Seymour Hersh: How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline (1 Viewer)

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SaintForLife

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The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

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The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center can be found in a location as obscure as its name—down what was once a country lane in rural Panama City, a now-booming resort city in the southwestern panhandle of Florida, 70 miles south of the Alabama border. The center’s complex is as nondescript as its location—a drab concrete post-World War II structure that has the look of a vocational high school on the west side of Chicago. A coin-operated laundromat and a dance school are across what is now a four-lane road.

The center has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades who, once assigned to American military units worldwide, are capable of technical diving to do the good—using C4 explosives to clear harbors and beaches of debris and unexploded ordnance—as well as the bad, like blowing up foreign oil rigs, fouling intake valves for undersea power plants, destroying locks on crucial shipping canals. The Panama City center, which boasts the second largest indoor pool in America, was the perfect place to recruit the best, and most taciturn, graduates of the diving school who successfully did last summer what they had been authorized to do 260 feet under the surface of the Baltic Sea.

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 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.

Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.”

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.Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible.

There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.

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, which ran side by side for 750 miles under the Baltic Sea from two different ports in northeastern Russia near the Estonian border, passing close to the Danish island of Bornholm before ending in northern Germany.

The direct route, which bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy, which enjoyed an abundance of cheap Russian natural gas—enough to run its factories and heat its homes while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas, at a profit, throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia. Secrecy was essential.



I know this is from a few weeks ago, but it definitely deserves it's own thread
 

MT15

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A. You can weasel all you want, the fact remains you bought in to this narrative. You‘ve pushed it before, and you posted that article because you believe it’s true.

This you, casually throwing this out in the Ukraine thread to show you think the US did it?
Like blowing up Russia's pipeline?

B is just another personal attack and straight up projection.
 
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SaintForLife

SaintForLife

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A. You can weasel all you want, the fact remains you bought in to this narrative. You‘ve pushed it before, and you posted that article because you believe it’s true.

This you, casually throwing this out in the Ukraine thread to show you think the US did it?


B is just another personal attack and straight up projection.
Just what I thought. You lied. You had to go to another thread to try to find something and it didn't even show what you claimed.
 

MT15

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well, yes it actually shows you believe the US did blow up the pipeline because you threw that out there as a response to someone talking about something the US had done. We can get the context if you want and you can then quit calling me a liar.
 

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SFL, I will be expecting my apology in public. That one post was just the first search result. There are a whole bunch more posts where you argued with us that it was most likely the US that blew up the pipelines and it was definitely not Russia.

The nerve you have to deny you ever believed that is just really something. And these aren’t even all the posts, it wouldn’t let me post more than this:

Gee I wonder why anyone would think the US blew up the pipeline? Can someone explain why Russia would supposedly blow up their own pipeline that they invested billions to build and it's their best leverage play against Europe?


The Polish husband of CIA linked Anne Applebaum celebrated the attack on Nord Stream. He's since deleted the tweet.
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Russia ships were recorded in the area? Did the US government say that in an official capacity or did some unnamed intelligence officials report that?

Can you list even one reason why Russia would blow up their only leverage play again Europe? I haven't heard one yet. Wouldn't it make more sense for Russia to have blown up the 2 new pipelines in that area?

Michael Tracey is a Russian source? What's that claim based on? The fact that he questions the corporate media narratives?

The US gets no benefit from the pipeline being blown up? Not quite. Let's hear the benefits straight from Secretary Blinken


Europe has a looming energy crisis due to their reliance on Russian oil. It's a shame Germany shut down their nuclear power plants because that cause their increased dependence on Russia oil. Germany shouldnt have listened to the environmentalists and should have kept their nuclear plants.


The US has mechanisms to question illegalities? Where have they been because I have seen zero accountability for all the carnage we have caused though our wars. The CIA doesn't have anything controlling what they do. There's no true oversight of the CIA.

