Pepe Escobar: Germany and EU have been handed over a declaration of war

(Wow! Pepe is on a roll!!) This episode of Hybrid Industrial/Commercial War, in the form of a terror attack against energy infrastructure in international waters signals the absolute collapse of international law, drowned by a “our way or the highway”, “rules-based”, order.

The attack on both pipelines consisted of multiple explosive charges detonated in separate branches close to the Danish island of Bornholm, but in international waters.

That was a sophisticated operation, carried out in stealth in the shallow depth of the Danish straits. That would in principle rule out submarines (ships entering the Baltic are limited to a draught of 15 meters). As for prospective “invisible” vessels, these could only loiter around with permission from Copenhagen – as the waters around Borholm are crammed with sensors, reflecting fear of incursion by Russian submarines.

Swedish seismologists registered two underwater explosions on Monday – one of them estimated at 100 kg of TNT. Yet as much as 700 kg may have been used to blow up three separate pipeline nodes. Such amount could not have possibly been delivered in just one trip by underwater drones currently available in neighboring nations. The pressure on the pipelines dropped exponentially. The pipes are now filled with seawater.

The pipes on both NS and NS2 can be repaired, of course, but hardly before the arrival of General Winter. The question is whether Gazprom – already focused on several hefty Eurasian customers – would bother, especially considering that Gazprom vessels could be exposed to a possible NATO naval attack in the Baltic.

German officials are already spinning that NS and NS2 can “potentially” be out of commission “forever”. The EU economy and EU citizens badly needed that gas supply. Yet the EUrocracy in Brussels – which rules over nation-states – would not follow, because they ....

“The water is at least 50 meters deep.”

Pay attention this time. The fact is stated in the article:

“As for prospective “invisible” vessels, these could only loiter around with permission from Copenhagen – as the waters around Borholm are crammed with sensors, reflecting fear of incursion by Russian submarines.”

“You are an emotional decisionmaker and read what you want to read.”

Now, who reads what they want to read?

Also, keeping to your routine, you can read this in denial too:

It’s Not Crazy To Think Biden Sabotaged Nord Stream To Deepen US Involvement In The Ukraine War
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4097222/posts
Excerpt:
“Far more likely, I think, is that U.S. special forces did it on orders from the White House. Tucker Carlson floated this idea on Fox News earlier this week and was roundly mocked for it by the likes of The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, among others. But the theory cannot be so easily dismissed — not least because, as Carlson and others noted after the sabotage, Biden himself said back in February that if Russia invaded Ukraine, there would no longer be a Nord Stream 2, that “we will bring an end to it.”

To understand why the Biden administration would take such a drastic step, we need to understand something that has been true about the Democrats for nearly two decades, and certainly since the administration of Barack Obama: They tend to view all U.S. foreign policy as primarily an instrument of domestic politics. From their opportunistic opposition to the Iraq war going into the 2006 midterms, to Obama’s policies on Iran and the Arab Spring and especially Russia, Democrats have come to calibrate their responses to events abroad through a domestic partisan lens.

Put another way, American foreign policy is for them a means to an end that has mostly to do with gaining and retaining power in Washington. Think of the now infamous “Russia Reset,” when in March 2009 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a giant red plastic “reset” push-button, a symbol — albeit a botched one, the button was mislabeled with the Russian word for “overcharged” — meant above all to be a repudiation of President George W. Bush’s Russia policy, which called for missile defense installations in eastern Europe that Obama promptly canceled in the name of the “reset.” For Obama, who ran for and won office as an anti-Iraq war candidate, Russia policy was less about U.S. or European security and all about showcasing to his domestic supporters just how unlike his predecessor he was.

The Russo-Ukrainian war is no different. Facing a historic midterm wipeout and the loss of Congress, it isn’t hard to see why, with November barreling down on us, the Biden administration would choose this moment to escalate in a way that draws NATO into the war. The point is to rescue the president’s failing administration. Biden, in this scenario, becomes a war president. How much easier and more plausible it would be to then blame the tanking economy and rising prices on Putin and Russia? Easier, too, to denounce Republicans who oppose U.S. involvement as traitors to democracy — something Democrats already do with far less provocation.

One might object that although Biden and the Democrats are clearly stupid, surely they are not as malevolent as all that. On the contrary, I find it rather easy to believe that Biden possesses the kind of malevolence and resolve required to sabotage Nord Stream 1 and 2 for reasons that have mostly to do with domestic politics. After all, it takes boldness, innovation, and naked aggression to weaponize the Justice Department and FBI in the ways that we have seen over the past two years. The Democrats barreled ahead with it, even though it risks tearing the country apart.

Why? Because they see criminalizing their political opposition as one of the only paths to retaining power, and are willing to hazard everything to achieve that. If they are willing to weaponize domestic law enforcement for political gain at home, it is not too much to suppose they would pursue a policy of escalation with Russia to cling to power, which in the end is the one thing they really care about.”

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