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Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream
- Mizza 4y agoCui bono? https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-suppl...
- readonthegoapp 4y agothese substack posts about the nordstream ii pipeline are still up, but articles from reputable outlets are banned.
- JetSpiegel 4y agoIf your response to "The CIA blew up Nordstream" is "Elliot Higgins says they didn't", that's your credibility down the drain.
- runnerup 4y agoIt feels rather damning that Hersh didn’t verify some of the easily verifiable claims that his source made. Why would you not have researchers do some fact checking on the story before publishing it so loudly?
- mannerheim 4y agoIf you fact check and you're right, you've wasted your time. If you fact check and you're wrong, you either can't publish (wasting the time you took for the story) or you publish anyway knowing it's wrong, in which case, it's still a waste of time.
- giantrobot 4y agoOr you publish and report the claims made by the source and call out specifically where those claims couldn't be verified. It's like science publishing, too often negative results go unpublished. Knowing what didn't work can be as useful as knowing what did work.
- krisoft 4y ago> If you fact check and you're right, you've wasted your time. That is not how it works. First of all there is no “you’re right”. The journalist doesn’t have first hand observations. They cannot be “right” or “wrong” only their source can be. The journalist goes and checks what can be verified independently. No matter what the outcome of these checks nobody wasted their time. The result is a stronger article, and continued respect for the journalist in his profession.
- mannerheim 4y ago[flagged]
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> If you fact check and you're right, you've wasted your time. I see it differently. I used to be a test engineer. My tests made it onto documentation accompanying a $50,000 RF snooper (in 1985), and were verifications that the item passed the test. I like it when tests don't fail.
- mach5 4y agohe did do fact checking, with people he had previously worked with at New Yorker https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/seymour-hersh-im-interview-joe-biden-sprengte-nord-stream-weil-er-deutschland-nicht-traut-li.317700 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/seymour...
- stefan_ 4y agoHersh, fact checking: https://twitter.com/grodira/status/1626150758017015809 https://twitter.com/grodira/status/1626150758017015809
- tptacek 4y agoThen they're apparently not very good, are they?
- runnerup 4y agoThey fact-checked "salinity-matched C4"? My god they're terrible.
- HybridCurve 4y ago"The American explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water" This was the most ridiculous part. I can't think of a reason they would prefer to use an explosive charge in a position visible to inspection.
- bhk 4y agoAcoustic impedance of seawater varies with salinity.
- runnerup 4y agoSure but that doesn’t generalize to other materials. Salinity matched C4 won’t be acoustically matched. Definitely a red herring point.
- epistasis 4y ago[flagged]
- alrs 4y agoIf you doubt that Abu Ghraib happened, I dunno what to tell you.
- ceejayoz 4y agoNo one doubts Abu Ghraib happened. Hersh's reporting in the twenty years since is somewhat in question.
- ceejayoz 4y agoHe's in "I want corroboration" territory for me. The big scoops - My Lai, Abu Gharaib - were backed up with hard evidence and other organizations confirming the allegations. Stuff like "the US faked Bin Laden's burial and chucked chunks of him into the mountains" have, thus far, not been.
- baybal2 4y agoAbu Ghraib happened, and My Lai happened, and Hersh was first who brought these two stories to light. Neither were some giant secrets, and were previously dismissed as unsubstantiated rumour. Hersh collected enough factoids together to substantiate them enough to become a news story, rather than a military legend.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Hersh was first who brought these two stories to light. Yes, but critically, also not the last. Other journalists corroborated, more sources came forward, evidence, hearings, photographs, convictions.
- jessaustin 4y agoSimilarly, we'll learn more about this operation over the next years, unless of course we get the species-ending nuclear holocaust that some appear to desire.
- linksnapzz 4y ago[flagged]
- nerdponx 4y agoFor those lacking context, like me: > Seymour Hersh’s recent Substack post claims to provide a highly detailed account of a covert US operation to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines in order to ensure that Russia would be unable to supply Germany with natural gas through them. All the information in Hersh’s post reportedly comes from a single unnamed source, who appears to have had direct access to every step of the planning and execution of this highly secretive operation. https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/blowing-holes-in-seymour-hershs-pipe https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/blowing-holes-in-seymour... This is an impressively thorough debunking.
