Washington owes world an explanation of Nord Stream explosion after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

More than four months after the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, a shocking report by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released on Wednesday has once again ignited international public opinion. The report provides details of how the US intelligence agencies planned the sabotage under the order of US President Joe Biden and how the US Navy carried out the bombing with the cooperation of the Norwegian forces. After the report was published, Washington quickly denied it. But simply using the phrase "fake news" is obviously not convincing. The international community needs to keep asking Washington until it gives a convincing explanation.

The 85-year-old Hersh is a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. More than 50 years ago, his report that exposed the US military's massacre of Vietnamese civilians significantly pushed the anti-war movement in the US. He was also behind the investigation of the notorious incident of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in 2003 and contributed to revealing the Watergate scandal, one of the most disgraceful political scandals in Washington's history. Hersh's latest report is not comparable to conspiracy theories in public opinion, nor are they something Washington can just gloss over.

To be honest, the suspicions about the US are not baseless, but the details that got exposed still send chills down one's spine. For example, the report claims that Washington had been secretly planning the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines since the end of 2021, long before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And in more than nine months of debate, Washington focused not on whether to blow up the pipelines, but on how to leave no evidence behind. Therefore, the execution forces, time, place, and the way the explosion was carried out were all carefully planned. Even the most imaginative screenwriter in Hollywood would not dare to write such a plot. If what is reported in Hersh's article is true, then the world will probably have to reassess the US' capability to disrupt peace.

The explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, one of the world's most important transnational energy supply infrastructures, was an extreme event in international politics. Under the fragile political mutual trust, the Nord Stream pipelines were once a main artery of energy connecting Western Europe and Russia, stabilizing the security situation by expanding common interests. Because of this, it has always been a "thorn in the eye" of Washington.

With the blast of the Nord Stream pipelines, the only remaining bridge to build common security in Europe was destroyed, which means that Western European countries have to choose to be deeply bound with the US at the crossroads of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Hersh also mentioned in his latest report that "Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia - while diminishing European reliance on America." This is one of the main reasons Washington decided to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Attacking and destroying major civil infrastructure is a highly egregious act of terrorist nature and must not be tolerated. The international community has no dispute over this. After the explosion, many countries publicly condemned it, and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also declared that sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines would be "in no-one's interest."

The Global Times then published an editorial, calling for relevant international agencies to set up a joint investigation team to restore the truth as soon as possible, find out the perpetrators, and let them be punished. But as expected, some countries are blocking such an international investigation, and more than four months have passed, with little progress made. Hersh's report now at least provides an important clue to the international investigation.

It is worth noting that the US mainstream media, which has always claimed to be "professional" and "independent," was selectively blind to Hersh's revelations or simply reported denials by the US government. Compared with their unanimously pointing their fingers at Russia after the explosion, this abnormal silence shows that American media agencies are very clear about when to be high-profile or low-key.

A large number of facts show that the US is the well-deserved leader in the "double standard arena." It is obsessed with and good at fabricating rumors or making groundless accusations against others. But it will never admit its own mistakes or even crimes, even if the evidence is solid. It will instead try to blame others. Public opinion predicts that the US government will most likely respond to Hersh's revelations in this way, which will leave another stain on its international credibility.

It is likely to become an event with the Rashomon effect in the 21st century for how the Nord Stream pipeline incident happened. But it does not mean that we should give up the pursuit of the truth, because it is not only about morality, responsibility, and conscience, but also about what kind of footnotes human beings will write for war and peace when looking back at this period of history in the future. This is very important. 

 

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US urged to explain Nord Stream blasts after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

About five months after the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines which shocked the world, an article by veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has accused the US of being the culprit of the blasts.

Washington has denied the accusations without further explanation, but the article immediately prompted a fierce verbal confrontation between the US and Russia and making waves in geopolitics.

Given previous US behaviors, Chinese experts believe that the Hersh report is highly credible and Washington's denial cannot hinder Russia's determination to dig out more evidence from the report's value as a clue.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday urged the US to give an explanation over its role in 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. "The White House must now comment on all these facts," Zakharova said in a post on her Telegram page.

In response, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Wednesday that the investigative article was "utterly false and complete fiction," and the CIA and Pentagon also dismissed the allegation with similar rhetoric, according to media reports.

Hersh, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, published the article on his personal website on Wednesday, stating the US military involvement of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines after senior White House officials' nine-month long plot inside the national security community.

Citing sources with direct knowledge of the plot, the article revealed many details of the operation: Explosives were planted by US Navy divers under the cover of the NATO maritime exercise; and a surveillance plane of NATO member Norway triggered the explosives on September 26, 2022 after US President Joe Biden greenlighted the operation.

Although there's no final verdict on who was responsible, the US, NATO, as well as investigators from Sweden and Denmark agreed it was "a result of sabotage."

Finding smoking gun

Some US media had blamed Russia as the likely culprit soon after the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022, but Hersh wrote that political elites from his country has more incentives to destroy the pipeline regarding their words prior to the incident.

On February 7, 2022, US President Joe Biden threatened that "if Russian tanks or troops cross the border of Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2."

