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Western-imposed Green Agenda Would ‘Cripple’ Africa’s Energy Security, Energy Expert Warns

Samizdat – 01.10.2022

The African Development Bank Group estimates that more than 640 million Africans have no access to energy, with the continent enjoying an overall electricity access rate of just over 40 percent. Multinational energy giants have systematically underfunded local energy projects, all while searching for new sources of oil and gas for Western markets.

Despite its untold riches in energy and other natural resources, Africa remains the least developed continent on the planet when it comes to access to the benefits of this wealth by ordinary citizens. The International Energy Agency has estimated that among Africa’s 54 nations, only nine – Algeria, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Libya, South Africa and Tunisia, enjoy electrification rates of 85 percent or above.

Even countries endowed with large reserves of oil and gas like Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Congo and Uganda have been unable to provide the vast majorities of citizens with access to these resources, with 38 percent of Nigerians, 57 percent of Angolans, and 71 percent of Ugandans lacking access to electricity.

For nations with smaller energy reserves, and those without proven oil and gas assets, the figures are even gloomier, with just 9 percent of Chadians and residents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo hooked up to the electricity grid, while only 12 percent of Liberians, 14 percent of the residents of Niger, and 18 percent of Somalis enjoy access.

The causes of the continent’s stunted energy status are multifaceted, ranging from the legacy of colonialism to decades of plunder of energy rich nations’ resources by foreign multinationals, to a dearth of capital for domestic investment, to efforts by Western powers and international institutions they control to force the region to reject fossil fuels in favor of renewables.

The problem has only been exacerbated by the global energy crisis caused by Western nations’ efforts to sanction or restrict Russian oil and gas purchases. In August, Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reported that European states have made a push to fix the energy shortfall by outbidding developing nations for contracts from other global suppliers, driving poorer countries out of the market.

Last year, Nigerian Environment Minister Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar accused the developed West of deliberately defunding Africa’s natural gas projects on the grounds that they contribute to the global climate crisis, notwithstanding the fact that the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa produces just 0.55 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.

In 2021, the European Investment Bank stopped financing hydrocarbon development projects in Africa altogether as part of an “ambitious new climate strategy and energy lending policy.” The same year, the World Bank announced plans to shift resources from energy projects to “combating climate change.”

“Africa’s oil and gas sector is experiencing underproduction and underinvestment as major international majors exit portfolios in key hydrocarbon producing countries such as Nigeria and Angola,” says N.J. Ayuk, chairman of the African Energy Chamber, a Johannesburg-based nonprofit advocating energy development in Africa, for Africans.

“Projects operated by majors in the deep-water projects are cost intensive. But also, capital restrictions by Western financial institutions are crippling the African gas market. Without finance, energy poverty rates will go up dramatically,” Ayuk says.

Characterizing energy poverty as the “single most important issue” facing the continent, the expert dismisses Western-backed institutions’ efforts to push Africa toward renewable energy, pointing out that as things stand, underdevelopment of hydrocarbon resources means that 45 percent of the continent relies on highly polluting hard biomass for energy.

As for renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and hydrogen power, Ayuk warns that the push being made in this direction threatens to “cripple” the continent.
“Many existing power grids in Africa remain underdeveloped, such that an intermittent supply of energy can threaten the stability of an entire grid,” the observer says, referring to the tendency for renewable energy to depend heavily on weather conditions.

“Such is the case in Kenya, which is widely considered to be at the forefront of Africa’s energy transition, building momentum in the renewable sector with the 310 MW Lake Turkana wind farm and 50 MW Garissa solar PV station. Some 15 percent of Kenya’s installed capacity comes from solar and wind, but as our 2022 Outlook reports, they have experienced severe voltage instability. Better system management, upgraded infrastructure, and long-term power storage technology are needed to solve these problems, but implementing these things on a nationwide or continent-wide scale won’t happen overnight,” Ayuk explains.

Another problem is Africa’s “near-complete” dependence on foreign equipment and expertise for its renewables capacity, with the majority of solar cells and windmills made in China, Europe or the United States, who also provide training and tech related to the installation, maintenance and repair.

“Economically, this means fewer home-grown jobs for Africans in this sector until such capacity can be developed. It also ensures [insecurity] of supply in case war or politics cripples the ability to import key raw materials and workers,” Ayuk stresses.

What Is To Be Done?

An alternative to listening to foreign dictates on energy policy is to focus on domestic resources, and to partner with those nations which are ready to help Africa secure its energy independence.

For Ayuk, this means intra-African natural gas pipelines capable not only of working to diminish energy poverty, but stimulating a drive toward industrialization which will translate to jobs. To stimulate development, African nations will need to stimulate capital investments and reduce taxes, and to work conscientiously to focus on infrastructure for domestic use, instead of export.

“Energy demand across Africa is expected to triple within the next 20 years – faster than anywhere else in the world – as a result of population growth, rising incomes, and rapid urbanization. To meet such rapidly accelerating demand, Africa needs the ability to make use of its existing natural resources and human capital, and to employ tried-and-true solutions that will reliably keep the lights on when the wind won’t blow and the sun won’t shine. Mitigating climate change must remain part of the equation, but the perfect cannot be allowed to be the enemy of the good when so many people are starting from zero,” the analyst says.

