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Comment by fabian2k | Hacker News Reader

You're saying Germany isn't actually sovereign?

And what's that about US troops preventing a nationalist coup? That sounds like an insane conspiracy theory.

We're not an occupied nation. There are 35,000 US troops in Germany. Compare that with 180,000-250,000 German troops (depending on how you count them).

And the NS2 sabotage is pretty much irrelevant. No gas has ever flown through that pipe, and it was exceedingly unlikely to ever happen after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Oh, NS2 sabotage is quite relevant as it shows that "someone" can blow up (partially) German infrastructure while Germany have no guts to even wink in the direction of the perpetrator. Not exactly a definition of a sovereign country.

NS2 was not quite German infrastructure, it's really Russian infrastructure. It was also entirely irrelevant for Germany at that point, no gas ever has flown through it and none would have almost certainly even if it were still fully intact (one strand is undamaged).

We don't know if the German government knows who did this. So I don't think we can draw any conclusions from the lack of action here, we simply do not have enough information.

>NS2 was not quite German infrastructure, it's really Russian infrastructure

What are you talking about? Western companies literally own half of NS2.

>no gas ever has flown through it and none would have almost certainly even if it were still fully intact (one strand is undamaged)

I wonder if intentionally delayed certification of the pipeline by Germany has anything to do with "no gas ever has flown". The point is: NS1 + NS2 was a constant temptation for Germany and blowing it has removed the "wrong" incentive.

Basocally everyone wanted NS2 to be gone, including the Russians. So in all honesty, I'd expect saboteurs frok NATO country A helping out saboteurs from non-NATO country B with explosives and detonators if needed.

By the way, nobody wanted NS2 by the time it was technologocally ready. Funny enough, if Trump wouldn't have been president a deal for CNG anf LNG would have been had a lot easier and earlier.

>Basocally everyone wanted NS2 to be gone, including the Russians

I call BS. Not only have they invested a significant amount of money into it, they also sell gas to Europe through Ukraine even today. I think they would like to have working pipelines which do not cross any intermediate states, even in offline state.

Can you provide some recent (say, post-Merkel) examples where Berlin has acted in its own interest at the expense of Washington's interests? And how did Washington respond?

I'm genuinely curious since you seem to know a lot about German national governance.

That is entirely irrelevant, you're the one making absurd claims about Germany not being sovereign. You're also leaving a very short timespan here, one dominated by the war against Ukraine where US and German interests align very well.

There is one event, if you believe the reports. And that was Germany allegedly making US deliveries of main battle tanks a requirements to agree to Leopard 2 deliveries to Ukraine. That was not something the US wanted to do at that point, though obviously it also wasn't something they disagreed with entirely.

As other commenters have remarked, the bombing of Germany's energy infrastructure by a literal ally is an extraordinary violation of sovereignty. You can do mental gymnastics to pretend that is irrelevant. It's called "being in denial". And yet Germany is now in an energy-cost-induced recession. Is that also "irrelevant"?

And we haven't even brought up FM Baerbock and where her allegiance lies (the Washington-based Atlantic Council said she was "in lockstep" with them).

Regarding the German tanks, it says everything that even the Scholz-Baerbock regime was reluctant to send them. If it was truly in Germany's national security interest, it would be a no-brainer. But it's not about national security, it's about politics and Washington's interests in the region.

So there's clearly a strong case for Germany not really being sovereign. When I ask you to make the opposing argument, you evade.

There is no evidence the US destroyed the pipeline. Hersh's story is a fairytale with lots of alleged facts that have been specifically debunked. There is no robust public evidence on who actually destroyed the pipeline. Everything that is public is circumstancial and contradictory.

You are making a very extreme and frankly just plain insulting statement here by disputing our sovereignty.

So, ypu know who blew up NS2, owned by Gazprom? Care to tell me who it was?

>> The Scholz-Baerbock regime

I thoight you people moved on from blaming her to blame Habeck for everything by now...

Also nice, that everyone ignores the fact NATO is an alliance, and having one country moving alone woupd be really bad in a time showing strength and unity is paramount.

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