The Highwire with Del Bigtree - DID AMERICA BLOW UP THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

A colossal geopolitical story with dire implications for the food chain, farmers, Europeans trying to heat their homes and provocations of a major escalation towards a war with global superpowers. American journalist Seymour Hersh explains why he believes America sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This is a story that's been going on for a couple weeks, and it's not leaving the headlines. It's one of the biggest stories. It has geopolitical implications. It has implications for our food source, climate change, energy. It touches all the subjects, Dell. And we're going to break it down yet, and it's still ongoing. So we're talking about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And this, if we look at a map, this is a pipeline that connects Russia to Germany, North Stream 1, North Stream 2.

And this is the natural gas and hydrogen pipeline that supplies a lot, or actually. should say supplied a lot of the hydrogen and energy to the European Union to Europe states, member states. Well, on September 27th, 2022, the world was greeted to this. And this was the explosion of the pipeline. And we can see here from surveillance, military surveillance video, I believe that was from Denmark. That was the explosion there. And the media jumped all over this. All of the sudden, New York Times was reporting this, sabotage pipelines and a mystery who did it. Was it Russia? So they're already pointing fingers at Russia. A lot of people were at that time.

But then about a month or so later, Sweden came out with this evidence and it was off to the races. Sweden finds explosive traces at Nord Stream blast sites, confirms sabotage. So this story's been going back and forth. Who did it? Why did they do it? A lot of people say it was an open secret who did it. Out of nowhere, a veteran Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist Seymour Hirsch comes out with his first substack article. And it's a doozy, Del. This is what it is. Title, How America took out the Nord Stream Pipeline.

Hirsch has several sources. I believe you mentioned 20 to 30 sources here on this article. This is obviously a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He does not really report things that he does not have a lot of sources on. He doesn't have facts on. And this article is written like a short story. It's very long. So let's just let's just go through some of the sequencing here. We're painting a story. It says this. And he hits right in a third paragraph. Last June, the Navy divers operating under the cover of a widely publicized midsummer NATO exercise known as Baltrop 22 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. He goes on to say this. The direct route, which bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy, which enjoyed an abundance of cheap rushing natural gas, enough to run its factories, heat its homes, while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas at a profit throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the administration would violate U.S. promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia.

Secrecy was essential. So let's pause right there for a second. Huge implications there from what's being alleged from his sources. Nord Stream is a holding company, and it's based in Switzerland. So that's the website right there. Russia's gas prom controls 51% of the company, and this is what this is what, Hearst begins to write. Just to give you an idea now, now we start to get into the geopolitical and the energy piece.

Hirsch writes, gas problem controlled 51% of the company with four European energy firms, one in France, one in the Netherlands, and two in Germany, sharing the remaining 49% of the stock and having the right to control downstream sales of the inexpensive natural gas to local distributors in Germany in Western Europe. So it wasn't just whoever did this, you know, it wasn't just an attack on Russia. It was attack on those other European countries as well, especially Germany. And what's interesting here is Hirsch alleges through his sources that the operation was based out of Norway with the help from the Norwegian Navy and its secret service. So with that being said, with that data point from Hirsch, we now see a current headline that says this.

Remember, Germany doesn't have the gas anymore. Norway now Germany's largest gas supplier, future supplies Arctic to support export. So now Germany is relying on Norway for these gas exports. And so as Hirsch is telling this story, as it goes in his writing, there was a NATO exercise during that time in June, a June of last year in the Baltic Sea. And this was the headline here for me wants to look at that. 16 NATO allies and partners take part in the exercise, Baltrop's 22. And this is the cover they used, according to Hirsch, to put those divers down there,

plant those remote explosives and then three months later detonate them in september so that's what's happening and that is the story as we see it and since that story has been written a lot of people are trying obviously as they always do as they've done with us they attack hirsch they attack his character they try to point people away from the information away from the story but that's we're looking now at so let's take hush out of the picture for a second do we have any evidence that this may have happen. Well, we have now Norway stepping in to provide gas to Germany when Hirsch was saying that. But even in January, this was right before, it's about a month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, January of last year, we have Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria

Newland. And she was at a press conference and she had this to say. Listen to this. I want to be clear with you today. If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward. How can you say that for sure? Where does your competence come from on that? As I said, we've had extensive consultations at every level with our German allies. I'm not going to get into the specifics here today, but we will work with Germany to ensure that the pipeline does not move forward.

Wow. Now, that's a shocking statement. And rightfully, finally, we're seeing journalists. Rightfully, that journalist, you could see him. You could hear him. He said, I'm sorry, how are you going to do that? And obviously, no information was given there. But then just a short month later, and this is about a little over two weeks.

What's odd about it is it's not a statement that we've worked with Germany. There you're going to turn the pipeline off and not take anything from Russia. It will not move forward. I mean, that's just a very, very odd statement. You have something that can be controlled on both ends. That is not what is being stated here. Because it seems easily German could say, yeah, we're not going to touch the pipeline. line, screw Russia, we're with you on this. That's not what's being said. Right. And this was after

sanctions, so, you know, she wouldn't have said, we're going to try more sanctions. Obviously, what have you said? We could have said, Germany will turn it off. Now, President Biden spoke and said the same thing, or a similar situation, just about a month later. Listen to what he had to say. If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring it into it. How will you do that exactly since the project and control of the project is within Germany's control? we will uh i promise you we'll be able to do it doesn't seem like much of a mystery there does it

right there will no longer be a pipeline will bring an end to it we will bring an end to it america and germany's not a picture at this point and so it's interesting because circling back to seymour hirsch's article according to his sources this was supposed to be a covert operation and when biden blew it according to hirsch as he's writing it everybody inside this operation was kind of flabbergasted and angry and thinking, well, it's not covert anymore. We can't go forward with it. And of course, they did go forward with it. And right after that conversation with Joe Biden there,

Russia did invade Ukraine seven months later. The pipeline was blown up. But now here's a couple of other data points. Just to wrap this up and give people a bigger picture of what we're looking at here. So let's talk about the climate risk. We're right in the middle of the most heightened climate change conversation that's ever been taking place in the world. And we see this gas pipeline blow up, spewing gas.