- mannerheim 4y agoNot sure why anybody took seriously a story an octogenarian wrote on his blog from interviewing a single anonymous source where he got numerous basic facts wrong anyway.
- fundad 4y ago[flagged]
- dmix 4y agoIf someone was feeding Hersh false information why would they reference the Alta class? Assuming it was some Intel op or some insider, did they just google some Norwegian navy ships that could plausibly fit the picture? Or did Hersh draw that connection himself? Hersh has been criticized for listening to cranks. Maybe some Intel officer (or adjacent gov/military worker) heard some rumours internally but there was comparmentalization or operational security protecting the details, and then tried to piece it together themselves, before leaking it to Hersh. If it is false it's worth asking why and who would care to push these angles.
- tptacek 4y agoPresumably it's for the same reasons that people gave him faulty technical information about Sarin gas in his debunked Syria story, or whatever weird details he was fed about the notion that the Osama bin Laden raid never happened, or the idea that USSOCOM is secretly controlled by a sect within the Vatican. Because he'll run with it, and people pay attention to him. People troll all the time on the Internet; why would we assume they wouldn't troll everywhere else too?
- rjsw 4y agoI didn't think he claimed that the OBL raid never happened, just that the backstory about how he was found was wrong.
- rainworld 4y ago[flagged]
- scythe 4y agoThe satellite imagery of the Alta shows the dates June 5, 7, 20, and later (until the Alta is scrapped on the 30th). The BALTOPS 2022 exercises took place June 5–17. So the imagery generally does not provide evidence of the Alta's location during most of BALTOPS 2022.
- tptacek 4y agoIt's helpful to consider that BALTOPS itself is a batshit cover for one of the highest profile military operations of the last 20 years (it's sort of like the military equivalent of altering the schedule at the San Diego Comic Con to cover a heist), and that it might be hard to even come up with a reason that you'd need an Alta-class ship to pull this off, or really even a military ship at all; a lot of what Hersh is talking about here appears to be stuff that civilian extractive industry professionals already do (remote detonation in particular).
- peteradio 4y agoWould a "professional" agree to do this work without extensive obvious evidence that it was sanctioned on high? Wouldn't you risk becoming fall guys if you agree to do all this with a minimal crew on a wooden fishing boat? You'd risk being arrested by the local police. I think there is some holistic view on how to get the whole thing to work that might not lead to an obvious minimal solution. Various interests get in the way and add quite a degree of complication.
- tptacek 4y agoYou don't need to go find the world's best miners like in the movie Armageddon; you can use military divers. You just don't use a carefully tracked warship, one of a single-digit number in its class, as a diving platform. You get the same weird thing with this "camouflage" thing with the C4. Camouflaging from what? They need to make the explosive charges undetectable... for what? Like, the US blows up the Nord Stream pipeline and Russia is like, "oh, shit, we never detected a mine, I guess we'll never know if NATO was behind this, and they're innocent until proven guilty!" Forget for a second about the "salinity matching" thing being gibberish; what exactly was this part of the operation that Hersh decided to document trying to accomplish? There is zero uncertainty that somebody blew up the pipeline.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- molopolo24 4y agoLet us consider that, even if he was fed false-information and his story discredited we can do limited conclusions from it. It might not affirm "the West blew up Nordstream" but it certainly does not affirm "the West NOT blow up Nordstream".
- epistasis 4y agoFor that matter, it certainly doesn't exclude the possibility that the person posting as molopolo24 was personally responsible for the attack! And now that the possibility has been raised, we must all very seriously consider it along with all the other possibilities. This is only fair.
- runnerup 4y agoI mean, I personally think its reasonable that the USA blew up the pipeline. Personally I'm at about 75% USA, 20% Russia, 5% someone else. I just also believe that Hersh's article was really, really, incredibly bad.
- floxy 4y agoI haven't followed any of this really at all, but is there a compelling reason why Ukraine isn't at the top of everyone's list? Seems like they would have the motive to prevent Germany from giving-in to Russian demands to keep gas flowing and at the same time hurt Russia. It doesn't seem like it was a highly technical or expensive operation that would have prevented a smaller player from accomplishing it, and in fact there are signs that it wasn't a highly coordinated job. My completely uninformed analysis starts the odds at 75% Ukraine, 10% U.S., 10% some Russian faction, 5% other.