Russia can play an important role in improving Africa’s energy security, the observer believes, with Moscow needing to step up its game on the fulfillment of memorandums already signed, and to engage in the financing of gas projects, as well as sharing the country’s substantial expertise on the construction of infrastructure.

Earlier this year, Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva announced that Russian investors had expressed an interest in the financing of a massive gas pipeline project running from Nigeria to Morocco. If implemented, the prospective 5,600+ km piece of infrastructure would connect nations along the entire West African coast to natural gas, serving as a catalyst both for electrification and for regional economic development.

Nigeria has over 206 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves valued at trillions of dollars, but has long been starved of capital for the development of these resources.
Speaking to Sputnik last week, Sylva expressed confidence that Nigeria and Russia would be able to cooperate to help stabilize the global supply of energy.

However, last month, Biden administration climate envoy John Kerry warned against long-term gas projects in Africa, claiming countries that make investments would be unable to recoup their investments beyond 2030, and that the continent should instead focus on cleaner energy sources.

October 1, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

US helicopters circled over Nordstream for weeks

Free West Media | October 1, 2022

More and more disturbing details are coming to light in connection with the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline in the Baltic Sea.

The Arabic news channel Al Mayadeen reported that weeks before the attack, US helicopters were circling over the sea area where the fatal explosions took place on September 26 with a striking frequency.

This can be reconstructed using the flight data from the online service “Flightradar24”. According to this, at the beginning of September, just under a month before the attack, a US Navy Sikorsky MH-60R “Seahawk” helicopter was circling for hours on several consecutive days – especially on September 1, 2 and 3 later over the area of the damaged natural gas pipelines not far from the island of Bornholm.

According to the aircraft tracking portal, the US helicopter flew from Gdansk to the area where the Nordstream pipelines were several times.

On September 10 and 19, US helicopters also flew over Nordstream 1, and on the nights between September 22 and 25, several helicopters stayed for hours over the site of later explosions. The helicopters that were in the air on the night of September 22 to 23 and 25 to 26 left particularly confusing flight tracks.

On the latter night, a multi-purpose MH-60R “Strike Hawk” helicopter circled for nine hours over a sea area about 250 kilometers from Bornholm, from about 5:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Central European Time. Among other things, the “Strike Hawk” can fight underwater targets.

No repair work possible

No repair work will be taking place on Nordstream Pipelines 1 and 2. Such tasks would have to be commissioned and paid for by Russia, because Russia owns the pipelines. And the EU would have to lift its sanctions against Russia to carry out the work. This is not to be expected in the foreseeable future.

The time window for a possible repair closes in October. Because the tubes are currently full of salt water. Without immediate action, this salt water will corrode the tubes, which are protected against its effects only on the outside, but not on the inside. This information is also available to the federal government, which appears to have written off the entire Nordstream project.

With the demise of Nordstream, the German economy lost billions in value.

The German Bild newspaper summarized the Western dilemma in a quote from an alleged “Russia expert” as follows: “The question is not of a technical, but of a political and legal nature. A number of sanctions against Russian gas supplies will have to be lifted for repairs. The ships that can carry out the construction work must obtain permission for such work. Gazprom needs to be able to pay for the repairs. The necessary technological solutions must also be made available.”

These problems will never be overcome in time – that is, in a few weeks.

So far, more than half of the natural gas in the pipeline has leaked. It stands to reason that the rest will escape as well. And then Nordstream would be history.

October 1, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

History Repeats Itself: The Time US Sabotaged a Soviet Gas Pipeline and Bragged About It

By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 01.10.2022

Blasts rocked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines on Monday, with each pipeline reportedly hit with the force of over 500 kg of TNT – which when combined is equivalent to the explosive power of a micro nuke. The Kremlin called the incident an act of terrorism, while Russian intelligence has pointed to a Western trace.

In his address before lawmakers and the nation on Friday on the entry of four new territories into the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin said that the attacks against Nord Stream were the next logical step for the US and its allies after exhausting anti-Russian sanctions. “It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure,” the Russian president said.

Officials in Denmark, Sweden and Berlin have not ruled out deliberate sabotage, and NATO paid lip service to “support” for “investigations underway to determine the origin of the damage.” A Pentagon official refused to comment on a Flightradar24 analysis showing US military helicopters circling for hours in the areas where the explosions hit prior to the incident. Meanwhile, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted and then deleted a “Thank you, USA” message alongside a picture of a massive methane leak emanating from one of the damaged pipelines, and boasted that “now, $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea.” Meanwhile, some Western officials and media continue to claim that Russia sabotaged its own pipelines.

The attacks against Nord Stream are not the first time that a ‘Western trace’ has been suspected in the sabotage of gas pipelines operated by Moscow.

In the summer of 1982, the Urengoy-Surgut-Chelyabinsk pipeline carrying natural gas south and west toward Ukraine, where it can be taken further west toward Europe, was rocked by a massive explosion. The explosion’s causes were unknown, and Soviet media never reported on the incident.

