Underground resistance fighters sabotage built sections of Dakota Access Pipeline

On the 21st of March, RT Today reported that two sections of the partially-built Dakota Access pipeline had been disabled by warriors who appeared to be using cutting torches. In one place a hole was cut in the pipe, and a safety valve was melted down in another location. Energy Transfer Partners is whining about "coordinated physical attacks" as direct action ramps up.

These attacks were on a partially built pipeline that has yet to ever hold oil, and thus pose no risks to the environment. They do highlight how vulnerable pipelines really are to attack. While no pro-Earth activist would deliberately cause a leak in a pipeline carrying oil at the time of the attack, the oil industry's friends invoke the specter of other attackers. Pipelines however are usually routed to avoid heavy concentrations of wealthy upscale white populations. For instance, the rerouting of the DAPL from its original route means that if Daesh (ISIS) were to cut or blow a hole in the in-use pipeline near the Missouri River, the town of Bismarck, ND would still have clean water. It would be the Standing Rock Sioux whose water would be forever contaminated, because pipelines are routed to ensure only people of color or of limited income are ever placed at risk from pipeline spills.

Trump and his oil industry friends have already shown by their actions that they regard ALL opposition to their agenda as terrorism and that maximalist felony charges can and will result from any effective opposition to their agenda. In the case of the DAPL this even predates Trump as anyone in or near Standing Rock can attest. That being so, these attacks may indicate that the DAPL has become one of those issues where protest is outlawed, so now only outlaws can protest.