At long last, acknowledging the undeniable truth—that the CIA had prior knowledge of the attack—marks a move toward normalizing it
Only a small number will feel inclined to celebrate: German magazine Spiegel—once, long ago, a proud standard-bearer of critical investigative journalism but now often an embarrassing, radical-centrist mouthpiece for the government and establishment—has revealed that Germany’s American overlords were involved in the 2022 Nord Stream attack from the very start.
Spiegel—to echo the title of a film starring the legendary Viacheslav Tikhonov—has now been given permission to announce: By spring 2022 at the latest, Ukrainian saboteurs and CIA operatives—who were already well-acquainted with each other (How exactly did that happen, by the way? Never mind)—were meeting to develop the idea of carrying out Europe’s single largest eco-terrorist attack. Targeting an “ally.”
No kidding, Captain Obvious! Honestly, what’s next from Hamburg’s so-called “brightest”? “Gulf of Tonkin Incident—Did the U.S. Lie?”; “Breaking: Gleiwitz Attack—A Nazi False Flag?”; “The Schlieffen Plan—Did It Fail?”; “Kaiser Wilhelm—Not as Sharp as Believed?” Have all the cringe meters truly gone the way of Germany’s infamously broken railways? Is there no one left at Spiegel with even a basic sense of professional shame or elementary decency?
The same question could be asked about Germany’s mainstream media as a whole. Markus Lanz, one of Germany’s most polished and prominent—and tediously inoffensive—talk show hosts, recently “amused” us (yes, scare quotes) with speculations that were both idiotic and heartless: Could the unsavory Englishman once known as Prince Andrew have merely been trying to help when caught on Epstein’s Mossad-linked candid camera?
Frankly, Spiegel’s new take on Nord Stream isn’t much better. Its only upside is that, at least, it’s not effectively covering for a pedophile monster—just for Germany’s U.S. “allies” and the freeloaders in Kiev who destroyed Germany’s critical infrastructure and crippled its economy by locking in sky-high energy costs.
To make matters worse for itself, Spiegel is still downplaying its non-revelations, absurdly framing its outdated news as a trivial story about the Americans “knowing much earlier than previously thought” about Ukraine’s plans.
This lack of credibility becomes outright, brazen nonsense when we’re told—yet again—that the CIA ultimately opposed the attack plans. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian terrorist (yes, that’s the correct term for someone who took part in a treacherous sneak attack on a country pumping billions into Ukraine with massive ecological and economic consequences) currently in German custody is being whitewashed as a “commando soldier.” How low will Germany’s “elites” grovel to those slapping their country in the face?
In short, your story, dear members of Spiegel’s creative writing team, seems to be this: The Zelensky regime, which depends on Washington for its very survival, took American “advice” about the Nord Stream sabotage and terrorist operation—then simply ignored the same Americans when they tried to call it off. BS, as they say in American English. Trying to mislead your readers is bad enough—but please have some respect and stop treating them like complete idiots.
In reality, the American “friends” were not merely informed—whether early or late in the planning—and they weren’t just initial “observers.” Instead, they did exactly what the CIA is designed to do: They dug deep into a thoroughly illegal and deeply deceitful black-ops attack. In this case, they struck a so-called “ally”—a de facto vassal in NATO-EU Europe.
Who came up with that brilliant idea first? Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal wanted us to believe it was someone else. Forget that. In all likelihood, it was the “friends” from across the Atlantic.
It would be easy to dismiss this latest Spiegel stunt as purely ridiculous—and it certainly is. It’s yet another sad sign of how far not just Spiegel but the entire media cartel has fallen. Yet there’s another layer to this nonsense that we should take very seriously.
What has unfolded since the 2022 attack is a deliberate sequence we can sum up as The Three Stages of Normalizing the Unthinkable: First, commit an outrageous crime. Second, promote and cling to an equally outrageous lie for a time. In this case: Third, slowly, gradually, release carefully selected fragments of the truth while revising the public narrative—without, crucially, ever looking back to address your own inconsistencies, absurdities, or outright lies.
In these three normalization stages, the latest mainstream version is always the “right” one, and the previous ones are simply forgotten. Or to be precise, they’re not mentioned among polite people who want to advance or just keep their careers. Those too smart or honest to go along with this sequence must be smeared, demeaned, marginalized, and driven out of reputable mainstream media and expert circles. That’s why, in the Nord Stream case, Seymour Hersh was demonized and ridiculed in 2023. Hersh couldn’t get every detail right, but he was close—while Spiegel and its peers were still stuck in their self-imposed childish fairy-tale phase.
This early phase of the normalization sequence is also an exciting time for ambitious mediocrities—when those greedy for recognition and other perks are rewarded for attacking their betters, even though they’re intellectually (and probably ethically) mediocre. Witness what German regular talk show guest and security pundit Carlo Masala said about Hersh back then. It was abysmally cringey at the time, and it’s aged terribly.
The Three Stages of Normalizing the Unthinkable—from outrageous crime to blatantly transparent lying to a gradual release of truth fragments without ever confronting yesterday’s BS—are the real story here, not Spiegel’s wanna-be scoop.
Here’s the key point we need to grasp: Controlled, staged—both in the sense of being planned and performed—revelations are not about achieving transparency or, more importantly, accountability. Instead, they’re designed to first overwhelm, disorient, and paralyze us with massive lies and threats not to challenge them, then drip-feed us carefully selected and sequenced truth so we forget to ask about accountability—including for those who spread lies and disinformation.
By the time the full, already obvious truth about the Nord Stream attacks is finally officially revealed (if it ever is), we’ll have forgotten to ask the equally obvious questions: Why is Germany still a U.S. 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? That’s the purpose of The Three Stages of Normalizing the Unthinkable strategy. Don’t fall for it.