[HN Gopher] "How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline"
___________________________________________________________________
"How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline"
Author : hunglee2
Score : 367 points
Date : 2023-02-08 12:50 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (seymourhersh.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (seymourhersh.substack.com)
| Laaas wrote:
| It is bewildering how many here are against this post staying up;
| no matter whether it's true or not, it's an interesting article!
| If you feel it is not true, why take it down rather than simply
| state your opinion in the comments? Do we not have the freedom to
| discuss and form our own opinions about it?
| threeseed wrote:
| Because this is Hacker News not Political Conspiracy News.
|
| For every one of these posts that are manually forced to stay
| on the front page we lose an actual relevant, technical post
| that we never see and get a chance to comment on.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| If you want less politics, lobste.rs is pretty good
| officehero wrote:
| As a former resident in Russia I'm shocked at how all state
| controlled media from Russia has been completely censored in
| the west. I understand why it's done (bcs it breeds
| conspiracies etc) but it's not for free because now people
| don't get any 'alternative' view on the matter. Censorship is a
| tricky thing
| 0xDEF wrote:
| The EU has asked Twitter and Facebook to not allow direct
| linking to Russian state media. However I can still access
| TASS, Russia Today, and all other Russian state media.
|
| The US has no such censorship against Russian media.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > all state controlled media from Russia has been completely
| censored in the west.
|
| What ridiculous hyperbole. My RT.com is working just fine.
| Medvedev and Russian Government account is still on Twitter
| shouting garbage...
| nostromo123 wrote:
| rt.com does not work in Austria.
| leobg wrote:
| > In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the
| American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was
| repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated
| leaks from the White House--but without ever establishing a clear
| motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple
| retribution. A few months later, when it emerged that Russian
| authorities had been quietly getting estimates for the cost to
| repair the pipelines, the New York Times described the news as
| "complicating theories about who was behind" the attack. No major
| American newspaper dug into the earlier threats to the pipelines
| made by Biden and Undersecretary of State Nuland.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| [dead]
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait
| comments? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it
| is for, so we ban accounts that do it.
|
| I actually just briefly banned your account, but had second
| thoughts because it's been around for a while and has also
| posted good comments. But if you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to
| the rules and definitely stop posting like this, we'd
| appreciate it.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| [flagged]
| weatherlight wrote:
| Or it was an accident.
|
| Im asserting as much evidence as Hersh.
| https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
| syzarian wrote:
| Seymour doesn't provide any proof or any evidence. It's argument
| by assertion. What he writes is plausible but without any sources
| or other corroborating evidence. I think it more believable that
| Seymour has been paid to write this by a Russian aligned entity.
|
| I don't know the truth of the matter and Seymour could be right.
| We just can't tell from the evidence provided.
| mcphage wrote:
| He has a lot of very specific details and quotes, but he
| doesn't say where any of them are from. Which ones are actual
| quotes, and which ones are creative writing?
| syzarian wrote:
| He has links in the article but those links don't give any
| evidence of what he claims. For instance, he has a link to
| the _Gang of Eight_ but this doesn't provide any evidence to
| what he ways. He uses links in a clever way to make it seem
| like he's acquired evidence. What the linked information
| shows is that his assertions are plausible.
|
| It's plausible that the U.S. used the military personnel he
| claims the U.S. used so that they could avoid Congressional
| oversight. But where is the evidence they actually used said
| personnel? He references a source but my source with direct
| knowledge of Seymour's work says that Russia paid him to
| write this.
|
| Given Seymour's work on Russia's involvement in Syria I'm
| skeptical of him having credibility on the topic of
| Nordstream.
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2018-07-22/ty-article-
| opinio...
| Laaas wrote:
| I find the article confusing/low quality, what false claims
| has Seymour propagated?
| jerome-jh wrote:
| Funnily enough, the article could just as well be
| commissioned/suggested by an American organization or person.
| The USA could easily shoulder the responsibility even if they
| did not do it, and the goals would be:
|
| - show how firm they have been "back then": an interesting
| narrative in light of recent events (the balloon)
|
| - deflect fire from the allied or friendly country who actually
| did it: Sweden, Poland who boldly supported Ukraine right from
| the start of the war?
|
| Seymour could also have been trapped by a source he previously
| knew at the CIA and who decided to play its own game. Anyway
| the article lacks credibility on several aspects raised by
| weatherlight and erentz. The existence of said source just a
| few monthes after the events is in itself suspicious.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| If you look at all the players, their interests, and their
| capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the
| US likely did it. Of course this is not evidence but this the
| sort of operation where success means no evidence (at least no
| evidence available to the public at large as it is possible
| and, one might hope, likely that neighbouring countries know).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If you look at all the players, their interests, and their
| capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the
| US likely did it.
|
| I disagree.
|
| The most logical explanation is tha Russia did it as a
| capacity demonstration and threat against Baltic Pipe to
| pressure contries in the region regarding Ukraine, but that,
| like all their threats against the West over Ukraine policy
| so far, the threat was hollow.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The US have been overtly against those pipelines and the
| close relations between Germany and Russia, including and
| especially energy dependency. In fact, a major win of the
| US so far in the Ukraine war has been the Europeans' and
| especially Germany's shift in gas supplies from Russia to
| themselves.
|
| Russia destroying their own pipelines (both NS 1 and the
| new NS 2 were sabotaged) looks like them shooting
| themselves in both feet at once. Like doing 'capacity
| demonstration' by nuking the Kremlin... They could, but
| would that be a likely scenario?
|
| Many, if not most, expert observers strongly suspect the US
| for a reason.
| syzarian wrote:
| Germany gets its gas natural gas from Norway now. It
| would be unlikely that the U.S. would attack the gas
| supplies of a major NATO ally. Especially when that ally
| has been less than enthusiastic in helping Ukraine.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/where-does-
| germany-s...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| They get a lot from Norway because it is near and there
| are pipelines, but US' LNG exports to the EU are through
| the roof and will keep growing as things get organised.
|
| Joe talks a lot:
|
| " _If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops
| crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be
| no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it._ "
| -- Joe Biden, Feb 2022, with the German's Chancellor
| standing next to him! [1]
|
| So at the very least the US thought that they indeed had
| control over that "major NATO ally" and could make thinly
| veiled threats to their face. Why you think that the US
| would be above sabotage on a matter of strategic national
| interests is unclear.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-
| vladimir...
| syzarian wrote:
| On February 22, 2022 German Chancellor Scholz suspended
| certification of Nordstream2 following Russia formally
| recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as republics. I believe
| that, but can't find a confirming source, that Russia was
| obligated to make deliveries via Nordstream1 even though
| it did not have access to SWIFT. By it no longer being
| operational it was no longer required to make deliveries.
|
| It is inconceivable that Biden made that comment without
| consulting Germany. Also it was primarily Nordstream1
| that was attacked.
|
| Gas prices spiked and it seems likelier that Russia was
| behind it. At least to me. I don't know the truth of the
| matter.
| pphysch wrote:
| Washington, under Obama, was caught spying directly on
| Angela Merkel and her government. What leads you to
| believe that Washington has ever respected Germany, which
| it occupies with tens of thousands of troops, as a
| sovereign equal?
| syzarian wrote:
| It requires one to be fairly detached from political
| reality to describe U.S. military forces in German as an
| occupation. You lose credibility by saying such a thing.
| You should reconsider the sources of your information.
| pphysch wrote:
| On the contrary, it is an objective portrayal of the
| facts which is _not_ clouded by political smoke and
| mirrors.
|
| Washington defeated Germany and Japan in the 1940s and
| proceeded to demilitarize them and occupy them with its
| own forces. This is historically standard military
| practice. It is not a "nice gesture" from Washington. It
| was all part of a coherent strategy to contain and
| confront the rival USSR, around which Germany and Japan
| represent critical nodes.
| syzarian wrote:
| What was true 75 years has long since stopped being true.
| Today no one can reasonably describe U.S. presence in
| Germany as an occupation. Please reconsider your sources
| of information. They are duping you and preventing you
| from understanding present day political reality.
|
| You remind me of the leftists I met when I lived in
| Kreuzburg in Berlin.
| pphysch wrote:
| My sources are the well-established historical fact that
| US has a permanent standing army of tens of thousands of
| soldiers inside Germany's national borders. There is no
| need to resort to name-calling.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| The US pays Germany to be there. Germany leases the land
| US military bases are on to the US. For Germany this
| provides security guarantees as Germany doesn't want to
| increase funding to its own military and provides
| economic booms to the local areas. This is far from an
| occupation.
| pphysch wrote:
| British Monarchists made the same arguments about royal
| troops in the soon-to-be United States of America.
| vinay427 wrote:
| British taxation of the colonies (e.g. the Stamp Act and
| others) was in the opposite direction. The British
| government was not paying the colonies for its presence
| in what would become the US.
| pphysch wrote:
| And yet Trump threatened to pull out US troops from
| Germany because the Germans weren't contributing enough.
| What did he mean by that?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Are you listening to yourself? Trump _threatened_ to
| _pull out_ US troops, which the Germans _didn 't want_.
| How is it an occupation when Germans are saying "please
| don't leave." Germans weren't contributing enough is 100%
| uncontroversially about German contribution to their own
| military / defense. US _wants_ European countries to
| spend their own money on their own defense, at least 2%
| of GDP. Of course EU countries don 't want to spend that
| money if they don't have to, because they're more than
| comfortable outsourcing it to the US having to spend $ on
| those countries' defense in the interest of Pax
| Americana.
| bluGill wrote:
| All governments spy on all others to the best of their
| ability. If Germany isn't spying on the US that only
| means their intelligence service is not competent. Of
| course more effort is and should be spent on potential
| enemies, but there is too much in play to not spy on your
| friends if you can get by with it.
|
| Note that success of spies is not guaranteed. It is
| possible Germany doesn't have spies in the US because
| despite trying they haven't found any.
| nosianu wrote:
| > _Germany, which it occupies with tens of thousands of
| troops_
|
| As a German, not just me, when Trump threatened - yes
| threatened! - to withdraw lots of troops from Germany
| there was lots of Angst about the economic fallout. US
| troops are in areas that have benefited, and still
| benefit, very heavily from their presence.
|
| The opinion that US troops are "occupiers" can only be
| found in some tiny minority fringe groups, left and
| right, if even that.
|
| I'm East German even, who even maintained interest in the
| ex USSR territories, visiting a few times (Ukraine and
| Russia, both, even taking a two month long Russian
| language course to refresh my knowledge, so I should be
| biased towards the Russian PoV, but there is no way I
| would find your assertion anything but nonsense. Having
| US troops in Germany is mostly looked upon favorably,
| even when Germans have not agreed with some of the wars
| the US fought using them.
|
| There also is a significant difference in public opinion
| before the Russian invasion and after. Also, opinions and
| the relationship were worst, by far, during the Trump
| years. So, during that time, and before the invasion, and
| definitely after Trump, the opinion was indeed more in
| favor of the US leaving. For some strange reason Russia
| decided to help out European-US alliance and to give it a
| huge boost...
|
| Just as an example, it's not like that hasn't been
| reported many times since last February:
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/internation
| al-...
|
| They include their methodology at the top, including the
| questions asked.
|
| > _Data collection began a week prior to Russia's
| invasion of Ukraine in Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
| the UK and Japan._
|
| .
|
| Oh and I'm of the - weakly held - opinion that it was the
| Russians who blew up the pipeline. I don't understand the
| questions here about benefits and motives - this has all
| been discussed to death elsewhere, anyone _seriously
| interested_ in the topic, and not just wanting to annoy
| somebody here, would /could just have gone there and read
| it all. I'd suspect Poland more than the US, they've been
| visibly mad and very outspoken about Germany's Russia
| reliance and close ties for a long time, they've felt
| threatened by the Russians and are right next to them.
|
| https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/68
| 455... -- "Nord Stream 2 as a Threat to National
| Interests of Poland and Ukraine"
|
| There is no shortage of candidates, and if the
| governments don't want to talk, not even the Russians
| making much noise, I see no _good_ purpose behind all
| this speculation. Especially when people start making
| strong assertions left and right, based on carefully
| selected pieces of facts. What a waste of time, but I
| didn 't want to let the "US troops occupy Germany" stand,
| it's just too silly. Oh, and one pipe of NS2 remaining
| _does_ seem kind of significant to me. Hardly an
| accident.
| pphysch wrote:
| Also as a German, I respectfully disagree with your
| opinion on this matter.
|
| For the most part, I agree that the US occupation has
| been benign. Really, they are not protecting Germany from
| anything, but also not causing many problems. They are
| perhaps creating some jobs even.
|
| However, when Washington starts blowing up critical
| national infrastructure to advance its narrow
| geopolitical interests, that changes.
|
| To be clear, the economic fallout of Germany having to
| export LNG across the Atlantic instead of through
| already-existing pipelines is vastly more severe than US
| closing its military bases (which could be partially
| reappropriated by a growing Bundeswehr).
| nosianu wrote:
| > _However, when Washington starts blowing up critical
| national infrastructure to advance its narrow
| geopolitical interests_
|
| Well, that is an unsubstantiated opinion not held by the
| majority. I did not claim _nobody_ with such opinions
| exist, one just has to look at the AfD.
|
| Oh and it was _Russia_ that stopped sending gas, long
| before the pipelines were blown up. You also conveniently
| don 't address my last point, which does not fit the "the
| US was it" so that's understandable on some level.
|
| > _they are not protecting Germany from anything_
|
| And the reason for that is that we can hide behind
| Poland, which is protected by NATO.
| theironhammer wrote:
| There's this from George Friedman in 2015 The Chicago
| Council on Global Affairs (@1:38 mins)
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eyfTX5n_fdI where he
| mentions economic relations between Russia and Germany
| are the biggest threat to the United States.
|
| Also see here https://www.reddit.com/r/jimmydore/comments
| /10x3yfq/jimmy_do...
| rank0 wrote:
| You think Russia tried to send a message by......destroying
| its own infrastructure?!
|
| It was their biggest leverage over the EU. Now it's gone
| and there's no possibility of restoring Russian gas flows
| to the EU.
|
| If they were gonna destroy critical international
| infrastructure wouldn't it make more sense to blow up
| something else?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's important to point out here that Russia has done
| MANY brainless things during this war, things that
| actively harmed their position in the world.
| Miscalculating an attempt to change the calculus is
| definitely a possibility.
|
| Or Russia did it for the internal audience: "Look at what
| they did the big evil US just wants europe to suffer we
| are the best"
|
| I'm not sure it makes sense for either the US or Russia
| to have done it. I bet it was some smaller NATO country
| or ukraine just whistling in the corner and giggling a
| little as everyone points fingers.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If they were gonna destroy critical international
| infrastructure wouldn't it make more sense to blow up
| something else?
|
| No, if they were going to make a threat and capacity
| demonstration against other, active natural gas pipelines
| in the region, destroying an idle natural gas pipeline
| makes a lot more sense than "something else".
|
| (There's a certain extent to which it doesn't make sense
| to make _idle_ threats without the will to carry them
| out, but that clearly _hasn't_ factored into Russian
| action related to pressuring European countries over
| Ukraine policy.)
| nivenkos wrote:
| That would be outright war, they don't need to threaten
| that at all, if it got to that point they might as well
| just nuke Berlin.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| If what you say is true, why has Russia blown up their
| own pipelines twice before?
| rank0 wrote:
| Neither of the two sources you linked claim that Russia
| destroyed those pipelines.
|
| Play out the game theory here. Russia has nothing to gain
| and lots of leverage to lose by destroying the pipelines.
| They can just keep the gas flows off FFS!
|
| That doesn't mean the US was involved but it makes zero
| sense for the Russians to do it to themselves.
| treis wrote:
| Can you share details?
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712815
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Well, apparently Russia was also shelling the nuclear
| power plant they had already seized and where occupying,
| so who knows /s
| The_Double wrote:
| There is one thing that might point towards Russia
| blowing up their own pipeline: Before the pipes were
| destroyed completely, the Russians were coming up with
| all sorts of strange excuses for why they were reducing
| the amount of gas delivered through the pipes. Even
| though it was obvious to everyone that the reductions
| were for political reasons, the Russians kept insisting
| that there was force majeure. So its not completely
| unthinkable that they would blow up their own pipeline
| just to not have to announce they are stopping sales of
| gas to europe.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-
| turbine-...
| bluecalm wrote:
| You don't need to demonstrate ability to blow up your own
| pipeline close to your own territorial waters. If it's
| Russia (which I don't think is very likely) I find it more
| believable that it's the result of internal politics as an
| option of killing the tzar, withdrawing from Ukraine and
| making a deal with the West to go back to old normal is now
| off the table.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Russia has blown up their own pipelines at least twice
| before. Surely it's equally possible that Russia did it?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| This is the second time in the comments here that I've seen
| this claim. I don't remember any such events, so could you
| point me to what you're referring to?
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712815
| partiallypro wrote:
| > If you look at all the players, their interests, and their
| capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the
| US likely did it.
|
| How so? The pipeline(s) was/were already off, so the US and
| Norway already had a new customer because of this. If the US
| risked blowing up the pipeline(s) (which was already not
| delivering,) it would put NATO in jeopardy which is
| explicitly against US interests and WAY more valuable than
| natural gas. The entire theory doesn't even make sense from
| the standpoint of US needs/wants.
| cpursley wrote:
| It absolutely does. Blowing up the pipeline took away
| Russias ability to hold the EU hostage with the energy
| card.
| partiallypro wrote:
| The pipeline was already not operational. What are you
| missing? If you think the US had a profit motive (which
| it seems you are saying this), NATO is much much more
| profitable than gas which will be diversified over time.
| So why would they risk the entire NATO alliance for this?
| Again, the theory makes no sense.
| Animatronio wrote:
| You are missing the very, very obvious fact that NS could
| have become operational at any point. Taking it out
| physically means that it's impossible without lengthy and
| costly repairs. The profit motive is there -
| diversification (if possible) takes time. Companies can
| and do take advantage of that.
| cpursley wrote:
| I didn't say a thing about US profit motive. I was very
| clear: Russia can't blackmail the EU with energy if they
| don't have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to
| lose that leverage (and their billions in investment)?
|
| And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas
| (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial
| manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There's report
| after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering
| due to high gas prices.
| [deleted]
| partiallypro wrote:
| > Russia can't blackmail the EU with energy if they don't
| have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to lose
| that leverage (and their billions in investment)?
|
| Because the pipeline was already off. The second pipeline
| was not operational. They already had no leverage.
|
| > And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas
| (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial
| manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There's report
| after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering
| due to high gas.
|
| So, your theory is that the US not only endangered the
| entire NATO alliance, but also sought to weaken NATO
| members? Again, how does that make any sense? You also
| fail to mention that gas prices currently are actually
| pretty low relative to before this event occurred and
| Europe never ran out of gas.
| pillefitz wrote:
| Gas prices are low due to American LNG imports. The US
| have fought entire wars for profit motives and are
| certainly willing to weaken any country for it, NATO or
| not.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _Because the pipeline was already off._
|
| There is a substantial difference between the pipeline
| being _off_ and the pipeline being _off the table_.
| IshKebab wrote:
| There's a huge difference between "off" and "destroyed".
| pasquinelli wrote:
| it prevents the pipeline from being turned back on.
|
| what's the benefit to russia if russia did it?
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'm not making a claim that Russia did it, but they would
| have -more- to gain than the US would have to lose if the
| US were found to have actually done it...given it would
| upend and basically destroy NATO and completely isolate
| the US from its own allies. Hence the theory doesn't hold
| water.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| NATO is america's show. america would never be shown to
| have done it-- even if they were, they wouldn't.
| erentz wrote:
| Why leave one of the brand new, larger pipelines undamaged,
| so that Russia could then offer after the event to work with
| Germany to activate it? Which naturally they did.
|
| This pipeline had been completed but activation was stopped
| due to the start of the war. If Germany had capitulated and
| activated it with Russia that would be a major political win
| for Russia and blow for the suggested goals of the US and
| other allies. To me this seems to be the biggest hole in the
| theory that the US was responsible.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > Why leave one of the brand new, larger pipelines
| undamaged ...
|
| Two possibilities:
|
| (1) explosive charge malfunctioned
|
| (2) make plausible arguments that it was Russia who did it
| erentz wrote:
| (1): See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713247
|
| (2): Then why blow the other three?
|
| So for the US angle to work here what is the motivation?
|
| At the outset of the war Germany stopped NS2 activation
| plans and started diversifying its energy away from
| Russia.
|
| Leading up to the explosion Russia had been trying to
| blackmail Germany by reducing the supplies of gas. And
| gas was fully turned off at the time of the explosion.
| Russia was also playing games with Germany to try to get
| propaganda wins over the subject of gas by cutting gas
| supplies on NS1 and saying it was because Germany needed
| to ship it a turbine. Then Russia was claiming it
| couldn't receive the turbine from Germany because of the
| sanctions imposed by other countries. Russia was also
| saying, well pity that we can't supply enough gas because
| we don't have the turbine, but we could activate NS2 with
| you instead. [1]
|
| So the clear motivation for the US could be that they did
| not want Germany to capitulate to Russian blackmail and
| give Russia some kind of political or sanction relief.
| That's actually somewhat reasonable as a theory if you
| believe Germany was susceptible to it (was it?), and
| assume all the other levers that the US and other EU
| allies had wouldn't be enough to keep Germany on the
| team.
|
| The risk is that doing this and being caught would be a
| huge breach of trust. The claim of Hersh is that these
| explosives sat on the pipeline for three months.
|
| The US even warned Germany about potential attacks on the
| pipeline. [2]
|
| So now if that is the motivation, in this context leaving
| one of the newer, larger NordStream 2 pipelines untouched
| would make absolutely no sense. As you leave open the
| possibility for Germany to still capitulate and worse
| give Russia a massive propaganda win by forcing Germany
| to reverse its position and activate NS2.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/business/germany-
| russia-g... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/cia-warned-
| berlin-about-possib...
| bnralt wrote:
| Another thing that gets overlooked is that in the months
| prior to the explosion, Russia had cut off the gas and lied
| about the reasons why it was cut off twice. Europe kept
| asking them to send the gas Russia had agreed to send, and
| Russia kept making up false excuses for not sending it. And
| then the pipelines exploded, giving them an actual excuse.
|
| The pipe that survived? It would need Germany to backtrack
| on sanctions to open it. Russia said the gas was ready to
| flow as soon as they did so.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Both NS 1 and NS 2 were sabotaged.
|
| The US have been hostile for a long time to Germany getting
| closer to Russia. The war in Ukraine has just been a
| convenient event to push their strategic agenda forward and
| so far, irrespective of those pipelines, it has been very
| good for the US.
| erentz wrote:
| Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are not just two
| pipelines. It's four total. The two pipelines of Nord
| Stream 1 were demolished. But only one of the pipelines
| of Nord Stream 2 was demolished, the second was
| untouched.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-
| nord-s...
| rfoo wrote:
| Without going meta, how about ... the bomb just didn't
| work?
| erentz wrote:
| For an elaborate operation like this as described in
| Hersh's story, would you rig just one? Or would you have
| multiple redundancies? Is it likely that all of the
| redundancies failed on the same pipeline, that is also
| the new pipeline?
| credit_guy wrote:
| This comeback applies to whoever did the job. Americans
| or Russians, or Knights Templar, this was an elaborate
| operation, and somehow one pipeline out of four did not
| blow up. Why? Why does this implicate more the Americans
| rather than anyone else?
| erentz wrote:
| Start from the beginning.[1] The point is there is no
| good reason for the US to leave one operational,
| defeating the whole purpose suggested by those claiming
| the US did it, and worse, leaving open the possibility of
| a major political victory for Russia. This is a big hole
| in the theory that the US did it. There may be good
| reasons for other parties to leave one operational
| though. You can speculate.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712780
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I'm not sure how 3 out of 4 instead 4 out of 4 (which we
| don't know why, might have failed, might not have been
| possible) says anything about who might have done it.
| syzarian wrote:
| I think it's plausible that Putin wanted it done. It got
| Russia out of a contractual obligation and greater isolation
| of Russian companies makes the oligarchs' position tied to
| Putin. The oligarchs can't go to the West since they've been
| sanctioned and their companies are increasingly barred from
| doing business in the West. That isolation makes their
| fortunes tied to Putin's survival. Think Cortex burning the
| ships.
|
| In a personalist authoritarian regime the rationality of
| actions sometimes depends on wether or not the dictator is
| being rational on a given day.
| qwertox wrote:
| The story is credible. Is it true? This is not enough
| information to decide that, because, as you say it, there are
| no sources or other corroborating evidence.
|
| But it does host a starting point for future discussion due to
| the fact that it offers relatively detailed pieces of
| information.
|
| Now it's up to others to come out and say "this is true, that
| is not", people who actually do have provable information. It
| offers them a story to share their information on. This story
| didn't exist previously in the public discourse.
| hedora wrote:
| The story doesn't even claim it is credible. It claims the
| White House says the rest of the article is fiction, and
| provides no counterargument or evidence that contradicts the
| White House's statement.
| mc32 wrote:
| If this turns out to be right --and we don't have conclusive
| evidence, but this would upset the current narrative. Why would
| Russia be an idiot to shoot itself in the foot (cui bono) and
| blow up their leverage; though in international affairs the
| unimaginable is possible, so yeah they may have done it to
| themselves -though to outsiders it would seem illogical
|
| If true though, it would be as big as the Gulf of Tonkin
| incident [as in it was us in pursuit of our own interest]
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Russia would be an idiot to start a war with Ukr...oh wait a
| minute
| mc32 wrote:
| Robbing a bank is stupid... and people do it. But one
| usually does not use one's own check to write the hold-up
| note. Sure, it happens, but not typically.
| kibwen wrote:
| The Gulf of Tonkin involved the US claiming that a US ship
| was fired upon as a pretense to declare war in retaliation.
| The idea here is that the US blew up a Russian pipeline in
| order to... what? Declare war on Russia in retaliation for
| Russia's own pipeline being destroyed? This makes no sense
| unless you're accusing _Russia_ of blowing up the pipeline.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| For completeness, the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident was _two_
| alleged incidents. One of them probably happened and the
| other almost certainly didn 't (admitted by Robert McNamara
| years later.) The first incident, the one that probably
| happened, was insufficient _casus belli_ for LBJ and then
| _conveniently_ for the war hawks the second incident, which
| never actually happened, sealed the deal two days later.
|
| McNamara's tacit admission:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HODxnUrFX6k
| Tepix wrote:
| Blowing up the pipeline is an act of war.
| kibwen wrote:
| Please be precise. Who, exactly, are you alleging blew up
| the pipeline in order to declare war on whom? And then
| the elephant in the room: nobody declared war on anybody
| in the wake of this, so how is the possible justification
| for a war that did not happen being used as evidence that
| this event was designed to incite a war?
| Tepix wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| _The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to
| be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. "This
| is not kiddie stuff," the source said. If the attack were
| traceable to the United States, "It's an act of war."_
| h2odragon wrote:
| [flagged]
| twoquestions wrote:
| My thoughts exactly.
|
| If this is true and more evidence comes out, the usual suspects
| will be screaming it from the rooftops, if not this narrative
| will die in obscurity. There's been a lot of misinformation
| about this war, and a bunch of people who for a variety of
| reasons want to blame the US for it and are willing to believe
| some _incredible_ things if they support that narrative.
| pillefitz wrote:
| It's really not far fetched to believe the US did it - or any
| Eastern European country, for that matter.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Polish GROM could easily do it
| ROTMetro wrote:
| It's really not fat fetched to believe the US didn't do it.
| Check and mate to your powerful argument.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Yup, Hungary Navy Seals are most definitely behind this.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Seymour Hersh has a very credible background and reputation.
| Assuming he is still lucid in his age, hasn't become a senile
| puppet of a ghost writer, then it would be foolish to write off
| his claims just because he isn't telling you who his source is.
