Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens by Pepe Escobar!
(2023-02-16 at 21:40:20 )

Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens by Pepe Escobar!

What is left for all of us is to swim in a swamp crammed with derelict patsies, dodgy cover stories and intel debris.

Seymour Hershs bombshell report on how the United States government blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea last September continues to generate rippling geopolitical waves all across the spectrum.

Except, of course, in the parallel bubble of United States mainstream media, which has totally ignored it, or in a few select cases, decided to shoot the messenger, dismissing Mr. Hersh as a "discredited" journalist, a "blogger", and a "conspiracy theorist".

I have offered an initial approach, focused on the plentiful merits of a seemingly thorough report, but also noting some serious inconsistencies.

Old school Moscow-based foreign correspondent John Helmer has gone even further; and what he uncovered may be as incandescent as Sy Hershs own narrative.

The heart of the matter in Mr. Hershs report concerns attribution of responsibility for a de facto industrial terror attack. Surprisingly, no Central Intelligence Agency; that falls straight on the toxic planning trio of Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland - neoliberal-cons part of the "Biden" combo. And the final green light comes from the Ultimate Decider: the senile, teleprompt-reading President himself. The Norwegians feature as minor helpers.

That poses the first serious problem: nowhere in his narrative Hersh refers to MI6, the Poles (government, Navy), the Danes, and even the German government.

There is a mention that on January 2022, "after some wobbling", Chancellor Scholz "was now firmly on the American team". Well, by now the plan had been under discussion, according to Mr. Hershs source, for at least a few months. That also means that Scholz remained "on the American team" all the way to the terror attack, on September 2022.

As for the Brits, the Poles and all NATO games being played off Bornhom Island more than a year before the attack, that had been extensively reported by Russian media - from Kommersant to RIA Novosti.

The Special Military Operation (SMO) was launched on February 24, almost a year ago. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 blow up happened on September 26. Hersh assures there were "more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington,D.C.s national security community about how to "sabotage the pipelines"".

So that confirms that the terror attack planning preceded, by months, not only the SMO but, crucially, the letters sent by Moscow to Washington,D.C. on December 2022, requesting a serious discussion on "indivisibility of security" involving NATO, Russia and the post-Soviet space. The request was met by a dismissive American non-response response.

While he was writing the story of a terror response to a serious geopolitical issue, it does raise eyebrows that a first-rate pro like Mr. Hersh does not even bother to examine the complex geopolitical background.

In a nutshell: the ultimate Mackinderian anathema for the United States ruling classes - and that is bipartisan - is a Germany-Russia alliance, extended to China: that would mean the United States expelled from Eurasia, and that conditions everything any American government thinks and does in terms of NATO and Russia.

Mr. Hersh should also have noticed that the timing of the preparation to "sabotage the pipelines" completely blows apart the official United States government narrative, according to which this a collective West effort to help Ukraine against "unprovoked Russian aggression".

That elusive source

The narrative leaves no doubt that Mr. Hershs source - if not the journalist himself - supports what is considered a lawful United States policy: to fight Russias "threat to Western dominance [in Europe]."

So what seems a United States Navy covert op, according to the narrative, may have been misguided not because of serious geopolitical reasons; but because the attack planning intentionally evaded United States law "requiring Congress to be informed". That is an extremely parochial interpretation of international relations. Or, to be blunt: that is an apology of Exceptionalism.

And that brings us to what may be the Rosebud in this Orson Welles-worthy saga. Mr. Hersh refers to a "secure room on the top floor of the Old Executive Office Building ..that was also the home of the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board".

This was supposedly the place where the terror attack planning was being discussed.

So welcome to PIAB: the President Intelligence Advisory Board. All members are appointed by the current POTUS, in this case Joe Biden. If we examine the list of current members of PIAB, we should, in theory, find Mr. Hershs source (see, for instance, "President Biden Announces Appointments to the Presidents Intelligence Advisory Board and the National Science Board"; "President Biden Announces Key Appointments"; "President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions"; "President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions"; and "President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions".

Here are the members of PIAB appointed by President Biden: Sandy Winnefeld; Gilman Louie; Janet Napolitano; Richard Verma; Evan Bayh; Anne Finucane; Mark Angelson; Margaret Hamburg; Kim Cobb; and Kneeland Youngblood.

Mr. Hershs source, according to his narrative, asserts, without a shadow of a doubt, that "Russian troops had been steadily and ominously building up on the borders of Ukraine" and that "alarm was growing in Washington,D.C.". It is beggars belief that this supposedly well informed lot did not know about the massing of NATO-led Ukrainian troops across the line of contact, getting ready to launch a blitzkrieg against Donbass.

What everyone already knew by then - as the record shows even on YouTube - is that the combo behind "Biden" were dead set on terminating the Nord Streams by whatever means necessary. After the start of the SMO, the only thing missing was to find a mechanism for plausible deniability.

For all its meticulous reporting, the inescapable feeling remains that what Mr. Hershs narrative indicts is the Biden combo terror gambit, and never the overall United States plan to provoke Russia into a proxy war with NATO using Ukraine as cannon fodder.

Moreover, Mr. Hershs source may be eminently flawed. He - or she - said, according to Mr. Hersh, that Russia "failed to respond" to the pipeline terror attack because "maybe they want the capability to do the same things the United States did".

In itself, this may prove that the source was not even a member of PIAB, and did not receive the classified PIAB report assessing President Putins crucial speech of September 30, which identifies the "responsible" party. If that is the case, the source is just connected (italics mine) to some PIAB member; was not invited to the months-long situation-room planning; and certainly is not aware of the finer details of this administrations war in Ukraine.

Considering Sy Hershs stellar track record in investigative journalism, it would be quite refreshing for him to elucidate these inconsistencies. That would get rid of the fog of rumors depicting the report as a mere limited hangout.

Considering there are several "silos" of intel within the United States oligarchy, with their corresponding apparatuses, and Mr. Hersh has cultivated his contacts among nearly all of them for decades, there is no question the allegedly privileged information on the Nord Stream saga came from a very precise address - with a very precise agenda.

So we should see who the story really indicts: certainly the Straussian neo-con-neoliberal-con combo behind "Biden", and the wobbly President himself. As I pointed out in my initial analysis, the Central Intelligence Agency gets away with flying colors.

And we should not forget that the Big Narrative is changing fast: the RAND report, the looming NATO humiliation in Ukraine, Balloon Hysteria, UFO psy op. The real "threat" is - who else - China!!

What is left for all of us is to swim in a swamp crammed with derelict patsies, dodgy cover stories and intel debris. Knowing that those who really run the show never show their hand!

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