In 2004, former Reagan special assistant for national security affairs and National Security Council official Thomas Reed published an autobiography entitled ‘At the Abyss’ in which he alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency had sabotaged the pipeline by adding a virus into software the USSR had purchased from a Canadian company to operate the infrastructure.

“The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” Reed recalled.

The former official said the act of sabotage was aimed at disrupting the USSR’s gas infrastructure, “its hard currency earnings from the West and the internal Russian economy,” and that the scheme was thought up by National Security Council technology and intelligence advisor Gus Weiss.

Portions of the operation were disclosed earlier, in a 1996 paper in CIA journal Studies in Intelligence by Weiss. In it, the former official recalled how, at an economic summit in Ottawa in 1981, French President Francois Mitterrand had informed Ronald Reagan that a KGB double agent named Vladimir Vetrov had come forward to provide French intelligence with 4,000 documents and photographs related to alleged Soviet efforts to get their hands on Western technologies which the US and allies refused to sell due to sanctions and embargoes. The collection of documents was dubbed the ‘Farewell Dossier’.

In January 1982, Weiss said, he proposed the pipeline sabotage idea to CIA director William Casey. “Reagan received the plan enthusiastically” and “Casey was given a go,” Reed wrote in his account.

Reed recalled that when the explosion occurred, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) – the organization tasked with aerospace early warning, initially feared a Soviet “missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based. Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device. Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis, Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow National Security Council staffers not to worry.”

As has long been the case with the Nord Stream pipelines, the United States had adamantly opposed Soviet projects to deliver gas from Siberia to Western Europe, characterizing them as a means for Moscow to project influence over the Europeans. In 1982, the Reagan administration banned pipeline equipment sales to the USSR, prompting the European Economic Community – forerunner to the European Union, to issue a formal protest over Washington’s interference in the bloc’s economic affairs. Germany, France, Italy and the UK declared the restrictions illegal, and promised to defy the ban. Washington eventually reneged, and the first gas deliveries from Urengoy to Western Europe began in January 1984.

To this day, Russian officials have never conceded that the 1982 explosion was the result of CIA interference. In the 1990s and 2000s, when relations between Russia and the US still looked rosy, engineers and ex-KGB agents came forward to tell media that industrial negligence or even shoddy workmanship, and not sabotage, was to blame.

The CIA never directly confirmed its involvement in the Urengoy-Surgut-Chelyabinsk pipeline explosion. However, in a page on the CIA’s official website, the agency did boast that “flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline” as part of a broader US technological sabotage campaign against the USSR.

October 1, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US ‘Probably Responsible’ for Blasts Targeting Nord Stream Pipelines, Ex-Swiss Intel Officer Claims

Samizdat – 01.10.2022

There are “more and more signs” that the United States is “responsible” for the sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, believes ex-Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud.

Poland and Ukraine may be the culprits as well, as countries that vehemently lobbied for the transit of gas through their territories and opposed the pipeline to begin with, the former NATO adviser said on French radio station Courtoisie’s program, Ligne Droite.

However, the United States also made no secret of its vested interest in rupturing all ties between Russia and European countries, Baud added.

Jacques Baud, who was a Colonel in the Swiss Army and formerly worked for the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, earlier stated that since the Second World War, it had always been US policy to prevent Germany and Russia or the USSR from working more closely together.

Baud, who formerly was head of “Policy and Doctrine” in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, underscored in a spate of interviews that “nobody cares about Ukraine” in the West, and NATO, the EU and its allies have “instrumentalized Ukraine for the purpose of US. strategic interests.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted on Friday that the United States had nothing to do with the recent attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. During a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, he stated:

“I really have nothing to say to the absurd allegation from President Putin that we are, or other partners or allies are somehow responsible for this, but we will get to the bottom of what happened, and we’ll share that information as soon we have it, but I don’t want to get ahead of the investigation.”

Blasts rocked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines on September 26, with the Kremlin calling the incident an act of terrorism, while Russian intelligence has pointed to a Western trace.

Operator Nord Stream AG called the destruction on the offshore gas pipelines “unprecedented”, adding that it was “impossible” to calculate the amount of time needed to rectify it.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said on Wednesday it was investigating the pipeline blasts as an act of international terrorism. On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the US and its allies are no longer satisfied with sanctions targeting Moscow and had begun to destroy the pan-European energy infrastructure. Putin spoke as he expressed his full support for the incorporation of the Donbass and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into Russia, and signed a decree to that effect.

Boasting a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, the 1,224-kilometer (760 miles) main gas supply route to Europe, Nord Stream 1, had earlier been suspended since the end of August. Problems with the repair of turbines had plagued the pipeline as fallout from western sanctions on Russia in response to its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.

The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, stretching from the coast of Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, was completed in September 2021, however the German government stopped its certification in February. After Russia recognized the sovereignty of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR), German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated that “the project is actually frozen.”