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Hersh was once a reputable journalist. But now he is
| predominantly a cheerleader for authoritarian regimes that
| makes up "anonymous sources" to back up his claims.
| As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to
| back it. In every case this is either an un-named former
| official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh
| in unknown circumstances. [...] By my count Hersh has
| anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and
| virtually every department of the U.S. government.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't copy/paste comments.
| syzarian wrote:
| His reporting on Syria lost him some credibility. It appears
| from my perspective that he has a bias toward always thinking
| the U.S. is the culprit. Given the power of the U.S. and it's
| history of shenanigans he'll often times be right.
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2018-07-22/ty-article-
| opinio...
| pphysch wrote:
| The "Dirty War" over Syria is ongoing (US boots are
| literally on the ground right now) and there are many
| documented disinformation campaigns revolving around it
| from both sides, including from Western intelligence
| mouthpieces like Bellingcat. To assert that it is "settled"
| and Hersh is therefore "debunked" is deeply disingenuous.
|
| https://mronline.org/2021/10/11/bellingcat-funded-by-u-s-
| and...
| syzarian wrote:
| What is settled is Russia's crimes in Syria and their
| indiscriminate bombing of civilians. Seymour lost
| credibility by disregarding these facts in his reporting.
| The U.S. is still involved there and the U.S. hardly can
| take the moral high ground when it comes to the Middle
| East but neither can Russia and Seymour acts as if they
| can.
| pphysch wrote:
| The US is actively occupying Syria, facilitating the
| theft of its natural resources including oil to (also
| occupied) Northern Iraq, while backing AQ-affiliated
| terrorists like Abu Mohammad al-Jolani to advance its
| goal of overthrowing the legal Syrian government.
|
| US state media literally aired a puff piece for Jolani,
| including interviews from top DoD officials. It is
| staggering [1].
|
| These are all undisputed facts which I can supply primary
| evidence to support. Russia is doing _nothing_ of the
| sort. Some civilians possibly died as collateral as
| Russia targeted extremist strongholds in extremist-
| controlled Idlib. In fact, outside the West, Russia is
| credited with preventing Syria from turning into an Iraq
| /Libya-style disaster.
|
| [1] - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/the-
| jihadist/...?
| torstenvl wrote:
| PBS is not state media. Jolani is still designated as a
| terrorist by the U.S. And northern Iraq is occupied by...
| the people who have lived there for probably 4,000 years
| (but admitted were only identified as a separate
| demographic in the 16th century).
| pphysch wrote:
| What do you call it, then, when a media group
| uncritically platforms active DoD officials on current
| affairs? Ask yourself, how do they even get that level of
| access? It's de facto state media. In this case, PBS is
| directly acting as a mouthpiece for the Department of
| Defense and intelligence agencies.
|
| Northern Iraq, like Eastern Syria is currently occupied
| by US military forces. The Iraqi government has asked
| them to end the illegal occupation.
| torstenvl wrote:
| A news outlet interviews U.S. DoD officials. They also
| interview people the U.S. designates as terrorists. They
| get perspectives from all sides.
|
| And your conclusion is that... this indicates extreme
| bias?
| pphysch wrote:
| I never used the words "extreme bias". I said "state
| media", the act of propagating the official government
| narrative. This is what PBS frequently does, and why it
| gets unprecedented access to government officials. It's
| not morally wrong, but we shouldn't be afraid to call it
| out for what it is.
|
| Have you even watched the program?
| erentz wrote:
| He's lost his credibility over the years. Which is likely why
| this didn't get published by NY Times.
|
| It's long but after reading this ask why you would believe
| this man who, in this new article, is making plenty of
| assertions all based on quotes from a single anonymous
| source.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-
| bi...
| [deleted]
| pphysch wrote:
| Suppose this story was written by a "credible" reporter. Do
| you think NYT's Foreign Editors would allow it to be
| published? Would it pass the national security screening?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do you think NYT 's Foreign Editors would allow it to
| be published?_
|
| If someone had an inside source on deep background with
| evidence of an American cover-up? Hell yes they would.
| And if they wouldn't, the _Journal_ would pay a premium.
| pphysch wrote:
| The New York Times is not the New York Post. The former
| has numerous guardrails (including the aforementioned
| Foreign Editors and NatSec screenings, the latter of
| which you ignored) to prevent a rogue journalist or
| editor from publishing a big story that could jeopardize
| the entire organization's government relations.
| erentz wrote:
| Claims and sources are supposed verified in journalism.
| In the case of anonymous sources a journalist can't just
| bring to his manager a quote and say he's anonymous
| because that journalist (as many have over the years)
| might have just made it up. The manager has to know the
| identity of the source. If the journalist won't share the
| identity then it won't fly. So if someone else brought
| this story to NY Times, they would have to give the
| identity of the source, the manager would need to verify
| that this source was in a position (time, place, job,
| what have you) to know the things claimed. And would
| usually want to hunt down another source that
| corroborates what this anonymous source says to give it
| some weight.
| pphysch wrote:
| Yes, I understand how journalism is supposed to work in
| theory.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > it would be foolish
|
| or would it be prudent to wait for evidence, to err on the
| side of caution ?
| sschueller wrote:
| Usually destroying 40% of a countries energy resource is
| considered an act of war but I guess if it's your ally that also
| spies on your top officials it's OK. /s
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without snark or flamebait.
| This topic is obviously as inflammable as it gets.
|
| More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712496
| sschueller wrote:
| Sorry, got emotional, can't seem to be able to delete it
| anymore. It's extremely infuriating situation having to deal
| with the consequences of what a few top officials decide the
| world should look like and expecting at least one side to
| play fair.
| dang wrote:
| No need to delete. I know these things can be intensely
| infuriating--and all of us have some topic that strikes us
| this way. Managing that without bursting into flames is a
| work-in-progress and we're all learning together (myself
| definitely included.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You can't delete once there's a reply. As a hack, some
| people edit the message to contain only the text "deleted":
| it's often poor practice, but since the only reply is from
| dang I think it'd be okay here.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Off topic but I _really_ hope you wrote "obviously
| inflammable" there because this is a about gas pipes blowing
| up
|
| Pun intended or not, it's got me laughing
| [deleted]
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if Germany OKayed it (IF USA did it).
| Germany returning to Nord Stream would be a disaster for
| everybody (including Germany). Paradoxically, removing Nord
| Stream from the consideration helped Germany and its political
| situation.
|
| I always thought it's more likely that somebody from the West
| did it, since from my perspective it helped West and not
| Russia. But what's confusing me is the rather muted reaction
| from Russia. If it wasn't them and if they believed it's the
| West, why are they so silent about it?
| isoprophlex wrote:
| This is an interesting take, a nice way to get out of the
| russian gas stranglehold without losing face to the right
| wing & anti nuclear electorates
|
| Gas pipes blowing up, massive disinformation campaigns, the
| utter hellhole that Ukraine is turning into... it's a scary,
| depressing time.
|
| On the whole I hope this helps us transition into renewables
| quicker, so that at least there will be a silver lining.
|
| (Conversely you might say this pushes us into burning more
| coal but I'd rather be an optimist)
| sschueller wrote:
| Even if Germany OKayd it. 51% of it belongs the Swiss Holding
| company. You can't just go blow up some private companies
| assets and get away with it.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Russia does that every day on a mass scale and so far is
| getting away with it, unfortunately.
|
| If US is truly behind it, the Swiss company can sue US (and
| perhaps Germany) and I believe they would have a chance.
| Certainly better chance than Ukrainians have with
| reparations from Russia.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Because without an indisputable evidence it would only play
| for "RUSSIANS DID IT" narrative, "See! Because they say it
| was US means it was themselves!".
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Russian propaganda machine keeps spouting lies about
| everything without much regard to credibility (firehose of
| lies), it's actually difficult to orient yourself in all
| the contradictory propaganda narratives.
|
| It's just strange they keep largely silent on this, even
| though it seems like a golden opportunity. Why are they not
| attacking German society with "Americans are trying to
| freeze you, they blew up the pipes"?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It might be true. But the story rests on the following premise:
|
| *Biden's and Nuland's indiscretion, if that is what it was, might
| have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an
| opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior
| officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline "no
| longer could be considered a covert option because the President
| just announced that we knew how to do it."
|
| The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded
| from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to
| one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation
| with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained,
| "There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation
| to Congress. [...]'
|
| This glosses over the legal fact that the President can't just
| carry out military operations and then never mention them again,
| not least on the grounds that someone needs to be in the loop in
| case the executive branch suffers some catastrophic attack. As
| far as I am aware, 10 USC 130f still requires that Congress be
| notified of sensitive military operations within 48 hours:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/130f
|
| I don't see where Hersh addresses this aspect of the legal
| environment, he just waves it away. Of course, it could be that
| Congress notified but only a small number of sufficiently serious
| members with the capacity to keep their mouths firmly shut, but
| the article doesn't seem to contemplate that possibility.
| erentz wrote:
| He claims SOCOM covert military operations have to be reported
| to Gang of Eight but if you use regular Navy forces to do the
| covert operation you somehow do not. That seems beyond
| extremely suspect.
|
| > There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the
| graduates of the center's hardcore diving school in Panama
| City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America's
| Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be
| reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and
| House leadership--the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden
| Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as
| the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months
| of 2022.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| I'm not sure how courts are interpreting section d) but using a
| plain reading of the three points: 1) a lethal
| operation or capture operation... 2) an operation
| conducted by the armed forces in self-defense or in defense of
| foreign partners, including during a cooperative operation; or
| 3) an operation conducted by the armed forces to free an
| individual from the control of hostile foreign forces.
|
| blowing up infrastructure that has no risk of killing someone
| for an offensive purpose would not be covered. I think they
| should have notified congress because that is the clear spirit
| of this law but the executive is always trying to dodge
| congressional oversight.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I would argue that it easily falls under section 2, just like
| blowing up a bridge with nobody on it for strategic purposes.
| But you raise an interesting argument and I don't know what
| current jurisprudence or guidance is on the topic.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The way I read it this was the second of two different reasons
| given by Hersh for re-classifying the op and avoiding scrutiny
| by Congress.
|
| The use of non-SEAL divers from Panama was also given as a
| reason for that.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| I wonder what Biden was referring to when he stated
|
| > "If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the
| border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord
| Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
|
| > When asked how, the president says, "I promise you, we will
| be able do that."
|
| (C-SPAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8 )
| oezi wrote:
| Like the Europeans, Biden miscalculated that income via
| Nordstream would be crucial to Russia. Nobody would have
| predicted that the Russians are so crazy to cut off Europe on
| their own in an attempt to force them (Germany in particular)
| into submission. Alas that didn't work as European customers
| saved on Gas and shouldered the increase in cost.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| Prima facie, in the context of Hersh's story, it sounds a
| lot like there's a plan to blow up the pipeline, doesn't
| it?
|
| I'm anticipating there are more plausible explanations of
| what his words _" We will bring an end to it"_ might refer
| to, and was hoping replies might provide them.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It does, but there is a good argument that it was in
| Russia's strategic interest to blow up the pipeline and
| blame it on NATO. 'Burning your boats' exists as a
| catchphrase because it is a real historic strategy to
| impose force cohesion. In the context of gas supplies, it
| shuts down internal political dissent about whether the
| military object outweighs the economic object.
|
| I don't have a firm opinion on who destroyed the
| pipeline; there are valid strategic arguments for doing
| so on both sides, and the ambiguity over who did it is
| the geopolitical equivalent of a smoke bomb.
| oezi wrote:
| Bringing an end to it can just imply calling chancellor
| Scholz and making it clear to close the pipelines.
| Germany could have stopped receiving Gas if they were
| pressured to.
| abracadaniel wrote:
| Considering the context was about sanctions, and no one at
| the time thought he was suggesting he would blow it up, then
| it's not reasonable to try to retroactively change the
| context.
| econonut wrote:
| I realize I'm just some guy on the internet, but
| damaging/destroying a section of the pipeline is exactly
| what I thought President Biden meant when he said that.
| jamisteven wrote:
| Its crazy that people prior to this thought this was some kind of
| conspiracy when it was so blatantly obvious who blew it up. Ask
| anyone working in commodities trading who blew it up, they all
| knew exactly who it was. The US had the most to gain and they
| even told us on 2 different occasions thats they would do it.
| macinjosh wrote:
| ITT: People who took the words of anonymous sources to heart for
| years during the Trump admin suddenly start questioning them.
| haha!
| nova22033 wrote:
| Seymour Hersh is a known fabulist. His "scoops" have become more
| and more bizarre over time
| m0llusk wrote:
| The Anders Puck Nelson video about this came to the conclusion
| that it was probably Russia. His reasoning is interesting.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido
| r721 wrote:
| >The White House on Wednesday dismissed a blog post by a U.S.
| investigative journalist alleging the United States was behind
| explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines as "utterly false and
| complete fiction."
|
| >...
|
| >"This is utterly false and complete fiction," said Adrienne
| Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security
| Council. Spokespeople for the CIA and State Department said the
| same.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-says-blog-post-...
| steponlego wrote:
| The problem is they lie all day, every day, even about trivial
| stuff that's easily verified. This looks more like an admission
| of guilt.
| gs17 wrote:
| Is there anything they could say or do, without providing
| undeniable evidence someone else did it that you would
| believe? If "we didn't do it" reads as "we did it", what do
| you expect them to do, not respond at all? That would be more
| suspicious to me.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Sounds like they should provide undeniable evidence then!
| macintux wrote:
| Even if they had it, they likely couldn't share it for
| security reasons.
|
| And of course, proving innocence is effectively
| impossible without proving someone else did it.
| treis wrote:
| They could definitely share or leak it to a trusted
| source without any real security implications.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Sure. I'm just curious about who did it and hey if Hersh
| is providing one narrative, it's better than the lack of
| answers or even any attempt at an investigatory effort
| from _any party_ , whether NATO or Russian.
| steponlego wrote:
| The lack of real concern on all parties about trying to
| figure out who did it is essentially proof of who did it.
| You have multiple PMs and FMs saying in the days
| afterward that "everybody knows" who did it. Who did it?
| If it was Russia and "everybody knew" then that'd have
| entered the press.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What if they all did it as some sort of gentleman's
| agreement
| hef19898 wrote:
| Then it was Switzerland. Nobody suspects them, everybody
| was fine with Nord Stream gone but there was no agreement
| on who gets to blow it up. So Switzerland volunteered.
| Proof me wrong!
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Close. It was not the Swiss proper, but specifically the
| Papal Swiss Guard acting under the command of the Holy
| See. Since it is not a nation-state like Switzerland,
| this adds another additional layer of neutrality and
| deniability to satisfy all parties involved.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And the Swiss guard is made up entirely of single men
| with top notch training! _Of course_ it was them!
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > The lack of real concern on all parties about trying to
| figure out who did it is essentially proof of who did it.
|
| Given that Nord Stream AG is (majority owned) by Russia,
| this would point at Russia since it's remarkably silent.
| But to me this doesn't make sense since I still don't
| understand how it benefits Russia. But perhaps it's
| another FSB plan which went wrong, as many others did in
| 2022.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No official or well supported narrative does not mean you
| should jump on whatever narrative is out there or
| offered. Be open minded, but not so open your brain falls
| out
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I don't subscribe to Hersh's narrative but one cannot say
| that it does not present some intriguing content and gets
| the discussion flowing.
| [deleted]
| Khelavaster wrote:
| This tone of denial makes them sound like they were caught red-
| handed.
| swamp40 wrote:
| Or else the reporter shifted the tone.
| miguelazo wrote:
| Was this included for comic relief? Or did you actually think
| we should take the CIA or State Department PR seriously?
| Sed47_ wrote:
| I will definitely take a random substack blog more seriously.
| After all, he is citing "unnamed sources"! Very credible!
| nivenkos wrote:
| It's not a random substack blog, it's one of the most
| famous journalists (a real one, no less!) in the world.
| jessaustin wrote:
| It's a fair question, but those quotes are in TFA.
| Sed47_ wrote:
| So let me understand this clearly, all of this is based on an
| "unnamed source"? How does this have even an ounce of legitimacy
| and isn't just mere fiction?
| weatherlight wrote:
| Not a few hours later, 17 hours apart. No military is going to
| arrange for two pipes in the same general area to be destroyed 17
| hours apart. 17 hours to find the second floating sonar device.
| 17 hours to get caught with your pants down.
|
| I'm saying this as former US military here. the Idea that in the
| middle of a OPORD, of any kind, POTUS would come in last minute
| and change a detail, like an explosive on a timer (fairly
| simple,) to what is effectively some new technology no one has
| ever heard of, that allows for remote sonar detonations is Tom
| Clancy stuff.
|
| In the United States Military, there's this thing called the
| Chain of Command.
|
| This exercise was under the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa,
| which is under the United States European Command & United States
| Africa Command.
|
| The "work" that being described here would have been under SOCOM
| (United States Special Operations Command), which is the only
| command that could do this kind of work, they are the only ones
| that even have the assets to do this kind of work and theres
| absolutely no mention of that in this piece.
|
| It's complete conjecture and should absolutely be treated as such
| until theres hard evidence.
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| onlypositive wrote:
| [dead]
| oezi wrote:
| Since it was established that the destruction was caused by
| explosives, what is your argument?
|
| The US is too competent to do such a bad job (17 hours apart
| and only 3 of 4 pipes destroyed)?
|
| Does this imply we have a rogue actor or insufficiently
| equipped one to blame? Who?
| weatherlight wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents #
| really should be called incidents, not accidents.
| Pipelines of all types are fragile things and break all the
| time for numerous reasons. Do not attribute to
| malice which can be explained by negligence/incompetence with
| out evidence. The Nordstream pipelines were not in
| operation, which indicated the need for maintenance. The
| pipelines, which carry methane under saltwater, require
| frequent preventive maintenance checks and services, however,
| it is believed that these checks may have been neglected
| since the Russians took over. The pipelines were officially
| shut down for maintenance in July 2020 and July 2021, but
| were met with various issues and disruptions in gas flow.
| Given the pressurized and highly flammable nature of the
| pipelines, it is imperative to determine the causes of these
| issues. Sabotage cannot be ruled out, especially given
| the current geopolitical climate. However, the
| most likely cause could be related to the formation of
| methane hydrates, which can cause blockages in the pipeline
| known as hydrate plugs. These plugs can be difficult to
| remove and require a slow and simultaneous depressurization
| from both ends of the pipeline. Remember, both
| sides, this is important! If the depressurization
| is not carried out correctly, it can result in the rapid
| launch of the hydrate plug towards the depressurized side,
| causing significant damage to the pipeline. The Diesel
| Effect, which occurs when the valves are closed ahead of the
| fast-moving plug, can also cause significant damage. It is
| crucial that the removal of hydrate plugs be carried out by
| experienced professionals, given the potential consequences
| of a failure to do so.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrate-
| nat...
|
| https://www.stssensors.com/blog/2020/07/01/the-diesel-
| effect...
|
| EDIT: Formatting
| hedora wrote:
| Was it established that it was caused by explosives? The last
| time the US did this, it was by adding malicious code into
| pipeline control software (before the USSR stole the software
| from a US company).
| tlear wrote:
| He is right that sonar buoy detonation thing sounds like
| absolute bullshit. Incredibly risky and 17 hours.. I mean you
| want to do this, send a submarine, it fires few torpedoes. No
| more pipeline. Fast, simple, reliable.
|
| Let's say I am a Ukranian patriot, with few million in the
| bank. I bet given few month I could put together a team of
| divers to plant some C4 with a simple timer and blow this
| thing to hell. Or Polish patriot, or Polish government or any
| of the Baltic states. It is an existential struggle for all
| of them, and russkie understand one thing and one thing only,
| this was a very clear communication straight to Putin.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| I think it's the Polish. Apparently their relationship with
| Russia is similar to a very angry pitbull has with steak.
| They were mass rapes by the Soviets at the end of World War
| II and horrible conditions for the Polish during the Soviet
| empire.
|
| Polish friends say there's no shortage of young men who
| want the glory of blowing up something owned by the people
| who gang raped Grandma.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I can totally see it being the Polish, but I don't think
| there is a clear finger that points to anyone (including
| the US and Russia.) This does sound more plausible than
| the US. If the US did it, it would literally be done with
| support of other NATO allies (including Germany itself,
| and in secret.) It's simply too risky for them to end up
| destroying the entire NATO relationship, which they would
| not risk at this juncture...so it doesn't really make
| sense. Poland on the other hand, would still be a buffer
| between the rest of Europe and Russia even if Ukraine
| falls...so they have a lot less to lose, because no one
| is going to really punish them. I still feel it as
| -probably- Russia, but I don't think there is enough
| evidence, and it's very likely we'll just never know. The
| US theory to me is just logically bunk.
| airtonix wrote:
| [dead]
| foxyv wrote:
| I think his argument is that the explanation offered by the
| author is implausible. When someone comes forward with such
| claims, the main means of determining it's veracity is to
| verify the details provided. Typically fabrications will
| contain small inconsistencies that don't match facts known
| only to investigators, verified witnesses, or experts in the
| subject matter.
