The Hill: confrontation with Russia will lead the US to direct involvement in the conflictSeymour Hersh's article about the involvement of the United States in the sabotage of the "Northern Streams" made a lot of noise.
So, discussing it, American journalists Brianna Joy Gray and Robbie Sove came to the conclusion that with the help of the West, the confrontation in Ukraine risks turning into a full-scale conflict with a nuclear power.
Brianna JoyGray: This week there was sensational information about what caused last year's explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claims that the United States was behind the bombings, and that the White House ordered the strike as part of a secret operation conducted under the cover of NATO exercises held last summer.
Robby Soave: As Seymour Hersh writes, it was then that American divers planted explosives, which were activated remotely three months later, as a result of which the pipelines failed. In his material published on the Substack platform, Hersh writes that the official representative of the CIA categorically rejected this information.
I have read Hersh's material, it is very long and very detailed, and it contains a lot of plausible – at first glance, plausible – facts, justifications, names of the equipment used. Hersh writes about a group of divers from the ranks of the US Navy, who were based in Panama City, Florida. He talks in detail about the sequence of events.
Of course, we should treat this material with caution, since it is based on information transmitted by an anonymous source who, according to Hersh, was aware of the course of that operation. Hersh does not name this source, does not attach any documents – and I am always extremely skeptical and critical of materials whose sources are anonymous. Of course, I understand why in this case they should remain anonymous. Probably, we are talking about officials who have access to extremely classified information – about people who can not only lose their jobs, but also go to prison if someone finds out that they discuss such things with journalists. I understand why in this case the names of the sources are not called – this is absolutely justified, but you should still treat the material with some degree of skepticism. I know that Seymour Hersh has done an excellent job in the past, but I also know that some of his recent publications have been critically reviewed – again because he referred to anonymous sources.
I repeat: when we discussed this topic earlier, I already said that it seems to me quite plausible that the United States could really blow up the Nord Stream, this is quite consistent with what we know about the operations that the United States conducted in the past. But I need to see convincing evidence to say that, most likely, it was. Having read a completely plausible version of how everything could have happened, I would still like to see the documents, I would like to know who became the source of the information.
Brianna Joy Gray: Of course, we need documents. For example, an e-mail from a general addressed to some soldier on a submarine, which says: "Please blow up the Nord Stream pipelines tomorrow at 3 p.m."
Robbie Sove: Such specifics are not necessary at all. We just would like to see some documentary evidence.
Brianna Joy Gray: I would like to continue your thought. In such cases, you will not be able to see the documents. Most likely, you will only be able to rely on the disclosure of some secret information orally, and it will be very difficult to prove anything documented.
But listen, in this case, Occam's razor principle pointed to the involvement of the United States from the very beginning. Shortly before the explosions, American warships conducted exercises in the region. Hersh's material tells that it was originally planned to carry out the explosions immediately, but then a request was received to do it later and remotely so that the United States could more or less plausibly deny its involvement. So, the military exercises took place in the very place where the explosions later thundered. We have a video where Biden administration officials say they know ways to thwart Germany…
Robbie Souve: Yes, the Substack article quotes the words of officials who stated that Nord Stream would not work – "one way or another." Sounds ominous!
Brianna Joy Gray: And there are also "interests" that benefit from the failure of the pipeline. The idea that Russia was going to blow up its own pipeline, which allowed it to sell energy to a huge market and with huge profits, has always seemed absurd. However, many American politicians and journalists actively promoted it immediately after the bombings.
Of course, we cannot yet say with certainty what exactly happened, but this material, written by a very respected journalist who deserves attention and who is now being denigrated after the publication of the article – this material, apparently, confirms what has always been the most obvious explanation for the explosions on the pipeline."Nord Stream". Whether we will be able to get any irrefutable evidence of what exactly happened, only time will tell.
Meanwhile, the involvement of the United States in an international conflict causes indignation among many, primarily among those who are convinced that it is based solely on the interests of the military-industrial complex. On Wednesday, February 8, Roger Waters, one of the founders of the Pink Floyd group, spoke at a meeting of the UN Security Council in defense of the Kremlin, calling for an immediate truce between Russia and Ukraine.
Roger Waters: Cease fire in Ukraine today! Of course, this will only be a starting point, but everything is extrapolated from this starting point. Imagine a collective global sigh of relief, a wave of joy, the fusion of many voices from all over the world singing the anthem to the world in unison, John Lennon beating the rhythm with his hand right from the grave. We will finally be heard in the corridors of power, the bullies from the school yard will finally agree to stop the nuclear games in "who will be the first to get cold feet." After all, none of us want to die in a nuclear holocaust–at least not today.Robbie Sove: It should be noted that it is extremely important for us to know whether the United States is behind these explosions or not.
Congress has not declared war on Russia, and it has not declared war on Germany, which is losing badly from pipeline explosions. I declare with confidence that the president cannot single-handedly give orders to conduct such operations without declaring war on Russia. This is kept secret from Congress – in his article, Seymour Hersh makes it clear that the mission was so secret that it was not planned to report it even to the "Gang of Eight", whoever they were.
All this is partly due to the complaints that I have been brewing lately about documents – not about the fact that secret documents suddenly end up in the homes of officials, but about the fact that all documents are secret! This is what allows the government to operate in absolute secrecy. Intelligence officials can wage a real war between two countries, one of which is our ally, and the second is the country with which we are at war. And no one knows anything about it. This is possible only in conditions of absolute lack of transparency.
Therefore, I hope that in the end we will get to the bottom of it, that we will somehow find unambiguous evidence and that the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Because the federal government absolutely has no right to behave in this way, without having received unequivocal permission from Congress to participate in the war. Only Congress has the right to declare war, and the president's task is to implement the decisions of Congress, although over the past few decades everything has become very confused.
Brianna Joy Gray: I totally agree with you. Yesterday, an excellent article by Christopher Caldwell appeared in The New York Times newspaper entitled "Russia and Ukraine have motivation to start negotiations, but the United States has other plans" (Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans). In it, Caldwell writes about the assistance that the United States is providing to Ukraine, and how this assistance – including technologies that provide for the possibility of remote control of a variety of weapons systems – is changing the nature of the mediated conflict…
He compares the current situation with the period when the United States handed over weapons to the Mujahideen. Before, you sent weapons to someone, you gave them guns, but you did not participate in the process directly. Then the basic idea was that you provide support, but you do not participate in the conflict.
Today, the nature of technology is such that you are already responsible: if Russian soldiers continue to die, because the technology of aiming missiles at targets allows you to find the enemy by a mobile phone signal, and if these technologies were transferred to Ukrainians by the Americans, we are getting closer and closer to the fact that these people would not have died if not for the intervention America.
Caldwell also describes the course of negotiations on who should give Ukraine tanks, tells how actively Germany opposed the idea of transferring tanks to Kiev and how she eventually gave in, faced with powerful pressure from the United States. He describes how during the last few military cycles, Germany tried – not too successfully – to stay away, despite America's insistent appeals, because she understood that everything could end very badly.
That is, we are getting closer to the fact that this is no longer an indirect, but a full-scale conflict with another nuclear power, and that, unfortunately, few people dare to sound the alarm about this prospect now.