Commentary by Peter Löcke //
The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022! What is the Russian president's view of the terrorist act that destroyed the main artery of Germany's energy supply? This part of the interview, the Russian president's answers to Tucker Carlson's questions, was particularly interesting for critical people who want to inform themselves beyond the daily news. The part appears in the video from about 1h, 11m, 30s. At the end of the Nord Stream topic, Vladimir Putin makes a remarkable comparison. He sees an analogy between the divided world and the human brain, which is also divided into two hemispheres. We have freely translated this most exciting part of the interview and would like to make the transcript available for discussion.
For those readers who have already seen the interview in full, I would like to pose two specific questions for discussion. The questions are not value-free and move me personally. They are admittedly subjective and rhetorical. My first question is based on a reflection.
Is it conceivable for you that Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz or even Annalena Baerbock would submit to two hours of thoroughly critical questioning by a Russian journalist?
If this is the case, is it conceivable to you that Biden, Scholz or Baerbock could answer this question at the intellectual level of Putin?
I'm talking about intellect, not about pigeonholing good and evil. You should differentiate between the two.
"These are highly incompetent people."
Transcribed excerpt from the Carlson- Putin interview
Tucker Carlson: Who blew up Nord Stream 2?
Vladimir Putin: You!
Tucker Carlson: I was busy that day. I didn't blow up Nord Stream. Thank you anyway.
Vladimir Putin: You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.
Tucker Carlson: Did you have evidence that NATO or the CIA did it?
Vladimir Putin: You know, I won't go into details, but they always say after such cases that you should look for someone who is interested. But in this case, we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has skills. Because there may be many interested parties, but not all of them are able to go to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carry out these explosions. These two components should be combined. Who is interested and who is able to do it?
Tucker Carlson: But I'm confused, I mean, this is the biggest act of industrial terrorism ever and it's the biggest CO2 emission in history - okay - so if you had evidence and presumably knew because of your security and intelligence services that NATO, the US, the CIA, the West did this, why wouldn't you present it and score a propaganda victory?
Vladimir Putin: In the propaganda war, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world's media and many European media. The real beneficiaries of the biggest European media are American financial institutions. Did you not know that? So it's possible to participate in this work, but it's sort of prohibitively expensive. We could simply put our sources of information in the spotlight, but we won't get any results. It's clear to the whole world what happened back then. Even American analysts are talking about it directly.
Tucker Carlson: That is true, yes. But here's a question you might be able to answer. You are known to have worked in Germany. The Germans, of course, know that their NATO partner did that, but they and it hurt their economy badly. It may never recover. But why are they silent about it, the Germans. That is very confusing to me. Why don't the Germans say something about it?
Vladimir Putin: That confuses me too, but today's German leadership is more likely to be guided by the interests of the collective West than by national interests. It is difficult to explain the logic of their actions or inactions otherwise. After all, it's not just about Nord Stream 1, which blew up and Nord Stream 2 was damaged, but a pipe is safe and sound and gas can be delivered to Europe through the pipe but Germany won't open it. We are ready. Please. But there is another route through Poland, the Yamal Europe, which also allows a large flow. Poland has closed it, but Poland is picking from the German hand. It receives money from the pan-European funds and Germany is the main donor to these pan-European funds. Germany feeds Poland to a certain extent and it closes its route to Germany. And why? I don't understand Ukraine, to which the Germans supply weapons and give money. Germany is the second largest sponsor of financial aid to Ukraine after the United States. There are two gas routes through Ukraine. They have simply closed one route. The Ukrainians open the second route and get gas from Russia. They are not opening it. Why don't the Germans say "Look, guys. We'll give you money and weapons. Open the valve. Please let the gas from Russia through for us. We're buying liquefied gas in Europe at exorbitant prices, which is bringing our competitiveness and our economy in general to zero." So you want us to give you money. Let's live a decent life to make money for our economy, because that's where the money we give you comes from. They refuse to do this and why? Ask them. That is what is going on in their minds. These are highly incompetent people.
Tucker Carlson: Well, maybe the world is splitting into two hemispheres. One with cheap energy, the other without and I would like to ask you if we are now a multipolar world, which we obviously are. Can you describe these blocks of alliances? Who is on which side? What do you think?
Vladimir Putin: Listen to me. You said that the world is divided into two hemispheres. The human brain is divided into two hemispheres. One part is responsible for a certain type of activity, the other is more responsible for creativity and so on. But it is still one and the same head. The world should be a single whole. Security should be shared and not just for the golden billion. This is the only scenario in which the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable. Until then, the head may be split in two, but it is a disease, a serious impairment. It is a time of serious illness that the world is currently going through. But I think that, thanks to honest journalism, this work is comparable to the work of doctors. This could be cured at some point.
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11 Responses
The so-called West of values is ruled by complete brain cores!
It's always the same game. The biggest thieves shout the loudest. Stop the thief, he's got my knife in his back.
Since our system works like Monopoly, we need a winner. Russia is accused of behaving like an empire and wanting to grab Europe next. Exactly the opposite seems to be the case. If there hadn't been a change at the top of Russia back then, Putin for Yeltsin, Russia would probably still be a supplier of natural resources with no income of its own.