|
| I think their implication is that none of us really know what
| happened, much less the author of this article.
| eternalban wrote:
| [flagged]
| jron wrote:
| Do you have a twitter account?
| eternalban wrote:
| Why do you ask?
| jron wrote:
| I like your take on this topic and enjoy following
| interesting people.
| eternalban wrote:
| ah (thanks). I don't really post on twitter anymore.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Okay, I'll bite. If he's a mouthpiece for the U.S.
| intelligence community, why is he implicating the U.S. in
| this? Does it discredit that narrative by making it
| ridiculous, thus aiding the CIA's position? What's going
| on?
| Octokiddie wrote:
| > The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar
| buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure
| involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in
| place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four
| pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of
| ocean background noises throughout the heavily trafficked Baltic
| Sea--from near and distant ships, underwater drilling, seismic
| events, waves and even sea creatures. To avoid this, the sonar
| buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low
| frequency tonal sounds--much like those emitted by a flute or a
| piano--that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a
| pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives. ("You want a
| signal that is robust enough so that no other signal could
| accidentally send a pulse that detonated the explosives," I was
| told by Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science,
| technology and national security policy at MIT. Postol, who has
| served as the science adviser to the Pentagon's Chief of Naval
| Operations, said the issue facing the group in Norway because of
| Biden's delay was one of chance: "The longer the explosives are
| in the water the greater risk there would be of a random signal
| that would launch the bombs.")
|
| This is the hardest part to believe in the piece. Making this
| kind of very technical change (timer to remote detonation) at
| essentially the last minute seems very hard to pull off. I think
| the piece could have benefitted from more than one view (besides
| Postal) on how difficult such a change would be.
|
| That said, that last quote by Postal offers an alternative
| explanation. Namely, that the explosives were rigged for remote
| detonation but exploded accidentally.
| leros wrote:
| I don't think it sounds that difficult to pull off. The
| underwater communication technology is probably something
| already developed, they just had to modify the devices with a
| new trigger mechanism.
| bunnie wrote:
| What I don't get is the risk of an accidental signal triggering
| it. The system as described sounds similar to some existing
| tech used to communicate with submarines when they are under
| deep cover... presumably those comms come with both strong
| encryption and strong authentication off the rack. seems
| unlikely that random noise would be a concern for a trigger...
|
| A more likely rationale for a fixed time line would simply be a
| concern on the life of the battery in the receiver, and the
| diplomatic fallout that would happen if the battery died, and
| an intact detonator was recovered on a later routine inspection
| that could be traced back to the USA.
| outside1234 wrote:
| This is 100% hearsay and has a high probability of being a
| Russian psyop either directly or through breadcrumb plants of
| false information for Hersh to run across. This has no business
| being on Hacker News.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Gazprom, Russian gas monopoly, has on Kremlin's orders first
| threatened to, and then suspended gas supplies to Europe in an
| attempt to blackmail it to stop supporting Ukraine under a threat
| of, as they put it, "freezing Europe". In the process
| unilaterally breaking existing delivery contracts. There were no
| Western sanctions targeting Russian gas - it was entirely a
| political operation initiated by Russian government, "weaponizing
| energy supplies" as it often referred to, in the course of hybrid
| war.
|
| Kremlin has miscalculated - Europe was able to largely avoid the
| intended crisis, while simultaneously Gazprom lost its largest
| market. The pivot from Russian supplies did come at a significant
| cost though.
|
| Now that the Western sanctions are strangling Russian economy -
| if Gazprom wanted to come back to European market - they would be
| first greeted by billions of dollars of contract charges in
| arbitration courts.
|
| It has long became obvious that Gazprom will likely attempt to
| use claims of force majeure to try to avoid financial penalties.
| And as it became customary for Russia - start preparing fertile
| ground in the courts of public opinion by planting various
| stories misdirecting the blame and muddying the waters.
| Reason077 wrote:
| It doesn't make sense that Russia would blow up their own
| pipeline. They can't blackmail Europe with gas if there's no
| pipeline to supply the gas.
|
| And force majeure? That's pretty far-fetched. Why would Russia
| care about financial penalties? This is the country that
| effectively stole over 400 airliners by refusing to return them
| when the leases were terminated.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It doesn't make sense that Russia would blow up their own
| pipeline.
|
| I disagree, but assuming this were true, that'd mean doing so
| would offer an opportunity to sow discord amongst the allied
| nations. Like cops telling a suspect "your buddy confessed
| already".
| graton wrote:
| One pipeline was not blown up and can carry 27.5 billion
| cubic meters per year. So it is still technically possible to
| send gas through that pipeline.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/single-line-nord-
| str...
| VincentEvans wrote:
| I explained why Russia would care. Because due to financial
| need Russia may want to come back to European energy markets
| where they are facing billions of dollars of contract
| penalties. They can stop shipments unilaterally, but they
| can't do the same if they want to resume shipments.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Kremlin has miscalculated
|
| Europe has also had a very mild winter, so luck played a
| nontrivial role.
|
| > Now that the Western sanctions are strangling Russian economy
|
| I'm very curious about how Western sanctions are affecting the
| Russian economy (I understand that you're speaking narrowly to
| Gazprom, but I'm asking about the Russian economy more
| broadly). My understanding is that Putin has spent the better
| part of the last decade immunizing the Russian economy from
| Western sanctions, and that this project has largely succeeded
| --that Russian oil sales are still making plenty of money to
| finance his invasion, etc. Can anyone elucidate?
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Russian attempts to withstand the economic pressure of
| sanctions have been successful insofar as to prevent a
| collapse, but the pressure is crushing on all aspects of the
| economy, as well as any hopes for Russia for economic and
| industrial development. Brain drain, loss of foreign
| investment, technology imports, diminishing consumer
| activity, falling real estate markets - are just some of the
| headwinds that are in effect outside the energy sanctions.
|
| The budget revenue deficit for just the January of this year
| exceeds the deficit for the entirety of 2022. Russia has
| reserves that it can employ for the time being to mitigate
| some of the damage, but they are not bottomless. If the pace
| of losses continues in a similar manner - most of the
| reserves will be exhausted by years end.
|
| After that - one might expect the usual tools to be employed
| - cutting budgets to pay for civil workers (everyone other
| than security), pensions etc, attempts to raise money from
| already struggling businesses via wartime taxes, issuance of
| wartime bonds to population to borrow cash, and if all fails
| - start printing money to plug the budgetary shortfalls, and
| the resulting inflation.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > Europe has also had a very mild winter, so luck played a
| nontrivial role.
|
| Luck always plays a nontrivial role in risk.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Russia is a brutal dictatorship engaging in a war of aggression
| against the Ukraine and using natural gas as weapon in it's
| war.
|
| But is that a reason to not to address or even mention the
| topic of the post, the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline?
| I mean, are implicitly saying that covert act was justified? If
| people believe that, they should say it.
|
| One of the worst effects of war is an attitude of "not only is
| everything our side does automatically justified, we're going
| to stomp on any investigation of what our side does".
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| [dead]
| VincentEvans wrote:
| You seem to be pretty convinced that US is behind it, where I
| am not so much.
|
| I wouldn't presume to know if destruction of the pipeline is
| justified if you look at it from Russian perspective, if they
| are responsible, but I can volunteer a few motives why they
| might be:
|
| - an attempt to introduce a force majeure factor into any
| future contract disagreements
|
| - an attempt at escalating the seriousness of threats,
| signalling "we aren't backing down"
|
| - an attempt to drive a wedge between allies by implicating a
| sabotage behind ones backs. US vs Germany etc.
|
| ... or a little of all of the above.
|
| One of the key strategies employed by Russia in the conflict
| - is a periodic display of belligerence bordering on
| unhingement. I think Russia being behind it fits the MO.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Nah, I have no idea.
|
| Now, that I read your post in more detail, it's an argument
| for why Russia might have done it. OK. You could have made
| that a lot more clear.
| ericmay wrote:
| Agreed. And all you have to do is understand that the
| fallout from the US destroying this pipeline in secret
| would be devastating and pointless. Russia reunited NATO
| and gave the US a gigantic upper hand and what would be the
| value in throwing all of that away? It just doesn't make
| any sense.
|
| People say "but the gas companies" but that's just an
| immature conspiracy fairy tale that projects far, far too
| much power into the hands of but one corporate constituency
| among many.
|
| The simple answer is that Russia did it. And since gas was
| never coming back online anyway might as well blow it up
| and cause chaos. It also helped further made sure that
| Russian energy companies wouldn't go behind Putin's back
| thinking if they depose him they can sell oil again.
| Animatronio wrote:
| I find your arguments pretty weak. - War is enough of a
| force majeure, literally the first case. There's no need to
| sabotage infrastructure. Or at least do it on land, where
| it's easier to fix. - One very weird way to escalate. I can
| think of a couple of more effective ways. - There was no
| wedge after all. Germany got a bloody nose, the Russians as
| well. Did anyone dare accuse the US immediately after the
| explosions? No, but they're starting to now, probably
| judging that there will be no retribution.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Russia and Europe are not at war. Whether a war that
| Russia itself started elsewhere on it's own accord is
| considered a valid excuse to unilaterally terminate
| existing contracts - that the courts will decide.
| Animatronio wrote:
| Are they not? Gee, I must've been living under a rock.
| I'm sorry, I thought you said that if Russia blows up its
| own pipes that;s a valid force majeure, but starting a
| war is not. As for the courts, they will decide whatever
| the country they're based in decides. Simple as that.
| TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
| I think the only thing we can be sure of is that this was
| perpetrated by government.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The Baltic Sea is quite shallow, so not even necessarily
| a government. Someone did it so.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| This almost sounds like you are suggesting that people look
| at the situation, the motivation and context, to judge the
| possible consequences and see the reasoning behind those
| actions. That despite the bad optics of a situation, they can
| look at the larger picture and consider the unfortunate, grim
| reality of war. That they are aware of their own blindspots,
| missing information, lack of understanding of geo politics
| and judge their own possible ignorance carefully and
| introspective... before coming up with an opinion on military
| aid to ukraine.
|
| But no that can't be it, that would be complete insanity.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> are implicitly saying that covert act was justified?_
|
| This is still taking the OP at face value. If we're being
| honest, the destruction of the pipeline doesn't really make
| geopolitical sense for either the US _or_ Russia, given the
| information we have. _If_ we must assume that one of them did
| it, then in the absence of evidence we should prefer to
| assume that it was the action of an irrational actor, and
| Putin is clearly the more irrational of the two here (as
| evidence, allow me to gesture towards the war in Ukraine).
| mhermher wrote:
| What does this have to do with the submission?
| VincentEvans wrote:
| It casts doubt on the unverified claims that US is
| responsible for the sabotage of the gas pipeline and raises
| the possibility that it's a planted piece by Russian
| propaganda ops.
| blub wrote:
| The EU politicians may have expected to declare an
| unprecedented economic war on Russia while the latter dutifully
| continued to fulfill its gas contracts to the EU. Seems
| plausible given the geopolitical mastery the EU posesses.
|
| But does anyone else _actually_ believe that? The other
| contract party trying to destroy your economy is a pretty good
| reason to terminate a contract. Failing that Russia could keep
| inventing problems with turbines. Or sabotage the pipelines
| somewhere one can more easily repair them.
|
| I do remember how several media organizations and politicians
| from the EU jumped at accusing Russia with zero proof. Once the
| media mania subsided several US newspaper reported that indeed
| there was no proof whatsoever and they had jumped to
| conclusions.
|
| The later conspicuous silence from EU governments on a
| potential culprit, lack of evidence pointing at Russia and
| several statements from acting US politicians threatening NS
| and gloating over its demise plus a former Polish politician
| thanking the US certainly don't do anything to clear the US
| from suspicion. Still, this remains all circumstantial
| evidence.
|
| But not even this kind of circumstantial evidence exists
| pointing to Russia as culprit. Just far-fetched theories about
| them wanting to dodge contract penalties or doing it to show
| that they can. This is as credible as them doing it as an
| experiment to see what happens when you blow up a pipeline,
| really.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| "Unprecedented economic war" that was _only_ preceded by an
| "unprecedented actual war" war.
|
| And stoking and supplying separatists, along with mercenaries
| in Ukrainian territories before that. And downing a passenger
| jet before that. And annexing Crimea before that. And
| invading and occupying a quarter of Georgia before that. And
| doing the same in Moldova before that.
| steponlego wrote:
| Why don't we just properly view the gas reductions for what
| they are - a form of sanctioning?
| chollida1 wrote:
| I would think because it was the Gazprom/Kremlin who cut of
| the gas supply.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Kremlin sanctioned themselves? Or are you presenting the
| suspension of gas supplies to Europe by Russia as a sort of
| "retaliatory sanctions"? That's fine of course, it's like
| North Korea cutting off themselves from the world and
| starving as a way to punish the world for interfering in its
| internal matters as they relate to nuclear weapons.
| kornhole wrote:
| If you know the way the US often imposes sanctions, it
| entails prohibition of both buying and selling from
| sanctioned parties. I work on many sales and procurement
| systems in the US that call services such as Amber Road or
| Descartes that scan the government provided lists of
| sanctioned parties before a PO or SO can be placed,
| delivered, or billed. Russia not selling its gas to an
| adversary is a simple sanction of this kind.
| steponlego wrote:
| Deliberately misunderstanding what I said won't change my
| opinion or anybody else's.
| nawgz wrote:
| Your comment seems to be deliberately misunderstanding
| who triggered the gas reduction, which is why others
| opinion of the comment is quite low
| brookst wrote:
| I for one have no idea what you meant, and who you're
| suggesting was sanctioning who in what manner for what
| purpose.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Don't pout but rather explain what you meant.
| PantaloonFlames wrote:
| I will try to restate what I understood from
| VincentEvans' post.
|
| Gazprom unilaterally cut off gas supplies at the
| direction of the Kremlin, "weaponizing energy supplies"
| to Europe.
|
| At some point, if Gazprom wanted to come back to European
| market - they would be first greeted by billions of
| dollars of contract charges in arbitration courts.
|
| (and I guess the number of billions is probably in the
| 10's or more)
|
| Therefore, to avoid that fate, Gazprom or the Kremlin
| surreptitiously blew up Nordstream2 themselves, in order
| to be able, later, to claim in court that the could not
| have resumed gas deliveries if they wanted to. This would
| be an argument against the billions in contract charges.
| Basically, they incur the cost of blowing up (and later
| repairing, one presumes) their own pipeline in order to
| avoid the cost of the fines and legal sanctions for
| suspending gas delivery unilaterally.
|
| Summarized as: the Kremlin miscalculated in suspending
| gas delivery, and by blowing up the pipeline is trying to
| preserve some future access to the European market, after
| current hostilities cease.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| They're saying the US did it, in coordination with their
| "other" sanctions, in agreement with the article and
| opposition to the commenter. I don't think this was a hard
| puzzle.
| i_love_cookies wrote:
| [flagged]
| trwhanh wrote:
| I question this theory. Russia had already throttled NS 1 and
| was playing games with the turbine certification.
|
| I'm not so sure that they would have had to pay damages. It is
| true that they were pressuring Germany to certify NS 2 (one
| explanation is that NS 1 had long term contracts whereas NS 2
| would have been higher spot prices).
|
| But the danger of NS 2 certification would also support the
| U.S. involvement theory.
|
| To all others who focus on NS and Germany: There are a
| multitude of Russian pipelines through Poland and Ukraine that
| are still operating. Ukraine collects transit fees for Russian
| gas as we speak.
|
| So the theory that the attempt was to destroy specifically
| German/Russian relations, which had been a stated goal of U.S.
| foreign policy for decades, is pretty solid.
|
| I don't expect much from the Swedish investigation. Another
| such investigation was the sinking of the MS Estonia. Figures
| like Carl Bildt (who is now a war hawk) went on to the RAND
| corporation. Sweden will do what the U.S. prescribes.
| MilaM wrote:
| > Now that the Western sanctions are strangling Russian economy
| - if Gazprom wanted to come back to European market - they
| would be first greeted by billions of dollars of contract
| charges in arbitration courts.
|
| This is not merely hypothetical. Uniper, one of Gazproms
| biggest customers in Europe, is already suing for $12 billion
| in damages. And that is only one of many former customers.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uniper-seeking-billi...
| VincentEvans wrote:
| It's probably worth adding here that according to a quick
| google search - the cost of Nordstream2 project is $11B. So
| one might imagine that the costs of potential repairs are
| negligible in comparison.
| cpwright wrote:
| Salt water entering the pipeline can damage more than just
| the single length of pipe that has the hole in it, so
| fixing it is can be uneconomical.
| Reason077 wrote:
| The repair costs have been estimated (by Nord Stream AG)
| to start at around $500 million. No word yet on whether
| they actually plan to repair it.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| The fact that this subject is able to trigger so much controversy
| on HN is fascinating.
|
| I could understand if diplomats and politicians were upset, but
| regular techies?
| 0xDEF wrote:
| From my experience European techies are one of the most pro-
| Ukrainian and anti-Putin/Russia demographics in the world right
| now so that shouldn't be surprising.
| nostromo123 wrote:
| Your experience is wrong. Source: I'm a "European techy".
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
| Where is the _evidence_?
| jessaustin wrote:
| [flagged]
| partiallypro wrote:
| > Literally no one outside Europe and North America (or maybe
| Australia?) ever believed it was anyone besides USA and its
| vassals. Only people who are constantly dosed with USA war
| media bullshit consider this an "extraordinary claim". Not
| all of us are that foolish, however.
|
| This is completely irrelevant. Some people in Iran and Russia
| think the US is run by Satan. That doesn't make it so. Being
| anti-US is very in vogue, but that doesn't change the fact
| that your post offers no evidence itself and neither does
| this article.
| Sed47_ wrote:
| So you "believe" it was the USA based on what, again?
| arcticfox wrote:
| I agree that it's not an extraordinary claim, given the few
| players with the capability and at least theoretical motives.
| But it's an extraordinarily _detailed_ claim.
|
| And it seems to hinge on a single source (is my understanding
| of journalism broken, aren't you supposed to have
| confirmation of sources?), who clearly has an agenda given
| this quote: "The only flaw was the decision to do it." So
| even _if_ the broad strokes are true, seems weird to publish
| off of a single source to me.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The capabilities are plenty, especially with countries
| around the Baltic sea, which is not very deep to begin
| with.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Sure, skepticism is warranted, as is usually the case.
| Those who already suspected the USA military-industrial
| complex of taking this action that massively benefited the
| USA military-industrial complex are less likely to dismiss
| TFA out of hand. Others will have to see a great deal more
| reporting, and as seen here loads of credulous fools (or
| impersonators of such) won't believe it even 75 years from
| now when we have complete FOIA documentation. [0]
|
| However, we may make a few predictions. Over time, as more
| details emerge, TFA will be shown to be basically correct
| yet wrong in some important details. As Hersh stipulates,
| he relies on a single source, which source probably slants
| a few points in self-interest. The same apologists for
| imperialism seen here in high dudgeon in total denial, will
| over time move to more nuanced positions: "of course USA
| did it, but Hersh portrayed it as something USA shouldn't
| have done rather than something that muh security demanded!
| USA couldn't have known that it would lead to European
| penury and/or nuclear holocaust! Also he claimed that Biden
| made a decision, when we all know he has been _non compos
| mentis_ for years... You can 't take credit for being right
| about USA militarism all the time just because you assume
| it's always evil and stupid." As the avaricious crackpot
| realism that has pulled us so close to the brink of
| extinction takes over more and more Western media, we'll
| see far fewer independent moderation decisions like that of
| 'dang here today. We can be sure that phone calls have
| already been made.
|
| [0] That's a joke; USA definitely won't exist 75 years from
| now, and this event is both contributing cause and
| justification.
| partiallypro wrote:
| The blog post is mostly a sea of text with no real citations
| and loose quotes. The author, though a famed journalist for his
| breaking of a story 50 years ago, has also made claims recently
| to defend dictators such as Assad; even going so far as to
| claim the US was going to fake Bin Laden's dead by dragging his
| body back to Afghanistan from Pakistan to pretend like he died
| in a missile strike. His reasoning for this? Well, basically
| apparently flying below the deck and stealth helicopters are
| impossible.
|
| People need to come to grips that people can slowly become
| kooks over time (or maybe they were always crazy, but did one
| good thing and now have clout.) Snowden, Greenwald have made
| similar kooky remarks of late defending bad actors all over.
| It's bizarre, but not unusual.
| miguelazo wrote:
| Exposing uncomfortable truths about the US/NATO dirty war in
| Syria hardly constitutes "defending Assad."
|
| Highly recommend the entire LRB series.
| https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-
| paper/v38/n01/seymour-m.-hersh/mil...
| partiallypro wrote:
| He actually did though. Saying the Syrian rebels gassed
| themselves (common Assad talking point
| [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-
| paper/v35/n24/seymour-m.-hersh/who...] parroted by people
| like Tulsi Gabbard/Tucker/etc), and also said the Pentagon
| had a secret agreement with Assad and Putin to undermine
| Obama. He also offered absolutely no evidence of any of
| this.
| miguelazo wrote:
| The OPCW leaks confirmed that the "rebels" staged gas
| attacks. That has never been refuted by anyone-- only
| attacks against the messengers, similar to yours.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Except the OPCW says themselves they have grounds to
| believe Assad did it. Any "leaks" were part of an ongoing
| investigation, and not conclusive. I'm absolutely baffled
| how naive people are in defense of people like Assad &
| Putin.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The journalist also broke the Abu Ghraib story less than 20
| years ago.
| partiallypro wrote:
| No he didn't, the AP did based on a whistleblower (followed
| by a 60 Minutes report.) He may have reported on it, but he
| didn't break it. He did however make a claim not reported
| by the anyone else that the US soldiers raped children,
| which no one else ever reported, then offered no evidence
| of said claim.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? Here is DW claiming he was
| the first one who disclosed what went on in detail:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/problem-is-not-interrogation-its-
| war-i...
|
| > US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh disclosed the
| torture scandal of Abu Ghraib 10 years ago.
|
| > He was the first to describe in detail what was
| happening in Abu Ghraib, quoting from the Taguba Report,
| a secret, internal investigation by the US army about
| atrocities committed against the prisoners.
|
| The article goes on to discuss how even though second
| hand accounts of abuses already existed, he was the first
| to get access to and disclose the report, giving a
| detailed first party account and giving proof of chain of
| command involvement for the first time.
| toomim wrote:
| The threats by biden and nuland count as evidence, but
| certainly we would like more.
| keithwhor wrote:
| An unsubstantiated story that's presented as if it's fact doesn't
| really belong on Hacker News. The fact the submission has to be
| edited to include a question mark when the source material does
| not is an implicit admission of such by the moderation team. Why
| it hasn't been removed I have no idea.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| It's no such admission. In fact it's the opposite, because if
| we thought the story didn't belong on HN, nothing would be
| easier than to let it sink without a trace.
|
| I think the story belongs on HN because I know a little bit
| about the historical significance of Seymour Hersh and I think
| the appearance of this story is intellectually interesting.
| Maybe I'm the only commenter who feels that way, since most
| appear only to want to score points for their pre-existing
| political side, but it's our job to serve the intellectual
| interest of the larger audience, most of whom don't comment.
|
| Re the question mark in titles, see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713747. This is a
| longstanding practice and has nothing to do with the topic at
| hand.
| mzs wrote:
| But do you know a little bit about how shaky Seymour Hersh's
| later writing has been:
|
| >... But his allegations are largely supported only by two
| sources, neither of whom has direct knowledge of what
| happened, both of whom are retired, and one of whom is
| anonymous. The story is riven with internal contradictions
| and inconsistencies.
|
| >The story simply does not hold up to scrutiny -- and, sadly,
| is in line with Hersh's recent turn away from the
| investigative reporting that made him famous into
| unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-
| bi...