October 1, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Nord Stream explosions are a ‘tremendous opportunity’ – US

Samizdat | October 1, 2022

The US views the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as a “tremendous opportunity” to wean the continent off of Russian energy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday. With winter approaching, Blinken said that the US wants Europe to decrease its fuel use.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Blinken boasted that the US is now “the leading supplier of [liquefied natural gas] to Europe.” In addition to shipping its own fuel to Europe, Blinken said that the US is working with European leaders to find ways to “decrease demand” and “speed up the transition to renewables.”

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from [Russian President] Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs,” Blinken declared.

The US likely stands to gain the most from the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, which were damaged by a series of explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm earlier this week. Washington has for years been trying to convince European leaders to swap Russian gas for its LNG, and the severity of the damage to the undersea conduits now means that Europe is “indefinitely deprived” of Russian gas via this route, Russian energy operator Gazprom stated on Friday.

In a speech on Friday, President Vladimir Putin blamed the explosions on “the Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK transatlantic alliance.

“It’s obvious to everyone who benefits from it,” Putin explained. “Those who benefit are the ones who have done it.”

While the way is now open for the US to sell its more expensive LNG to Europe, the shortfall cannot be covered overnight. US exporters warned throughout the summer that they will not be able to ship enough gas to meet demand on the continent, and many of Europe’s import terminals are still under construction or in planning.

Meanwhile, energy bills are skyrocketing across Europe. In Germany, which faces the prospect of rapid “deindustrialization,” protesters took to the streets to demand the re-opening of Nord Stream 2, just days before the explosions. Food shortages have been predicted in Germany and firewood is in hot demand across the continent as citizens struggle to heat their homes.

“There’s a lot of hard work to do to make sure that countries and partners get through the winter,” Blinken said, suggesting, as EU leaders have also done, that Europe work to “reduce demand” for gas.

October 1, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Putin names orchestrator of Nord Stream blasts

Samizdat | September 30, 2022

The US orchestrated the blasts on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which delivered Russian natural gas to Germany, because they “obviously” benefit from it, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

Putin accused Washington of trying to pressure the EU into banning Russian supplies to “completely get their hands on the European market.”

“But the sanctions are no longer enough for the Anglo-Saxons,” he said, using Russian shorthand for the US-UK transatlantic alliance. “They have turned to sabotage – it’s unbelievable, but it’s a fact – by organizing the explosions on the Nord Stream international gas pipelines,” the president stated.

“They de facto began the destruction of the common European energy infrastructure. It’s obvious to everyone who benefits from it. Those who benefit are the ones who have done it.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced Putin’s statement as part of “outrageous misinformation and disinformation campaigns” coming from Moscow.

“I really have nothing to say to the absurd allegation from President Putin that we are or other partners or allies are somehow responsible for this,” Blinken said, according to AFP.

Putin was speaking at the Kremlin ahead of signing treaties on the inclusion of the two Donbass republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which declared independence from Ukraine, into the Russian Federation.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Omerta in the Gangster War

By Diana Johnstone | Consortium News | September 28, 2022

Imperialist wars are waged to conquer lands, peoples, territories. Gangster wars are waged to remove competitors. In gangster wars you issue an obscure warning, then you smash the windows or burn the place down.

Gangster war is what you wage when you already are the boss and won’t let any outsider muscle in on your territory. For the dons in Washington, the territory can be just about everywhere, but its core is occupied Europe.

By an uncanny coincidence, Joe Biden just happens to look like a mafia boss, to talk like a mafia boss, to wear a little lopsided half smile like a mafia boss.  Just watch the now famous video:

Pres. Biden: “If Russia invades… then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Reporter: “But how will you do that, exactly, since…the project is in Germany’s control?”

Biden: “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

Able for sure.

It cost billions of dollars to lay the Nord Stream 2 pipeline across the Baltic Sea, from near Saint Petersburg to the port of Greifsfeld in Germany. The idea was to ensure safe natural gas supplies to Germany and other European partners by going around troublesome Ukraine, known for readiness to use its transit rights to siphon off gas for itself or blackmail clients.

Of course, Ukraine was always vehemently hostile to the project. So was the United States. And so were Poland, the three Baltic States, Finland and Sweden, all attentive to what went on in their sea.

The Baltic Sea is a nearly closed body of water, with narrow access to the Atlantic through Danish and Swedish straits. The waters near the Danish island of Bornholm where the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged by massive underwater explosions is under constant military surveillance by these neighbors.

“It seems completely impossible that a state actor could carry out a major naval operation in the middle of this densely monitored area without being noticed by the countless active and passive sensors of the littoral states; certainly not directly off the island of Bornholm, where Danes, Swedes and Germans have a rendezvous in monitoring the surface and undersea activities,” writes Jens Berger in the excellent German website Nachdenkseiten.

Last June, Berger reports,

“the annual NATO maneuver Baltops took place in the Baltic Sea. Under the command of the U.S. 6th Fleet, 47 warships participated in the exercise this year, including the U.S. fleet force around the helicopter carrier USS Kearsarge. Of particular significance is one particular maneuver conducted by the 6th Fleet’s Task Force 68 — a special unit for explosive ordnance disposal and underwater operations of the U.S. Marines, the very unit that would be the first address for an act of sabotage on an undersea pipeline.”

