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    NC: “How Stupid Do They Think We Are?” Nord Stream Pipelines Bombing Edition Archived Message

    Posted by Tomski on March 8, 2023, 9:53 pm, in reply to "AM: Russia Captures East Bakhmut, Zelensky Admits Importance: Intel: Nord Stream Attack 6 Guys etc"

    This article was mentioned by AM above.

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/03/how-stupid-do-they-think-we-are-nord-stream-pipelines-bombing-edition.html

    It’s instructive to see how having a captured press, plus having well-seeded the public with fables about Ukraine derring-do, allows the Administration and its co-conspirators to run intelligence-insulting stories. A colleague who describes himself as possessing sang froid somewhere between that of a Chinese sage and a dead dog was irate over the latest howler, that of stories in the New York Times and German press, released in very close proximity to each other, presenting the Nord Stream pipelines bombings as the doings of a mysterious pro-Ukraine group.

    What got my friend’s dander up wasn’t just the ridiculousness of the claim, but als the suspicious media footprints. The German and New York Times stories came out so close to each other, with the New York Times piece presenting itself as completely independently sourced, that they were clearly coordinated. As we’ll explain, the German stories, with Die Zeit first out of the gate, relied on reports from German prosecutors. The New York Times piece did not mention German reports or German officials, but instead cited only US officials.

    I’m told by German speakers that the summary in Politico is accurate. The “Ukraine link” part is awfully slippery, since rental of a Ukrainian owned ship does not establish the owners were in on the plot. From Politico:

    German prosecutors have found “traces” of evidence indicating that Ukrainians may have been involved in the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to German media reports Tuesday.

    Investigators identified a boat that was potentially used for transporting a crew of six people, diving equipment and explosives into the Baltic Sea in early September. Charges were then placed on the pipelines, according to a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR as well as the newspaper Die Zeit.

    The German reports said that the yacht had been rented from a company based in Poland that is “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”….

    According to the investigation by German public prosecutors that is cited by the German outlets, the team which placed the explosive charges on the pipelines was comprised of five men — a captain, two divers and two diving assistants — as well as one woman doctor, all of them of unknown nationality and operating with false passports. They left the German port of Rostock on September 6 on the rented boat, the report said.

    Contrast this with the New York Times version in Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say. As we wil show as we go through the article, it states that this “intelligence” was developed separately from the European investigations:

    New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months…

    Ukraine and its allies have been seen by some officials as having the most logical potential motive to attack the pipelines.

    How cute is this? Pro-Ukraine covers a huge amount of terrain, including the Poles, who John Helmer argued were the perps. And the Times manages to skip over that the US was the biggest, as well as baddest, opponent to the pipelines.

    And then the Times admits that this “intelligence” is sketchy:

    U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.

    And this “intel” did not come from the European investigations:

    A spokeswoman for the C.I.A. declined to comment. A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council referred questions about the pipelines to the European authorities, who have been conducting their own investigations.

    Needless to say, the Twitterverse treated this news with the respect it deserved:

    4 Tweets here ..

    Recall that even though the US has succeeded in burying the Sy Hersh story depicting Biden and his top foreign policy officials as the instigators of the bombing, it’s gotten traction in Germany.

    The timing of the sudden discovery of “new” US intelligence at the same time German prosecutors leaked (or were unable to stop leaks) about their finding is miraculously convenient. In fact, it appears to be not at all new. But now that information is coming out from channels the US does not control fully, it looks to have gone into “Get in front of a mob and call it a parade” mode:

    2 Tweets here ..

    Moon of Alabama provided a more detailed takedown, relying on the Die Zeit account:

    The new claim is that some rather small sailing yacht, which would not even be able to carry the necessary equipment to perform such a deed, was the main instrument in this:

    Following joint research by [German main public TV news unit] (ARD’s capital city studio), the ARD political magazine Kontraste, [German public TV] SWR and DIE ZEIT, it was possible to reconstruct to a large extent in the course of the investigation how and when the explosive attack was prepared. According to this, traces lead in the direction of Ukraine. However, investigators have so far found no evidence of who ordered the destruction.
    …
    Specifically, according to information from [these news sources], investigators have managed to identify the boat that was presumably used for the secret operation. It is said to be a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians. The clandestine operation at sea is said to have been carried out by a team of six people, according to the investigation. It is said to have involved five men and one woman. According to the report, the group consisted of a captain, two divers, two diving assistants and a female doctor, who are said to have transported the explosives to the crime scenes and placed them there. The nationality of the perpetrators is apparently unclear. The assassins used professionally forged passports, which are said to have been used, among other things, to rent the boat.According to the investigation, the commando set sail from Rostock on September 6, 2022. The equipment for the clandestine operation was previously transported to the port in a van, it is said. In the further course, the investigators succeeded in locating the boat the following day again in Wieck (Darß) and later at the Danish island Christiansø, northeast of Bornholm, according to the research. The yacht was subsequently returned to the owner in uncleaned condition. On the table in the cabin, the investigators were able to detect traces of explosives, according to the research. According to information from [the mentioned news sources], a Western intelligence service is said to have sent a tip to European partner services as early as in the fall, i.e. shortly after the destruction, according to which a Ukrainian commando was responsible for the destruction. Thereafter, there have allegedly been further intelligence indications suggesting that a pro-Ukrainian group could be responsible.

    No. You do not dive down to 80+ meter for an industrial size job, involving the placement of hundreds of pounds of explosives in eight individual charges on very sturdy pipelines, from a sparsely manned sailing boat. Such deep dives require special gases, special breathing equipment, special training, a decompression chamber for emergencies and lots of well trained people to maintain all that stuff.

    This is just more chaff thrown up to divert the attention from Seymour Hersh’s revelations that the U.S. military, under order from the White House, carried out the sabotage act.

    There is the cynical take that the “blame it on people who like Ukraine” is meant to weaken Ukraine support. That seems unlikely. Pinning blame on mystery operatives with superpowers turns scrutiny as far as possible from government actors, and the big point is to exculpate the US, particularly its top brass. Conveniently, that sort of caper is such a staple of action movies that great swathes of the public have been pre-programmed to believe it.

    But the alleged “link” may still blunt Germany sympathy for Ukraine:

    Tweet here ..

    Before you get your hopes up, until Robert Habeck and Annelina Baerbock get lobotomies, I don’t see German policy changing. They are diehard hawks and still very much in the driver’s seat.

    It’s clearly the US hope that this deflection will make the Nord Stream “whodunit” go away. But Sy Hersh was already promising more stories on this case, and this mini-barrage gives him additional grist. Pass the popcorn.

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