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Dang, the question mark is not significant enough in my mind
| to present this story in a proper light. I think you should
| preface the title with "Theory:", "Hypothesis:", or some
| other disclaimer to immediately signify to the readers that
| it does not have substantial evidence to back up its
| extraordinary claims.
|
| I respect and appreciate your opinions on all things HN
| related, but in this instance I think we need to make readers
| more urgently aware.
| dang wrote:
| I've put quotation marks up there now, as an alternative
| way of making the same point. That won't satisfy everyone
| but I hope the intention is clear!
| keithwhor wrote:
| Nothing I've argued about the quality of this submission --
| either publicly or privately -- has been political. This is
| hearsay presented as fact. It is simply not intellectually
| honest source material.
|
| It could be true! I've read lots of compelling narratives
| over the years. Many of them are wholly true, some have
| elements of the truth, some are fiction. But there's no
| verifiably new information presented here; only a compelling
| narrative.
|
| I really urge you to reconsider your stance but this is the
| last comment I'll make on the topic.
| tikwidd wrote:
| Thanks for standing by your principles on this one dang.
|
| I was hoping there would be some discussion of the SONAR buoy
| remote detonation story - is it plausible (from a technical
| perspective)? Has it been done before?
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It is written with the confidence that ChatGPT has when
| teaching me how to use a javascript library that does not
| actually exist
| xg15 wrote:
| I find it extremely jarring how many reputable western media
| outlets immediately jumped to the conclusion that Russia did it
| even though that made zero sense - but absolutely refused to even
| _consider the possibility_ that the US or another western state
| could have done it.
|
| But at this point, the article is basically "cool story, bro".
| The only independently verifyable bits are the public statements
| of Biden, Nuland, etc, which are already well-known. But those
| only show that the US really really really didn't like the
| pipelines - and that was never a secret. They do not give any
| evidence for a planned operation to destroy them.
|
| The rest of the article is amazingly detailed but only based on
| an anonymous source. Even if we trust that the source existed,
| there is no way to know if that source itself is trustworthy.
|
| So as of now, I don't the information in the article would
| convince anyone of the "US did it" hypothesis who wasn't already
| convinced.
|
| I think the only thing that the article is useful for is as a
| future reference. It could be useful to remember the details and
| keep an eye if they match with any future developments.
| 0xDEF wrote:
| >I find it extremely jarring how many reputable western media
| outlets immediately jumped to the conclusion that Russia did it
|
| Do you have proof to back up this claim? A more correct
| observation is that Western media didn't blame any single
| entity but has the attention span of a goldfish and forgot
| about this incident after a week or two.
| xg15 wrote:
| I live in Germany and my proof is that a few days after the
| explosions, I could read/watch Spiegel, Tagesschau and other
| outlets quoting speculations about Russia as "expert
| opinions", while discussing speculations about the US only in
| context of "russian accusations".
|
| A Spiegel article from september 28, two days after the
| incident: https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nord-stream-
| spekulationen-ueb...
|
| It links to a Times article allegedly saying the same (but
| behind a paywall unfortunately, so I can't check):
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-probably-bombed-
| no...
| vasergen wrote:
| > that Russia did it even though that made zero sense
|
| Can you explain then please how much sense did Russia had to
| start a war in Ukraine?
| alchemist1e9 wrote:
| > I find it extremely jarring how many reputable western media
| outlets immediately jumped to the conclusion that Russia did it
| even though that made zero sense - but absolutely refused to
| even consider the possibility that the US or another western
| state could have done it.
|
| One simple hypothesis would be that it is only an illusion that
| western media outlets are independent from their governments.
| gadders wrote:
| If Trump's sanctions had been left in place, it probably wouldn't
| have been necessary to blow them up.
| ak_111 wrote:
| Not trying to be snarky, but genuinely what is the most
| articulate and sensible piece on why the most likely culprit is
| Russia?
|
| All the commentary I read from reputable media seem to boil down
| to "Putin did it because that is the sort of thing that Putin
| does", without providing any further analysis on why it would
| make strategic or tactical sense for Putin to do so.
|
| The more serious journals such as Foreign Policy seem to have
| ignored the issue entirely as far as I can see.
| Const-me wrote:
| > what is the most articulate and sensible piece on why the
| most likely culprit is Russia?
|
| I think this video is articulate and sensible:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I don't have a strong opinion about who blew up Nord Stream.
|
| I do believe one thing: with US AWACS and other assets, and in
| that part of the world, I believe that the US government (and
| perhaps other governments, like Germany) know who did it. There a
| many reasons why they would not share information, such as an
| ally could have done it. Or, of course, Russia may have done it.
|
| I am glad this story is posted on HN because I like getting many
| different opinions in one place.
| rr888 wrote:
| yeah I'm sure the US and probably European governments know
| exactly what happened. Also if Russia did do it, its officially
| an attack on NATO and requires a response? It makes sense that
| USA/Europe didn't officially blame Russia with evidence.
| tikwidd wrote:
| My thoughts on the incident, organised as a series of nested
| propositions.
|
| 0. The Nord Stream pipeline incident was not an accident.
|
| 1. The pipeline was sabotaged by a state actor.
| a. Only a state had the capability to carry it out undetected.
| b. The sabotage was in violation of international law.
| c. Evidence of the sabotage would cause an international scandal.
| d? Either Russia or the United States sabotaged the pipeline.
| e? The sabotage was authorised at the highest levels.
|
| 3. Russia did not sabotage the pipeline. a?
| Russia had no motivation to destroy it. b. Russia
| controls the pipeline, and could choose to turn it off.
| c. No state has presented evidence that Russia was involved in
| the sabotage. d. The area is highly monitored by US
| and US-aligned countries.
|
| 4. The US sabotaged the pipeline. a. The US had
| strategic and economic motivations to prevent the pipeline from
| operating. b. The US govt made public statements
| prior to the sabotage that, had they been made by the Kremlin,
| would have uncontroversially implicated Russia in the eyes of the
| American public. c. The US has the means to destroy
| it. d? The US has the means to hide their involvement
| in the sabotage from European allies and the US public.
| e. The Western public have no appetite for stories which portray
| Russia as a victim, or US/EU as villains. Hiding their
| involvement is therefore trivial, since media outlets have no
| motivation to investigate the truth. f. Conversely,
| Russian state and media have no incentive to investigate, since
| the Russian audience takes it for granted that NATO was
| responsible.
| nabla9 wrote:
| This is a phenomenon.
|
| People who did good work and have fame are getting old. Instead
| of retiring they just start to do sloppy work, or fall prey to
| people who exploit their reduced cognitive capacity. They get
| publicity because internet has no editors.
|
| Hersh is 85. He has been on decline for some time.
|
| Remember Michael Atiyah few years back. One of the greatest
| mathematicians in the last century. He claimed he solved the
| Riemann hypothesis little before he died. It was clear that he
| was in cognitive decline, but media and social media had their
| day.
| amai wrote:
| If that is true shouldn't there still be explosives installed at
| the fourth pipeline?
| itsyaboi wrote:
| > My Lai was first revealed to the American public on November
| 13, 1969--almost two years after the incident--when Hersh
| published a story through the Dispatch News Service. The article
| threatened to undermine the U.S. war effort and severely damage
| the Nixon presidency. Inside the White House, officials privately
| discussed how to contain the scandal. On November 21, National
| Security Advisor Henry Kissinger emphasized that the White House
| needed to develop a "game plan", to establish a "press policy",
| and maintain a "unified line" in its public response to the
| incident. The White House established a "My Lai Task Force" whose
| mission was to "figure out how best to control the problem", to
| make sure that administration officials "all don't go in
| different directions" when discussing the incident, and to
| "engage in dirty tricks". These included discrediting key
| witnesses and questioning Hersh's motives for releasing the
| story. What soon followed was a public relations offensive by the
| administration designed to shape how My Lai would be portrayed in
| the press and understood among the American public.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Maybe so, but please don't take HN threads on generic
| flamewar tangents.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| steponlego wrote:
| He's one of the Kings of the Earth.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't feed flamewars on Hacker News.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| donohoe wrote:
| I take this with a grain of salt. The 'source' (or sources) here
| are un-named and unclear if just the one or more.
|
| The author, Seymour Hersh, has accused the Obama administration
| of lying about the events surrounding the death of Osama bin
| Laden, and disputed the claim that the Assad regime used chemical
| weapons on civilians in the Syrian Civil War.
|
| This all sounds very plausible. It may even be true, but I do not
| trust the messenger that much.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Why was a question make added to the submission here? It makes it
| look like a (incorrectly written) question about a thing that
| happened, rather than... whatever it is, speculation I guess.
| dang wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713747
| bee_rider wrote:
| Odd, haven't seen titles like this before. It seems like a
| weird policy, to change headlines in a manner that is
| misleading if parsed following normal English grammar rules.
| And especially to only apply that rule in controversial
| cases.
|
| If the goal is to make it clear that the claim is not
| endorsed by HN, why not something like
|
| AuthorName: "This is clearly a quote because it is in
| quotation marks"
| dang wrote:
| We do quotation marks sometimes too, and that's actually
| maybe a good idea here, so I'll add them. Thanks!
| carabiner wrote:
| oh my god it's jason bourne
| beebeepka wrote:
| None of this is proof, of course. But it logical. Who else would
| do it? And why?
|
| I think it's great the topic has been brought up again. This was
| a major event that somehow got swept away like nothing happened.
| The propaganda machine even tried to sell it as Russians blowing
| up their own pipe. Cause you know, at this point they could be
| blamed for the most ridiculous thing and it would still "track"
| because crazy.
|
| What really matters is who else here in Europe helped them. And
| why. Norway stands to gain but did they help with the sabotage?
| Things don't look good at all. I am scared. Russia is just across
| the black sea. I don't want war
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > The propaganda machine even tried to sell it as Russians
| blowing up their own pipe.
|
| Russia has absolutely blown up their own gas pipe before...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_...
| Sed47_ wrote:
| Jesus christ this website is becoming junk. Posting "reliable"
| information yet again, as many times before. Literally Reddit
| with extra steps.
| Khelavaster wrote:
| This is the same journalist who broke news about Mai Lai,
| reported in-depth on Abu Ghraib, and much more. Serious, serious
| news.
| zzleeper wrote:
| And is the same guy who has been going into crazy conspiracy
| theories over the last ten years or so
| pphysch wrote:
| Questioning the narratives around the ongoing Syrian Dirty
| War is not a "crazy conspiracy theory".
| partiallypro wrote:
| That's not the only crazy conspiracy theory he has claimed
| in the past 10-20 years.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Project Azorian was a crazy conspiracy theory, and also
| true. You discredit yourself by using "conspiracy theory"
| in the "obviously false" sense. Intelligence agencies
| _really do_ conspire to do things. That 's their job.
| pphysch wrote:
| Go on. Link some examples.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-
| osama-bi...
|
| > According to Hersh's story, Navy SEALs met no
| resistance at Abbottabad and were escorted by a Pakistani
| intelligence officer to bin Laden's bedroom, where they
| killed him. Bin Laden's body was "torn apart with rifle
| fire" and pieces of the corpse "tossed out over the Hindu
| Kush mountains" by Navy SEALs during the flight home (no
| reason is given for this action). There was no burial at
| sea because "there wouldn't have been much left of bin
| Laden to put into the sea in any case."
|
| > The first hints came in the latter years of the Bush
| administration, when Hersh reported repeatedly that the
| US was on the verging of striking Iran. These included
| reports stating that the US might even bomb Iran with a
| nuclear warhead, and later that the administration had
| considered using US special forces disguised as Iranians
| to launch a "false flag" attack as a premise for war.
|
| > The moment when a lot of journalists started to
| question whether Hersh had veered from investigative
| reporting into something else came in January 2011. That
| month, he spoke at Georgetown University's branch campus
| in Qatar, where he gave a bizarre and rambling address
| alleging that top military and special forces leaders
| "are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights
| of Malta ... many of them are members of Opus Dei." He
| suggested that they belong to a network first formed by
| former Vice President Dick Cheney that is steering US
| foreign policy toward an agenda of bringing Christianity
| to the Middle East.
|
| > The next year, in 2012, Hersh reported in the New
| Yorker that the Bush administration had secretly armed
| and funded an Iranian terrorist group known as the MEK in
| 2005. Two sources, neither with direct knowledge, told
| Hersh that American special forces had flown the Iranians
| all the way to Nevada to train at a base there. This
| detail was both spectacular and puzzling: the US has
| bases throughout the world, including several in the
| Middle East; why bring terrorists to Nevada?
| pphysch wrote:
| 1. Not very interesting. Likely that Pakistan
| intelligence collaborated with USA. Not really important
| how bin Laden died or was buried.
|
| 2. Not at all implausible. Remember Stuxnet? Washington
| was evidently going to extreme lengths.
|
| 3. This one seems speculative but not implausible.
| Neoconservatism is closely linked with crazy religious
| beliefs.
|
| 4. It is established fact that the CIA flew Tibetan
| extremists to Colorado to train them in the 1950s.
| Nothing puzzling about this.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "It's possible, therefore it's true" is a bad standard of
| evidence.
|
| Hersh's big scoops were all corroborated by other news
| organizations. None of these four have been.
| pphysch wrote:
| I never said "It's possible, therefore it's true". All of
| your "debunks" are relying on the claims being prima
| facie absurd. I provided some evidence, and can provide
| more, of historical precedent.
|
| The last one in particular is deeply embarassing and
| shows the Vox blogger has little grasp of history.
| partiallypro wrote:
| > I never said "It's possible, therefore it's true". All
| of your "debunks" are relying on the claims being prima
| facie absurd.
|
| The burden of proof is on HIM. It isn't up for us to
| debunk what he's saying (though I'm sure many can), he
| has to prove it, and he hasn't. No single corroboration
| from other big sources? Seems odd.
| l3mure wrote:
| > The next year, in 2012, Hersh reported in the New
| Yorker that the Bush administration had secretly armed
| and funded an Iranian terrorist group known as the MEK in
| 2005. Two sources, neither with direct knowledge, told
| Hersh that American special forces had flown the Iranians
| all the way to Nevada to train at a base there. This
| detail was both spectacular and puzzling: the US has
| bases throughout the world, including several in the
| Middle East; why bring terrorists to Nevada?
|
| Here's a fawning local Nevada news segment about a former
| Green Beret training the mujihadeen, aired two months
| after 9/11:
|
| https://youtu.be/v-KKcUZfl9A
| steponlego wrote:
| Conspiracy theorists are being proved correct. Experts say,
| _that 's dangerous._
| nivenkos wrote:
| Nowadays the media is much more polarised though, all stories
| that oppose the American imperial establishment must be
| censored and deleted as "disinformation", I'm sure people are
| flagging this right now and calling OP a Russian bot, etc.
| b3nji wrote:
| So, let me get this straight.
|
| U.S. is worried Russia will use the pipeline that's supplying
| Europe with gas as a bargaining chip, and blackmail them.
| Threatening with higher prices, or switching it off.
|
| Which makes zero sense, why blow up your own cash cow?
|
| So the U.S. come in and blow it up. Causing sky high prices
| across Europe, poor families and elderly to choose to either
| freeze to death, or starve. Causing chaos for potentially years.
| Possibly more damage than Russia could ever have done.
|
| Makes sense, well done. Fuk yeaaah, America!!!
| bjornsing wrote:
| > Sweden had applied for membership into NATO, and had
| demonstrated its great skill in managing its underwater sound and
| magnetic sensor systems that successfully tracked Russian
| submarines that would occasionally show up in remote waters of
| the Swedish archipelago and be forced to the surface.
|
| This is not exactly the view of the Swedish navy here in Sweden.
| No Russian submarine has ever been "forced to the surface" in
| Swedish waters to the best of my knowledge [1]. The only case
| where the Swedish navy claimed they had proof of a foreign
| submarine it turned out to probably be minks and herrings.
|
| 1. Closest case I'm aware of is Soviet submarine U137 that ran
| aground on the Swedish east coast due to navigation error.
| Gud wrote:
| Sweden had outstanding naval capabilities during the cold war.
| The Swedish navy frequently chased away foreign submarines.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk%C3%B6_naval_base
| SergeAx wrote:
| This smells strange. A Pulitzer winner, 60+ years in journalism,
| starts Substack just to post this one investigation. He has about
| one million chances to have at least Twitter, not mentioning a
| website, but no.
|
| BTW, I checked the text with GPT detector, it didn't sound alarm,
| so at least it is a human-written.
| edenceover wrote:
| > Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a
| committed anti-communist, who served as Norway's prime minister
| for eight years before moving to his high NATO post, with
| American backing, in 2014. He was a hardliner on all things Putin
| and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence
| community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely
| since. "He is the glove that fits the American hand," the source
| said.
|
| A lot of what he is saying here is not strictly true. Jens
| Stoltenberg was the leader of the labour party and while he was
| not a communist, describing him as a committed anti-communist is
| just plainly wrong. It was not part of his platform at all and
| one the parties in his coalition was a socialist, Marxist party.
|
| Also he was not a hardliner on Russia. In fact during his time as
| a prime minister Norway and Russia peacefully and diplomatically
| solved the territorial dispute they had in the Barents Sea.
|
| Neither have the Americans always completely trusted him since
| the Vietnam war. He was vocally anti-NATO in his youth and the
| Bush administration gave him a cold shoulder for the rest of it's
| years after he was elected prime minister in 2005. He claimed
| that during the congratulation call from the American president
| he said that he wanted all Norwegian troops out of Iraq and the
| the mission. The Americans were adamant he did not.
|
| I know it's just one paragraph, but when thing gets
| misconstructed by the source in such a way it kinda losses
| credibility with me. Also the quote about Norwegians "Hating
| Russians" while I've never felt anything like that in my dealing
| with the armed forces (Norway don't have any historical
| grievances with Russia), really makes me question it.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I had a similar reaction after reading the brief description of
| the Swedish navy's dealings with Russian submarines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34715500
|
| It's a bit strange to report on something so controversial and
| not make sure all verifiable claims are true...
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > A lot of what he is saying here is not strictly true. Jens
| Stoltenberg was the leader of the labour party and while he was
| not a communist, describing him as a committed anti-communist
| is just plainly wrong.
|
| Would "milquetoast moderate" be more fitting? That's at least
| closer to how the Labour Party operates, even though their
| rhetoric is more left-leaning than the other major party (H).
|
| > He claimed that during the congratulation call from the
| American president he said that he wanted all Norwegian troops
| out of Iraq and the the mission. The Americans were adamant he
| did not.
|
| He said that he said that? How brave of him.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Also, Supreme Allied Commander Europe is General Cavoli.
| Stoltenberg is Secretary General of NATO. The former is what
| most people would call the "supreme commander" since has
| military operational command. He is American so immediately
| suspect. In between there is Chair of the NATO Military
| Committee, who is Dutch admiral.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Yep. Gell Mann Amnesia in full effect here. Everything you
| two have said are basic geopolitical knowledge blunders and
| it's clear Hersh has lost his intellectual bearing the last
| decade as he's now 85...
|
| Hersh: "Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens
| Stoltenberg"
|
| Reality: Jens Stoltenberg is the secretary general of NATO.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Allied_Commander_Europ.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Stoltenberg
| mannerheim wrote:
| > A lot of what he is saying here is not strictly true.
|
| Well, that's certainly a kinder description than I would give.
| 'Blatant fucking bullshit' seems closer to the mark.
| patientplatypus wrote:
| [dead]
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| There is one thing that is really bothering me in this story.
|
| I don't really care who is behind the sabotage, they would
| certainly not admit it for obvious reasons, and it could be more
| complex than it seems.
|
| But the press, here in the UK, in France and in the US, has been
| suspiciously "clueless", avoiding with great care to imply that
| anyone in the west could be behind it, even if it really seems
| obvious that it could very well be the case.
|
| Why? Why are they so careful? They usually are not afraid to
| speculate, especially on such a scale.
|
| I find it disturbing to think that they could either have
| received instructions from their respective governments or are
| simply afraid push any inquiries on this subject.
| blub wrote:
| The Western press seems to more or less parrot the government
| talking points or are even more hawkish themselves. Criticism
| is offered on minor topics or is feeble and drowned in a
| torrent of other articles.
|
| One could recognize this also with the Coronavirus fiasco when
| for example the press was parroting the governments saying that
| the virus is not going to come to Europe and urging people not
| to be racist against the Chinese (extra funny given the current
| mainstream position against China). Then the press was
| parroting that masks don't work. Then they were parroting that
| people should really wear masks. Not all the press, not all of
| the time, but the trend and direction were obvious. And the
| tireless downplaying of AstraZeneca and mRNA side-effects,
| goodness.
|
| All of these narratives were also mainstream on HN, just as
| most opinions on the war are unsophisticated and thoroughly
| mainstream.
|
| It's so bizarre, imagine having freedom of the press and then
| doing what's expected of you anyway.
|
| Or as an individual being able to think, gather facts and
| information and draw your own conclusions. And having the
| freedom to present those conclusions go to waste while just
| repeating some simplistic talking point.
|
| HN is worse than usual at discussing the war. Many non-
| mainstream commenters have given up or were censored and it's
| mostly pockets of conformity now.
| Tepix wrote:
| Such an action would be an act of war and uncovering it - in
| the US - likely seen as unpatriotic or worse.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Any US journalistic outlet would KILL to be first to report
| on this.
|
| The US loves its military, but American news sources have no
| want to keep a secret like this on behalf of the government.
| The US media loves to report on US war crimes, and other
| stupid government shit
|
| It wouldn't surprise me to know that the US government had
| knowledge of this. It would surprise me if they were directly
| involved though.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Why would you be surprised?
| [deleted]
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| was the question mark ? part of the original title?
| andrejguran wrote:
| Can someone explain why would they blow up inoperational pipeline
| that Germany even said is not planning to operate in near future?
| And if they would have remote explosive wouldn't it make more
| sense to explode it in the moment of starting the pipeline to
| make it look more like an accident?
| sschueller wrote:
| To make absolutely sure Germany does not go behind the US and
| makes a deal with Russia irregardless of the situation in
| Ukraine. Backstap before the others can backstap you.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Alternative hypothetical take - US did it on behalf of German
| government to avoid the potential political meltdown.
| Removing this toxic option removed a path to split the
| society and politics.
| sschueller wrote:
| If that is the case then there are way more conspirators
| and the likelihood of the facts getting out are much
| higher.
| miguelazo wrote:
| [flagged]
| andrejguran wrote:
| Very helpful comment. I clicked upvote twice
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't break the site guidelines like you did here and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712682. We're trying
| to avoid flamewar. If you want to make your substantive
| points thoughtfully, that would be fine.
|
| " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ "
|
| " _Eschew flamebait._ "
|
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| getcrunk wrote:
| One reason (not arguing it) is so they can blame Putin for it
| and use it to support how unhinged he is
| r00fus wrote:
| Allegedly a "burn the ships" [1] moment. The goal is to prevent
| any energy spent on even considering going back, the only way
| is forward.
|
| If Germany has no Russian gas (it's not possible) they won't
| spend any time even broaching that possibility - the only way
| forward is to look for other sources (which happened
| concurrently with the opening of the Baltic pipeline -
| convenient).
|
| [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BurningTheShips
| kccqzy wrote:
| Is this fiction or fact?
| zqrtay wrote:
| I agree that sources should be given. But this is the name of a
| famous journalist, so instead of flagging the article, perhaps
| the Substack people could weigh in:
|
| a) Is this the real Seymour Hersh?
|
| b) If so, perhaps people should ask him for sources.
| donkeyd wrote:
| > Is this the real Seymour Hersh?
|
| I feel like too many outlets are glossing over this question
| and are reporting it as fact that he wrote it. I haven't found
| a single confirmation that he actually did so if anyone has one
| I'd love to see it.
| yams91 wrote:
| Matt Taibbi is claiming that it is: https://twitter.com/mtaib
| bi/status/1623352901111517185?t=b59...
| eternalban wrote:
| You won't need a source once the news comes out. This little
| text bomb thrown by CIA at the Executive can only mean that the
| Swedes have found conclusive evidence.
|
| https://www.rferl.org/a/nord-stream-sabotage-investigation-r...
|
| Please note that Radio Free Europe is run by CIA.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Wait, what.. found enough evidence? Wasn't the Swede's (aka
| as most US obliging, as not only profoundly shown e.g. in the
| Assange case) reaction after they were first to the site and
| "removed" all the evidence already sign enough of that, or
| even being accomplice?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This little text bomb thrown by CIA at the Executive can
| only mean that the Swedes have found conclusive evidence.
|
| That's a bizarre interpretation, since what the Swedish
| government says in that article, which is no different than
| non-US-government news source reporting on the same Swedish
| statement, is additional evidence of sabotage but no evidence
| of by whom.
|
| > Please note that Radio Free Europe is run by CIA.
|
| No, its run by a private 501(c)3 that used to be (more thab
| 59 years ago) covertly funded by the CIA, but is now overtly
| funded by the federal government through the Broadcasting
| Board of Governors.
| [deleted]
| eternalban wrote:
| The article was -just- a link to the latest official news.
| Yes, I am implying that whoever is "the source" for Mr.
| Hersh knows much more than you and I and the internet about
| this matter.
|
| Just do a ctrl-f on "the source" on the OP. And read those
| lines. That's the message.
| cde-v wrote:
| Seymour Hersh took out the Nord Stream pipeline.
|
| In this essay, I will use the same number and quality of sources
| as Hersh did in his article to support my claims. Hersh had an
| incentive to take out the Nord Stream pipeline so he could write
| the aforementioned article and become slightly relevant again,
| therefore he did. In conclusion, Seymour Hersh took out the Nord
| Stream pipeline.
| akmarinov wrote:
| It's not that u/cde-v doesn't have sources, it's that he has a
| secret source, there's a difference. So yes, Seymour Hersh did
| take out the Nord Stream pipeline.
| auctoritas wrote:
| Who had the most incentive to blow it up?
|
| Definitely not Russia which was using it as significant leverage
| over the Europeans.
|
| Definitely not the Europeans who were relying on it for energy.
|
| That leaves the US, with willing help from accomplices of course.
|
| We can squabble about Hersh's credentials - no doubt to be
| dragged through the mud in the coming days as establishment types
| attempt to discredit him - but the base case for this is that the
| US is responsible.
| demarq wrote:
| HN has been host to all sorts of articles so to see the storm
| this article has raised is telling.
|
| Do people realise that once the article is on the internet,
| removing it from HN is self censorship, the equivalent of
| pretending something doesn't exist?
| [deleted]
| varjag wrote:
| [flagged]
| waiseristy wrote:
| More unfounded bullshit reaching the front pages of HN. This
| smells of the same "whoa dude" journalism that brought us soft
| disclosure and UAPs
|
| Let's see some proof
| hackandthink wrote:
| I once read (Don DeLillo?):
|
| The John F. Kennedy assassination could not have been a
| conspiracy, some conspirator would have spoken sooner or later
| (maybe on his/her death bed).
|
| This is obviously not a lone perpetrator, so the truth will come
| out.
|
| But it may take decades, e.g.:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
| sschueller wrote:
| Maybe not today with the internet and the speed at which this
| stuff gets out. Things get hacked and documents leak digitally
| which is way easier than someone breaking into a physical
| building and riffling through old documents. Additionally as we
| have seen with Trump, Biden and Pence it appears that the way
| the administration deals with secret documents can be quite
| sloppy.
| hackandthink wrote:
| Yes, it seems really hard to keep things secret. I guess it
| would be easier for a country known to kill journalists
| (thinking of Russia here, Assange is alive).
|
| And everything is recorded nowadays. (people like Biden are
| great security risks)
| pphysch wrote:
| JFK was one of many contemporaneous high-profile political
| assassinations that share a common theme -- those assassinated
| were strong leaders that basically opposed the global ambitions
| of the growing transatlantic military-industrial-white-
| supremacist complex.
|
| JFK, RFK, Dag Hammarskjold, MLK, Malcom X, Patrice Lumumba,
| Thomas Sankara, et al. to just name a few.
|
| When you put it all together in historical context, it seems
| improbable that these were random unrelated events that just
| happen to advance the interests of a very powerful class that
| felt victimized by the end of European imperialism/American
| slavery and the rise of Communism and the Global South.
|
| Otto Skorzeny is emblematic of the character that was central
| to this history.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny
| steponlego wrote:
| You should look in to how many witnesses "mysteriously" "died."
