Roundup: Pipeline Sabotage, Four Stars, FBI, And More

I had some personal business to take care of this morning, and this afternoon I’ll be finishing up a painting project—ceilings. However …

Pepe Escobar tends to go off on rants, but he makes some points today that are worth keeping in mind “going forward”. Because, after the pipeline sabotage, one way or another nothing’s going to be the same. Nor for a while, anyway:

Germany and EU have been handed over a declaration of war

The emerging idea seems to be that Germany, in particular, was the real target and the motive was to keep the EU/NATO in line. Excerpts from a long article:

The Big Picture reveals the collective West in absolute panic, with Atlanticist “elites” willing to resort to anything – outrageous lies, assassinations, terrorism, sabotage, all out financial war, support to neo-Nazis – to prevent their descent into a geopolitical and geoeconomic abyss.

This is my view—that this sabotage is a sign of desperation. Go back through history, back certainly to the Athenian empire. Keeping allies—really, vassal states—in line through intimidation is a sign of vulnerability.

Disabling NS and NS2 represents the definitive closure of any possibility of a German-Russia deal on gas supplies, with the added benefit of relegating Germany to the lowly status of absolute US vassal.

There is a possible escape. It will depend on German desperation and resolve. They haven’t got there yet.

The Danish Minister of Defense met urgently with NATO’s Secretary General this Wednesday. After all the explosions happened very close to Denmark’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). That may be qualified as crude kabuki at best; …

Meanwhile, EU energy giants are bound to lose big time with the sabotage.

... Their fuming shareholders will want serious answers from a serious investigation.

It gets worse: there are no holds barred anymore on the Pipeline Terror front. Russia will be on red alert not only for Turk Stream but also Power of Siberia. Same for the Chinese and their maze of pipelines arriving in Xinjiang.

Whatever the methodology and the actors who were in the loop, this is payback – in advance – for the inevitable collective West defeat in Ukraine. And a crude warning to the Global South that they will do it again. Yet action always breeds reaction: from now on, “funny things” could also happen to US/UK pipelines in international waters.

The EU oligarchy is reaching an advanced process of disintegration at lightning speed. Their window of opportunity to at least attempt a role as a strategically autonomous geopolitical actor is now closed.

These EUROcrats now face a serious predicament. Once it’s clear who are the perpetrators of the sabotage in the Baltic, and once they understand all the life-changing socio-economic consequences for pan-EU citizens, the kabuki will have to stop. Including the already running, uber-ridiculous subplot that Russia blew up its own pipeline when Gazprom could simply have turned off the valves for good.

…

Now it’s painfully clear the imperial velvet gloves are off when it comes to the vassals. EU independence: verboten. Cooperation with China: verboten. Independent trade connectivity with Asia: verboten. The only place for the EU is to be economically subjugated to the US: a tawdry remix of 1945-1955. With a perverse neoliberal twist: we will own your industrial capacity, and you will have nothing.

The sabotage of NS and NS2 is inbuilt in the imperial wet dream of breaking up the Eurasian land mass into a thousand pieces to prevent a trans-Eurasia consolidation between Germany (representing the EU), Russia and China: $50 trillion in GDP, based on purchasing power parity (PPP) compared to the US’s $20 trillion.

I’m wary of inter-civilizational grand strategic thinking. I’m more in line with Samuel Huntington’s ideas. OTOH, Putin’s concept of a multi-polar—i.e., more than just two poles—world seems possible. And preferable for the US, if anyone in our ruling class is thinking straight.

We must go back to Mackinder: control of the Eurasian land mass constitutes control of the world. American elites and their Trojan Horses across Europe will do whatever it takes not to give up their control.

“American elites” in this context encompass the deranged, Straussian neo-con-infested “intel community” and the Big Energy, Big Pharma and Big Finance that pays them and who profits not only from the Deep State’s Forever War approach but also wants to make a killing out of the Davos-concocted Great Reset.

Four Stars next. Douglas Macgregor says we have far too many four stars—generals, admirals, and so forth. I don’t doubt that he’s right about that, although I certainly don’t see reducing their number—or any other administrative moves—as leading to a revival of our military. Administration, form or structure, is definitely important, but substance and character is the real key. Still, for military oriented readers, this is a good read:

America's Four-Star Problem

The next administration’s top priority must be a dramatic reduction in the four-star overhead.

There’s a heartening story about ex-FBI agents at the NYPost—from a personal standpoint. Full disclosure: I knew Terry Turchie when I was working, although not well. I knew him better by reputation as a serious and highminded sorta guy. I should perhaps explain that when I retired I didn’t join any retired agents associations or attempt to maintain past contacts. I know that probably sounds strange, but there were two reasons. First, I didn’t want to get caught up in living in the past—I felt I was young enough back then (57) to start a new and different life, and I didn’t want anything holding me back. Right. Then came the Russia Hoax. Second, at the point of retirement I knew that the FBI was no longer the FBI that I had been a part of for nearly three decades so, again, living in the past didn’t make sense to me. I was grateful for a rewarding career as I saw it, but decided to move on.

However, I understand and appreciate greatly those guys and gals who have stayed involved and have spoken out:

30 ex-FBI agents stand up to support whistleblower who exposed agency’s political bias

Moon of Alabama takes out after the hapless Liz Truss—an unsympathetic figure, to be sure. I don’t follow UK politics much, at least on the domestic front, but it’s clear that the UK is in a financial crisis. That is part and parcel of the sanctions war on Russia and one more reason why Russia had no reason to sabotage their own pipeline when its enemies are in the process of self destructing:

Liz Truss Is Already The Bad Prime Minister Everyone Expected Her To Be

When Liz Truss was 'elected' as Prime Minister by 0.6% of all British voters I expressed some sorrow for a once great Britain:

Liz Truss is less competent than Boris Johnson but at the same level when it comes to lying. She also has no empathy. In the end she will look worse in office than Johnson did.

The damage of the Brexit disaster is still getting worse. The energy crunch, caused by the economic war waged against Russia, is tearing the country apart. [...] The National Health Service is turning patients away for lack of resources.

Truss will worsen all that.

But the billionaires and banksters of the City of London will still applause her for lowering their taxes.
...
With the election process rigged for the Tories and the Labour leadership held by the hapless and vindictive Keir Starmer there is little chance for regime change in Britain. When Truss falls the premiership could even go back to Boris Johnson.

Just three weeks later and we may already be there.

… [lots more]

This fits in, more or less, with Alex Mercouris’ remarks yesterday about the UK governments “frenetic” attempts to show—to itself?—that it still matters on the global stage. The better part of wisdom would seem to me to be to rebuild social structures, to the extent that a government can do that.