This week, some “state actor” still unknown but widely suspected to be backed by the United States, blew up the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia to Germany, both Nord Stream 1, which had been in service until this summer, and Nord Stream 2, which the US blocked Germany from using prior to the start of the Ukraine war this winter.
The United States has long opposed the very existence of these pipelines and has made it quite clear that it doesn’t want anyone, especially not European countries, buying oil and gas from Russia.
Oddly enough, America’s spokespeople are staying mum on the matter now that the much hated pipelines are out of commission. They haven’t even blamed Russia for it, although this is probably because they’d be laughed off the world stage if they did.
Poland’s former foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorsky was a bit more forthcoming. “Thank you, USA,” he tweeted the next day, posting a link to a video clip from back in February in which President Joe Biden all but threatened to destroy Nord Stream 2. The clip is quite extraordinary actually. Biden said then, “If Russia invades… then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” When the reporter asked how he would do that considering that the pipelines are “in Germany’s control,” Biden doubled down as he so often does and concluded, “I promise you, we can do it.”
So the United States promised to destroy the pipeline (“there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”), and then it happened, and yet we are expected to believe that it wasn’t the United States who did it? Surely the world is not so gullible as all that. Except in the EU where it’s apparently in their interest to be gullible, at least when the US is doing the talking. According to the logic of one German politician quoted in the Guardian, a NATO ally would not have carried out the attack for fear of “political backlash,” hence it had to be the Russians. Such a brilliant surmise–and evidence free, too!
We will probably never be allowed to know for sure whodunnit, for the obvious reason that were the truth known, there might be some “political backlash” on both sides of the Atlantic, and naturally, we can’t have that. But the fact is, if the US did do it, then they’re responsible for a huge act of sabotage against their own ally, without apparent notice or any kind of compensation. And that is almost certainly a crime under someone’s rule of law, even if the United States doesn’t feel compelled to abide by it.