What about the US contining to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons for their continued genocide in Yemen? Why don't we see anything on the news or anything in the New York Times or Washington Post about the genocide in Yemen? It's almost like the corporate media purposely doesn't cover it.

Putin lies all the time and so does the US. They have constantly lied about the proxy war they have been waging with Ukraine against Russia back when they pushed the coup in 2014. We've been meddling there for a while.



I don't buy into anything Putin says.

Do you hear how you sound? I hate the US because I talk about the bad things the US does around the world? Thats beyond ridiculous. I love the US, but I don't like most of our leaders and our foreign policy. Obviously you are in denial about everything the US does in foreign policy that causes all kinds of harm. Keep your head in the sand if you want.

What kind of proof are you talking about the coup in Ukraine in 2014? I'm guessing anything I would cite would be dismissed by you.
 
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SaintForLife

SaintForLife

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well, yes it actually shows you believe the US did blow up the pipeline because you threw that out there as a response to someone talking about something the US had done. We can get the context if you want and you can then quit calling me a liar.
Me believing the US blew up the pipeline isn't the same thing as stating it as a fact. We most likely will never know for sure who did it unless some smoking gun evidence emerges.
 
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SaintForLife

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SFL, I will be expecting my apology in public. That one post was just the first search result. There are a whole bunch more posts where you argued with us that it was most likely the US that blew up the pipelines and it was definitely not Russia.

The nerve you have to deny you ever believed that is just really something. And these aren’t even all the posts, it wouldn’t let me post more than this:
Nope. You deserve no apology. I see you have shifted what you said. First you said I stated it as a fact which I didn't. Now you have shifted to I believe the US did it which I do.
 

MT15

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Nope. You deserve no apology. I see you have shifted what you said. First you said I stated it as a fact which I didn't. Now you have shifted to I believe the US did it which I do.
You would be splitting hairs here in a desperate attempt to save face, but okay, lol.
 

MT15

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Wonder if any of the pro-Putin lackeys who have been pushing their conspiracy theories will have anything to say about this news story?

Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say
 
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SaintForLife

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Wonder if any of the pro-Putin lackeys who have been pushing their conspiracy theories will have anything to say about this news story?

Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say
pro-Ukrainian is most likely the CIA

U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains.

That doesn't sound too convincing especially considering the dismal track record of the NYTs anonymous intelligence officials.
 
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SaintForLife

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There is no way to know that.

You are right to wonder who funded the operation. I don't think it was some lone wolf Ukrainian para-military group with no state backing.
I doubt we will ever know for sure who did it. I'm just speculating that it was the CIA.



 

MT15

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SFL: you know your grifters will never do anything but continue the grift. So, so predictable.
 

MT15

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MT15: Grifter: Anyone I don't agree with that's not part of the corporate media.
That’s you, actually, remember when you called Tom Nichols a grifter? Lol

What Aaron Maté says above is verbatim Russian propaganda. Couldn’t be more on the nose.
 
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MT15

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please note that Russia is fully promoting what is called here the Hersh BS. So if you note who else is fully promoting it, that should give you a clue who is fully aligned with Russia and who is thinking for themselves.



 
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superchuck500

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There is growing acknowledgment of support for the information leaked to the NYT that the sabotage was the result of a private (non-gov) Ukrainian team, done ostensibly for business purposes - though support from Kiev still unclear.

Thread:



 

RebSaint

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Any update on the Biden crime family led by the Kennedy CIA, corporate media and the Democrats are covering up the fact that the United States blew this pipeline up?

THE UNITED STATES BLEW IT UP? What now?
 
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SaintForLife

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That’s you, actually, remember when you called Tom Nichols a grifter? Lol

What Aaron Maté says above is verbatim Russian propaganda. Couldn’t be more on the nose.
Tom Nichols is a grifter because he changed his views on a dime as soon as he jumped on the anti Trump train. Mate has always been a liberal and he's always had anti-war, anti-imperial, & national security concerns which is reflected in the stories he covered.

There you go again with your CIA talking points.
 

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