Calls for truth over Nord Stream blasts
China among those demanding probe into alleged US involvement in the undersea gas pipeline explosions
Weeks into Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report on US involvement in last September’s Nord Stream blasts, Washington is still dismissing the disclosure, the majority of Europe remains secretive, and Western mainstream media outlets stay as yet blind to the revelations.
The chilling details brought to light in the report, however, have caused misgivings and grave concerns among the international community. Calling Hersh’s report something that should not be glossed over, more people around the world now demand an objective, fair and professional probe into the incident, and a speedup in truth-telling.
On Sept 26, 2022, a series of clandestine bombings and subsequent underwater gas leaks occurred on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which carry gas from Russia to Europe. Soon afterwards, Washington and some European countries pointed an accusing finger at Russia.
But independent thinkers have reckoned the other way around. Days after the blasts, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, told Bloomberg in a TV show that the United States, rather than Russia, could be behind the attack, prompting the TV hosts to abruptly take him off the air.
Hersh’s account on Feb 8 adds weight to Sachs’ assertions. In a 5,200-word article published on the US portal Substack, Hersh revealed how the US partnered with Norway in a top-secret operation in June 2022 to plant remotely triggered explosives that took out three of the four Nord Stream pipelines three months later.
In response, Washington has denied the accusation on various occasions. Speaking to Fox News on Feb 19, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called Hersh’s report “a completely false story.”
However, not everyone bought Washington’s version. In an email interview with Xinhua, Sachs perceived Hersh’s report as “credible” and consistent with several existing facts.
Former US National Security Agency employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted last month that the US is wasting time and money to shoot down “unidentified flying objects” above US and Canadian soil to ensure that national security reporters get assigned to investigate balloon nonsense “rather than (US) budgets or bombings” of Nord Stream.
“The US had the motive, means, and opportunity and spent many months confessing to the plot and then to the crime after it took place,” noted the Black Agenda Report website, citing US President Joe Biden’s pledge in February 2022 to stop the Nord Stream 2 project and US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s remarks in January this year that Washington is “gratified” to know the Nord Stream 2 is now “a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”
There are “ample reasons” why the US would be involved in the Nord Stream blasts, Sevim Dagdelen, a parliamentarian of Germany’s The Left party, was quoted as saying by Canadian website Western Standard in a report published on Feb 13.
Former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik in an interview: “For me, one thing was clear ever since 2018 that the US was very much determined to make sure that this pipeline system would never ever become operative.”
The now-deleted “Thank you, USA” tweet posted by former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski offered fresh insight into how much some European officials are convinced of US culpability.
Collective silence
When the needle of suspicion points towards the US, European governments have fallen into collective silence.
Denmark, Germany and Sweden are investigating the destruction, but all remain tight-lipped over who blew holes in the pipelines.
Last week, the three countries told the UN Security Council in a joint letter that investigations are “ongoing”. Nothing was said about who is responsible. They only stated that “investigations have not yet been concluded” and “it is not possible to say when they will be concluded”.
Not even allowing access to members of the German Bundestag, all information on the matter has been classified as “highly confidential” because of the so-called third-party rule that prevents conflicts with the interests of allied states or their intelligence services.
“Even if the Germans, Swedes or Danes themselves found some evidence of US involvement in the explosions, they would hardly talk about them because they would not be able to take such responsibility,” said Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst of Russia’s National Energy Security Fund.
Besides, US corporate media have overwhelmingly brushed aside Hersh’s report. A study by independent watchdog website MintPress News analyzed the 20 most influential US publications, and found only four mentions of the report.
“What’s most strange in this case is that US mainstream media with political and social influence, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, have deliberately remained indifferent and silent when Hersh, a veteran journalist who has proved his credibility in his investigations in the past, published his latest investigation of the Nord Stream blasts,” wrote Singapore newspaper Lianhe Zaobao on Feb 11.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern while addressing the UN Security Council recently, said: “When we see this kind of thing (the Nord Stream blasts) going on, we go to somebody who might be able to protect us and might be able to get the word out. Now, this was two weeks ago. Has The New York Times mentioned Seymour Hersh’s article? Or has it even reported the denials? No, not yet. This is (what) the Germans would say, merkwurdig (strange).”
Who benefits most?
A recent report by Indian news website Firstpost quoted Hersh as saying that the US saw energy alternatives for Europe as a “threat,” and that the Biden administration feared that Europe would “walk away” from the Ukraine crisis if it felt the need for
Russian fuel carried by the pipeline, which was under sanctions.
“The fear of losing European support in the Ukraine conflict made the US to take out the only option Europe had should it want to restart buying fuel from Russia,” Hersh argued.
Just like Hersh, many others believing in US sabotage also noted its strategic and economic motives behind the scenes.
“The US did not like the close economic relations between Germany and Russia. They are doing something or they could try to do something that could break these relations,” Gunnar Beck, a member of the European Parliament, said in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia on Feb 12.
Washington was guided by strategic reasons to close Russia’s energy and economic ties with Germany and most countries in Western and Eastern Europe, Beck said.
From the political and economic perspective, the United States is the major beneficiary of the incident, former Advisor to the French Defense Ministry Alain Corvez told the China Global Television Network on Feb 14.
Italian journalist Gilberto Trombetta also said that Hersh’s report is credible because the only one who would certainly benefit from the blasts is the US.
Hersh’s disclosure is “not impossible” because the US has benefited the most from the incident as it can sell gas to Europe at a much higher price, in addition to exerting pressure on Russia, Croatian security expert Mirko Vukobratovic told Xinhua on Feb 21.
Meanwhile, calls for a thorough probe into the incident to restore truth have mounted across the world. For example, Sachs told the UN Security Council in a briefing on Feb 21 that an investigation by the Security Council into the explosions is a high global priority.
In one of her recent tweets, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary A. DiCarlo also stressed the importance of the “search for the truth” regarding the matter.
Noting the Nord Stream pipelines are major transboundary infrastructure and energy transportation arteries, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Feb 22 that China supports speeding up the investigation into the blasts to swiftly find out the truth.
Applauding China’s call, Vukobratovic said: “The Chinese position that the investigation must be objective and impartial is the only correct one. Only when it is carried out professionally can we talk about the intentions of those who caused the explosion.”