Finally admitting the obvious – that the CIA knew of the attack in advance – is a step towards normalizing it
Only a few will be tempted to celebrate: German magazine Spiegel – once, a very long time ago, a proud flagship of critical investigate journalism but now an often cringe-inducing, radical-Centrist government and establishment mouthpiece – has noticed the obvious fact that Germany’s American overlords were involved in the 2022 Nord Stream attack from the very beginning.
Spiegel – to paraphrase the title of a Soviet television classic starring the immortal Viacheslav Tikhonov – has now been authorized to announce: From the spring of 2022 (at the latest) Ukrainian saboteurs and CIA spies – already well-acquainted with each other “for years” (How did that happen, by the way? Never mind, we know) – were meeting to develop the idea of launching the greatest single eco-terrorist attack in Europe’s history. On an “ally.”
You don’t say, Hauptmann Obvious! Honestly, what’s next from Hamburg’s brightest? “Gulf of Tonkin Incident – Did the US Lie?”; “Breaking: Gleiwitz Attack – a Nazi Black Op?”; “The Schlieffen Plan: Did it Fail?”; “Kaiser Wilhelm – Not so Bright after all?” Have all the cringo-meters really gone the way of Germany’s notoriously dysfunctional railways? Is there no one left at Spiegel with a basic sense of professional shame and elementary decency?
The same can by asked regarding German mainstream media as a whole. Markus Lanz, one of Germany’s most styled and prominent – and soporifically anodyne, too – talk show hosts, has recently “amused” us (yes, scare quotes) with speculations both asinine and callous: Was the ugly – English frog formerly known as Prince Andrew perhaps only trying to help when caught on candid Epstein Mossad camera kneeling over a prone girl?
Frankly, the new Spiegel line on Nord Stream is not much better. Its only advantage is that, at least, it is not de facto covering for a pedophile monster, just for Germany’s US “allies” and Berlin’s spongers in Kiev, which devastated its vital infrastructure and crippled its economy by locking in excessive energy costs.
To make things worse for itself, Spiegel is, of course, still soft-pedalling its non-revelations, implausibly framing its news-of-yesteryear as a silly story about the Americans “knowing much earlier than previously thought” about the Ukrainian plans.
This implausibility turns into rock-bottom, barefaced absurdity when we are told, once again, that ultimately the CIA turned against the plans for the attack. A Ukrainian terrorist – yes, that is the correct term for a participant in a treacherous sneak attack on a country pumping ceaseless billions into Ukraine with massive ecological and economic consequences – currently in German custody, meanwhile, is prettified into a “commando soldier.” How low will German “elites” bow to those slapping Germany in the face?
In sum, your story, dear members of the Spiegel creative writing workshop, seems to be this: The Zelensky regime, dependent for its very survival on Washington, took American “advice” regarding the Nord Stream sabotage and terrorist operation, and then simply disregarded the same Americans when they called it off. BS, as they say in American English. It’s one thing to try to mislead your readers – and that’s bad enough – but please have some respect and stop treating them like total idiots.
In reality, the American “friends” were, of course, not merely informed – either at an early or late stage of planning – and they were not merely initially “benevolent” observers. Instead they did exactly what the CIA is designed to do: they got deep into the weeds of a perfectly illegal and absolutely devious black-ops attack. In this case, they struck a so-called “ally,” an effective vassal in NATO-EU Europe.
Who came up with that brilliant idea first? Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal wanted to make us believe the answer was a few gung-ho Ukrainians on a bender. Forget about it. In all likelihood, it was the friends from across the Atlantic.
It would be easy to dismiss this latest Spiegel feat as simply ridiculous, and it certainly is. It’s yet another sad sign of how low not only Spiegel but the whole Western mainstream media cartel have fallen. Yet there is another aspect to this inanity that we should take very seriously.
What has unfolded over the years since the 2022 attack is a deliberate sequence that we can summarize as The Three Steps of Normalizing the Totally Anomalous: First, commit an outrageous crime. Second, launch and stick for a while to an equally outrageous lie. In this case: it was the Russians who did it! Third, slowly, gradually, step by step release carefully selected fragments of the truth, while adjusting the publicly accepted story, without, however (and this is crucial), ever looking back to address your own inconsistencies, absurdities, and outright lies.
In these three stages of normalization, the latest mainstream version is always the right one, and the previous ones are simply forgotten. Or to be precise, not mentioned among polite people who wish to advance or just keep their careers. Those too smart and honest to go along with this sequence must be maligned, demeaned, marginalized, and driven out of good mainstream media and expert society. That is why, in the Nord Stream case, Seymour Hersh was demonized and ridiculed when he fingered the US in 2023. Hersh could not possibly get every detail right, but he was close, while Spiegel and company were still stuck in their self-induced infantile fairy-tale stage.
This early phase of the normalization sequence is also an exciting time for ambitious mediocrities, when those who are greedy for recognition and other perks are rewarded for having a go at their betters, despite being intellectually – and probably ethically – pedestrian. Witness the mean-spirited, below-the-belt attack by German perma-talk show asset and security talking head Carlo Masala on Hersh back in the day. It was abysmally cringey then, and it has aged very badly.
The Three Stages of Normalizing the Totally Anomalous – from outrageous crime to bizarrely transparent lying, to a gradual release of fragments of truth without ever looking back on yesterday’s BS – are the real story here, not the wanna-be scoop offered by Spiegel.
Here is the key point we need to understand: Controlled, staged – in both senses of the term – revelations are not part of achieving transparency or, even more importantly, accountability. Instead they are designed to first overwhelm, disorient, and paralyze us with massive lies and threats not to challenge them, and then to drip-feed us carefully selected and sequenced truth, so that we forget to ask about accountability, including for those who have been spreading lies and disinformation.
By the time, the full, already obvious truth about the Nord Stream attacks will finally be officially revealed (if ever), we will have forgotten to ask the equally obvious questions: Why then is Germany still a US vassal? Why is it still pumping money into an ultra-corrupt Ukraine and ruining its relationship with Russia to please both Washington and Zelensky’s Kiev? And why is a German government not protecting Germany from these predators? That is the purpose of the Three Stages of Normalizing the Totally Anomalous strategy. Don’t fall for it.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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