And here with one of the headlines, shortly after North Stream gas leaks, maybe biggest ever with warning of large climate risk. It says colossal amount of leaked methane twice initial estimates is equivalent to a third of Denmark's annual CO2 emissions or 1.3 million cars. That's 1.3 million cars driven for a year. Nothing from Greta, nothing from Al Gore, nothing from John Kerry, nothing from anybody. So not saying, you know, if this was America or whatever happened. I mean, if it is our policy from a president that's screaming global warming and bringing down the use of fossil fuels and this, and then you blow something up that's releasing it, God knows what is doing to the ocean and the air.

Right, right. And so, yeah, it's not, they can't control that, so they're not going to try to basically grandstand on that and market it. But we do have some headlines from Russia after the, this was just recently after Hershey's article. came out. Russia, this is out of Reuters. Russia says NATO should hold emergency summit over Nord Stream blast. They're calling for investigations. But Europe has bigger problems at this point, because let's look at what was happening just before the blast. Remember, we're going into a time when we reported on this that fertilizer was really at a shortage. And so this was, again, Reuters, one month before the explosion, we have a company named Grupta Astoy. They halted production of fertilizers due to high gas prices. This is a large Polish,

chemical firm, one of the biggest in Europe. Now another one, one week before the explosion, Norway's Yarra, one of the largest fertilizer producers in Europe, says to halt Belgian fertilizer unit in the coming days. They too said it because of soaring gas prices. So the explosion cuts off that natural gas. And this natural gas is used for the hybrid Bosch method, which is basically that makes fertilizer. So they use this natural gas from North Stream 1 to make this fertilizer.

So even before it blew up, there's a problem. So now Europe is having a major, you know, it's compounding. its fertilizer shortage at a time when it's already cutting back on it. We saw what happens in the Netherlands with the farmers. But now let's talk about the energy, just the straight-up energy. So this was, again, just to paint this picture how dire it is, days before the explosion, here's the headlines. Lights out, ovens off. Europe preps for winter energy crisis. Three months after the explosion, here's what looks like. Over half of Germans heating homes less or not at all. Now we're coming close to the end of the winter here, and here's one of the

headlines of what the cost has been to Germany. Europe and Europe has spent 792 billion euros to shield citizens from energy crisis. So Germany is at the center of this. And we've been playing videos on this of people literally like getting on TikTok and YouTube and saying, I'm having to decide whether I'm going to buy groceries or pay my energy bills. So this has been no joke. Concerns that they're going to open up. Remember it was like libraries and museums to citizens that couldn't heat their own homes, that they'll be heating those spaces. I mean, literally being dropping, you know, Europe, first world nations into a second and third world scenario where they can't even take care of themselves.

And to think, and that's what's so shocking is, are we supposed to believe that, you know, President Biden, the United States of America made a deal with Germany, that they were cool with this? Europe was all cool with us cutting off one of their major energy supplies. Right. And the conversation at that point is European people really are looked at as second-class citizens if this in case if this indeed is the case with this totally accepted casualty right and we do know i mean the literature is is ripe with the fact that cold kills more people than than heat so when

you plunge uh entire european union into a winter and cut out their heat this is directly leading to deaths of people so let's not let's not mince words here so the german government is protesting this move so this is the latest headlines here german political party once u.s troops kicked out over allegedly blowing up north stream pipeline another headline german lawmakers denounce shultz's silence on u.s role in north stream sabotage that's olaf shultz the chancellor of germany uh and this is what that headline says this is one of the german members of parliament um in the european parliament and he says this in the article the problem is that this is tearing the german economy and significantly impoverished germany moreover the billions spent by germany on this

gas project, which ensured us cheap energy are lost, but the coalition which governs Germany doesn't care. So there's internal strife within Germany and within Europe at this point. A lot of people voicing this opinion, the story is not going away. And I just find it fascinating that none of the people have been questioned by, you know, our Congress. There's been no special meetings or hearings held, Victoria Newland. No one, they're kind of just freely being moved about the country. So it will be interesting to see how this progresses because we can't underestimate the gravity of this story. Yeah, absolutely.

Outreate. I mean, really, these are acts of war, you know, through any other lens. It's hard to imagine that it's not. Obviously, some dealings going on. You have, you know, German, you know, parliament upset with their own leadership. And again, it's sort of asking the same questions I find myself asking here. Is my country being, you know, are we passing laws and are we being governed from inside of our own borders? because it sure seems like you're working against our own people, our own good, you're destroying our jobs, you're locking us out, locking us down, without any scientific evidence.

You're trying to take our cars away in England. They're trying to limit you to like 15 miles from your house. Like, we're at this time in this strange space where, who are you working for? It certainly is not for the people, because the people would never ask to have their own heating builds and future growing abilities, Is it destroyed? Right, right.