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Modern Norway is one of the wealthiest and most developed
| societies that has ever existed. To give an example: Their
| population is only 5.4 million but they are the third biggest
| market for premium/luxury electric vehicles after the US and
| China.
|
| Why would people living in what is an actual paradise on Earth
| risk all that by blindly following Joe Biden's orders to shoot at
| Russia?
|
| Sorry but the Norwegian involvement doesn't pass the smell test.
| blownpipeline wrote:
| [dead]
| beginning_end wrote:
| What on earth is this doing on Hackernews?
| dang wrote:
| All: Whether he is right or not or one likes him or not, Hersh
| reporting on this counts as significant new information (https://
| hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), so I've
| turned off the flags on this submission.
|
| If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure
| you're up on the site guidlelines
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this
| one: " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ " We don't want political
| or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be
| made without it.
| outside1234 wrote:
| It seems like your comment is actually an argument for why this
| should have been flagged?
|
| This easily could be a Russian psyop -- and even if it isn't --
| it is definitely political and a potential flamewar. Totally
| lost here
| davesque wrote:
| I'm honestly really shocked by your stance on this. Regardless
| of whether or not this information is credible, this seems like
| text book flame war kindling. In the past, I've thought HN's
| policy of "you can discuss things like this in other forums"
| was wise and I've been corrected by it myself many times. Why
| wouldn't that apply in this case?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| One thing that makes this distinct from much of said kindling
| is that it hasn't been reported on before. This isn't someone
| coming into an unrelated comment thread and commenting "9/11
| was an inside job!"
|
| I would encourage any who disagree to consider truly why this
| reporting upsets them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it hasn 't been reported on before_
|
| Wasn't the U.S. being behind the bombing a leading
| alternative hypothesis when the news broke?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I'm not even sure it's an "alternative" hypothesis - it's
| sort of the obvious conclusion, in terms of means, motive
| and opportunity, that the US sabotaged the pipeline. I
| bet a poll of US citizens would show a clear majority
| believe the US to be the culprit, but a minority have a
| problem with it. And so you get this situation where
| everyone kind of accepts the truth but different people
| have varying levels of enthusiasm for publicly arguing
| about it.
|
| Even extending to the international community (which is
| generally a reflection of American politics, much to the
| chagrin of Europeans who are unwilling to admit it),
| there is mixed levels of enthusiasm for getting to the
| truth. The countries are all anti-Russia, and so the
| pipeline sabotage is generally seen as a "good thing"
| except by the countries with direct profit motive for it.
| However, those countries aren't about to publicly accuse
| US intelligence of carrying out the operation, because
| their relationship with US intelligence is too important
| to lose, especially given all the weapons and
| intelligence they provide.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| I get really upset when claims are made without evidence to
| support them. It might be a moral failing of mine, but for
| some reason I really loathe when assertions are made
| without evidence.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have
| been made without evidence.
|
| > Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House
| spokesperson, said in an email, "This is false and
| complete fiction." Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the
| Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: "This claim
| is completely and utterly false."
|
| "This is ... complete fiction." is a claim that the story
| was fabricated. I think it's worth examining who would be
| doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain,
| especially considering who is making the counter-claim
| and what they would have to gain from that.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| >One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions
| have been made without evidence.
|
| Are you familiar with Christopher Hitchens? That which
| can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed
| without evidence. Until the author provides evidence of
| their claims, there's nothing required to dismiss them.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Maybe it's because I see a distinction between "dismiss"
| and "deny". Where someone might dismiss ("There is no
| evidence to back up these claims") there are instead
| denials ("They made this up"). Anyway, I don't mean to
| change your mind, just to provide a different
| perspective.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| I think there's a trivial semantic difference between the
| two terms. The assertion that someone made up a story is
| the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no
| evidence to back up their claims.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I don't see the difference as so trivial. Using my
| previous statements, "There is no evidence to back up
| these claims" is an observation which allows for the
| listener to draw their own conclusion and "They made this
| up" is a conclusion that's being asserted.
|
| > The assertion that someone made up a story is the
| logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no
| evidence to back up their claims.
|
| It is _a_ logical conclusion. One might still arrive at a
| different logical conclusion.
| vinaypai wrote:
| I assert that you are a Russian agent personally
| appointed by Vladimir Putin, paid $250,000 through a bank
| in the Cayman Islands, tasked with sowing discord in the
| US by posting fictitious stories on Hacker News.
|
| Care to comment?
| hef19898 wrote:
| You are obviously wrong, because I have a source saying
| it was bitcoin and to cover it up the agent conspiered
| with other exchanges to take down FTX.
| nawgz wrote:
| > I think it's worth examining who would be doing that
| fabrication and what they would have to gain
|
| Sure. Russia and geopolitical destabilization
|
| > who is making the counter-claim and what they would
| have to gain from that
|
| This part doesn't make sense to me - the accused party
| naturally is the one making the "counter-claim", and
| naturally they will make "counter assertions" without
| evidence - how do you disprove an unfalsifiable claim?
|
| I overall don't think your comments really align. "The US
| has done bad things in the past" doesn't mean "all
| accusations of bad things pointed at the US should be
| treated with credibility and have to be disproved with an
| ironclad case by the US to not garner further suspicion"
| davesque wrote:
| I'm sure there are countless examples of "breaking" stories
| that were appropriately shot down by the flagging system.
| What I don't understand is why that flagging system should
| be short circuited in this case. HN users often flag
| stories like this because political discussions almost
| always devolve into useless flame wars. Again, I don't see
| why a conversation about this story would be any different.
| And I'm especially surprised to see this take by @dang, who
| seems to be forgetting his years of forum moderating
| experience in this case.
|
| HN is not in a position to determine the success of
| breaking news and this story fits the mold of things that
| are usually flagged. Let other credible media sources start
| picking up on the story if it turns out to amount to
| anything. Before then, let this one die just as the others
| like it do on HN.
| dang wrote:
| Because it's interesting. Hersh reporting on it is an
| interesting story in its own right. Is what he says true? I
| have no idea. We don't have a truth meter here.
| hef19898 wrote:
| But we do have a proofen and working mechanism: Flagging.
| If the submission doesn't get flagged, cool. If it does, it
| does. I don't see a reason to intervene here.
| dang wrote:
| Unfortunately it's not that simple. The flagging system
| works well, arguably better than the upvoting system
| does, but you can't just rely on these systems in an
| unsupervised way--it leads to suboptimal outcomes.
| Another way of putting this is that moderation is
| necessary to jig the software+community systems out of
| their failure modes.
|
| You can of course argue that I've made a wrong call in
| this particular case, but the point I'm making here is
| different: you need moderators who make judgment calls,
| including to override flags sometimes. And of course no
| one is ever going to get the calls 100% right; we have
| failure modes too.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| This is not just a story, but a _news_ story. It is
| supposed to state facts, not juggle with hypothesis.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Because it's interesting
|
| No. It's interesting to _you_.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Interests me too. You're always free not to read this
| article or thread.
| threeseed wrote:
| Dang is manually influencing the ranking system.
|
| So this is not necessarily what is interesting to
| everyone.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, moderators moderate this site. This has been true
| from the beginning.
|
| Your comment suggests an assumption that without
| moderation, the ranking system would indicate "what is
| interesting to everyone". That assumption isn't just
| wrong, it's super wrong. Here are some past comments
| about that, if anyone cares: https://hn.algolia.com/?date
| Range=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The short version is
| that without moderation, the site would be dominated by
| the same few hot stories repeated ad nauseum, plus an
| endless supply of riler-uppers. This is no way to
| optimize for what is interesting to everyone. As I said
| elsewhere in a reply to you, there tradeoffs along every
| conceivable axis of this thing.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Dang is doing his job.
|
| The number of attempts to either shame or coerce him into
| doing things the way you think should be done, versus
| what he thinks is appropriate -- seems childish to me.
| atdrummond wrote:
| The level of engagement seems to indicate there is
| interest amongst a wide swath of the site.
|
| Some of that interest, rather predictably, is negative.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| >The level of engagement seems to indicate there is
| interest
|
| Far more heat than light being generated though, though.
| Which is predictable with this kind of story, raising
| emotion is part of the desired outcome of posting it (1).
| "interest" in baseless speculation and conspiratorial
| thinking is not a good thing.
|
| Standards are slipping, that this story is protected.
|
| 1) https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/more+hea
| t+than...
| dang wrote:
| Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you can't take the
| human being out of the moderator, nor would it be good to
| try. No in the sense that I'm not moderating HN just
| according to my personal interests--it would be very
| different if I did. Matter of fact, I spend every day
| denying my own preferences about HN. That doesn't make me
| objective (far from it), but I do at least have a lot of
| practice.
|
| It's a matter of striking a balance: holding space for
| what the community finds interesting* while also allowing
| for a certain amount of idiosyncracy and unpredictability
| --but not too much. Without that, things would be more
| humdrum and therefore less interesting. There are
| tradeoffs along every conceivable axis with this thing.
|
| * (note: community is not the same as commenters because
| most readers don't comment)
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| > community is not the same as commenters because most
| readers don't comment
|
| Do you have stats on what percent of regular HN readers
| have ever commented on _any_ story? Or are stats more
| like, for every 100 readers of a story, 1 will comment
| _on that story_? To put another way: if I read 100
| stories and comment on 1, would I be counted as lurking
| 99 times and posting 1?
|
| Basically, I'm curious if engagement is lopsided toward
| lurking because some users never comment, or because most
| users never comment on every story they read.
| dang wrote:
| Yes, I looked it up a couple times over the years and it
| was astonishing close to whoever's law that says 1% of
| users produce 90% of UGC.
|
| I _think_ it was something like 1% of total readers and
| 5% of logged-in readers but I 'd have to check again to
| be sure.
| twoquestions wrote:
| What's with the question mark in the title? Hersh certainly
| doesn't frame this as a question.
|
| Unless it's a miskey of some kind which sounds like the most
| plausible explanation.
| dang wrote:
| Edit: I took out the question mark in response to anigbrowl
| making the point that it's confusing things:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34714493.
|
| Edit 2: I've replaced the question mark with quotation marks
| following a suggestion by bee_rider:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713987.
|
| -- original comment: --
|
| We sometimes add a question mark when a title makes a
| dramatic and divisive claim, because otherwise readers who
| read the title might think that HN (or its admins) are
| somehow endorsing the claim. We don't know what the truth is
| and are neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the claim.
|
| Edit: I dug up a few other examples where we've done this:
|
| _This is the year of the RSS reader?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34105572
|
| _Anthropology in Ruins?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34049130
|
| _The great Covid and smoking cover-up?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33869176
|
| The basic idea is that adding a question is a flame retardant
| because it tends to dampen the meta-comments about the story,
| e.g. complaints that the admins are taking a side or whatnot.
|
| In this case it's not really working, because the question
| mark is also generating lots of meta-comments. But maybe
| fewer than we'd get without it.
|
| Meta comment of my own: it's not only impossible to please
| everyone with moderation calls like this--it's seemingly
| impossible to please _anyone_. That 's why it's really
| helpful to have a first principle to rely on--i.e. to know
| what you're optimizing for. It occasionally makes it possible
| to answer an otherwise hard question rather easily.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.
| ..
| jsnell wrote:
| Huh, I would have said that a question mark is nowhere near
| enough.
|
| Your stance seems to be that this unsourced conspiracy
| theory is a story worth discussing because, and only
| because, it is Seymor Hersh making the claim. Then make
| that clear in the title: "Seymor Hersh claims America took
| down Nord Stream", or something. It goes against the
| standard HN practice of stripping out any such attribution
| from the title, but it's also not standard practice for an
| article to only be worthy because of who wrote it.
| dang wrote:
| Hersh's name is in the domain next to the title, and
| we've always treated that as an implicit part of titles.
|
| Edit: I've put quotation marks up there now, as explained
| in the GP.
| threeseed wrote:
| > are somehow endorsing the claim
|
| You _are_ endorsing the claim when you override the ranking
| system and allow opposing views to be flagged and thus
| never appear for balance.
| dang wrote:
| Not so--nor the claims that anthropology is in ruins,
| that this is the year of the RSS reader, or anything
| about covid and smoking. At this point I'm starting to
| wonder what's hard to understand about this.
|
| Re flagging: that's supposed to be for comments that
| break the site guidelines. If you (or anyone) see a
| comment that breaks the site guidelines and isn't
| flagged, or a comment that is flagged and doesn't break
| the site guidelines, remember that we don't come close to
| seeing everything, and that you can always let us know at
| hn@ycombinator.com. It's best to only do that in
| egregious cases though. For non-egregious cases, it's
| best to remember that consistency is impossible and not
| sweat the small stuff.
| mzs wrote:
| Typically three unnamed sources with domain knowledge are
| required. It's telling that no editor chose to run this and
| Hersh has to self-publish. I wish you would reconsider the
| folks flagging this.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Nobody wants to publish him because of the treatment the LRB
| received the last few times they lent him their imprimatur.
| mzs wrote:
| LRB was rightfully skewered. They did not apply customary
| rules such as:
|
| - only use unnamed sources if no other sources will come
| forward
|
| - highest levels of editorial and legal need to approve
|
| - fact checkers vet the info
|
| A gracious interpretation is that not being a paper of note
| in news LRB were unaware and published what did not pass
| rudimentary scrutiny possibly because editors were star
| struck. A cynical interpretation is that they had
| motivation to look the other way.
|
| In any case, journalistic outlets had largely long stopped
| running Hersh because he was penning unsubstantiated and
| illogical conspiracy theories.
| zelias wrote:
| I want to defend this decision from the naysayers here. The
| geopolitical implications are fascinating, and the technical
| aspects of how the operation was (may have?) been carried out
| are an interesting topic of discussion. There are increasingly
| fewer alternative communities of intelligent people on the
| internet where these things can be discussed. Why take that
| away?
|
| If the comments turn into a flame war, blame the commenters,
| not the article.
| weatherlight wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
| This topic in not "evidence of some interesting new
| phenomenon."
| waiseristy wrote:
| Since when does HN allow not only unsourced claims, but
| unsourced claims about massive geopolitical sabotage
| operations?
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle
|
| You're just baiting everyone in this comments section. How long
| have you been moderating this site? Have you ever seen a post
| like this cultivate a productive comments section?
|
| > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports,
| unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
|
| Evidence? I don't see much evidence of anything here
|
| > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling,
| bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like
|
| This last one you are guilty of, maybe this post was being flag
| brigaded for a reason
| qwertox wrote:
| I don't understand why the submitted title contains a question
| mark.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Good call. Like it or not, reputation counts for a lot.
| Particularly in reporting of matters the government prefers
| remain private.
| threeseed wrote:
| You know what matters even more than reputation. Evidence.
|
| And there is an absence of it here.
| nindalf wrote:
| Dan there's no sugarcoating this - you've got it wrong on this
| one. I say this as a supporter of your moderation policies in
| general. The sooner you reverse this decision, the better for
| everyone.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| So many backseat moderators without any arguments in the
| replies.
| atdrummond wrote:
| It is disturbing how authoritatively you claim this.
| josephb wrote:
| If you're a supporter of someones work in general, it should
| be far easier to just ignore what you perceive to be a
| mistake or blemish, and just move on.
|
| The soon the better you do X, is quite an authoritative
| stance to take.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| >> The sooner you reverse this decision, the better for
| everyone.
|
| Opinion -- cloaked in shame and coercion.
| dang wrote:
| That's certainly possible! But I would need to hear an
| argument about why, which actually addresses the reasons I've
| given in my responses in this thread. So far I haven't heard
| that. In fact, no one seems to have even tried (maybe I
| missed it amid the inundation - I've been trying and failing
| to keep up for a couple hours now).
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Maybe just rename to "Seymour Hersh: How America took out
| the Nord Stream pipeline". The unique new info is that
| Seymour Hersh has reported such-and-such.
| dang wrote:
| That information is in the domain name next to the title,
| which we treat as part of the title.
| k1m wrote:
| I'm surprised at the reaction here. There's plenty of stuff
| posted on HN I don't agree with, but don't think I've ever felt
| so strongly about a submission that I'd want the rest of the HN
| community not to read it because of my personal reaction to it.
| If you don't like something you read on HN, why not let the
| rest of us read it and make up our own minds?
|
| Thanks dang. I'm glad HN has moderators that make calls like.
| archagon wrote:
| If you've been on HN (or any link-sharing community) for a
| while, it's easy to see that certain articles are posted
| and/or upvoted largely for the sake of zeitgeist-shaping, not
| out of a sense of intellectual curiosity. This feels like one
| of those articles.
| k1m wrote:
| And who determines what's been posted for zeitgeist-shaping
| or intellectual curiousity? And what can we say about those
| who have been frantically flagging this submission so their
| fellow community members don't get to read it?
| archagon wrote:
| Well, the community decides. By flagging. Which was, in
| this case, ignored by fiat.
|
| Moreover, the article has little to do with tech and has
| obviously loaded statements such as this:
|
| > _From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by
| Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat
| to western dominance._
|
| If we can't filter out misinformation and propaganda, we
| are screwed as a community. ( _Is_ this misinformation
| /propaganda? Maybe, maybe not, but better to have false
| positives in cases like this.)
| k1m wrote:
| > Is this misinformation/propaganda? Maybe, maybe not,
| but false positives are better in cases like this than
| false negatives.
|
| You question people's motivation when it comes to
| submissions. Why not when it comes to flagging? Does it
| foster intellectual curiousity to flag a story by a
| renowned investigative journalist?
|
| In any case, what's surprising to me here is the reaction
| to dang's reasonable justification for disabling the
| flags on this story. I think those who continue to push
| for its removal after flagging have moved beyond "I
| personally don't think it's a suitable topic" to "I don't
| want anyone else to read it". I find the latter attitude
| very worrying.
| archagon wrote:
| I flagged it because it looks and quacks like propaganda
| and has little to do with tech. Perhaps Seymour Hersh is
| another once-reputable journalist who has unfortunately
| succumbed to anti-West brain-rot like Glenn Greenwald.
|
| I am also worried that HN's moderation has a bus factor
| of one, and has effectively no recourse. That's a lot of
| community-shaping power in one person's hands, regardless
| of how good of a job dang normally does.
| blub wrote:
| I've been on HN for 10+ years and articles are certainly
| flagged when they don't match the zeitgeist.
|
| Anything discussing controversial social topics is nuked.
| Which would explain the sheer panic and replies to dang: it
| must be truly terrible to not be able to make undesirable
| stories disappear instead of having to refute them. :-/
|
| In the end this story doesn't really present any ironclad
| proof and should be easy to point that out. Except that
| would open a discussion which could make the EU and US look
| quite poorly...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| why assume this to be factual?
| torstenvl wrote:
| Dan, I respectfully ask you to reconsider. This is a poorly-
| sourced speculative piece of propaganda and clearly goes
| against site guidelines.
|
| You repeat, above, that HN is _not_ for nationalist flamewar,
| and requires substance. But this post _is_ nationalist flamewar
| and _isn 't_ substantive. Allowing it while shutting down
| similar content from the opposite perspective is... unsettling.
| themgt wrote:
| [flagged]
| hef19898 wrote:
| Man, the aithor (no idea who that is...) should write a spy
| novel around this. As a fictional setting it would be great!
| As anything else, not so much.
|
| Heck, the Baltic states, along with Poland and the
| Scandinavian countries, have some of the best naval divers
| and EODs on the planet, virtue of having the priviledge of
| cleaning two world wars worth of mines, bombs and torpedoes
| from the Baltic sea...
|
| This piece should be flagged to death, especially since it
| is, giving it the most (and IMHO undeserved) credit pure
| speculation.
|
| Edit: Just looked Seymore Hersh up, now I know why the name
| rang a bell. Well, for My Lai he had proof and sources,
| didn't he?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _Man, the author (no idea who that is...)_
|
| Seymour Hersh, famous for his coverage of the My Lai
| massacre, Project Azorian, and more. You probably should
| know him.
| [deleted]
| waiseristy wrote:
| Seymour Hersh, also a advocate of the Syrian rebel
| chemical weapon conspiracy and is a Osama Bin Laden death
| truther. Maybe we should also include his later work as
| well?
| GAN_Game wrote:
| > a Osama Bin Laden death truther
|
| The "mainstream" "establishment" position on the death of
| Osama Bin Laden is that Bin Laden was living in the
| middle of Abbottabad, which is the Pakistani equivalent
| of the town of West Point, and no high level Pakistani
| Army official knew he was there, and no high level
| Pakistani government official knew he was there.
|
| It is a completely absurd story. The "truthers" are the
| people who believe that story. The White House gave a lot
| of information about bin Laden's death, as well as the
| Pentagon, and the government had to walk back some of
| their story shortly after. The New York Times reported
| the government statements as fact, although later another
| section of the paper printed some of the questions about
| the mainstream narrative. This caused an internal Times
| squabble, some of the "memoes" of which were subsequently
| leaked.
|
| If you want a better account of what happened, read the
| Pakistani press.