- runnerup 4y agoMaybe! I feel everything Ukraine does is under a microscope and they’d be hesitant to upset the USA or risk losing intl support by going rogue on something like this.
- alienicecream 4y ago[flagged]
- mannerheim 4y agoThe glowies faked the transponders! They faked the satellite imagery too! And they even faked the witnesses and photographers who saw the ship! Case closed.
- alienicecream 4y agoI don't think it really matters if Hersh's story is correct in all the details, or if it was done in a completely different way. So I don't really understand the zeal which people have to poke holes in it. What matters is motive, means and opportunity and only a few nations, all in NATO, have all three. And no one in NATO is going to do anything like this without making sure they get approval from the US first. That's pretty much all you need to know.
- tptacek 4y agoThis is a non-statement. NATO is 29 other countries besides the US, all with their own motives, and you can contrive of motives for every other global power with the means to blow up a pipeline; the "opportunity" part of it doesn't even make sense.
- alienicecream 4y agoYou find it plausible that a global power outside of NATO would commit an act of international terrorism like this, blowing up the critical industrial infrastructure of a NATO member and everyone would just let it slide? Or that any one of 29 NATO member countries would do this acting all on their own?
- tptacek 4y agoI think we have zero information and zero clues about who did this and trying to reason axiomatically about it, as HN is wont to do, isn't going to get us any closer to the truth.
- kornhole 4y agoI spent a few days with the chief of special operations of the joint chiefs of staff, and he told me many stories of things they would do to cover their tracks in special ops. For example, they would dismantle an airplane and file off every serial number of every part and then put it back together again. Anyone planning an operation of this scale and significance would have thought to ensure the ship had an alibi. Moving the AIS transponder to another ship and send it on a tour seems trivially easy.
- mannerheim 4y agoThere's satellite photography and a picture by a photographer of the ship in question too.
- tptacek 4y agoWell, but, how hard could it be for the world's best resourced intelligence agencies to fake that data? Come on, man.
- tptacek 4y agoAccording to the same analysis: it doesn't even make sense that they'd require an Alta-class ship from Norway's Navy in the first place; the ship was essentially just a diving platform, and civilian ships operate in those waters with far less need for cover. Moreover, the whole structure of the operation Hersh claims: EC-UBA divers planting C4 charges detonated by a sonobuoy dropped by a Norwegian P8, doesn't make sense either: remote underwater detonation is a routine operation performed in the civilian oil and gas industry. Not to mention: the P8 implicated Norway's Air Force, contradiction a big chunk of Hersh's story. None of this checks out. You can make any number of unfalsifiable arguments about them not checking out deliberately as part of psy-ops or whatever, but at that point you've taken the whole story back to square one: we just don't know what happened, and Hersh's story has essentially nothing to tell us about it, other than that one random, implausibly-well-informed anonymous person told Hersh, one of journalism's least trustworthy figures, that that's what happened. Look, I'm just a dude on a message board reading a set of competing claims about a subject I know literally nothing at all about. But I trust these claims more than I trust Hersh's claims, by a factor of infinity.
- ChickenNugger 4y ago[flagged]
- snapcaster 4y agoHow easy would it be for a military or intelligence service to fake this data? I don't really have any experience or idea on how reliable these signals are for something like this
- tptacek 4y agoCountervailing OSINT data isn't the only problem with the story Hersh is telling; a deeper problem is that the whole scheme doesn't make much sense. The author links to a more expansive debunking at the top of his story (it's a better link than the one we're reading now, because it incorporates all this Norwegian minesweeper OSINT), and the bulk of it is just observations about how dumb this mission structure is. Implausibly informed anonymous single source? Check. Midlist Tom Clancy-grade technical details, like salinity camouflaged C4 charges? Check. Basic factual errors, like the Norwegian Navy not operating P8s? Check. Irrational strategic details, like using Navy minesweepers as platforms for human divers during a huge, widely monitored, extensively planned military exercise? Check. That's just this analysis. But you can work back through Hersh's credibility with similar debunkings of his previous stories. Look at the enmity Hersh's cheering section has for Bellingcat, for instance, for taking his Syria Sarin story to pieces.
- halothane 4y agoThe same Bellingcat started by an unemployed man from Leicester, England - "perhaps the foremost expert on ammunitions used in Syria"? I've been reading most of your comments and they all lack details and real evidence, but a lot of character assassination thrown in. I love your writing style, though. Check.
- tptacek 4y agoDid you see me call Bellingcat "perhaps the foremost expert on ammunitions used in Syria"? Because I didn't see me calling them that. But you might have a better vantage point than I do.
- 4y ago
- Guthur 4y agoThey had means, motive and opportunity, and they even said that would do it. When pushed Biden said, "we'll put an end to it (Nord 2)". And the number of hit pieces against the journalist in question is telling. Using wholly dubious paid for misinformation from Bellingcat. But if you still think the US are innocent there is really not much more that can be said.
- joshsyn 4y ago[dead]
- einpoklum 4y ago> "and his recent factually incorrect takes on the Syria gas attacks and Skripal poisoning" I don't know of anything incorrect in Hersh's take on (one of) the Syria gas attacks: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n24/seymour-m.-hersh/whose-sarin https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n24/seymour-m.-hersh/who... and I haven't read what he wrote on the Skripal affair.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoThe CIA narrative on the "Syria gas attacks" have been roundly debunked by the meticulous reporting of Aaron Mate (and others). The even more absurd "Skripal poisoning" incident has completely fallen apart upon only the barest scrutiny. It is sad and disturbing these these completely debunked narratives are still being touted by people as credible. Anyone (rightfully) calling for skepticism and scrutiny into Hersch's account of the pipeline bombing should, at the very least, have the same skepticism towards CIA/US government claims that are even flimsier.
- wasdwasdwasd 4y agoSkripal poisoning denial is so good man, I've never heard that one before. Especially after one of the guys accused turned out to be a Hero of Russian Federation under a fake name. Found a ria news article with almost exact same wording you used but in russian. Anyway I guess you would say Navalny, Litvinenko were fakes as well. 3% of russians believe in skripal thing, you are preaching to the choir, the real skeptics in russia are the ones saying it is real. "same skepticism towards CIA/US government" Yeah americans do that all the time and definitely do it the most, but that is also because they live there. maybe its time to take a look in the mirror and start focusing on what your country is doing Stanislav Petrov.
- astrange 4y agoAaron Maté is a ridiculous tankie who's currently claiming the US is trying to coup Hungary. (Why as a leftist he's supporting the current Hungary government is unclear, but being a tankie requires you to start with the US being bad and work the rest out from there.)
- DerekL 4y agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34743078
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- uoaei 4y ago[flagged]
- ROTMetro 4y agoYeah. Kind of a stretch to believe it's a coincidence that the very first time that a duplicate post has been made on HN it's this story, isn't it? Hmmmm.... makes you think. Like, deep deep only people interested in the truth kind of thinking.
- yborg 4y agoBecause you hold a different view of an event doesn't make all other views part of some Illuminatus conspiracy.
- mushbino 4y agoAre there still people who claim My Lai and Abu Ghraib didn't happen?
- uoaei 4y agoBecause someobe has an idea that their theory is smart, doesn't make their argument very good nor does it guarantee that they know what they're talking about. The levels of hubris present in discourse like this, as regards the confidence with which people claim arguments in one direction or another, is absurd. Yet it runs rampant among the "rationalists" of HN constantly in the comments sections.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago[flagged]
- dabeeeenster 4y agoWhy?
- mrinfinite 4y agoProbably cause basic google search says that he thinks we are living in a post truth world (title of his book). By definition he shouldnt be listened to for gathering truth. Truth was so last year according to him.
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoBecause Bellingcat is little more than a CIA information laundering mill that is staffed almost entirely by former intelligence officers and is funded by the US and British governments (among others). https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/828554441485869056 https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/828554441485869056 Edit: For those who doubt Bellingcat is little more than a CIA mouthpiece, it is something they brag about. >But, perhaps more importantly, it has also enabled U.S. officials and lawmakers to discuss Moscow’s skullduggery openly without revealing the sources and methods of the U.S. intelligence agencies. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/bellingcat-can-say-what-u-s-intelligence-cant/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/17/bellingcat-can-say-what...