In June this year this very unit was engaged in a maneuver off the island of Bornholm, operating with unmanned underwater vehicles.

Berger considers that a major sabotage operation “could not have been carried out directly under the noses of several littoral states without anyone noticing.” But he adds this clever observation: “if you want to hide something, it is best to do so in public.”

In order to be able to attach explosive devices to a gas pipeline halfway unnoticed, one would need a plausible distraction — a reason for diving near Bornholm without immediately being suspected of committing an act of sabotage. It doesn’t even have to be directly related in time to the attacks. Modern explosive devices can, of course, be detonated remotely. So, who has been conducting such operations in the maritime area in recent weeks? As luck would have it, exactly the same task force around the USS Kearsarge was again in the sea area around Bornholm last week.

In short, during NATO maneuvers, some participant could have laid the explosives, to be blown up at a later chosen moment.

By an odd coincidence, only a few hours after the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2, ceremonies began opening the new Baltic Pipe carrying gas from Norway to Denmark and Poland.

The Political Significance of the Sabotage

Due to Western sanctions against Russia, gas was not being delivered through the destroyed pipelines. However, gas inside the pipelines is leaking dangerously. The pipelines remained ready for use whenever an agreement could be reached. And the first, dramatic significance of the sabotage is that henceforth, no agreement can be reached. Nord Stream 2 would have been the key to some sort of settlement between Russia and the Europeans. The sabotage has virtually announced that the war can only intensify with no end in sight.

In Germany, the Czech Republic and some other countries, movements were beginning to grow calling for an end to the sanctions, specifically to solve the energy crisis by putting Nord Stream 2 into operation for the first time. The sabotage has thus invalidated the leading demand of potential peace movements in Germany and Europe.

This act of sabotage is above all a deliberate sabotage of any prospect of a negotiated peace in Europe. The next move from the West has been for NATO governments to call on all their citizens to leave Russia immediately. In preparation of what?

The Russians Did It

In this catastrophic situation, Western mainstream media are all wondering who could be the guilty party, and suspicion automatically fixes on… Russia. Motive? “To raise the price of gas” or “to destabilize Europe” — things that were happening anyway. Any far-fetched notion will do.

European opinion-makers are showing the result of 70 years of Americanization. Especially in Germany, but also in France and elsewhere, for decades the United States has systematically spotted up-and-coming young people, invited them to become “young leaders,” invited them to the United States, indoctrinated them in “our values” and made them feel like members of the great trans-Atlantic family. They are networked into top positions in politics and media. In recent years, great alarm is raised about alleged Russian efforts to exert “influence” in European countries, while Europeans bathe in perpetual American influence: movies, Netflix, pop culture, influence in universities, media, everywhere.

When disaster strikes Europe, it can’t be blamed on America (except for former President Donald Trump, because the American establishment despised and rejected him, so Europeans must do the same).  It has to be the bad guy in the movie, Putin.

The fanatically anti-Russian former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorsky couldn’t restrain himself and joyously greeted the massive natural-gas leaks from the destroyed pipeline with a cheerful tweet, “Thank you, USA.” But Poland was certainly also willing, and perhaps even able. So perhaps were some others in NATO-land. But they all prefer to publicly “suspect” Russia.

Officially, so far, no NATO government knows who dunnit. Or maybe they all know. Maybe this is like the famous Agatha Christie mystery on the Orient Express train, where suspicion falls on all the passengers, and are all guilty. And all united in Omerta.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her latest book is  Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher (Clarity Press). The memoirs of Diana Johnstone’s father Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness, was published by Clarity Press, with her commentary. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr .

September 30, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Russian security chief names ‘obvious’ beneficiary of pipeline rupture

Samizdat | September 30, 2022

The US stands to benefit economically from the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and has a record of targeting energy infrastructure with sabotage operations, the head of Russia’s Security Council said.

“Pretty much from the first minutes after the news of the explosions broke … the West launched an active campaign for assigning blame. But it is obvious that the primary beneficiary, first of all in the economic sense, was the US,” Nikolay Patrushev said on Friday.

He compared this week’s incident with the attack on Nicaragua’s oil infrastructure in Puerto Sandino in 1983. Back then CIA officers, based on a ship moored in international waters, coordinated a raid by commandos they had trained to fight against the Sandinista government, US press reported at the time. The US spy agency also provided speed boats for the raid, a CIA source explained, according to Associated Press.

The operation was part of the Reagan administration’s “dirty war” on Nicaragua, which later led to the Iran-Contras scandal. The CIA’s secret sale of weapons to Iran to fund Latin American militants was exposed in 1986.

Patrushev made the remarks at a meeting with fellow security officials from former Soviet nations.

“It appears to be necessary to coordinate our effort to expose the masterminds and executors of this crime, setting a good example for effective cooperation,” he told his counterparts.

He noted that the US goal was “ensuring strategic and economic superiority over alternative centers of power” even though Washington’s ally the EU has been suffering from its policies. The US is replacing Russian natural gas with its more expensive liquified natural gas, as the bloc moves to decouple its economy from Russian energy sources.

