Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/pay-for-your-own-wars-big-oil.html

Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

by C.A. Matthews

Did you get a chance to read Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh’s excellent exposé on who and how and when the Nord Stream LNG pipelines were blown up? If you haven’t read his article yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so now. Go on, click on the blue link. We’ll wait. 

Here’s a quick excerpt from it for those in a rush:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. (…)

Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible. – Seymour Hersch, How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline

And for clarification, in case you've come across persons attempting to besmirch Mr. Hersh’s distinguished career:

[Hersh] went to Vietnam and covered the war as a freelance reporter. In 1969, he heard about an Army lieutenant, William Calley, who had been secretly court martialed for his role in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, and, after investigating it as a freelance reporter, he broke the news of what became widely known as the My Lai massacre, in which he wrote, “The Army says Lieutenant Calley deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a search and destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as Painesville.” Hersh 's story was picked up by 33 newspapers through the wire service. He was working as a freelance reporter when he revealed that. 

That incident took place in March 1968. It involved the deliberate killing by company Sea First Battalion, 20th Infantry, of South Vietnamese civilians. The U.S. Army originally denied all of his claims, insisting that they were all made up and were all fiction but they ultimately ended up admitting most of his revelations, including the fact that Lieutenant Calley was convicted of murder of 22 civilians and was sentenced to life in prison, though he was pardoned in 1974. For that reporting, which prompted not mean tweets, but threats of all kinds of violence from many serious sectors, Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.—Glenn Greenwald, Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update #39 (February 10, 2023)

Seymour Hersh is one of the most highly respected journalists in the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the top award in Western journalism, for his reporting on US war crimes in Vietnam.

He has spent decades building up sources inside the US government. Hersh has also earned accolades for exposing US atrocities and cover-ups targeting Iraq, Iran, and Syria. —Ben Norton, US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Things are making a whole lot more sense now—at least they should to those who have been watching and/or reading mainstream media outlets and fell for the “Russia blew up its own pipeline!” nonsense. The rest of us who regularly follow independent journalists online and nurse a healthy sense of skepticism toward anything coming out of the mouths of US government spokespersons weren’t surprised at all by Hersh’s reporting. But I realize that there is still a lot of head scratching in the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” crowd. Some of these heavily propagandized folks are willing to admit that they couldn’t fathom why any country would destroy its own profitable pipeline, even if they are ruled by “Bad Man (not Orange) Putin,” a man portrayed in the mainstream media as a combination of Trump and Stalin.

The most surprising thing to me in Hersh's article was the Norwegians’ uncontained enthusiasm for the sabotage plan. They were happy to go along with planting the concrete-covered C4 explosives on the Nord Stream liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines. No one had to twist the Norwegians’ arms to drop the sea buoy that boosted the signal from the US to detonate the bombs three months after they were planted. The bombs then exploded and destroyed three out of four of the pipelines. (Hey, nobody’s perfect, and the surviving pipeline has since been turned off. Mission accomplished!)

I wonder if the Norwegians realized that by helping the United States destroy property belonging to oil companies from the EU, Germany, France, and several others (49%), and Russia (51%) that they were, to all intents and purposes, participating in an act of war. Think about it. Blowing up a liquefied natural gas pipeline that doesn’t belong to you is a very aggressive act. It’s not something one country should do to another without expecting to experience some serious consequences in return.

In the past, as soon as one country discovered their property had been destroyed by another country, a call for war was issued and fighting ensued. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that nowadays the Big Oil companies sit down at the boardroom table and discuss how they’ll proceed from this point onward before they come to blows.

Big Oil companies? Did you actually think I meant to type “the US, Germany, Russia, and Norway need to sit down and talk things over” in regard to blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines? No, I meant to type Big Oil, and you'll see why in a moment.

We’re intelligent adults here, so I feel I can speak frankly with you about this matter. We both know that the US government wasn't ultimately in charge of this pipeline sabotage operation. Oh no. Whenever human beings are discussing anything to do with the largest multinational corporations on the planet like Big Oil, we have to admit that they, the corporations, are the ones exercising all the power. Simply put, it is the corporations who are calling all the shots. Big Oil is our ultimate ruler.