|
| The ISI worked with the US and bin Laden hand in glove in
| the 1980s. The idea no one high up on Pakistani
| intelligence, government or military knew he was there is
| absurd. Yet you call this "truther".
|
| > a advocate of the Syrian rebel chemical weapon
| conspiracy
|
| Chemical weapons were released in Douma. The rebels and
| government blamed each other. If the "conspiracy" as you
| call it that the rebels released it were true, it would
| tend to have been a mishandling of them - a mistake.
| Hersh reported on the attack, including information
| pointing to the rebels controlling it. I have no idea who
| had control of the weapons - it could have been the
| government as you imply. I don't have a problem with
| Hersh reporting on the information he had on that.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Sure, include those as well. Are you _certain_ that he 's
| wrong about either? Nothing can be certain when it comes
| to _intrinsically clandestine_ matters.
|
| Either way, you should _at least_ know who the man is if
| you want to maintain any pretext of knowing modern
| American history.
| waiseristy wrote:
| Uh, yes. I'm pretty damn certain that the Syrian rebels
| did not gas themselves. The OPCW just came out with a
| massive report on the matter this week. Which, unlike
| this dudes claim, was extremely well sourced.
|
| I'm not even going to continue down this "argument from
| authority" path. Completely baffling conspiracy drivel
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _conspiracy drivel_
|
| See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713661
| waiseristy wrote:
| I'm not going to participate in the informational
| equivalent of a cargo cult. Sorry. I require evidence
| someotherperson wrote:
| [flagged]
| waiseristy wrote:
| @Dang, you see what I'm talking about? You think this
| type of content is aligned with HN's guidelines? This is
| what you get when you allow completely unbased conspiracy
| theory to go unchecked
| someotherperson wrote:
| Sorry, but this is just pointlessly rude. I've linked to
| Wikileaks where OPCW was heavily scrubbing its content.
| Just because that disrupts your narrative doesn't make it
| "unbased conspiracy theory" and trying to ping a
| moderator doesn't change the facts here.
|
| In fact, every single one of your comments on this thread
| have been nothing but hostile. I'm not sure why you seem
| to think you're in the clear and everyone else is the
| problem.
| atdrummond wrote:
| [flagged]
| waiseristy wrote:
| "heavily scrubbing its content" does not mean "The syrian
| rebels gassed themselves". You described an unbased
| conspiracy theory, and then tossed a page full of
| unrelated emails up as "evidence".
| hef19898 wrote:
| Wikileaks lost so much good will, and credibility, in the
| last years...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Honest question: what about this story seems so far-fetched
| to you that you can't give the author the benefit of the
| doubt? There are decades of such intelligence goings-on.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Benefit of the doubt about reporters with a good track
| record trusting anonymous sources is also kind of how we
| ended up looking for WMDs in the desert and murdering a
| bunch of people who did nothing wrong over the course of 20
| years so maybe we should hold up a bit.
| miguelazo wrote:
| Amazing the lengths people will go to censor anything that
| goes against the US proxy war narrative, even on HN. The
| mental gymnastics are truly breathtaking.
| dang wrote:
| I just asked you to stop breaking the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712768. Doing
| exactly what we just asked you not to do is a fast track to
| getting banned.
|
| I'm not going to ban you because you might not have seen
| that other comment, but please look at it now and please
| stop posting like this. Regardless of how wrong others are
| or you feel they are, you owe this community better if
| you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| avgcorrection wrote:
| It's not propaganda. It's certainly much less propagandistic
| than the average coverage of the Ukraine war.
|
| The article has an anonymous source. Your comment complains
| about "propaganda" and "nationalist flamewar" (unfounded) and
| asks for moderation. The submission is more substantive than
| your comment.
| dang wrote:
| I'll read the article and reconsider. I haven't had time to
| even look at it yet. The moderation call here isn't based on
| agreeing, disagreeing, liking, or disliking. It just seems
| like an obvious interesting event, that's all.
|
| Edit: Ok, I've read the first half and looked over the second
| half, and I think the moderation call was the correct one.
| Not saying this to pile on; I just wanted to report back.
| threeseed wrote:
| So you haven't read the article but are choosing to
| interfere with the ranking.
|
| Why ?
| dang wrote:
| I've answered that question repeatedly in this thread
| already. If you read those comments and have a question I
| haven't addressed, I'd like to know what it is.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713787
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713529
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713479
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712496
| threeseed wrote:
| The HN guidelines are clear about political topics.
|
| Is there a change to the guidelines and should we expect
| you to not override the ranking system for opposing view
| points.
| Snitch-Thursday wrote:
| > The HN guidelines are clear about political topics.
|
| I agree with that guideline. I don't want HN in general
| to devolve into standard tribal mudslinging.
|
| But I don't believe this is the standard 'breaking news'
| chum of the day, mostly because of the reputation of the
| author, though I readily admit the sensationalist title
| is click-baity.
|
| So far (7 hours after this was first posted) most
| comments seem to be complaining that the HN users can't
| flag this away. I found the story interesting, it makes
| you think about just what the USGov is doing, if it's
| true or not is somewhat immaterial...the story was an
| interesting read, whether it was a non-fiction story or
| not.
| strawpeople wrote:
| If the story isn't true, then it isn't just making you
| think about what the US government is doing. It's making
| you fantasize about it based on an unknown person's
| political agenda.
| dang wrote:
| The HN guidelines
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
| entirely support the moderation call I've made here. If
| you think otherwise, you might want to take a closer
| look.*
|
| It is neither desirable nor possible to exclude political
| topics from HN completely. At the same time, it's
| important that the site be protected from being overrun
| and dominated by political topics. Lots of explanation of
| how we handle this can be found at these links, if anyone
| wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&
| prefix=false&so....
|
| * here's pg making the same point 10 years ago -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, Sandy Hook _did_ happen. And while NS 1 was blown
| up, besides a repitition of all arguments we had when it
| was blown up, Hersh 's blog post does not provide
| anything new, does it?
| davesque wrote:
| If that's the case, then it's _especially_ weird to me why
| the usual conventions on highly charge political stories
| wouldn 't apply.
| atdrummond wrote:
| This is not in the same universe as say a piece on
| Trump's relationship with Stormy Daniels or an article on
| Biden Hunter's laptop.
|
| The explosion had very real ramifications for the
| European continent outside the Western political context
| of the war.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Even more reason to ask for strong evidence to back up
| the claim that it absolutely was the US.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I greatly appreciate your willingness to take a second look
| at it. Even though I would have made a different call in
| your shoes, it can't be emphasized enough that you do an
| outstanding job at a difficult and often thankless task.
| Thank you.
| mzs wrote:
| In the future please at least look at an article before
| deciding to undo all the flags, many from actual readers.
| dang wrote:
| Of course I nearly always do, but in this case the
| moderation call didn't depend on it, for reasons I've
| already explained in several other comments in this
| thread.
| mzs wrote:
| I read your decision as - it is worthy because Hersh
| says, that that is is the notable part and it invites
| curiosity to ponder. But are you aware that over the last
| 10 years he has published almost exclusively conspiracy
| theories that do not stand-up to scrutiny?
| runnerup wrote:
| Thank you. There's such scant citations across the whole
| article. There are countless factual assertions with no
| note about the source for the assertion, and absolutely no
| way for readers to validate _any_ of the new information
| here. There aren 't even multiple anonymous sources, just
| mentions "some guy", and doesn't even directly attribute
| the vast majority of the claims to that guy.
|
| I don't actually doubt the veracity of this information.
| But it's grossly irresponsible to publish "some guy's"
| claims as facts!!
| sega_sai wrote:
| Where is the new information here ? He tells a story without
| any shred of proof.
| twblalock wrote:
| If anyone else had written this, would it be significant?
|
| Wouldn't it just be written off as a conspiracy theory that
| provides little to no evidence for its claims?
|
| If the only thing that gets this on HN is Seymour Hersh's
| reputation (which has lately become somewhat questionable) then
| you might want to reconsider. Plus, the quality of the comments
| has not been very good so far.
| spoiler wrote:
| If you could you humor me: if he came out saying Russians
| blew up the pipeline, would you have the same stance?
|
| These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly
| America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate
| that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK
| is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two
| powers.
|
| I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it seems
| like that's the only thing people are focusing on because it
| makes the situation simple for them, and it's easiest to have
| a single villain and the rest are the good guys.
|
| I assume most people offended by this submission here are
| American (or at least heavily support America) and want to
| think of their current government/country as the good guys.
|
| I don't think there's any good guys in this situation.
| twblalock wrote:
| If there is no evidence my reaction will be the same no
| matter who gets blamed or who wrote the article.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if he came out saying Russians blew up the pipeline,
| would you have the same stance?_
|
| Of course. You don't think there are people claiming to
| have anonymous sources about Putin doing all manner of
| things?
| ohmaigad wrote:
| > These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly
| America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate
| that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK
| is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two
| powers.
|
| As a person from Eastern Europe this is literal Russian
| propaganda or in simple words - dogshit. You know why
| somebody like Baltic countries wanted to get in NATO?
| Because Russia was/is a genuine threat after these
| countries were deoccupied from the Soviet Union. Russia
| thinks that these former Soviet Union countries are still
| their own property, they can't imagine that these countries
| don't want to live "the Russian way".
| ghostwriter wrote:
| Sorry to tell you, but the US think-tanks have been
| saying it for years that the Baltic states are there in
| their current configuration to only restrain Russia from
| forming closer ties with Germany:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UcXiUYLgbo
|
| They even have a term for it - "Cordon sanitaire": https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordon_sanitaire_(internationa...
| ohmaigad wrote:
| Oh yes, the mighty Baltic states who are able to somehow
| lock down Russian ties to Germany. By that logic the NS2
| should have never happened or German reliance to Russian
| gas in general. This sounds like the same stuff Russians
| were claiming at some point - that the Baltics are the
| main players in West geopolitics or what not. What that
| think tank is saying make no sense, as
| invading/controlling Ukraine is not making a buffer zone
| as you can't really call something a buffer zone when it
| is pretty much in Russias pocket. Something like Belarus
| today is not a buffer zone.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| To be frank, they don't mention a thing about the
| Baltics' might or political prowess, they only enumerate
| a preferred political alignment in foreing policies of
| such states so that it becomes instrumental to the US in
| their own foreign relations with both Germany and Russia.
| ohmaigad wrote:
| Well, they mention Baltics as buffer states simply
| because Russia wants that. So that is exactly my point
| earlier - Russia still thinks they have the right to
| control these states. It is like your neighbour saying
| that you cannot install a camera on your property
| (because you have experienced theft from your neighbour)
| so when you do it, he comes and beats you up for it.
| spoiler wrote:
| Maybe you're right. I honestly don't know. But I only
| have so much time in a day to veryfy everything. I'm
| talking from memory of course, but this Ukraine invasion
| didn't "come out of the blue" AFAIK.
|
| Here's a collection of sources compiled by someone on
| Quora. I dont know how biased or accurate this person is.
| However, there were other instances that made me think
| this isn't so black-and-white or "clean" as I'd like it
| to be.
|
| https://www.quora.com/If-Putin-is-indeed-the-real-
| aggressor-...
|
| A lot of the sources he used are from Ukranian websites
| so you might need to run them through Google Translate.
| Some are from reputable (for at least some definition of
| reputable) western media outlets like CNN, BBC, NYT, etc.
|
| The embedded vidoes don't seem to work in Chrome (they
| just disappear when I click them) so I've extracted the
| link for one of them here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 - _Why is
| Ukraine the West 's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer_,
| uploaded by The University of Chicago
|
| Other videos are shorter clips to prove a point, but if
| anyone's interested they can see the video ID in the
| embedded image URL when inspecting the element.
|
| Again, maybe this is all dogshit like you say, but I find
| that too dismissive of the facts presented.
| ohmaigad wrote:
| Just by peaking over the Quora article it is enough to
| say it is a Russian propaganda piece, things like some UA
| nazis (Russians also have some nazi admirers), the
| "referendums" and so on. Even if these referendums were
| legit, does it really trump a nations sovereignty (I am
| talking from my own experience as a lot of Russians were
| imported and locals deported in my country during the
| Soviet occupation and these people never integrated and
| probably even today there are regions where the
| population is mainly these Russian imports who would
| gladly be part of Russia). The main issue is that Russia
| has the view of "either you are with us or against us" so
| if you don't play ball we will going to "fuck you".
| Personally, i think that nobody understand Russia better
| than Eastern Europeans and the West is pretty much
| failing (at least the EU West who thought that playing
| ball with Russia will get them to back off) -
| https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-warned-
| about-... The Baltics have pretty much lived all their
| freedom years under Russian propaganda, let it be claims
| that we are nazis, russophobes and any other type of
| oppressors of the Russian people or even a threat of
| Russia itself. So seeing how many in the West are falling
| for Russian bullshit is just sad.
| spoiler wrote:
| Ah, I am still not fully convinced the situation is so
| clear even after reading the BI article...
|
| There is definitely propganda on both sides (and how much
| of it is true is hard to tell). Russia isn't the only one
| with a propaganda machine, if anything the US is much
| more successful at it than Russia could ever hope to be.
|
| I encourage you to read more of the Quora article, even
| if I appreciate that some of the stuff in the article
| might be hard to stomach, since you seem emotionally
| closer to the issue than I do. I believe a lot of it is
| very unlikely to stem from Russian propaganda.
|
| Some of the stuff you attributed (eg you mentioned
| tribalism and spite) to Russia isn't unique to them or
| their politics; it's just a very primitive part of human
| nature that we still struggle with.
|
| And to close with a tangent: it's always good to keep in
| mind that nobody (neither you or I) is immune to
| propagand; especially when it's pushed by state actors
| with a larger agenda. This is why I often indulge in
| reading stuff I don't agree with (within reason). Does
| give me a bit of cognitive dissonance occasionally, but
| alas.
| ohmaigad wrote:
| I completely understand that there is a "big boys table"
| and everybody else, but the hard facts are that Russia
| occupied territories of a sovereign nation
| (Crimea/Donbass/Lugansk) and now is waging a full on war
| with that nation while stating random reasons
| (nazis/biolabs/Russian integrity/etc.). So i feel that
| anyone who tries to reason "Russia attacked because of X"
| is pretty much a Russian supporter. And it hits close to
| home because potentially unless we are in NATO, we would
| be next.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| why is this downvoted/flagged?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Because a rude word is often used as an excuse to dismiss
| the whole argument.
| dang wrote:
| Nothing would be easier than to say "of course we would
| have the same stance" but I don't want to give you quite
| that lazy a reply. Your question has too many
| counterfactual layers to backpropagate an answer through.
| For example, I doubt that Hersh would publish it in that
| case. The Hershness of a story depends on it being a
| blockbuster counter-thing.
|
| Edit: oops, I missed that your question wasn't to me.
| Sorry!
| strawpeople wrote:
| Saying what amounts to 'we'd never be in that position'
| comes across as pretty evasive.
|
| Also saying Hersh only writes this kind of thing supports
| the idea that Hersh is biased enough to be taken for a
| ride by a source with an agenda.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, if that was too evasive: yes, of course we would have
| the same stance.
| spoiler wrote:
| Ah the comment was aimed at the person replying to the
| reason why this was unflagged.
|
| I do appreciate you replying! Thanks!
|
| I realise it's an incredibly difficult question to answer
| because of the what-ifs, though.
|
| I would also like to think you'd have the same stance...
| And for what it's worth I do believe you would.
|
| I'd argue that your stance is currently harder to uphold
| since it makes the whole situation a lot morally murkier,
| and also because it goes against popular opinion (one can
| only be immune to it so much).
| dang wrote:
| Lol I totally missed that. I often read the threads in a
| weird order and obviously missed the context this time!
| strawpeople wrote:
| Presumably not with just anyone who reported that
| claiming to have a source, but only because it's Hersh.
|
| As far as I can see your position evaluates to 'dang
| trusts Hersh'.
|
| Since it's 2023 and we use machines to do our thinking
| now, I consulted ChatGPT about this. I draw your
| attention to the last paragraph.
|
| ----------
|
| strawpeople: Can Seymour Hersh's reporting always be
| trusted?
|
| chatgpt:
|
| Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who
| has had a long and storied career. While he has been
| praised for his investigative reporting and his ability
| to uncover important stories, it is important to note
| that not all of his reporting can always be trusted. Like
| any journalist, Hersh is human and may make mistakes or
| have biases that affect the accuracy of his reporting.
|
| Additionally, some of Hersh's reporting has been called
| into question, and _he has faced criticism for making
| claims that are not supported by evidence or for relying
| on sources that are not credible._ For example, in 2017,
| Hersh faced criticism for his reporting on the chemical
| attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, which some experts said
| was _based on unreliable sources and was contradicted by
| a large body of evidence._
|
| In conclusion, it is important to approach Hersh's
| reporting with a critical eye and _to carefully evaluate
| the evidence and sources he relies on. While some of his
| reporting has been praised for its accuracy and impact,
| it is not always reliable and should be independently
| verified._
| spoiler wrote:
| No where do I see dang claiming he trusts Hersh. You're
| just putting words into their mouth now. If anything,
| they've exlicitly said otherwise in a few threads, but
| said Hersh shouldn't be so easily dismissed due to his
| reputation and history with similar reporting. So, his
| reporting holds more weight than mine or yours.
|
| It should still be approached critically, though.
|
| People here seem largely seem dismissive of this story
| because _they don 't like it_ (or the author).
|
| I've addressed in another thread why the sources are
| unnamed, but it's plausible it's to protect their safety,
| and lack of presentable evidence could also be the same
| reason. Information could be somehow fingerprintes to
| identify leaks. Hollywood did/does it; printers do it
| too.
|
| ---
|
| > Since it's 2023 and we use robots now, I consulted
| ChatGPT about this
|
| On a lighter note, this made me laugh. Somehow makes it
| seem like we're in 3023, not 2023... but also like it's
| 2023. What a time to be alive.
| strawpeople wrote:
| > No where do I see dang claiming he trusts Hersh. You're
| just putting words into their mouth now.
|
| I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth.
|
| Given that it's clear he wouldn't give this post special
| treatment if it wasn't from Hersh, we can reasonably
| infer that dang trusts Hersh more than a random poster as
| you suggest he should.
|
| I don't think you represent dang, and at question here is
| dang's reasons for giving the story special treatment,
| which unless you are a dang sock puppet you don't have
| special insight into.
| spoiler wrote:
| I apologise for responding on their behalf. You're right
| that they can speak for themselves, it was uncalled for
| on my side.
|
| ... And since we're indulging in unnecessary snide
| comments: They've outlined their reasoning already in a
| few places. Maybe if you read this thread instead of
| conversed with ChatGPT, we wouldn't be in this situation
| to begin with.
| PonySoldier wrote:
| This gatekeeping is ridiculous. This is the same guy who
| unveiled the atrocities that occured during the My Lai
| massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which painted the US
| Gov/military in a terrible light.
|
| This is an actual case of speaking truth to power. He clearly
| (and rightfully IMO) does not trust the US government and his
| "somewhat questionable" and recent work has continued that
| trend. Is it any surprise that the same institutions/people
| that continuously carry water for the government now rush to
| label him a conspiracy theorist?
| threeseed wrote:
| > This gatekeeping is ridiculous
|
| It is not gatekeeping to demand that extraordinary claims
| are backed up by evidence.
|
| And there is an absence of evidence here.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| It is nothing but gatekeeping if you are requesting the
| removal of a post that many consider interesting (the
| only threshhold it needs to cross).
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > (the only threshhold it needs to cross).
|
| Nope. The normal flagging rules are a sperate threshold.
| twblalock wrote:
| That's not good enough.
|
| No level of reputation or historical track record should
| exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of providing
| evidence for claims they make.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't think Hersh's reputation is evidence, as such,
| although it has some persuasive value.
|
| However, evidence is not the only valid form of claim-
| making. Predictive power also has value: if someone can
| assert something unlikely without evidence, but with
| sufficient specificity that it describes a subsequent
| development very accurately, then it's fair to presume
| that person probably has insight into the issue.
|
| So while I am somewhat skeptical of Hersh's claims,
| they're also detailed enough that corroboration could be
| sought for.
| super256 wrote:
| > No level of reputation or historical track record
| should exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of
| providing evidence for claims they make.
|
| I'm not sure. Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets
| who regularly release information while only citing
| anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence.
|
| Just posting proofster.png [1] doesn't undo America's
| long history of doing weird stuff to achieve its goals.
| Thinking about funding terrorism in Cuba, backdooring all
| electronic communication ever or saying that your
| President did not have a stroke.
|
| Also, someone posted further down in the comments that
| the White House has a history of discrediting witnesses
| and questioning motives. [2] Interestingly enough, it
| appears to me that this tactic engages citizens to follow
| the ad hominem attacks of their policymakers, although
| they don't gain anything from doing so. Maybe this
| dynamic is even more interesting than the article itself
| because the causes of this crime are only for history
| books. America got what it wanted anyway, and nothing
| will change that.
|
| [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/proofster
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709596
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who
| regularly release information while only citing anonymous
| sources and not releasing any evidence.
|
| It's bad when they do it too. That's what Bloomberg did
| with their Supermicro Chinese chip story and it was a
| disaster (and one for which they still haven't apologized
| or really even acknowledged).
|
| Huge allegations require evidence. Your name is not good
| enough, no matter what you've exposed in that past.
| mzs wrote:
| >If we cite anonymous sources in a story, say how these
| people are in a position to know the information, without
| compromising their identities. Any anonymously sourced
| story must be reviewed by senior managers.
|
| p. 112; The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Journalists; John
| Micklethwait, Paul Addison, Jennifer Sondag, Bill
| Grueskin; John Wiley & Sons; 2017 ed.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Bloomberg
|
| And that worked great on that "all server motherboards
| are compromised" article right?