The leaks in the two Nord Stream pipelines were first detected on Monday, when pressure in the undersea links connecting Russia directly to Germany drastically dropped. The pipelines were apparently breached with explosives, with the blasts detected by earthquake sensors in Sweden.

Moscow called the incident an international terrorist attack against civilian infrastructure, while some Western officials described it as an act of sabotage.

Some critics of Russia speculated that Moscow decided to blow up its own gas links with Germany to put pressure on the EU.

Polish MEP and former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski thanked the US for the incident, but later deleted the tweet, calling his implied assertion of Washington’s involvement a personal working theory.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Western economic warfare backfired, new depression likely to come

What awaits Europe with Nord Stream pipelines possibly gone forever?

By Uriel Araujo | September 30, 2022

Now that the Nord Stream pipeline might have been sabotaged by Washington, as promised by US President Joe Biden on January 7, and is possibly gone forever (according to German authorities), it is time to consider the possible impacts. 

The energy crisis in the EU has always been pushed by American interests. Moreover, the US has been engaging in economic warfare and even weaponizing the dollar for too long, but it has been clear for months now that its current economic and financial war against Russia has backfired – and once again, mostly upon Europe. Such economic wars in fact may dangerously spiral out of control, and are considered to be one of the causes of the 1929 crisis in the post-Versailles world.

Philip Pilkington, an Irish economist who works in investment finance, famous for his contributions on the empirical estimate of general equilibrium and other fields, has made quite interesting observations about the possible deindustrialization of Europe as a consequence of economic warfare. He remarks on how in the post-pandemic world debts in the West have been accumulating and, on top of that, the current conflict in Ukraine has brought extra energy costs.

After the conflict ends – or becomes a “frozen conflict” – or after good diplomacy is reestablished, Russia could start to once again supply gas to Europe as usual – this is how many analysts reasoned. However, now that the pipelines are gone, the price of energy in the continent is to remain tremendously high for years to come. With permanent high energy prices making manufacturing not economically viable anymore (thus decreasing European purchasing power), one should expect to see the bloc shutting out exports to revive an uncompetitive industry while increasing energy investments. These are Pilkington’s main points and it might be worth delving into them.

Pilkington argues that high energy costs will make the European industry largely uncompetitive because manufacturers will have no choice but to also raise the price of goods, which in turn, will not be able to compete with cheaper foreign goods. The economist goes on to argue that, in this scenario, with many manufacturers out of business, the result will be the loss of key jobs, with less employed people spending money and a new economic depression. 

Thus, Pilkington reasons, the United States will not be able to “reshore” European manufacturing for too long because there simply won’t be anyone in the continent to buy the products the US ships to European shores. This crisis will thus affect Americans too, because as exports to Europe fall, US workers also lose their jobs. What could EU states do in such a scenario? The Irish economist writes quite convincingly that a tariff solution would be the most obvious one: by raising tariffs, these countries will be able to “render international products as expensive as the domestic products suffering from energy cost inflation.”

The result of that can only be more economic chaos for the West, while Europe “shuts itself off” and becomes a kind of a “black hole”, in a repetition of the 1920 events which resulted in the Great Depression, writes Philip Pilkington.

However, the global situation today has changed much, with the BRICS+ alliance, apparently aimed at “decoupling from the Western economy.” For a while, the rise in commodity prices has been perceived as a result of Western sanction policies, and this has forced the global south to look for parallel mechanisms and alternatives. Therefore, these emerging powers have the potential to build a “separate economic bloc”, which means the West would suffer the most from the economic chaos, as BRICS+ “has a relatively clean bill of economic health”. 

All of this is a quite likely scenario and one should also consider the political implications. The economic crisis will in all likelihood bring back protectionism, and it might come accompanied by a 1930-like political climate. This in turn can only strengthen the populist camp in Europe. Populist and so-called “far-right” tendencies have been growing in the continent for years and the time seems to be just right for speeding up this phenomenon.

One remembers defeated French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen promised to pull France out of NATO during this years’ elections. Meanwhile, in August, Hungary had once again the lowest energy prices in the EU. Over 8,700 sanctions have been imposed on Moscow, and yet they have hurt Europe more than Russia as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a strong critic of such sanctions. In fact, whether one likes the man or not, he has oftentimes been the voice of reason in the bloc. Now, the German eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) political party is heavily focusing on attacking European elites and opposing the German government’s sanctions against Russia. This trend is everywhere across the EU. 

It is about time Europe assert its sovereignty, however such a political stance is largely marginalized in the continent. Thus, although a European populist wave should increase skepticism about NATO and the EU itself, it will also increase political instability and turmoil. To sum it up, in the worst post-Nord Stream scenario, one can then expect a deindustrialized and isolated Europe going through a serious political and economic crisis.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

September 30, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Should Europeans ‘Thank’ the Americans for Destroying Nord Stream?

By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2022

With an investigation continuing into the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline that provided energy supplies to Europe from Russia, there appears to be just one prime suspect, and that should surprise nobody.

Following the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski already seemed to know the identity of the perpetrator when he tweeted out: “Thank you, USA.”