In short, Joe Biden wasn’t the first to express a long-held desire to blow up Russia's profitable LNG pipeline. It was the Western Big Oil companies that have wanted the Nord Stream put out of commission for some time now. Chevron signed a deal and made some comments about cornering the market in Ukraine’s fossil fuel industry back in 2013, right before the US overthrew Ukraine's popularly elected president, Viktor Vanukovych, in the Maidan Coup of 2014. Unfortunately for Mr. Vanukovych, he expressed an interest in doing business with a Russian oil company over Chevron, a US oil company. (Interesting coincidence, the timing of the Maidan Coup, don’t you think? Well, it did get then Vice President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, a cushy job at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Nothing to see here, move along, please.)

 Investigative journalist Ben Norton points out:

Just hours after Nord Stream was sabotaged, NATO members Norway, Denmark, and Poland announced the official opening of a new natural gas pipeline, the Baltic Pipe. (...)

Since the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up, Norway has replaced Russia as Europe’s largest supplier of pipeline gas.

Norwegian gas shipments to Germany in particular have reached record highs. In 2021, Norway had provided Germany with less then 20% of its gas supply. By 2022, that figure had shot up to 33%.

Meanwhile, the United States has also become the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) exporter (tied with Qatar).

European imports made up the “lion’s share” of US LNG exports in 2022, quickly replacing Asia as the new top market.  —US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Putting competitor oil corporations and pipelines out of business is how capitalism works. You didn’t think it was all about “sharing the market” and “friendly competition” among these mega-billion dollar corporations, did you? Competition is for suckers! Building a monopoly in a commodity market is where it’s at in the sick and twisted socioeconomic system of capitalism.

 Getting rid of your competitors forever is a good enough reason to have your favorite puppet government sabotage and blow up an LNG pipeline and risk a nuclear war by doing so. These psychopathic/sociopathic Big Oil CEOs don't seem to worry very much about the fate of humanity. If they ever did, would they have covered up fossil fuel's part in causing greenhouse gases and exacerbating the climate catastrophe for the past half century?

Helping out your fellow CEOs at Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and the rest of the military-industrial complex to make mega-profits is a good idea, too. Military equipment uses a lot of fossil fuels to run and be maintained. So helping them sell more and more armaments will help Big Oil's bottom line. And it's always a great idea to cooperate with the War Machine, that is, if we haven’t nuked the entire planet into a cinder before then.

Trillions of dollars in profit for Big Oil CEOs and their shareholders is worth the political fall out from causing what could be the largest methane leak in human history. (You didn't think blowing up the Nord Stream wouldn't have a massive environmental impact, did you?) Really, it was worth it. It’s not like the oil companies themselves deal much with the press, the irate public, the environment, and the maligned pipeline owners. That’s what their bought-off politician-puppets are for. 

That’s right. That’s why Big Oil lobbyists give so much money to politicians worldwide. Politicians are tasked with creating the circumstances where capitalists can do what capitalists do best: Create monopolies and make themselves evermore increasing profits. And if it takes a war and causing an environmental disaster... then so be it.

As the great Ralph Nader says:

No other institutions consistently Rule over as Much in the World as the Giant Global Corporations – not governments, not armies, not religions and certainly not trade unions. These fictional corporate entities have largely achieved transcendent imperial status, as they amass coordinated control over capital, labor, technology and governments because they have secured the rights bestowed upon human beings. In a confrontation or a conflict or even a contract, it is no contest: mere people don’t have a chance.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis warned in 1933, we have created a “Frankenstein monster” in our midst, whose unifying lust for power and control on behalf of their profits know few limits. From How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans

I’ll venture to say that Big Oil knows zero limits on their power. These avaricious corporations dictate both domestic and foreign policy for the US government. And our paid-for politician-puppets obediently do as they're told.