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _That's not good enough._
|
| For you.
|
| But maybe, just maybe, other people _are_ willing to to
| accept claims backed by reputation.
|
| I mean, do you have any idea how difficult some of these
| stories, throughout history, would be to bring to light
| with "hard evidence"? What would "hard evidence" even
| entail? A whistleblower?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the same guy who unveiled the atrocities that occured
| during the My Lai massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which
| painted the US Gov /military in a terrible light_
|
| Both were corroborated with evidence. I'm scanning this
| post for new evidence and coming up empty. The fact that
| American action was technically plausible has always been
| known.
|
| One _might_ twist Hersh claiming he has an anonymous source
| as new information. But that 's the closest we get. On its
| own, that's not sufficient to advance the discussion in a
| meaningful way because it presents no new facts.
| woooooo wrote:
| He has the code name of the operation and a ton of
| alleged operational details, attributed to his sources in
| the Intel community.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I, too, can make up a code name and operational details.
| Still no evidence.
| PonySoldier wrote:
| As someone else noted in another thread, Hersh's
| reputation and the source are absolutely evidence. What
| he hasn't provided is hard proof for the claims.
|
| I can't find any proof whatsoever as to who actually did
| it from the western authorities claiming to investigate
| it either though. In fact, there's been little to no news
| or updates at all since the incident.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Hersh 's reputation and the source are absolutely
| evidence_
|
| It's a signal to pay attention to the issue. To keep an
| eye out for evidence. It's not evidence _per se_.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > Hersh's reputation
|
| Not an evidence.
|
| > the source
|
| Remains anonymous. Also, not an evidence.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The code name was "Gouda", it was established that it was
| the Swiss Vatican guard. Ementaler would have been too
| much into the face and the Vatican wanted to avoid
| problems with the Italians, so Parmesan was of the table.
| pohl wrote:
| Hersh also tried to minimize the Skripal novichok poisoning
| story, didn't he?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I think it's worthwhile that a reputation is able to garner
| attention for someone, and it may be worth examining why his
| reputation is coming into question. If it has something to do
| with "he likes to tout conspiracy theories" I would start to
| wonder who would gain from this reporting being discredited
| in such a manner.
| dang wrote:
| No, I don't think it would be. Hersh is inevitably part of
| the story because of his historical significance and the
| network of government sources that he's cultivated for
| decades. It doesn't follow that his claims are true (even if
| he's accurately reporting, his sources must have their own
| agendas). That's why I added the question mark to the title
| above. The story being on HN doesn't imply anything about
| that--only that it's interesting.
|
| Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be
| willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's
| reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for
| counterargument.
|
| p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to
| say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting.
| If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who
| feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you
| think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to
| already know (or feel one knows) the answer--and this is a
| site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&pag
| e=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is
| particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of
| view.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| It is astonishing how so many people think that others
| can't read something like this and make their own
| judgements about it. I guess that they're worried that too
| many people will just accept this as True, and that will
| make the world a worse place? I just find it an incredibly
| arrogant position to take. If there's some other way of
| justifying that opinion, I'd love to hear it.
| chowells wrote:
| As a very quick overview,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect
|
| No, it's not harmless to repeatedly claim things without
| evidence. No, people do not make their own judgments.
|
| I'm sorry if reality is arrogant.
| xoa wrote:
| > _If there 's some other way of justifying that opinion,
| I'd love to hear it._
|
| If you wanted to hear it, you could just read it as it's
| been stated repeatedly ITT and it's in the HN Guidelines
| #1:
|
| > _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or
| sports, unless they 're evidence of some interesting new
| phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute
| animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
| probably off-topic._
|
| One of the unironically hardest things about maintaining
| a community is Saying No. And I'm not just speaking
| abstractly here, I'm talking personally. When you have a
| community of interesting and intelligent people who
| you've enjoyed discussing things with, it's completely
| natural to start to want to bring everything there for
| discussion. But some topics inspire far more substantial
| discussion than others. Some topics are inherently meaty,
| in particular when they are about things that we,
| individually or in our direct organizations, can directly
| take action on, extent further, or otherwise make use of
| in our lives/work. That helps ground discussion in
| reality vs emotion and subjective infinities. Other
| topics risk being more and more intellectual empty
| calories, where many words can be written that have no
| actual use of any kind, pure jawboning and ever more
| self-referential spirals. This is particularly risky for
| something like this, which is a level removed from hard
| reports due to lack of hard proof which in turn naturally
| results in much of the discussion going one or more
| levels more meta: rather than even discussing the
| impacts, however useless it might be, it's discussing the
| report, the author of the report, their credibility etc.
|
| It's not that it's inherently wrong to have those
| discussions, but _does it need to be here_? The answer to
| a lot of us is no. Even if we want to discuss it very
| much. Self-discipline (and community enforced discipline,
| and moderator enforced ultimately) is key to maintaining
| a place like this, and that includes erring towards not
| having low quality, highly meta and vacuous discussions
| with no ability for anyone in the community to do any
| grounding or contribute anything you couldn 't read in a
| newspaper.
|
| I can take issue with some of the other stuff you wrote,
| but ultimately it comes down to that. Maintaining good
| communities often involves picking areas and sticking to
| them, generalization being death. If this was a forum
| devoted exclusively to space habitats and cats, someone
| taking out pipelines would still be very important, but
| it would be neither space habitats, nor cats. It would be
| completely reasonable for the community to flag it dead.
| That's not a judgement on the topic nor discussion of it
| in general. It's just not space habitats or cats.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker News.
| There are plenty of interesting things going on in the tech
| world that aren't making the front page.
|
| b) There is a lack of evidence in the article. I can claim
| that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as
| valid at this point.
|
| c) His previous reputation is important but history is
| littered with examples of people making mistakes and
| relying on their own hubris. That is why we demand
| evidence.
| vintermann wrote:
| > I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it
| would be equally as valid at this point.
|
| No, it wouldn't. The narrative provided by Hersh's
| source, whether it's true or not, explains many of the
| facts that demand an explanation. It provides plausible
| answers to the questions "How were the explosives
| placed", "How were the explosives triggered" and "how
| weren't they detected". Not necessarily true ones! But
| plausible ones that are internally consistent, and don't
| in themselves raise huge new questions.
|
| If you want to be in the running, that's what you need to
| supply too.
|
| This is not a defense of Hersh, it's a defense of his
| article. You should consider the claims in an article for
| their internal consistency, and consistency with public
| evidence, even if you don't trust the source.
|
| This article is remarkable for how different it is from
| Hersh's Syrian gas claims. There, to the degree Hersh has
| answers at all to the similar questions how were the
| chemical weapons acquired, how were they placed and how
| were they triggered, they just raise impossibly hard
| questions (like "how was this coordinated", "how did all
| the participants go along with it" and "how did Russia
| and the Syrian government utterly fail to expose and
| document any of it convincingly")
| mzs wrote:
| >This article is remarkable for how different it is from
| Hersh's Syrian gas claims.
|
| It really isn't:
|
| >What became clear to participants, according to the
| source with direct knowledge of the process, is that
| Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan
| for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines ...
|
| >... Everyone involved understood the stakes. "This is
| not kiddie stuff," the source said. If the attack were
| traceable to the United States, "It's an act of war."
|
| >... Burns quickly authorized an Agency working group
| whose ad hoc members included--by chance--someone who was
| familiar with the capabilities of the Navy's deep-sea
| divers in Panama City."
|
| That's exactly the sorts of things from his other recent
| articles that people who know how things actually work
| would immediately know is BS.
| ihatepython wrote:
| > a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker
| News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in
| the tech world that aren't making the front page.
|
| It's possible the tech stack for the detonator was
| written in Rust.
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker
| News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in
| the tech world that aren't making the front page.
|
| an incredible amount of tech is involved in these
| pipelines, building them, blowing them up, figuring out
| who blew them up, etc.
|
| the war/defense industry is the foundation of all US
| technology:
|
| https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Cho
| m.h...
|
| ukraine is a massive test ground for us weapons/tech --
| including operations which don't occur strictly in
| Ukrainian territory.
|
| and, the world might be over any day now because of the
| war, so there's always that.
|
| is there a HN in heaven/hell?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Blowing them up requires either a shaped charge or C4 or
| some other explosive. Hardly high tech.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The social & physical infrastructure is the story here,
| not the fact that explosives go boom - although if you
| don't think explosives are technologically interesting,
| perhaps that means you just don't know much about them.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I know you can throw C4 into a camp fire without any risk
| of it going boom, does that count?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Somewhat, but I still think you're being overly
| dismissive. The story is not expressing wonder at how a
| thick metal cylinder could be damaged by a relatively
| small explosion or how a bomb could go off under water
| where it's hard to light a fire.
| readonthegoapp wrote:
| [flagged]
| hef19898 wrote:
| I did read the article. Because I at first thought news
| finally broke on who blew the pipelines up. And news
| didn't break, becasue the article, if it wasn't for the
| author, should just be dismissed as conspiracy BS.
| Maursault wrote:
| How about a torpedo? I seriously doubt:
| 1) The US would wait 7 months after Russia invaded
| Ukraine 2) The US would risk Navy divers for
| such a petty operation achievable without risking
| valuable personal 3) The US would not
| simultaneously detonate (17 hour delay between? wtf)
| 4) President Biden would not have immediately after taken
| the opportunity to interrupt broadcast and cable
| programming to remind us how tough he is.
|
| When you ask yourself who hates the Russians more than
| anyone else in the world, and when that coincidentally
| happens to be the same as who benefits economically the
| most from NS1 & NS2 destroyed, there's only one
| answer[1], and it isn't Norway, and it isn't Denmark, and
| it can't be the US. Russia annoys the US, but the US and
| its citizens do not hate Russia. And US benefits exactly
| nothing economically from this, and in a global economy,
| it probably hurts US.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe
| runnerup wrote:
| > How about a torpedo?
|
| Likely pieces of the torpedo could be found and traced
| back to American manufacture.
| Maursault wrote:
| Likely? If Russia spends the considerable resources to
| send down their own deep sea divers, they can just as
| easily find trace residues of the C4 or whatever was used
| and trace that to its origin as well. And how would they
| trace a Russian torpedo?
| haswell wrote:
| > _I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it
| would be equally as valid at this point._
|
| An established reputation is the difference between those
| claims. You making a claim without evidence is just that.
|
| Hersh making a claim without sharing his evidence is
| something different. That isn't to say we don't need
| evidence, but there's a better reason to believe him than
| you, given the context of the situation.
|
| > _His previous reputation is important but history is
| littered with examples of people making mistakes and
| relying on their own hubris._
|
| And it's also full of the opposite. The existence of
| hubris is not evidence of it.
|
| But even then, that claim doesn't fit, unless you are
| implying that he made the whole thing up and concluded
| that it must be what happened.
|
| Another conclusion is that he has a source, and simply
| has not shared it yet.
|
| Maybe time will tell.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Maybe time will tell.
|
| This article shouldn't be allowed here until that time.
|
| Reputation is not evidence.
| haswell wrote:
| Topics with unknown or unknowable answers are regularly
| discussed here. Curiosity in the face of uncertainty is
| pretty much what this place is about.
|
| Whether it turns out to be true or false, this article is
| _interesting_ right now.
|
| If it's true, for obvious reasons.
|
| If it's false, for what it says about Hersh, and a myriad
| of followup questions that arise.
| brookst wrote:
| Reputation absolutely is evidence. I think you mean it's
| not "proof".
|
| If John Carmack says there is an exciting breakthrough in
| 3D rendering that will give 8k 120fps ray tracing on
| commodity hardware, that's noteworthy, and his reputation
| is _evidence_ that there is substance to the claim.
|
| HN would be super boring if only topics that had been
| conclusively proven could be discussed.
| simplotek wrote:
| > (...) and his reputation is evidence that there is
| substance to the claim.
|
| No it isn't. The guy's reputation is reason to give the
| benefit of the doubt, but either his claims are proven
| sound or else they are just as bullshit if Joe blow
| himself made them.
| haswell wrote:
| It's still an evidence based stance, but temporarily
| substitutes one form of evidence for another. The notion
| of reputation is itself built on evidence, e.g. we
| observe that someone is generally truthful, so we are
| later justified in concluding that they might be telling
| the truth.
|
| The concept of the benefit of the doubt still relies on
| this form of evidence. That doesn't imply that this is
| _sufficient_.
|
| Regarding Hersh vs. Joe Blow, there is still a meaningful
| difference in them getting things wrong.
|
| When it's Joe, you don't care to begin with, and the
| revelation of wrongness doesn't change your opinion of
| Joe.
|
| When it's someone like Hersh, such a revelation brings
| reputational harm, and raises more questions about how he
| became so convinced of this information to begin with.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| This looks like an Appeal to Authority.
| haswell wrote:
| If I were claiming that I agreed with the article and
| found it to be convincingly true, and so should you, I'd
| agree. I am not doing any of those things.
|
| Judging how incredulous one should be of an author's
| writing based on their reputation is something else.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| I would be incredulous of any author who doesn't provide
| evidence. Do you agree that the burden of proof should be
| applied equally to all authors regardless of reputation?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _because of his historical significance and the network of
| government sources that he 's cultivated for decades_
|
| This seems a little partial and hard to implement
| consistently. Can we assume the same metric will be applied
| to every Robert Woodward story, or any of many single-
| sector journalists with a lengthy track record, such as
| Radley Balko who has spent years writing about policing?
|
| I also don't think adding a question mark to the headline
| clarifies; I can treat an assertion with skepticism, but
| 'How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline?' reads like
| a submission from a non-native English speaker, of the sort
| which often clutter up the New submissions page.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, that last bit is a good point - I'll take out the
| question mark. Thanks!
|
| Re your other question, the answer is somewhere in the
| space demarcated by (1) yes, (2) we'll try, (3)
| consistency is impossible, (4) we're always open to
| reader input. (I'm sorry that I'm responding in shorthand
| but I'm being inundated atm)
| mzs wrote:
| if you insist:
|
| Seymour Hersh's unnamed source on how America took out
| the Nord Stream pipeline
| karaterobot wrote:
| It does strike me as odd that (by my reading) there's only
| a single, unnamed source for all these claims. Hersh's
| reputation as a journalist is significant and worth
| considering, but for me it makes it _stranger_ that there
| 's so little evidence in this piece which, as it notes,
| alleges an act of war.
| bnralt wrote:
| > but for me it makes it stranger that there's so little
| evidence in this piece which, as it notes, alleges an act
| of war.
|
| It makes it less surprising to me. Back in 2006 I
| believed Hersh when he reported that the U.S. had troops
| inside Iran laying the groundwork for an imminent
| American attack. This was also based on anonymous
| sources. After the attack failed to materialize, I
| learned to take such reporting with a large grain of
| salt.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I have to sympathize with Hersh; being on the outside yet
| being taken seriously by some has to be hard on you.
| Paranoia strikes deep; into your life it will creep.
|
| He _used_ to be credible. Then unfortunately a lot of
| shady people learned they could manipulate him and get
| away with it, and so they 've done. He can publish
| something like this and when anyone says, "prove it" he
| can't. Because Top Secret.
| keithwhor wrote:
| Dan I've emailed you privately but I simply don't think
| this is appropriate to keep on HN given the framing of the
| article as fact and the current evidence provided. Hearsay
| is not new evidence. Give us a recording, a photo,
| anything. As written this is a compelling fiction presented
| as fact which is dishonest to the community. Especially
| considering these articles are simply clicked and read more
| often than debated, only a fraction of us are silly enough
| to write comments on the internet.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I appreciate having the honesty to publicly share your
| desire to unilaterally restrict content, not just for
| yourself, but for all of HN's audience.
|
| Sadly I don't think your request is the morally good
| action you presume it to be.
| simplotek wrote:
| > Sadly I don't think your request is the morally good
| action you presume it to be.
|
| Why do you believe that it's desirable to push at best
| unfounded assumptions and at worse questionable
| propaganda?
| keithwhor wrote:
| No moral objection to the content, only ethical. I don't
| care what beliefs you have, I simply think it's
| irresponsible to parrot -- or provide a platform for
| parroting -- unsubstantiated claims. The beauty of Hacker
| News, and my enjoyment of it, is that it's moderated and
| I don't often see content like this.
|
| I honestly panicked reading this! At first I was under
| the impression that this was breaking news. And if true
| it has major implications. But that's a really big if. It
| wasn't until I read the article that it became obvious I
| was being manipulated to believe a narrative without
| evidence. The most disingenuous part of the article is
| that it starts with a bold claim presented as truth, and
| then immediately includes two sentences about the White
| House denying the claim before jumping into thousands of
| words of hearsay and a story presented as fact. As if to
| say, "what you're about to read is a story, and you
| should know that, but you have to be smart enough to
| parse between the lines to see that -- and I'm avoiding
| stating it directly so that I can get away with writing
| the story the way I want to write it on the chance it's
| true."
|
| Substantiate the claims and I'll rescind criticism. I
| like to believe I'm a thoughtful and relatively
| apolitical person, I just have a visceral reaction to
| being manipulated in this way (bold claim, no evidence)
| and I'd hope other people share the same standards.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The submissiom was, apparently, flagged into almost
| oblivion before the flagging was switched of as a mod
| decision.
|
| When Modi-critical submissions get flagged to death, just
| to pick another flame war guarantee as an example, there
| is no such intervention. So it is odd it happened in this
| case.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't mind the submission (although I am skeptical of
| its thesis), but I think the lack of transparency about
| how flagging and moderation operates is Not Great, and I
| have raised this issue for years. I _do_ want to see and
| discuss significant non-technology news on HN, because
| the hacker ethos is a matter of motivation as much as
| capacity.
|
| But such submissions also suck up a lot of oxygen and
| it's understandable that they are often flagged or
| discouraged when they get too flamey. It might be
| worthwhile to have a designation like 'Chat HN:' which is
| understood to be non-technical, and which users can
| filter in or out of their feed.
| trwhanh wrote:
| What else can you do with this article? We don't know if the
| source is correct, but it is clearly notable.
|
| Wasn't Watergate also reported relying on a single source
| (deep throat)?
| sampo wrote:
| > Hersh reporting on this counts as significant new information
|
| This is from 2015:
|
| _" The way to understand Hersh is to visualize most of his
| sources as Michael Scheuer-like individuals. It is not
| difficult to find such people in the intelligence world:
| obsessive, frustrated idiot savants who perceive themselves as
| stymied by the paper pushers, the bureaucrats"_
|
| _" Hersh's problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoever
| toward what his crank sources tell him, which is ironic
| considering how cynical he is regarding the pronouncements of
| the U.S. national security bureaucracy. Like diplomats who "go
| native," gradually sympathizing with the government or some
| faction in the host nation while losing sight of their own
| country's national interest, Hersh long ago adopted the views
| of America's adversaries and harshest critics."_
|
| https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed
| without evidence. Do you see any sources for their claims?
| swader999 wrote:
| Why even question Hersh on this when Biden publicly admitted
| they would put an end to it? https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Because "put an end to it" can easily (and more plausibly)
| encompass approaches like "sanction Nord Stream AG into the
| ground".
| swader999 wrote:
| "There will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an
| end to it."
| hef19898 wrote:
| And NS 2 ended, it was never certified. No need to blow
| it up...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There is no longer an Enron, either. No one blew up their
| headquarters to do it.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Enron's accounting department kind of did, not physically
| but still.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > not physically but still
|
| That's precisely the point, isn't it?
|
| "We will put an end to X" does not mean "we will
| physically blow up X". Pretending Biden had an "oops,
| we're gonna do a terrorist attack against Russian and
| German infrastructure and I said it out loud at a press
| conference!" moment and that there's _no other legitimate
| explanation for the statement_ is just goofy.
| swader999 wrote:
| It wasn't an oops moment, it was scripted. Watch the
| video carefully. He consulted his notes before saying it.
| This public announcement removed the requirement to
| notify Congress. Genius imo.
|
| The other tell is that in the follow-up, Biden was
| pressured to explain what he meant but he refused to
| comment. Sanctions could have been mentioned here without
| repercussions but they weren't.
| swader999 wrote:
| The original enron pipelines are still moving product.
| They still 'be'. Biden wasn't talking about Gazprom. His
| words are very clear and direct. They are congruent with
| his body language and tone. He looked down at his notes
| before speaking.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Don't be disingenous. "We will put an end to x" does not
| mean "we will blow x up", and is common political
| rhetoric.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=5567609899962902 "We
| will put an end to Abbott's attacks on educators, raise
| teacher pay, improve their retirement benefits, and fully
| fund our classrooms."
|
| https://larson.house.gov/media-center/press-
| releases/larson-... "we will put an end to the decades of
| price gouging"
|
| Again, "we'll bankrupt them with sanctions" easily falls
| under "we will put an end to them".
| swader999 wrote:
| Nobody uses that rhetorical construct in regard to
| physical entities. Your anologies are disingenuous.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Governor Abbott is not a physical entity? I suspect this
| is news to him.
| swader999 wrote:
| You quoted "governor Abbott's attacks". Are you seriously
| trying to suggest a group threatened the governor
| himself? You're working too hard on this angle.
| spoiler wrote:
| I disagree that we shouldn't _question_ such big claims.
|
| It's safe to assume the reason his sources are unnamed is to
| protect their safety. Don't know how plausible this is, but I
| it's possible that the lack of presentable evidence is for
| the same reason. Maybe the relevant documents could've been
| somehow fingerprinted, which would identify the
| leaker/source; the film/tv industry has done this when
| distributing pilots for private viewings. Heck, even printers
| did it lol.
|
| However, it's not secret American politicians vehemently
| disliked the existence of Nordstream, and this outcome is
| undeniably convenient for them. Maybe too convenient, so they
| wouldn't dare attempt it? Or maybe they just assumed they'd
| have a great scapegoat. Maybe it wasn't even them, and it's
| Russian government playing 5D chess by blowing up their own
| investment to frame Americans.
|
| Who knows? Maybe time will tell; it usually does.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This angle made me doubt the story Hersh is pushing.
|
| When you're just speculating or building a conspiracy theory
| then those "ominous" comments are worth quoting.
|
| If you are claiming to be in contact with someone with deep
| knowledge of the actual operation, why even mention those?
| Worse still, add some extra twist where the spies have a meta
| comment on their cover being blown by those comments.
| [deleted]
| kstenerud wrote:
| Just flagged this in the hopes that you'll reconsider.
|
| It's no secret that Hersh's work has become increasingly
| suspect in recent years. Every time he writes, he cites a
| _single_ anonymous source and yet manages to go into an
| implausible level of detail and completeness with neatly tied
| up loose ends you 'd only expect to find in a Tom Clancy novel.
| The _only_ reason this story has been rescued from the dustbin
| is due to Hersh 's (old) reputation, which though well earned,
| shouldn't just give him a pass.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/robert-grenier-reflects-on-s...
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/12/21/10634002/seymour-hersh-syria-...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yeah, instead of blog posts Hersh should write spy thrillers
| in tje tradition of the early Tom Clancy works. I would even
| pay for those, I like the setting and the narrative Hersh
| oresented in this blog, and the writing, are compelling and
| good. For a fictional book, not for journalism.
| TruthShare wrote:
| [dead]
| ben7799 wrote:
| This is not a new theory, non-US media laid out reasons why the
| US was a plausible culprit last year.
|
| Most of them also put out relatively balanced reasons why the US
| would not do it as well.
|
| Lots of logical reasons have been laid out why the Russians are
| suspects too.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| "Lots of reasons" often do not make something more likely or
| credible, but one very strong one does.
| draw_down wrote:
| No one is claiming it's a new idea.
| mmastrac wrote:
| It's a great story, but it's all unsourced and could be a decent
| Tom Clancy story at best. You could probably write a similar one
| with Russia or German agents as the key players and be just as
| convincing.
|
| The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting that
| they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty weak place
| to build a large story.
|
| What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing appears to
| be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct knowledge of
| the operational planning".
| rsync wrote:
| "You could probably write a similar one with Russia ..."
|
| I disagree - there is no credible motive here for Russia and,
| in fact, the outcome was directly opposed to every outcome they
| are, or were trying, to achieve.
|
| Not only do I, as a US citizen, believe that the US perpetrated
| this act but further: I believe it is an overtly hostile action
| against EU citizens and, particularly, Germans, who will suffer
| the most economically.
|
| EU states are now buying US natural gas like we always wanted
| them to. How much pain and suffering were we willing to inflict
| to make that happen ?
| oezi wrote:
| The amount of LNG gas remains insignificant so far. Germany
| also hasn't signed any significant contract with the US but
| rather with Qatar.
|
| To give you one credible motive for Russian involvement:
| Russia cut off Europe of Gas supplies to get leverage on the
| Ukraine conflict, but this largely failed as European
| countries pooled their gas reserves and vowed to move away
| from Russian gas. As Russia could see that this market was
| lost the explosions were a last punch to send gas prices
| higher before the European winter and protect Gazprom from
| lawsuits. The mild weather killed that first motive, let's
| see about the other.
| AnonymousPlanet wrote:
| It was a hostage situation. "You want to quit our gas? See
| how you're going to fare when winter comes and you can't
| fill your storage in time."
|
| In September it was already clear that a weak polar vortex
| would make for a frosty winter in the northern hemisphere.
| It was just luck (for Europe) that it hit North America and
| not Europe. During summer in Germany every week more people
| were drumming up (literally) demands to open Nord Stream 2.
|
| There was no way of being sure a German government wouldn't
| flip under pressure once people were freezing and showing
| up with torches at the Reichstag.
|
| But one September night someone went in and shot the
| hostages...
| MilaM wrote:
| As a German citizen let me tell you, hardly anyone here is
| angry that the pipelines are gone. No one is even talking
| about Nord Stream anymore. When Gazprom stopped the gas flows
| in July 2022, it was abundandly clear, that the deliveries
| would not resume in the foreseable future. In a way, blowing
| up the pipelines made things easier, because the government
| and the industry could fully focus on reorganizing energy
| procurement, without being needlessly entangled in
| hypothetical discussions about what could have been. Even if
| Russia wanted to resume selling gas to Western Europe
| sometime in the future, there is still plenty of capacity in
| the remaining pipelines through Belarus and Poland, as well
| as Ukraine. They are fully operational and currently either
| not used at all (Yamal pipeline), or operating at a very low
| capacity (Transgas).
| 0xDEF wrote:
| I am Danish. Half the country was making fart jokes about
| the leak. Nobody is missing the Nord Stream pipelines.
| mmastrac wrote:
| There are plenty of credible motives for Russia to do this
| (some even listed in this thread), but they are all just as
| weakly supported as this theory.
