sh is one of the world’s leading investigative journalists, who
exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. He also
contributed to revealing the Watergate scandal and prisoner abuse
at Abu Ghraib. While Hersh, as usual, does not report his sources,
and his accusations cannot be independently verified, his reporting
has been confirmed again and again in the past.
Hersh alleges that:
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.
The terrorist attack on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines destroyed
civilian infrastructure valued at over $20 billion. It resulted in
the single largest spill of methane gas in human history, releasing
the equivalent of 14.6 million tons of CO2, with a major climate
impact. The attack contributed to a spike in energy prices through
Europe and the entire world.
In congressional testimony in January, Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said, “I think the administration
is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to
say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”
These statements strongly suggested that the US and its allies
viewed the attack favorably. They also made it appear likely that
the attack had been directed by Washington through an intermediary,
such as the Ukrainian special forces.
According to Hersh, however, the attack was not only planned by the
United States, but actively conducted by the US Navy. If true, what
occurred was a staggeringly reckless attack on Germany, a NATO ally
of the US. The United States fought against Germany in two world
wars, in which hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were
killed. In 1917, the United States nominally entered World War I in
response to the German policy of indiscriminately sinking American
civilian ships using submarines.
In his report, Hersh explained the economic significance of the
Nord Stream pipelines:
From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and
its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western
dominance…
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…
America’s political fears were real: [Russian President] Putin
would now have an additional and much-needed major source of
income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become
addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia—while
diminishing European reliance on America…
As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap
natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like Germany
would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it
needed to defeat Russia.
Hersh does not note that following the shutoff of European natural
gas imports from Russia, the US massively increased its natural gas
exports to Europe, leading to record profits for US energy
companies.
As one European official told Politico, “The fact is, if you look
at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is
the US because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and
because they are selling more weapons.”
Hersh reports that plans for the American attack on Nord Stream 2
were already in the making ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He writes:
In December of 2021, two months before the first Russian tanks
rolled into Ukraine, [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan
convened a meeting of a newly formed task force—men and women from
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury
Departments—and asked for recommendations about how to respond to
Putin’s impending invasion.
Hersh claims that Sullivan proposed a “plan for the destruction”
and that he was “delivering on the desires of the President.”
Describing the reasoning among the war planners, Hersh writes,
“This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were
traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”
On February 7, ahead of the invasion, US President Joe Biden
declared publicly, “If Russia invades … there will be no longer a
Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
According to Hersh, Biden’s statements shocked the planners of the
operation.
Several of those involved in planning the pipeline mission were
dismayed by what they viewed as indirect references to the
attack…
“It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and
telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source
said. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion
and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored
it.”
The US Navy would, according to Hersh, plant the explosives during
the BALTOPS 22 military exercise, which involved dozens of warships
and thousands of personnel. The US Navy published a press release
regarding deep-sea diving operations during the exercise, including
a picture of a deep-sea diver.
While the explosives were planted during the exercise, according to
Hersh, the White House ultimately decided not to trigger the
explosions immediately, and instead allowed them to be remotely
detonated in September.
Hersh’s report included rebuttals from the White House, which
declared in response to his story, “This is false and complete
fiction,” and from the Central Intelligence Agency, which declared
“This claim is completely and utterly false.”
Whistleblower Edward Snowden, who shared the article on Twitter,
responded to the denials from the White House, “Can you think of
any examples from history of a secret operation that the White
House was responsible for, but strongly denied? Besides, you know,
that little ‘mass surveillance’ kerfuffle.” Snowden was referring
to the illegal NSA mass surveillance program created after the 9/11
terror attacks, which he publicly exposed in 2013.
Meanwhile, the entire US media has treated the attack as if it were
an unsolved mystery, despite statements by US and NATO officials
openly welcoming the bombings. Continuing a wall of silence, the
New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have not
reported Hersh’s article, or even the denial by the White
House.
