So, when right smack in the middle of the Syrian affair and with the US declaring defeat at the G20 Summit, how timely it was for the “environmental NGO” Greenpeace’s vessel Arctic Sunrise show to “just happen” to take place… in Russia!
The crew of that Greenpeace ship, led by its US-born captain Peter Willcox, staged the irksome storming of the “Priraslomnaja” oil and gas rig owned and operated by Russia’s giant state-controlled Gazprom company, just off Russia’s Arctic coast inside its exclusive economic zone.
Video images of half a dozen of its 30-odd “environmental warrior” crew from 18 different nations hanging like a SWAT team from the Russian oil rig hit the global media headlines big time.
Given that Greenpeace is no innocent environmental organization but rather an NGO that systematically cosies up to UK (and by extension, US) geopolitical interests, one is tempted to insert many of its actions into the “grand chessboard” logic. Could its environmental zeal often play as a front for MI6, NSA, CIA spook activities?
Isn’t it odd that whilst Greenpeace makes lots of noise against potential Russian environmental damage (by the way, no oil contamination of any sort came from the Priraslomnaja drilling rig), it never carries out high-media profile protests by trying to storm, say, some BP, Exxon or Chevron rig these days?
This is particularly suspicious considering that these Western oil giants have a simply horrific pollution track record as BP’s “Deepwater Horizon” rig Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2010; the “Exxon Valdez” in Alaska in 1989; or Chevron’s three decades of mass pollution in Ecuador have proven time and again?
Greenpeace also kept thunderously silent when London’s “The Guardian” newspaper reported in December 2003 that the UK Ministry of Defence “refused to say whether any nuclear depth charges were on board (British war ship) HMS Sheffield, which was sunk during the Falklands/Malvinas War” by Argentine forces during its 1982 war against Britain.
So whilst suspiciously quiet regarding US and UK polluters, Greenpeace has a history of very noisy militancy when it involves countries whose leaders do things counter to UK/US global geopolitical interests.
The world remembers, for example, how the Greenpeace ship “Rainbow Warrior” tried to stop French nuclear tests in the Pacific Mururoa Atoll in 1985. They failed after France’s General Foreign Security Directorate covertly sank that ship before it could interfere with the French military. And, - oh surprise! – US Captain Peter Willcox was also at the helm of the “Rainbow Warrior” as its skipper. Are we seeing a pattern here?
Russia, however, contrary to the French in 1985, kept a very cool head last September. Instead, they arrested the “Arctic Sunrise”, forcibly towed it to Murmansk Port in the Arctic, and promptly threw its environmentally inspired crew in jail for a couple of months.
Now, think what a media circus would have been staged by the US-UK if Russia, following France’s bad example, had ordered the sinking of Greenpeace’s intruder as the French did back then…
Oh, what a hullabaloo! One can almost imagine the headlines: “Authoritarian and environmentally incorrect Russia ignores basic human rights of a group of nice peaceful Greenpeace environmentalists from 18 countries”.
The Western media would have relished in giving Putin one great big “Zero” to tarnish growing Russian prestige. But, no: Russia just ordered vessel and crew arrested for piracy on the high seas. Again, US/UK: 0 / Russia: 1.
Ever since, Greenpeace has been licking its wounds with outright lies. For instance, since two of the“Arctic Sunrise” crew were Argentine nationals – Camila Speziale and Miguel Pérez Orsi – Argentina has been simply plastered with a very costly propaganda campaign which includes TV ads and giant posters showing these two young adults’ faces with the legend, “Prison for trying to avoid an oil spill? Outrageous!”.
The truth, however, is that there was no imminent oil spill; there was no danger of pollution. Again, shouldn’t Canadian-founded, Holland-based. US/UK-funded Greenpeace look more at their own dirty and filthy polluting oil companies at home rather than poking their noses in the Arctic?
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