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| foota wrote:
| I remember reading at the time that the motive would have
| been to remove the oligarch's desire to end the war. If you
| can't sell the gas anyway, then you can't complain about it.
|
| Seeing as Russia was already using gas supplies as a
| political tool, it doesn't seem too far fetched.
| letrowekwel wrote:
| As an EU citizen living next to Russia I can assure you, I'm
| DELIGHTED that people can no longer buy gas from a mass
| murderer like Putin. Anyone who buys gas from Russia is
| essentially supporting genocide of Ukrainian civilians, if
| suffering is what we're talking about.
|
| Besides, things are going on pretty okay. Electricity prices
| are stabilizing and Europe will eventually become greener as
| well. No matter who did it, blowing up the pipeline was a
| good thing.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| > Anyone who buys gas from Russia is essentially supporting
| genocide of Ukrainian civilians, if suffering is what we're
| talking about.
|
| Weekly snapshot: Russian fossil fuel exports 16 to 22
| January 2023:
|
| * The week of 16 to 22 January 2023, the EU was the largest
| importer of Russian fossil fuels.
|
| * The EU imported pipeline gas, oil products and LNG, as
| well as crude oil via pipeline or rail.
|
| * The top five EU importer countries last week were the
| Netherlands, Slovakia, Germany, Belgium and Italy. [1]
|
| [1] https://energyandcleanair.org/weekly-snapshot-russian-
| fossil...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not sure MBS is actually any better, when we ignore the
| bigger, geopolitical angle for a second and just look at
| the people leading certain countries.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _I believe it is an overtly hostile action against EU
| citizens and, particularly, Germans, who will suffer the most
| economically._
|
| In the scenario where America did it, I think there is a
| strong argument to be made that it was in the long-term
| interests of EU citizens, despite causing them some short-
| term discomfort. They never should have started this pipeline
| project in the first place, buying energy from Russia made
| the EU weak. Breaking that relationship permanently will make
| the EU stronger.
| pillefitz wrote:
| We were quite happy with cheap energy and it was great to
| have a choice between Russian gas and American LNG, until
| that option disappeared.
| letrowekwel wrote:
| That option disappeared when Russia invaded Ukraine, not
| when the pipeline was blown up (at least if you rate
| human life over economics). Nobody should buy anything
| from a regime like Putin's Russia.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It's fine to buy gas from the USA, the butchers of Iraq,
| Afghanistan, Libya and Yugoslavia though?
| Eduard wrote:
| > ... causing EU citizens short-term discomfort
|
| You have no idea what's going on.
|
| Also, are you arguing that having _less_ choice in market
| supply is good better for EU?
| nostromo123 wrote:
| America "doing things in the long-term interests of EU
| citizens, despite causing them some short-term discomfort"
| is exactly why the US is seen as the baddy in a lot of
| countries. We are not your children to be nannied and taken
| decisions on behalf of!
| sampo wrote:
| > It's a great story, but it's all unsourced and could be a
| decent Tom Clancy story at best. You could probably write a
| similar one with Russia or German agents as the key players and
| be just as convincing.
|
| That's why there were several explosions: Everyone was blowing
| it up at the same time, unbeknownst of each other's plans.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Semi related darkly humorous daydream: what are the odds of
| two unrelated school shooters at the same school on the same
| day?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Just imagine the debriefing questions: Why did you guys blow
| up the _wrong_ pipeline, and two hours before schedule????
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Just like the JFK assassination in "Illuminatus!" :-)
| outside1234 wrote:
| A single unnamed source also makes this extremely susceptible
| to being a Russian plant or asset or "influenced".
| vanviegen wrote:
| > What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing
| appears to be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct
| knowledge of the operational planning".
|
| Why is that weird? Assuming this is true, there would be rather
| many people with such knowledge. One of them may feel the need
| to talk. Would you expect such a source to be named?
|
| Also, I find it a lot easier to imagine why the US would want
| to do this, than why Russia or Germany would want to do this.
| tlear wrote:
| Because without a collaboration of some sort this reads like
| a planted story.
|
| Source with this degree of knowledge would have no issue
| providing lots of things that could be confirmed through
| other means. Documents, names, precise dates and times. Who
| was in charge of this on Norwegian side? On CIA side.. when
| and where did they meat etc etc etc
| hef19898 wrote:
| You can easily imagine any of the Baltic states, Poland,
| Ukraine (with some local help) or even Finland, Swede or
| Norway doing the deed.
|
| Or, since the pipelines are well known and not difficult to
| reach, basically everyone with access to explosives, a boat a
| divers with explosives skills. None of which is particularly
| hard to come by.
| thwayunion wrote:
| At that moment in the war, even Putin had a lot of strong
| motivations -- lock out the option of bringing Nord Stream
| back online and close to door on de-escalation. As a side-
| benefit, the possibility of driving a wedge into NATO. I
| also found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713402
| interesting. Who knows.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, someone did it. If somebody knows who, they are not
| telling.
|
| Without sources, everything is specilation at best,
| consiracy theory BS or propaganda at worst. Personally, I
| don't even believe half of what is reported with
| connection to the war in Ukraine.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Agreed. One of those situations where everyone wants to
| blame everyone else for a "terrible" thing that happened,
| but at the same time don't really GAF because all sides
| were okay with finalizing a clean break between Europe
| and Russia for a variety of domestic and IR reasons
| anyways.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Now I picture a virtual waiting line of covert divers and
| motivated activists in front of the pipelines waiting for
| their turn to try it. And being pissed someone else was
| first! Maybe they have a class reunion of sorts ten years
| from now!
| Laaas wrote:
| Why do you think Putin is against de-escalation? The post
| you links to proposes a not very sensible argument: We
| are talking about _nation states_. The law isn't as black
| and white, Gazprom would not pay any fines put on it by a
| court of the enemy. Even if they were to pay fines put on
| them, why would this in any way reduce fines? Even if it
| were to reduce the fines, why would that be worth more
| than two pipelines there were full of methane? It sounds
| very implausible.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Putin was already effectively doing that, by demanding
| payment in rubles and making weird terms. If Putin wanted
| to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop sending gas. What
| was Europe going to do, sanction him more?
|
| I can see the US doing it as they've been vocal opponents
| to nordstream since its inception, I can see Ukraine
| wanting to do it although I doubt they'd have the
| resources, might also have been some other rogue European
| faction wanting out from under Putin's thumb.
| VintageCool wrote:
| The "Putin did it" hypothesis was that he did it to
| prevent internal replacement. Suppose that some Russian
| rival wanted to replace him. They could kill or imprison
| Putin, end the war in Ukraine, restart the gas pipelines,
| and have a lot of gas money from Europe to distribute to
| supporters.
|
| Destroying the pipelines removed the potential reward for
| an internal rival to replace him.
| landemva wrote:
| > Suppose that some Russian rival
|
| Putin's rivals make Putin look soft. If they do take
| power, they will end the war quickly and definitively.
| bnralt wrote:
| The Russians had been claiming in the months before the
| explosion that sanctions were keeping them from
| delivering gas, and that Europe needed to back off
| sanctions if they wanted gas to flow. Europe called them
| out and said this was obviously a falsehood.
|
| Then the explosions happened, which prevented gas from
| being transported through the pipelines - except for one
| Nordstream 2 pipeline, which actually would require
| Germany to budge for it to be operational. Russia even
| stated that they'd be happy to send gas through the
| remaining pipeline as soon as Germany backtracked.
|
| Whether or not you think Russia did it, the explosion had
| the effect of turning something the Russians had been
| trying and failing to convince other countries of into a
| reality.
| mlyle wrote:
| > If Putin wanted to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop
| sending gas.
|
| Permanently shutting it down significantly constrains
| options for anyone who might seize power in Russia next.
| indymike wrote:
| > Why is that weird? Assuming this is true, there would be
| rather many people with such knowledge. One of them may feel
| the need to talk.
|
| The level of detail about the operation is basically, some
| divers from the US Navy attached bombs to the pipeline during
| a military drill that were detonated with magical sonobouy
| signals according to some professor who said that might work.
|
| Another red flag: The vast majority of the article was about
| a political narrative, which really is focused around
| _hurting_ Russia, and not who is benefited by the destruction
| of the pipeline. The US government does not own our energy
| industry and is often at odds with the gas and oil industry
| here, and this article assumes a level of integration that
| does not exist in the US political system.
| jdhn wrote:
| >and not who is benefited by the destruction of the
| pipeline.
|
| The article itself said that Norway would benefit from the
| destruction of the pipe line.
| indymike wrote:
| > The article itself said that Norway would benefit from
| the destruction of the pipe line.
|
| This does not make the article more credible, in fact, it
| detaches the beneficiary one more degree from the actor.
| drewda wrote:
| Seymour Hersh has decades of credibility from reporting the My
| Lai Massacre to the abuses at Abu Graib.
|
| But he does often rely on sources who remain anonymous:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh#Use_of_anonymous...
|
| I did find it interesting in that Wikipedia article to read
| that The New Yorker's editor insists on knowing the identify of
| all of the anonymous sources that Hersh has used when his
| reporting is published in that magazine. That suggests to me
| that while Hersh can probably be generally trusted, his work is
| of a higher quality when it's published in an outlet like The
| New Yorker, as the editor-in-chief and other staff submit it to
| a more rigorous internal discussion. That's in comparison to
| probably no internal review or discussion by Substack.
| btown wrote:
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-
| bi... goes over how his more recent work verges on conspiracy
| theory.
|
| That even _that_ inconsistent Bin Laden story purportedly
| relied on two distinct sources, and yet his Nord Stream story
| purportedly relies on only a single anonymous source, should
| be a significant red flag here. I have no reason to doubt
| that Hersh heard the quotes in his Nord Stream story from at
| least someone in government, but that source 's motivations
| and truthfulness were not independently verified _even, by
| his own admission, by Hersh_. And that 's just... not
| credible reporting.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _were not independently verified even, by his own
| admission, by Hersh. And that 's just... not credible
| reporting_
|
| since by his own admission, [what you said], that _is_
| credible reporting.
|
| it might not be a credible source or story
| tootie wrote:
| It's unfortunate, but Sy Hersh has kinda flown the coop in
| the last 10 years. He egged on the Seth Rich conspiracy and
| tried to deny the US killed bin Laden. The New Yorker has
| basically disowned him and he hasn't had a byline in many
| years.
| kraussvonespy wrote:
| Too bad the New Yorker abandoned him. If your writing makes
| it past the editors, fact checkers and attorneys at that
| mag, you're probably golden. The effort they spent on
| Lawrence Wright's Scientology article was pretty hardcore:
| https://www.npr.org/transcripts/133561256
| GAN_Game wrote:
| > tried to deny the US killed bin Laden
|
| If he denied the US killed bin Laden he would be
| unreliable. He never denied the US killed bin Laden. You
| saying he said that is what is unreliable.
|
| He said that some of the White House and Pentagon
| assertions about bin Laden, which the New York Times did
| not question in the days after (but did question, to some
| extent, later on) were not accurate. Particularly that no
| one high up in the Pakistani Army, government or
| intelligence knew Bin Laden was in Abbottabad. Hersh
| asserted that was incorrect, as were some other things.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| From the linked Wikipedia article
|
| >Hersh later clarified that he didn't dispute Bin Laden's
| death in Pakistan, and rather meant that the lying began in
| the aftermath of bin Laden's death.
|
| And the Rich stuff hardly sounds like him egging it on.
| somethoughts wrote:
| It does seem like the title could use a "might have" as in "How
| America might have taken out the Nord Stream pipeline."
| mc32 wrote:
| rings of... Orenthal Simpson "If I did it"
| avgcorrection wrote:
| You're free to not believe his anonymous source, but this vapid
| "Tom Clancy" nonsense is uncalled for given that you have no
| counter-arguments whatsoever.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| It's not unsourced, the source is being kept private. That may
| not seem like a meaningful difference but there _is_ a
| difference. And that difference is the reason Seymour Hersh 's
| reputation is relevant.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Seymour Hersh's reputation
|
| Is this satire or what? His reputation is "as a nutcase"
| nowadays.
|
| Most reputable editors, when given a secret-sources story,
| either reject it outright, or say "OK, tell me their names
| and let me talk to them."
|
| If you're Hersh, maybe you get away with saying, "trust me."
| strangattractor wrote:
| Most News outlets prefer to have more than one source of
| info. For the life of me I cannot see how this would be a net
| plus benefit to the US. The potential to destabilize our
| allies seems likely. If they find out it is true - some of
| them would be at minimum very pissed.
| hedora wrote:
| Does it actually say that anywhere?
|
| I read the first half of the article, and skimmed the second.
| It doesn't claim to be sourced from anywhere, and the only
| paragraph that discusses sources and fact checking is when
| they point out the White House says the entire article is a
| work of fiction. It doesn't present any evidence that it
| happened (other than that the US has a big swimming pool that
| the navy trains in), and summarizes itself by saying that it
| was a perfect plan (presumably meaning it left behind no
| evidence), except that they actually did it.
|
| What am I missing?
| ravi-delia wrote:
| It claims that the info came from someone "with direct
| knowledge of the operational planning"
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| And it includes direct quotes from that person in the
| last paragraphs. It was clearly someone Hersh spoke to
| directly.
|
| While I am extraordinarily distrustful of news reports
| using anonymous sources you do have to consider the
| author here. Ultimately we are deciding if we trust him
| and, for me personally, he lends a lot of credibility.
|
| The other side of this is, duh, of course America blew up
| the pipeline. I said at the time that we were the most
| likely culprit.
|
| There's a very small subset of groups who have the
| capability to do this and even fewer who have the
| motivation. It forces Germany/EU to stop buying NG from
| Russia and start buying LNG from the US (among others)
| with exceptionally minimal political risk to the US.
|
| The US will just continue to deny that we did it, this
| article will get no traction in mainstream media. If
| incontrovertible proof ever did surface the media will
| just bury the story and if anyone involved is forced to
| comment they will just spin it as a good and necessary
| and just thing that they did to help Ukraine with a dose
| of natural gas bad because of climate change and all will
| be forgiven.
| apnew wrote:
| > Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of
| a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as
| BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that,
| three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream
| pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of
| the operational planning.
|
| The third paragraph in the article.
| beebmam wrote:
| Well yeah, I think Seymour Hersh's reputation is relevant.
| He's pretty much a conspiracy theorist in this era.[1]
| Including his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh#Criticism_and_
| co...
| GAN_Game wrote:
| > his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden
|
| You give a link but it is nowhere in that link. I watched
| an interview where Hersh talked about how the US killed bin
| Laden. Hersh has always said this.
|
| Hersh did do reporting that countered the US government
| story about bin Laden. Namely the idea no high Pakistani
| army/intelligence/government official knew where bin Laden
| was in Pakistan. As well as some other things.
|
| The conspiracy theory is believing bin Laden sat in a big
| compound in Abbottabad with no one important in the
| Pakistani government knowing this. I guess the US
| government feels it needs to state this for some diplomatic
| reason, but it is ludicrous.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting
| that they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty
| weak place to build a large story._
|
| I'd bet my last dollar that at least four nations had "blow up
| Nord Stream to force continued conflict" contingency plans.
|
| Who did it? Germany, Russia, USA, Ukraine, or a curve ball from
| the one of the Nordic or Baltic states? We'll probably never
| know, and none of those answers would surprise me.
| linkjuice4all wrote:
| Why just those countries? Surely some countries in the middle
| east would be interested in opening and supplying petro
| products to a new market. What about China? Maybe they're
| interested in division and weakening their nearest neighbor
| so they could buy up all the gas?
|
| There are too many players with varying interests at
| different levels to just go off of someone's reputation and
| an unnamed source. Perhaps Biden or some other head of state
| needs to come along and blow up this thread so that
| moderators and commenters alike have to find other outlets
| for the water they're carrying.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| Are any middle eastern militaries competent enough to blow
| up the Nord Strom pipeline and cover their tracks?
| jccooper wrote:
| It's not very deep. You can buy a tethered underwater ROV
| rated for 300ft OTS for a few thousands of dollars. Not
| to mention a camera and an actuator on an anchor.
| Practically anybody could have done it. Even non-state
| actors. Hardest part would be getting the explosives in
| sufficient quantity.
| netsharc wrote:
| Prince Choppy Choppy can't even get rid of 1 guy without
| the whole world noticing. But to clutch my tinfoil hat,
| if Saudi Arabia really did want to do this, Prince Choppy
| Choppy could've told Biden "We're doing this, I know you
| can see us, but be quiet and you'll get your cheap oil,
| OK?".
|
| Although if Biden took part in such a conspiracy, someone
| in one of the American intelligence agencies would've
| probably leaked it out.
| nl wrote:
| Ever hear about Qatar screwing anything up? Me either.
|
| They have successfully annoyed just about ever regional
| player, as well as the US and every other major power at
| times, and yet mange to thread the needle of staying
| friendly with the US and Iran at the same time. The way
| they played out the Saudi sanctions on them was a
| masterpiece, and they are the biggest gas exporter in the
| world.
|
| No evidence they are involved of course, but there are
| plenty of extremely competent militaries in the Middle
| East.
| strangattractor wrote:
| I think we left out extraterrestrial aliens.
| RajT88 wrote:
| The one you'd never guess: Vanuatu
|
| It's the perfect crime
| hef19898 wrote:
| Considering that a lot people came out after the pipeline was
| blown up, people with the necessary training and experience,
| saying that it was not a particularly difficult job, it might
| even have been some rogues having a fun fishing trip.
|
| Besides motive, this article doesn't provide anything new.
| And that the US had at least motive is established fact since
| basically the day of the explosion.
| lamontcg wrote:
| There's probably thousands of scuba divers are trained in
| cold water diving to 300ft/100m depths. That is deep
| technical diving, but not crazy or stupid deep.
| kersplody wrote:
| If any part of Hersh's claims are true, which I doubt, the U.S.
| Senate and House U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
| will demand immediate classified hearings with DoD & IC since
| this was done all wrong.
|
| If they don't demand them (SSCI is still rather bipartisan)
| within 24-48 hours, you know it's complete BS.
| spxd wrote:
| Amazing journalism again. This can be a huge problem for Germany,
| Europe and US.
| stevespang wrote:
| [dead]
| jbd28 wrote:
| Hersh hasn't gotten anything right since My Lai. The Matthew
| Berry of investigative reporting
| zelias wrote:
| Conceivably this is a pro-Biden article. It demonstrates what
| Biden is willing to do and/or is capable of when it comes to big,
| complicated foreign policy questions. If you know ahead of time
| that a Russian invasion is inevitable (as all intelligence
| assessments made very clear) wouldn't it be a prudent strategy to
| relieve Russia of one of its most prominent economic weapons?
|
| Considering the much rumored campaign announcement, I can
| absolutely see a large portion of "centrist America" respecting
| Biden for this move, and rewarding him for it. I think this quote
| from TFA encapsulates the sentiment:
|
| > The source had a much more streetwise view of Biden's decision
| to sabotage more than 1500 miles of Gazprom pipeline as winter
| approached. "Well," he said, speaking of the President, "I gotta
| admit the guy has a pair of balls. He said he was going to do it,
| and he did."
| ajross wrote:
| I think that's a reasonable spin. And I'll admit that there's a
| repressed neocon in the back of my brain that secretly wants to
| believe that the US is still capable of taking decisive and
| effective action in defense of world order.
|
| But... this is just really, really thin. Hersh had no editor on
| this, it's literally a self-published blog with one entry[1],
| created for just this article. No one else wanted to run it,
| one has to assume. There's one source, with only the thinnest
| of descriptions[2] and no independent verification described.
|
| Everyone wants to lean hard on Hersh's reputation from My Lai
| and Abu Ghraib. But those stories had evidence! The vietnam
| story was about a covered-up-but-very-real prosecution of an
| actual person for actual crimes. Abu Ghraib had the famous
| photographs and people willing to go on record with their own
| names. This isn't the same at all.
|
| I mean, maybe it's true. Again, the Freudian Neocon would like
| that. But realistically this could also be someone feeding
| Hersh a fake story sourced from anywhere. I don't think this
| really tells us much of anything.
|
| [1] When I saw this the first time, I immediately thought it
| must be a fake!
|
| [2] Just "someone familiar with the planning", I mean, were
| they even looped in on the execution? How does that description
| square with all the Tom Clancy prose about operation processes?
| sargun wrote:
| Wouldn't there be satellite imagery of said ship in the area?
| Can't you get that from the likes of Planet Labs? If so, this
| should be a pretty easy theory to (dis)prove.
| Tepix wrote:
| Why was there a questionmark added to the title? It's against the
| site rules
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It was added by the site's moderator.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713747
| [deleted]
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Looks like the only 100% benefactor of this is Ukraine. Russia
| now must pump all its gas to Europe through Ukraine. And they are
| already at war with Russia, so there is no risk of escalation.
| And they have pulled other impressive stunts no one believed were
| possible, like Moscow cruiser, Kerch bridge, Engels airport. They
| kept it secret because didn't want to alienate Germany.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There are a lot of details presented so it seems further
| investigation is warranted. As far as "Why American would want to
| take out the Nordstream pipeline", there's been an ongoing desire
| to get Europe to buy US LNG tanker gas to meet domestic energy
| demand, instead of Russian pipeline gas, and blowing up the
| pipeline is a step in that direction.
|
| Of course, the optimal solution for Europe would have been to
| start massive renewable infrastructure development over a decade
| ago, then they'd be on their way to not needing any gas imports,
| instead of having their domestic economy held hostage like this.
| The rest of the world would be wise to think in these terms -
| fundamental necessities like energy should not be subject to the
| random fluctuations of global supply chains due to wars,
| pandemics, etc.
|
| It's very reckless behavior if true, essentially an act of war. I
| can't imagine Washington politicians responding with calm
| deliberation if someone was blowing up US LNG tankers, for
| comparison.
|
| The story does sound a little strange, but who knows? I'd have
| suspected the explosives were planted by underwater rover /
| submarine but maybe human divers are less detectable.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I think the question on everyone's mind right now can be
| adequately summed up with the quote:
|
| "Are we the bad guys? I think we're the bad guys?"
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| The Nordstream pipeline was blown up by Russia. They have done
| this twice before. Russia weaponizes its energy. That has been
| the pattern. I don't believe America would attack an ally like
| this and I don't believe Hersh has found the truth.
|
| Russia Georgia Energy Crisis (2006)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_...
|
| Turkmenistan (2009)
|
| https://www.rferl.org/a/Pipeline_Explosion_Stokes_Tensions_B...
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| I don't believe Russia is capable to do that the way it was
| done... and sorry: They are not even capable to be that stupid
| also (stupid enough, but that would top it by magnitudes).
| partiallypro wrote:
| > They are not even capable to be that stupid
|
| But they were stupid enough to invade Ukraine and think they
| were going to take it over in 2 weeks?
|
| But the US itself is just so stupid that it would jeopardize
| the entire NATO alliance which is critical to US global
| power? Ok.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Your only concept for what the Russians were thinking when
| they invaded Ukraine is what western media and politicians
| have fed you. You don't actually know anything about what
| they were thinking. lol.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I'd love to read sources on why they started a war they
| thought they'd win in 2 weeks which now has come to
| 100,000+ troops lost (on both sides separately.) Please
| share, because I'm interested in their strategy.
| qaz_plm wrote:
| Where can I read more about "what they were thinking?"
| lossolo wrote:
| History repeats itself.
|
| > In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to
| sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers
| of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including
| software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian
| natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White
| House official.
|
| > At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western
| Europe from importing Soviet natural gas.
|
| [1]
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r...
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| https://archive.is/jaqOv
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Honestly. As European I'm glad that somebody did that. No matter
| who.
|
| Even this unsourced story makes more sense that Russians did that
| themself.
| dgroshev wrote:
| The only factual bits in the post:
|
| - Biden saying that NS2 will not go forward
|
| - the pipeline is blown up
|
| Did I miss anything? Because the rest is conjectures, one
| anonymous source, and references to historical events. I don't
| understand what does this add to the discourse.
|
| Adding Hersh's name to the conspiracy theory (in a very literal
| sense) does not add any factual weight to it, it's still an
| unfounded conspiracy theory. It's (again, literally) an "ad
| hominem" argument, which is widely understood to be a fallacy.
|
| Which also makes people linking stuff like
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...
| wrong, because it's not about Hersh's integrity or lack thereof,
| the whole premise is wrong.
| tromp wrote:
| Perhaps the discussion should be phrased instead as
|
| how likely can a hypothetical operation as sketched by Mr Hersh,
| involving so many people in so many governments, remain without
| hard evidence leaking out for years?
|
| Personally, I wonder what would have happened to the sonar buoy
| that was alledged to have triggered the explosives. Wouldn't they
| have to come back and pick it up to avoid leaving evidence of the
| triggering mechanism? And if they have to come pick it up anyway,
| why drop a buoy at all? Why not use that presence to send a time
| delayed trigger?
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