At first glance, it seemed that Sikorski was speaking sarcastically, berating Washington for carrying out an attack that will have severe repercussions for the people of Europe. After all, how could anyone see any good coming from the termination of Europe’s primary source of gas reserves with winter just around the corner? It was Sikorski’s homeland of Poland, after all, that urged its citizens to collect firewood in the face of dwindling gas reserves.

In fact, the Polish diplomat was speaking one-hundred percent literally, thanking the United States for plunging the continent deeper into the abyss. This has been the attitude of European leaders from the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine: ‘we will accept our self-destruction as scripted by Washington policymakers so long as the baddies in Moscow hear our virtue-signaling whimpers and screams.’ European capitals are about to learn the hard way that virtue signaling does not put food on the table or heat homes.

Judging by the rising temperature in Europe, however, last seen in Italy where a far-right leader has come to power on the wave of voters fed up with high electricity bills and loose immigration, the phrase ‘Thank you, USA’ may eventually be chiseled into Europe’s tombstone.

But first, the big question: was the United States really responsible for the destruction of Nord Stream, as Sikorski seems to believe? Well, if we were are to take bumbling Joe Biden at his word, then the answer would seem to be yes.

“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be — there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” the U.S. leader told reporters two weeks before Russia began its Ukrainian mission. “We will bring an end to it.”

When asked to specify, Biden responded, “I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”

There are other clues that point to American complicity.

On September 2, an American helicopter with the call sign FFAB123 was observed maneuvering in the area of the Nord Stream pipelines. According to the site ads-b.nl, six aircraft used this call sign that day, of which the tail numbers of three were established. All of them were Sikorsky MH-60S. By overlaying the FFAB123 route on the scheme marking the areas of the explosions, it is observable that the helicopter either flew along the Nord Stream-2 route, or exactly between the points where the ‘accident’ occurred.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, there are screenshots of other American aircraft flights as of September 13th in exactly the same area. In June there was an article in Sea Power magazine where the Americans boast of experiments in the field of underwater drones that they set up at the BALTOPS 22 exercises – in the area of Bornholm Island, the Danish island where the explosions were reported to have occurred.

“Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring all under the direction of U.S. 6th Fleet Task Force 68,” Sea Power reports.

Such an “experiment” would have required the deep-sea equipment needed for reaching the depths where the Nord Stream pipelines are located.

Finally, here’s one last tantalizing piece of information for all of the ‘coincidence theorists’ out there. On the day after Nord Stream 1 and 2 went offline, Poland, Norway and Denmark’s leaders attended the opening ceremony of the new Baltic Pipe, which will transport natural gas from Norway via Denmark and through the Baltic Sea to, yes, Sikorski’s ferociously Russophobic homeland of Poland. Yes, just a coincidence.

However, the main motivating factor for Washington having a hand in destroying Nord Stream is the awesome powers – both financial and political – that it will reap. The economic crisis in Europe is already forcing companies and corporations to consider relocating to the U.S., which is providing a better business environment and more or less affordable electricity bills.

And after the destruction of Nord Stream, the economic situation on the continent will deteriorate significantly. Even though the NS-II was not launched, there was the chance of its launch, and this “chance” had a considerable effect on the market. Now, without its main energy supplier, Europe is doomed while America will soar.

The economic destruction of Europe makes it totally dependent on the U.S. economically, politically, and militarily, turning it into a toothless tiger with no political will and independence. At the same time, Europe will become almost completely dependent on the U.S. for its (prohibitive) gas. The United States plans to supply at least 15 billion cubic metres (bcm) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European Union markets this year as Europe seeks to wean itself off Russian gas supplies.

In other words, the transformation of the EU into a banana republic – albeit it one in the northern hemisphere with winter quickly approaching – has already begun.

Europe, you really should have heeded the advice of Henry Kissinger, who understands the nature of the U.S. better than anyone: “To be an enemy of the U.S. is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Who wins from demolishing the EU’s gas lifelines?

By Rachel Marsden | Samizdat | September 29, 2022

Speculation abounds since both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, designed to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe, were damaged this week in what officials widely describe as deliberate acts of sabotage. Who could be responsible? Incidents buried in the past may provide a clue.

Speculation abounds, and typically in a direction colored by the preexisting biases of the person speculating – which is hardly helpful.

Let’s start with the end result and work backwards. The outcome ultimately means that Europe’s economic impetus for ever seeking peace with Russia has been seriously undermined, if not literally destroyed. Someone has taken it upon themselves to demolish the remaining bridges between the two. Until now, there was always a chance of reconciliation. Russian President Vladimir Putin said himself recently that all the EU needed to do to pull itself out of its self-imposed energy crisis was to push the button on its gas supply from Russia and drop the anti-Russian sanctions that prevent it from doing so.

People in the streets of German cities protesting against Berlin’s blind following of Brussels’ anti-Russia sanctions also knew that was the answer. But now that option has been taken off the table. The EU is now adrift amid a deepening energy crisis and someone burned its last sails. It’s clear that Europe itself wouldn’t benefit from that. Nor does it benefit at all from any of its own anti-Russian sanctions. But who gave Brussels that idea, to harm its own economy in the first place?

