I have entitled this article “God forgive the Americans,” but I don’t really see any basis for forgiveness. They caused an ecological disaster on September 26, 2022, by sabotaging a Russian gas pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2.
We want to thank Mary Maxwell for this Op-Ed Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
Most people don’t know what an ecosystem is. It is a wonder of Nature. It is how plants, animals, land, and waterways interact in a given area. The entire human species — being intelligent — should act together to make sure our planet’s ecosystems don’t get damaged. Instead, we operate as though it did not matter.
Two of the assaults we have been making, for decades, on ocean ecosystems are: overfishing and pollution by plastic debris. There have also been two major oil spills. One, in 1989, was from a tanker, the Exxon Valdez. It spat 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea off Alaska when the ship hit a reef. Another in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico involved a drilling station. A court blamed BP and Halliburton for faulty concrete.
Now, this week, in September 2022, we have a gas pipeline sabotaged in the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany. No one yet knows the damage caused, but the blame can be attributed to the Americans. The Americans? I’m American — did I do it? Did I send my navy to place explosives on the underwater pipeline weeks ago and then detonate them from a distance?
Let me tell you. I didn’t do it. I disapprove a thousand percent. But would the average American have given permission for this to happen? Yes, I think so, owing to the following terrible factors (listed in no particular order).
The Closed American Mind
1. Americans have no sense that they do wrong. This attitude is apparently easy to produce — we’ve been told, by media and Hollywood, that every mission we have undertaken was “for the good.”
2. Americans think that they have a representative government. They simply assume that the people support something a president does internationally because we have elections.
3. Americans think they have a constitution that keeps the irrational from happening. For example, it has a clause that says a president can’t make war on his own. The legislature must approve it.
4. Americans have been conditioned to take “regime change” as a prerogative of the US. A foreign leader whom we don’t like must be replaced. This involves either assassinating a country’s leader or stirring up, via agents provocateurs, a “popular revolution.”
5. Americans nevertheless accept any official claim that it wasn’t us who carried out those assassinations or stirred those people up.
6. Americans have no awareness that under the UN Charter’s Article 2, we must “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
7. Americans think, instead, that it’s all right for us to be the world’s policeman (or God’s vicar, or whatever).
8. Americans do not notice that since the US is one of the five “permanent members” of the UN Security Council, it can veto (and has often vetoed) proposals that the rest of the world votes for it.
9. Americans think the TV News people have a direct connection to the facts. If CNN says that Russia is the aggressor against Ukraine, then it must be so.
10. Americans feel that a military action is OK if it is done by NATO, although they have no idea what NATO is, or know that it’s unconstitutional for the US to belong to NATO.
Mother Nature. Long Live Mother Nature?
I want this article to be about the incredible tragedy of our upsetting the ways of Nature, and the ocean’s ecosystem. That is by far and away the most historical aspect of what transpired on Monday, September 26. It makes a joke of all our “political” doings.
However, I will instead try, for the sake of fellow Americans, to pin the blame on us. Why? So we might get over our bad habits and our closed mind. Quickly. Urgently.
In this case — the sabotaging of the Nord Steam pipeline, which is owned by Russia — there can be no claim of our innocence. Recently, Victoria Nuland, US Undersecretary of State, said, “I want to be clear with you today. If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or the other, Nord Stream will not move forward.”
But worse than that, President Biden said, “If Russia invades, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” A newswoman in the audience — perhaps planted to put this question, asked, “But how will you do that, exactly, since the project is in Germany’s control?” Biden said, “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”
What Is the Bigger War Plan Here?
I am no expert on the matter of the planning of World War III. The following items have been aired by critics in the last few months:
First, in 2014, the US arranged one of its regime changes in Ukraine. This is a threat to Russia insofar as it shares a border with Ukraine.
Second, over the last several years, the US has brought more and more nations into NATO, including those in eastern Europe. This violates an informal “promise” made by US Sec’y of State James Baker to Russia in 1990 that we would not do this.
Third, the US has recently sent 80 billion dollars to Ukraine to stoke up the action.
I believe various people are planning a nuclear war. Eight years ago, Jim Corbett, in an interview at Glosbalresearch.ca, opined that weapons manufacturers have achieved a privatization of nuclear war. This seems plausible, as companies such as Boeing and Raytheon are bigger than the Pentagon.
American citizens need to form a group to oppose such higgledy-piggledy formation of war policy. The reason I say “citizens” is that the three branches of government are hopeless at this. The executive branch, as just demonstrated by Biden, thinks it has the right to do anything abroad.
The legislative branch always, since the Korean War in 1950, demurs from its responsibility. Only a few members protest when the president overrides Congress’s authority as expressed in Article I, sec 8, clause 11. Even sadder, the judiciary refuses to get involved. See, for example, Dellums v Bush or Maxwell v Trump.
Dear US Citizens, please get your act together. Sitting back and twiddling your thumbs while privateers organize a nuclear strike will have the effect of other nations nuking us, won’t it? And we will deserve it, won’t we?
