Updated below:
You all will want to discuss this …
Seymour Hersh: How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now
The above was only just published. I am currently busy but will eventually read it and make up my mind.
Update: 13:50 UTC
I have now read the piece but I am someone in doubt over it. The story that Hersh tells seems incomplete and not researched as deeply as possible. I bet that his sources know more than that.
But it still fits with the tale I had constructed from open data a day after the pipeline was destroyed:
While the Baltops 22 maneuver already took place in June and July of this year the U.S. Sixth Fleet left the Baltic Sea only a few days ago (in German, my translation):
Big Fleet Group From U.S. Navy Passes [German island passage] Fehmanbelt
On Wednesday morning the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, escorted by the Landing Ships USS Arlington and USS Gunston Hall, was en route towards west. Previously, the ships were part of US units that took part in NATO maneuvers and called at numerous ports in Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States.
The “USS Kearsarge”, flagship of the association and largest warship of the US Navy, which was in action in the Baltic Sea in the last 30 years, has 40 helicopters and fighter planes as well as more than 2000 soldiers on board, the escort ships about 1000. For the around 4,000 soldiers are heading back home on the east coast of the US after their six-month deployment.
Parts of the Kearsange operations in the Baltic Sea were dedicated to test special sub sea mine destruction technologies:
A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the U.S. Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa Public Affairs said June 14.
In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.
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.
Off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, is where the pipelines were hit. Just days ago the USS Kearsarge was in that area:
Back then I presented just the available fact and left the conclusion open for the reader to chose.
But it has since become more and more obvious that the U.S. was responsible for the enormous economic damage to Germany that its action has caused.
The gloating by Sec State Anthony Blinken and his deputy Victoria Nuland is just too too obvious. It is a “tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come” said Blinken and Nuland, in a Congress hearing, was “very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal.”
Most Germans, if not their pliant government, have drawn their conclusions from that.