There was never any question about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. The half-owners, Gazprom of Russia, could have just turned off a valve on the pipeline and shut it down. There was no need for them to waste expensive and dangerous explosives to stop the flow of liquefied natural gas. Any rational adult could reason that the Russians had no motive to blow up the Nord Stream. It was highly profitable. Only the owners of the new Baltic Pipe (built by Poland, Denmark, and Norway) and the US-aligned oil companies had the motive. And they're all making money hand over fist, charging four times last year's cost for LNG to heat homes in Europe.

Their motive here is greed, pure and simple—the greed of the US and EU oil companies who didn't like cheap Russian natural gas flooding the market. And who suffers? Just the people in both the Europe and the US this winter who can't afford to heat their homes. Just the people of Ukraine caught in the middle of a shooting match. Nobody really in the eyes of the multinational corporations.

It's the greedy oil corporations who are the "bad guys” in this story. They ordered their puppet, the US government, to destroy a pipeline belonging to Russia, a fellow nuclear power. The saddest thing is that sabotaging another country's pipeline (or even shooting down another country's weather balloons) could lead to a grave misunderstanding, spark World War III, and get us all killed.

You know what? Big Oil can pay for its own wars from now on. They can afford it—they make trillions of dollars in profits, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be without money anytime soon. Since they are so good at buying politicians, they can go ahead and buy mercenaries (which make up a good percentage of those fighting for Ukraine currently) to do the warring for them. Better yet, let’s tell Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to use their private spaceships to transport all the CEOS and their mercenaries to the moon or Mars where they can fight over who gets to rule the LNG market without interruptions. We’ll all be much safer and happier here on Earth if none of them ever come back.

Related Links:

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/08/us-nord-stream-pipelines-seymour-hersh/

My Sources Corroborate Sy Hersh's Nord Stream Report: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the Nord Stream bombing: A lesson and a warning https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/10/pers-f10.html

Sen. Mike Lee ‘Can’t Rule Out’ That the US Blew Up Nord Stream
https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/10/sen-mike-lee-cant-rule-out-that-the-us-blew-up-nord-stream/

Glenn Greenwald: Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update, Episode #39 https://rumble.com/v291nvo-system-update-show-39.html

INSANE: US Confirmed to Be Behind Nordstream Pipeline Attacks: Seymour Hersh  https://www.youtube.com/live/DUwfPWJQ7Pc

Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs
https://www.youtube.com/live/ySNyAaw4VEI

Here's How US Blew Up Nordstream Pipeline (NEW PROOF)
https://rumble.com/v28vpee-heres-how-us-blew-up-nordstream-pipeline-new-proof.html

Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up Nord Stream 2

How The United States Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline (video) youtu.be/A68z2iQHUhE

Sy Hersh and the Way We Live Now https://popularresistance.org/sy-hersh-the-way-we-live-now/

Ukraine Signs $10 Billion Shale Gas Deal with Chevron https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-chevron/ukraine-signs-10-billion-shale-gas-deal-with-chevron-idUSBRE9A40ML20131105

Sitting in the Dock at the Hague (Ukraine War Series) https://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2022/03/sitting-in-dock-at-hague.html 

Biden covers up plans for US shooting war against Russia in State of the Union address https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/09/pers-f09.html

How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/11/how-to-rescue-our-democratic-society-constitutionally-render-corporations-unequal-to-humans/

How A Pipeline Company Paid Minnesota Millions To Police Protests https://popularresistance.org/how-a-pipeline-company-paid-minnesota-millions-to-police-protests/

Zelensky Admits He Refused to Implement Minsk Peace Deal https://popularresistance.org/zelensky-admits-he-refused-to-implement-minsk

Former Israeli PM Bennett Says US ‘Blocked’ His Attempts at a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/08/former-israeli-pm-bennett-says-us-blocked-his-attempts-at-a-russia-ukraine-peace-deal/

Why Are We Repeating History? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/why-are-we-repeating-history.html