated sonars which ensure safety in the vicinity. “However, it is very easy and comparatively inexpensive to connect aside lines composed of a number of sonars for military purposes,” he writes. “Using facts of the shallow depths of the Baltic Sea and the short distances from the Nord Stream to the coasts of neighboring countries and to the critically important Åland Islands, Gotland and Bornholm, Russia can deploy a passive underwater surveillance system in a relatively short period of time at the base of several lines.”

Oct 14, 2022

Norway posts soldiers at oil, gas plants after Nord Stream leaks

Norway has posted soldiers to help guard major onshore oil and gas processing plants, part of a wider effort to boost security amid suspicion that sabotage caused leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines

https://www.newarab.com/news/norway-posts-soldiers-after-nord-stream-leaks

Reuters - Norway's military said on Monday it had posted soldiers to help guard major onshore oil and gas processing plants, part of a wider effort to boost security amid suspicion that sabotage caused leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines last week. Russia's Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines burst on Sept. 26, draining gas into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark and Sweden. Seismologists registered explosions in the area, and police in several countries have launched investigations. Norway, Europe's largest gas supplier and a major oil exporter, last week deployed its navy and air force to patrol offshore petroleum fields and announced it would receive assistance from Britain, Germany and France in doing so. At the request of Norwegian police, the Norwegian Home Guard, a rapid mobilisation force, on Monday began to deploy troops at plants responsible for processing and exporting oil and gas.

Although the Norwegian government has said it was not aware of any specific threats to oil and gas infrastructure, it still found it prudent to beef up security and sought to calm concerns among workers.

Among the onshore facilities receiving police and military protection on Monday were the Kollsnes and Nyhamna gas export terminals, the Kaarstoe gas and condensate plant and the Mongstad oil refinery. A spokesperson for the armed forces declined to say how many soldiers were deployed, citing security concerns.

>>18352728

Sep 30, 2022

Three European countries will help Norway secure its oil and gas sector

https://newsrnd.com/news/2022-09-30-three-european-countries-will-help-norway-secure-its-oil-and-gas-sector.H1QAqM94fs.html

This announcement follows the alleged sabotage of Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. " We are in discussion with our allies to increase the (military, editor's note) presence in Norwegian waters and have accepted German, French and British contributions, " Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said at a conference.

Norway, has become Europe's largest natural gas supplier.

>>18352728

>>18352753

NORWAY

NORDSTREAM

>>18352791

Breaking - deaths from Covid lockdown and vaccines top 100 million

>>18352790

>Gigi Sohn

Biden's FCC nominee Gigi Sohn sits on board of nonprofit that wants to uphold online sex work and that honored an OnlyFans dominatrix who boasts about urinating on faces

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11680377/Bidens-FCC-nominee-Gigi-Sohn-sits-board-nonprofit-honored-dominatrix.html

Gigi Sohn, President Biden's pick for a vacant seat on the Federal Communications Commission, is a proud member of a nonprofit that wants to uphold sex work online, and which honors sex workers including a dominatrix who boasts about urinating on people's faces. The organization is called the Electronic Frontier Foundation and is designed to protect free speech online. The group protested against SESTA - a legislation introduced under the Trump administration - that cracks down on sex trafficking in 2017, claiming it would 'censor' sex work. Sohn, 61, took her seat on the EFF's board in 2018, two years before the organization honored a sex worker called Mistress Blunt. Blunt, who sells her work on OnlyFans and other sites, was celebrated in 2020 with the EFF's 'Pioneer Award'. They have since partnered together again to protect sex workers' 'digital rights'. Sohn is up for a seat on the FCC for the second time, but the vote on whether or not she'll be sworn in remains in a deadlock. If she is given the position, she would tip the board's Democratic majority. Blunt did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries.