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A Message from Joe Conn
NWI Green Party Chair
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Fellow Greeners,
Famed American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh recently published a story about how the United States and Norway collaborated to destroy the $26 billion Nord Stream natural gas pipeline system connecting Russia with Germany.
It was not a green thing to do. Â For days after the explosions, the ocean off Denmark boiled with rising methane gas.
The biggest loser in this act of international sabotage hasn’t been Russia.Â
It’s been Germany, ostensibly an ally of the U.S.
Russia, which is the most gas-rich nation on the planet, with 19.9% of known reserves, has other customers, most notably India and China.
Over the decade the two parallel pipelines of Nord Stream 1 were in operation, Russia had cut Germany a good deal. German industries and citizens enjoyed ample provisions of cheap Russian gas. Â
The two pipelines of Nord Stream 2 were ready to open in September 2021, but their launch was stalled by the German government under pressure from the U.S. Had they opened, they would have doubled Germany’s Russian gas supply, enabling it to sell surplus gas to other countries. Â
But further European reliance on cheap Russian gas wasn’t in the interest of the producers and exporters of gas from U.S. fracking operations.  Compressed into Liquefied Natural Gas and shipped in special tankers across the Atlantic to Europe, U.S. fracked LNG cost Europeans a lot more.
So, Hersh’s revelations of U.S. sabotage of a key component of Germany’s economic infrastructure should produce a crossroads moment for Germany and particularly its surprisingly hawkish foreign minister, Annalena Charlotte Alma Baerbock of the German Green Party.  Â
Baerbock recently announced Germany would green-light Poland to send some of its German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
Late last month, Baerbock faced blow-back from her political opposition in Germany when she called for Western unity in support of further arms shipments to Ukraine in its fight with Russia.
At a meeting of the Council of Europe, Baerbock said, "We are fighting a war against Russia, not against each other," which her domestic critics – and the Russians -- interpreted as admitting that Germany and other European nations are already at war with Russia. Â
For years, the U.S. and its allies – rather than promoting peace -- have been funding and arming Ukraine in preparation for just such a war. That financial and military support has continued throughout the year-long conflict.
 All the while, Ukraine’s suppliers have claimed they’re not at war with Russia.  Â
Now, Hersh’s report, if accurate, further confirms the Russian perspective.
Baerbock should have had this “come-to-Green-values” moment long before.
Globally, the Green Party since its early years has been guided by what’s called the Four Pillars.
From Wikipedia, they are: Ecological wisdom, Social justice, Grassroots democracy and Nonviolence.”
In my view, what Baerbock and the German Greens – as well as American political leaders -- should be focusing on are ways to end the killing and destruction.
On Jan. 31, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called for the creation of a group of countries, including China, whose representatives would meet and seek way to bring an end to the war.
That’s a lot more “green” than sending German tanks to Ukraine.
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Joseph Conn
Chairman, NWIGP