At a press conference in September 2022 about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested halting Nord Stream is a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy" and stop Russia from "weaponizing energy" for political purposes.

If Biden were an ordinary citizen, and a tube explosion had happened somewhere in the US after Biden made those threats, his words would have been interpreted by the US procurator as a strong motive, and Biden would bear legal liability,Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Hersh proved his credibility in his investigations on the 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US forces and US troops brutalizing Iraqi prisoners after the US invasion in 2003, which prompted Lü to believe in his latest investigation of the North Stream pipeline explosion.

"Even if it's not 100 percent accurate - exposure of such shady activity can hardly be 100 percent accurate - it's definitely not made up out of nowhere," Lü noted.

As of press time, US mainstream media including The New York Times and The Washington Post maintained silence on the matter, which is qualified to be top on a US newspaper's front page.

Lü suspected the consistent silence was a sound coordination between the US media and the US government, and the strategy is to deny it and wipe it from news portals even if their smoking gun was caught.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday that as the US had used washing powder to accuse Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction, it's a genius of playing dirty.

Hersh's courage should be praised, yet analysts expressed concerns about his safety.

It is obvious that the US benefited most from the destroyed pipelines. "If the US was behind the sabotage, definitely the Americans would have carefully planned how to destroy or hide the evidence and mislead the public," Li said.

Lü said that without an entity in legal sense to be in charge of such international disputes, it is almost impossible to establish a legal fact even if more evidence further support the point that the US was the culprit. But this investigative report will strengthen Russia's determination to dig out more evidence, he said.

Reactions to the blasts by some Western leaders also added to suspicion of US, including then British Prime Minister Liz Truss' texting "it's done" to Blinken and former Polish foreign minister's tweet "Thank you, USA."

In January 2023, Russia blamed that Sweden and Denmark, who were investigating holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, "have something to hide" and blocked Russia from engaging in the joint investigation.

"Whether or not the US is the culprit, Europe has acted too obedient. It is also tragic that as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies, Europe has less and less room to bargain with US on security issues," Li said.

European politicians should reflect on whether blindly following the US would ultimately benefit Europe, or just the opposite, the expert said. He urged Europe to effectively strengthen autonomy. "Otherwise incidents like the Nord Steam pipeline blasts could happen again, and the price will again be paid by Europe, not the US." 

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How US spread biological 'poison', ethnic division and ideological antagonism around the world

 

The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27 year history, the program weaponized and stockpiled the following seven bio-agents (and pursued basic research on many more):

Personnel are working inside a bio-lab at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick on September 26, 2002. Photo: AFP

 

Editor's Note:

Since the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, the international community has grown increasingly aware of the roles the US and NATO have played behind the crisis.

From funding biological labs to creating ethnic division and ideological confrontation around the world, from imposing sanctions on "disobedient countries" to coercing other nations to pick sides, the US has acted like a "Cold War schemer," or a "vampire" who creates "enemies" and makes fortunes from pyres of war. The Global Times is publishing a series of stories and cartoons to unveil how the US, in its superpower status, has been creating trouble in the world one crisis after another. This is the fifth installment.

After World War Two (WWII), the US ran amok around the world, leaving behind a plague of war and hatred wherever they went. Whether on the biological front or in the ideological front, the US is the top "poison disseminator."

1 Ukraine crisis instigator: US-led NATO reneges on 'Not one inch eastward' promise to compress Russia's space to the extreme
2 Instability brewer: Behind every war and turmoil in the world is shadow of the Star-Spangled Banner
3 'Vampires' in the war: US warmongers feeding on the bloody turbulence in other countries
4 Cold War schemer: Reminiscing in its past 'victory,' US brings color revolutions to 21st century to maintain its hegemony

A US army tank rolls deeper into Iraqi territory on March 23, 2003?when US forces invaded?Iraq. Photo: VCG

Mysterious bio-labs

Since conflict broke out between Russia and Ukraine, biological laboratories in Ukraine that are funded by the US caught global attention.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on March 22 that Russia cannot tolerate the US setting up biological laboratories in Ukraine with the prospects of developing biological weapon components, TASS reported.

Earlier that month, Russian defense ministry also disclosed that US spent more than $200 million on biolaboratories in Ukraine, TASS said.

The Russian military said they had gotten hold of documents confirming that Ukraine developed a network of at least 30 biological laboratories that host extremely dangerous biological experiments, aimed at enhancing the pathogenicity of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera, and other lethal diseases with the help of synthetic biology. This work is funded and directly supervised by the US' Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in the interest of the Pentagon's National Center for Medical Intelligence, according to a statement by Russian Permanent Representative to UN Vassily Nebenzia.

The Russian defense ministry said that it learned of the details regarding a project implemented at laboratories in Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa, which studied the possibilities of spreading particularly dangerous infections through migratory birds, including the highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza (lethal to humans in 50 percent of cases) and the Newcastle disease.

As part of some other projects, bats were considered as carriers for potential biological weapon agents. Among the priorities identified are the study of bacterial and viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans: pathogens of the plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, as well as the coronaviruses disease, and filoviruses.