Only Putin put an end to this game of the oligarchs. No normal person ever wanted war. It was always the interests of the upper 2%. Nobody knows these people and their children will never even come close to fighting.
As long as it is possible to earn money with war, things will not change. Unfortunately.
Putin once said that he was not a friend of Germany but the President of the Russian Federation. He is obviously primarily concerned with Russia's interests. I don't find that surprising. Anyone who wants to end the war should be aware that there will probably not be a military solution that meets Ukraine's wishes, and perhaps not one that meets Russia's wishes either. But the longer it takes, the greater the human suffering and material damage will be - including here in Central and Western Europe, which has been massively weakened by the events and has already lost this war for itself. The EU, which as an independent power factor is not too close to the hearts of either Russia or the USA, has currently disappeared into insignificance and its survival is at risk. This is also an unforeseeable loss for us in the long term.
For me, the worst realization of recent years is that the EU has not managed to develop an independent position between the power blocs of the old superpowers. And is still hanging on the coat-tails of the USA. Although we have developed a super bureaucracy with the EU, which now regulates everything from plastic bottle caps to thermal insulation, we have not made any progress politically. And God forbid that such a divergent EU, with its unlegitimized leadership and opaque structures, should not have nuclear weapons. Who would want to trust a bureaucracy to decide on the use of nuclear weapons? If things go very badly, and that cannot be ruled out, Ms. Strack-Zimmernann, the former publishing representative for children's and youth books, would press the red button. You have to resort to satire to expose the madness of today's politics. It would be better to have the German economy dismantled by a children's book author, and of course philosophers like Habeck, on behalf of the Green Sect. Why was Scientology's state funding as a religious community withdrawn decades ago if such sects are allowed to carry on their mischief disguised as political parties? Now we know that human stupidity is infinite. As in the days of the Stoics in Rome at the turn of the millennium, the only thing that helps is to retreat to one's latifundia like Seneca, or if there are none, to practise humility at home until the folly is over, and to read Seneca's work ON HAPPINESS.
Good idea! If that doesn't catch on, LaoTse could promote serenity, something that most of us could really use.
Exactly, Mr. Linsner. The last sentence applies! It is difficult to form an opinion, but not impossible. It's even easier than fifty years ago, when you had to believe the mainstream because there was no internet and no alternative media. Just think of how the Cuban Missile Crisis was portrayed in the West in an absolutely dishonest way. Why don't you read about the Ukraine conflict since 2012 and maybe you'll change your mind?
Of course I know that Ukraine (politics) is not a boys' choir. But that is no reason to murder innocent people en masse. It scares me that there are still two opinions here in 2024.
Es gibt eine Zeile aus einem alten Song: „Warum ist Töten und ist Töten nicht das selbe, in Uniform stellt man es noch zur Schau. Ja das bleibt immer ein Geheimnis, das weiß niemand so ganz genau.“
I hope you include the 12 to 20 thousand civilians killed by the Ukrainian army in the Donbass from 2016 onwards in your tally. And you also bear in mind that NATO has been systematically arming Ukraine since 2008, supported the Maidan coup with at least 5 billion dollars in the long term and wanted it to join NATO and the EU instead of allowing a neutral buffer zone to Russia. The war could have been avoided in March 2023 if the West had not arrogantly rejected the outcome of the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia at the time. Boris Johnson was sent to Kiev especially for this purpose, etc, etc. And now! Another failure of Western values, as in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, to name just a few of the Western war adventures. What do we learn from this? Nothing.
Every critical reader who does not listen to the mainstream media knows the answer to your questions. It is a pity that the rest of the citizens do not realize how poorly we are governed.
Well, I've only seen or read excerpts of the interview so far. I will watch it at the weekend. However, I have read a few reactions to it. The NZZ starts with the comment that you won't learn anything new. That's a strange expectation. What should be new in a world where every pub is reported on every minute? Putin and Carlson may have had the same motive for conducting this interview, namely to show the average American Russia's view of the world and its conflicts. This is laudable, but fails in the West, especially in the USA, due to a generation that no longer has a historical education. It's different in Russia, where every child knows history, albeit from their perspective. But what is the Western perspective? History as a series of dates and battles? Hence the astonishment at Putin's historical digression. To your questions: Of course neither Scholz nor Biden would give such a long interview to a Russian journalist. The latter would be cognitively incapable of doing so. In such an interview, one would have to show one's colors, no political punches and sentence garlands would help. Neither of them would reach Putin's intellectual level because our leaders do not have the comprehensive education that is still being taught in Russia. But, apart from that, education does not make a better person. The real issue is that politicians must be sincere enough to recognize that every great power has interests that must be taken seriously. And that peace can only come from mutual consideration. Europe has already come this far after the devastating Thirty Years' War and the Congress of Vienna. Unfortunately, the Americans know absolutely nothing about this, but neither do the average Europeans, including politicians. That is why the lesson must be painfully learned a third time. If you don't know and don't want to hear, you have to feel.
If Putin's intellectual level is sufficient to wage a war of aggression with thousands of dead who were taken by surprise at night, he is to be congratulated. And he talks about healing. But what do I know?