© Brad Barket/ Getty Images/TASS
An investigative report by Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh claiming that the unprecedented seabed explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines was a covert operation by the CIA, the US Navy and the Norwegian military, has been getting the politicians and experts around the world hyped up for over a week. Such sensitive operations are generally carried out privately. Making them public is a matter of many decades, and sometimes secrets even remain undisclosed.
This has apparently made some journalists and experts declare that the topline investigation into the Nord Stream sabotage is a mere attempt to rise to fame by a journalist. Not this time, because the author has made his name long ago. It's no secret that Seymour Hersh is one of America’s most famous investigative journalists, who discloses secrets at the highest level.
Still, other Western journalists claim that Hersh, 85, is simply obsessed with CIA operations and sees "Langley's hand" everywhere. But such an experienced professional as Seymour Hersh would unlikely risk his reputation by engaging unverified facts. Moreover, he has never fallen flat on his face or provided wishful thinking in his entire career. For this reason alone, one can trust Hersh's investigation of the Nord Stream bombing, which Russian President Vladimir Putin branded as an "obvious terrorist attack."
Notably, Hersh's past endeavors often not only contradicted the official US narrative, but also flaunted the most unpleasant and often illegal activities by those in power, putting an end to their careers. For this very reason the US authorities are now seeking to silence the journalist or cast discredit on his investigation over some minor inaccuracies. Anyway, leading media outlets stopped publishing Hersh's pieces, and therefore he posted the latest one on his Substack blog.
American media’s first reaction to the revelations was quite sluggish. Not a single mainstream one has reprinted it from the journalist's personal website. No front pages. Leading TV companies preferred to shy away from the "scandal", too. The only one to take heed of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s statement that “the United States had questions to answer over its role in explosions on the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines last year” was Reuters, which is certainly not enough to send the world into a frenzy.
However, Hersh's investigation did gradually stir up America, including denials by the White House and the CIA regarding their involvement. A rare occurrence for the US main intelligence agency to lose its nerve and break the traditional "we do not confirm or deny" omerta. By the way, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry also disavowed Nord Stream-related accusations, calling them "nonsense".
Hersh himself has not been embarrassed by distrust or attacks, and keeps standing his ground. He called the undermining of gas pipelines "unimaginably stupid" and suggested that CIA chief William Burns was thereby seeking to gain favor and become Secretary of State. And in an interview with Germany’s Berliner Zeitung, Mr. Hersh said that US President Joe Biden postponed the sabotage act from June to September 2022 “out of fear”, though many operation participants considered it insane. The US-arranged sabotage can be regarded as an act of war not only against Russia, but also against Western allies, in particular Germany, Hersh said. According to him, the American leader was afraid of Berlin's possible refusal to back anti-Russian sanctions amid the West’s deplorable state over the conflict in Ukraine, which is why he made up his mind to arrange a subversive destruction.
Hersh's investigation has turned America’s "political ant nest" upside down. Thus, Mike Lee (R-Utah) noted that "if true, we've got a situation." Lee was apparently referring to the fact that the CIA concealed the operation from congressmen intentionally. Such skepticism is hardly surprising, given the wealth of examples pointing to the agency’s covert malpractice, even in US recent history.
Despite the White House and the CIA’s official denial, the American press sometimes reports on Washington’s satisfaction or even pride that such a major mission was its doing. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has drawn attention to this when stating the following in a recent interview: "US officials essentially acknowledge that the explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were their handiwork. They even take delight now in talking about this."
As Lavrov noted, the United States was uncomfortable about Russia’s cooperation with Germany over the past two or three decades. Their friendship has become a bur in the throat for those interested in US global hegemony. According to the minister, a powerful alliance was forming between them, based on Russian energy resources and German technologies. "That began to threaten the monopoly position of many American corporations. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow ruin it, and do it literally," the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry said. In his opinion, this was achieved by undermining pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
A message has flashed in the European press the other day that German investigators admit traces of a "Western country" in the Nord Stream sabotage. But the issue was fudged, suggesting to wait for ultimate investigation results. We may conclude in this regard that the most likely option for the West's further response to Seymour Hersh's piece is to ignore and silence it. Indeed, the journalist has failed to cite any convincing facts, and only refers to an anonymous source.
When talking to Berliner Zeitung, Hersh stressed the following about his stoolies: "I have written many pieces based on unidentified source. Had I named one, he/she would have been fired or imprisoned. The law is very strict. I have never disclosed anyone, and of course, in my writing I say, like in this article, that this is just a source. End of story."