The analysis of the obtained materials confirms the transfer of more than 140 containers with ectoparasites from bats from a bio-lab in Kharkov abroad, according to Nebenzia's statement.

The bio-labs in Ukraine are only a handful of the 336 biological laboratories the US reportedly funds in 30 countries around the world. Most of these labs are located in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and along the perimeter of former USSR, according to the Russian defense ministry.

Despite covert behaviors, the dubious activities of the US' overseas bio-labs had previously been revealed.

In August 2021, a South Korean civic group sued the Fort Detrick bio-labs and the US Forces Korea (USFK) over the smuggling of toxic substances to US military bases there in violation of domestic law. 

 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190415000701

In December 2015, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency revealed that the USFK had staged 15 experiments using neutralized anthrax samples at the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul from 2009 to 2014.

US officials gave incongruous responses to the bio-lab issue since Russia disclosed relevant documents. They admitted to the existence of such labs but failed to provide substantial evidence that the programs they funded were to promote public health. Thus, it increased the world's suspicions over such labs.

Libyan protesters gather in Benghazi on March 11, 2011 as Arab Spring spread in the country. The US, the UK and France?intervened in Libya?with a bombing campaign on March 19, 2021. Photo: AFP

Creating turmoil and division

The US prides itself on being the "city upon the hill" and a "beacon of democracy." However, the history of the US was full of wars and killing. During its over 240 years of history, there were only 16 years when the US was not at war.

After the end of WWII, the US became the most powerful country in the world, however, war became an important tool for the US to maintain its own hegemony.

Data shows that from the end of WWII to 2001, the US initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts worldwide in 153 locations, accounting for over 80 percent of total conflicts.

The Korean War (1950-53), for example, resulted in the deaths of more than 3 million civilians and created approximately 3 million refugees, and almost all major cities in the Korean Peninsula were left in ruins.

However, the US evidently lacked self-reflection after the Korean War. Immediately after the end of the Korean War, the US intervened in Vietnam in the 1950s under the pretext of preventing the expansion of Communism in Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, the brutality of the US army made the war the longest and most brutal war since WWII.

The Vietnamese government estimates that as many as 2 million civilians died in the war, many of whom were slaughtered by US forces in the name of fighting Viet Cong communists.

In March 1999, under the banner of "avoiding humanitarian disaster," NATO forces led by the US openly bypassed the UN Security Council and carried out the bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days, causing death of many innocent civilians.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the US first invaded Afghanistan in the name of fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban and then launched a war in Iraq under trumped-up charges.

Over the years, the US instigated the "Arab Spring," igniting civil wars in Libya and Syria.

Since 2001, wars and military operations by the US have claimed more than 800,000 lives and displaced tens of millions of people.

"We inflated the stature of our enemies to match our need for retribution. We launched hubristic wars to remake the world and let ourselves be remade instead...We midwifed worse terrorists than those we set out to fight," New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote in September 2021, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Exporting 'democracy'

Former US president Jimmy Carter once said that the US is "the most warlike nation in the history of the world" due to a desire to impose American values on other countries.

The Cold War was, to some extent, a global confrontation born of ideological opposition. In this process, the US established its own discourse system and promoted a so-called "liberal democracy," which was the foundation of its cultural hegemony.

In his book, America's Deadliest Export: Democracy, the Truth About US Foreign Policy, and Everything Else, American diplomat William Blumm reveals the close connection between America's foreign expansion and its "democracy export."

Between 1947 and 1989, the US carried out 64 covert operations of subversion and six overt ones, wrote Lindsey O'Rourke, a political scientist at Boston College, in her book Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador, Grenada, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, Venezuela...Of all America's Latin American neighbors, there were few who have not faced meddling from the US.

After the end of the Cold War, the US became more unscrupulous in promoting interventionism and frequently exported "color revolutions."

A US Congressional investigation in 1976 revealed that nearly 50 percent of the 700 grants in the field of international activities by the principal foundations were funded by the CIA, Frances Stonor Saunders wrote in the book Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War.

These foundations support elites and students from other countries to study in the US and select and support "opinion leaders" who serve the interests of the US.

The US has also long linked economic aid to the "democratic revolution" and put pressure on some developing countries through its leading international financial institutions.

Far from achieving stability and prosperity, most of the recipients of the US' version of democracy seem to be trapped in the "democratic curse" of political turmoil and national retrogression.

As Michael Parenti, an American political scientist pointed out, the US has been wearing these "democratic" glasses for years. An inexplicable sense of superiority has led the US to stand on the notion of it being the so-called "city on a hill", regarding its democracy as an "international model," an unsupported hypothesis, and point fingers at other countries. The US' enthusiasm for "democracy export" is not really about democracy, but about maintaining American hegemony.

As former US President Bill Clinton said, "defending freedom and promoting democracy in the world is not just a reflection of our deepest values. They are vital to our national interest."

Next up:

Is the US a "defender" or a "destroyer" of human rights? Who has been sacrificed on the "altar" of US-touted democracy? In our next story, we will focus on the US' vile practice of igniting war under the pretext of "human rights and democracy." 

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