At the onset of the Ukrainian conflict, it was Washington that egged on the EU to mirror measures that Washington itself had adopted in an effort to deprive Moscow of revenues to fuel its interests and objectives in Ukraine. The problem is that the EU’s economy was far more entwined with Russia’s than America’s. Any sense that US President Joe Biden and his administration may have given EU leaders, that they’d be there to help the bloc soften the blow of its self-sacrificial sanctions, has since been replaced by a harsh, pragmatic reality. US shale executives have explained to Western media that they simply lack the capacity to ramp up production for Europe’s winter crunch, even amid the growing rationing, deindustrialization, and risk of blackouts.

So, pressure has recently been increasing on EU member states to achieve a rapid diplomatic, peaceful resolution. But any reconnection of Nord Stream gas would have been a blow to US economic ambitions, which eventually include turning the EU into a dependent liquefied natural gas client. To that end, US officials have even tried to market their natural gas in the past as “freedom molecules,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Russian gas.

Biden himself said of Nord Stream 2 during a press conference on February 7, before the Ukraine conflict had even popped off, that “we will bring an end to it,” despite it being out of American control. But even long before that, the US was sanctioning and bullying European companies into halting construction on Nord Stream 2 under the pretext of saving Europe from Russia. It’s worth noting that Europe didn’t really have problems with Russia this century until the US decided to make Ukraine an outpost for the State Department.

Not only did Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned operator of the pipeline, persist against all odds to finish it, but it’s really the only leverage that Moscow has in Europe. Attributing to Moscow the recent sabotage of their own economic interests in Europe seems absurd. The damage done to the pipelines now means that to prevent them from being completely filled with sea water and destroyed, Russia is forced to keep pumping gas through them and into the sea at their own expense. What exactly does Moscow gain from any of this? Conversely, what does Washington gain? Nothing less than Brussels’ full dependence, which proved elusive when Europe could split its interests between the east and west.

As for who possesses the technical ability to execute underwater pipeline sabotage, both Russia and the US do. Much has been made in the past of the potential for cutting undersea cables – defined as an act of war by UK defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. The US actually has a history in such operations, having tapped into undersea cables to spy on the Soviet Union in the 1970s Operation Ivy Bells, according to public records about Operation Ivy Bells. Washington also has sabotaged Soviet gas pipelines before, albeit indirectly – according to Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who served on the National Security Council in 1982, when then-US President Ronald Reagan allegedly approved a plan for the CIA to sabotage components of a pipeline operated by the Soviet Union. The objective was to prevent Western Europe from importing natural gas from the Soviets. Sound familiar?

Time and inquiry will uncover the culprit eventually – if we’re lucky. EU officials are vowing to get to the bottom of it. “All available information indicates leaks are the result of a deliberate act. Deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Tweeted the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. Perhaps investigators could pay a visit to Radoslaw Sikorski, European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister, who tweeted a photo of the disaster aftermath along with the note, “Thank you, USA.”

But if it indeed turns out that Washington committed what some consider to be an act of war against Europe’s economy, will Brussels have the heart to really confront it? Or will Brussels continue to find justifications to remain complicit in its own demise?

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English. rachelmarsden.com

September 29, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘US Wants to Destroy EU as Economic Player’: Analysts Mull Ramifications of Nord Stream Breakdown

Samizdat – 28.09.2022

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines have been effectively rendered inoperable this week due to an incident that may have been an act of sabotage.

As the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines are currently incapable of transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe, experts ponder who is going to benefit from this catastrophe.

Vladimir Demidov, an international analyst of energy and natural resource markets, told Sputnik that the parties who oppose negotiations between Germany and Russia definitely benefit from the Nord Stream breakdown.

As these negotiations may lead to sanctions against Russia being partially lifted – potentially in exchange for gas shipments during winter – those who want to keep these sanctions in place could also be regarded as an interested party, he added.

“This is an act of aggression on a planetary level,” Demidov remarked. “A country or a bloc destroying infrastructure of another country. And we’re not talking about domestic infrastructure here, but infrastructure that connects countries and supplies about 30 percent of the natural gas Europe uses.”

Russian National Energy Security Fund analyst Igor Yushkov also observed that neither Russia nor Germany were interested in the pipeline’s destruction: for Berlin, Nord Stream presented an option to stave off a potential “energy collapse” during winter, while Moscow invested a lot of money into the project.

Both Demidov and Yushkov observed that Europe will now have to purchase natural gas from the United States, the largest liquefied natural gas supplier while it looks like Russia was essentially squeezed out from the European natural gas market.

“The natural gas from the US is going to become more expensive and Europe would still have to buy it because there is no other gas,” Demidov said. “A very amusing diversification has occurred in Europe: they switched from key supplier of the ‘bad’ gas from Russia to the ‘freedom’ gas from the United States that costs at least twice as much.”

He also pointed at former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorsky, who “thanked” the United States on social media for the Nord Stream breakdown, with Demidov arguing that when people of such caliber make such statements, it looks as if they are trying to make the truth look like a joke.

“I have a feeling that the United States really wants to destroy the European Union as a global economic player,” he said.

September 28, 2022 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

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