Opinion: Germany should demand answers

If you google ‘NATO Mission,” you will find that: “NATO’s essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means. Collective defense is at the heart of the Alliance and creates a spirit of solidarity and cohesion among its members.”

Hastings Lionel Ismay, a politician and general in the British Indian Army, was the first secretary general of NATO. Ismay is credited with coining the phrase that the purpose of NATO was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

This saying has become a common way to quickly describe the alliance.

When the Nord Stream disaster occurred last year, initial investigations failed to identify a perpetrator. Russia could have done it, but to stop gas flow to Europe, all they had to do was shut off the valve. Whoever it was, the sabotage clearly had the result of “keeping the Russians out,” as they lost huge amounts of money and “keeping the Germans down,” as it destroyed Germany’s major source of cheap energy.

In October 2022, Russia accused a unit of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy of sabotaging the gas pipeline, however, the Russians have failed to provide any evidence for that claim.

In February of this year, Seymor Hersh’s in-depth article, “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline” claimed that the Biden administration had instigated the operation. The Americans accused Ukraine of blowing the pipeline, claiming they warned Ukraine not to do it.

Now in June 2023, Spiegel magazine’s lengthy, multi-authored article, “All the Evidence Points to Kyiv” says it was Ukraine.

That leaves the prime suspects as the United Kingdom, the USA and the Ukrainians. Two of these are NATO members and Ukraine, although not a de jure member of NATO, does have de facto status.

One of these supposed NATO allies has evidently destroyed the pipeline of another NATO ally while none of them were at war with each other. German politicians have got to realize this. They should demand to know who did it and to at least stop supporting their supposed ally in any armed conflict.

Was the entire exercise to keep Russia out, America in and the Germans down? When a country clamors to join an organization that treats its allies this way, they are like a drowning man clutching at a razor blade.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

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