- einpoklum 4y ago> I doubt Jens Stoltenberg was a US intelligence asset in his early teens. Actually, it seems Stoltenberg was politically active during the late years of the Vietnam war, as a teenager: https://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-young-78471711 https://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-young-78471711 that doesn't mean he necessarily "worked directly with US intelligence", but - he might have. He did go on to become a staunch NATO-supporter after all. > mine clearing has long been a staple of the BALTOPS exercises. Implying that this is something that was added as cover for this operation is honestly laughable. So, an extra R&D exercise in addition to everything that was already planned. Adding something that doesn't seem extraordinary is a good idea; adding an strange exercise would seem suspicious. > Secondly, the people behind this highly secret operation that could not afford leaks had now somehow convinced the BALTOPS planners to change the parameters of their exercise Add another exercise, supposedly similar to existing exercises. > All of this either without informing them of why or by adding more people to the loop that could leak the plans. On the contrary. If this had been an isolated operation, it would have been far more likely to raise suspicions. This seems like a way to minimize the disturbances. Don't know about the ship business, it requires close scrutiny if one is not an expert on these matters and I'm certainly not. What I can say is that reporting based on anonymous sources, no material evidence, and little or no ability to otherwise verify is problematic - even if the US is the most likely suspect for blowing up Nordstream.
- christkv 4y agoConfusion with his father Thorvald Stoltenberg
- Convolutional 4y agoThorvald was defense minister. His son had interactions with the student peace movement as a teenager. If the son passed information to the father, and this was passed to the CIA - then the CIA would have known of him from his teenage years. Norwegian papers were filled in recent years with the massive intelligence operations against Norwegian student anti-NATO groups. The US was terrified Norway would follow France and start pulling back from NATO.
- mberning 4y agoThe head scratcher is why you would use any surface ships at all for such a clandestine operation.
- kornhole 4y agoSubmarines can also be detected by sonar. Ships are common and do not raise as much suspicion as submarines. Either could have launched the divers.
- 1-more 4y agocan you deploy divers from subs?
- secfirstmd 4y agoEasily. It's one of their most used functions.
- nickff 4y agoYes, it's common practice, and has been for decades. It is my (unfounded suspicion) that submarine-based divers were the ones to destroy the Nordstreams.
- rpeden 4y agoYou sure can! It was used quite extensively Operation Ivy Bells: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
- 1-more 4y agothis is amazing! Tysm.
- steponlego 4y agoSheer hubris, knowing the media will carry water for you later.
- christkv 4y agoOne interesting thing about the Jens Stoltenberg. It’s Thorvald Stoltenberg, his father who was defense minister and foreign minister after 1979 as well as was a high level official in the Norwegian state and defense department during the last years of the Vietnam conflict. Confusion but basically father and son.
- charintstr 4y agoYou would think that for releasing a major story like this that Hersh would be trying to get his details correct. Confusing father and son is not a negligible error.
- miguelazo 4y agohttps://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-young-78471711 https://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-young-78471711
- christkv 4y agoA Norwegian minesweeper was active over the area and returned to the area as well. Norway does have minefields specialized in this field. If I was going to do this I would drop off the teams in three zodiacs and then pick them up on the return this way my ship was never stationary.
- joshsyn 4y ago[dead]
- m000 4y agoAuthor: > It is often stated that people who lie have a tendency to add too much superfluous detail to their accounts. Goes on to provide too much superfluous detail to his own account. /s
- magwa101 4y ago[dead]
- regnull 4y agoHersh is clearly a douche. But what if the US did, indeed, destroy those pipelines? Great job, guys. Blow up the rest of them. The last I’ve heard, South Stream is still operational.
- stavros 4y agoYep, nothing like blowing up your allies' infrastructure to make them like you.
- kneel 4y agoI'd take any reports done by a self described "OSINT Researcher" with a heavy grain of salt.
- tptacek 4y agoWhich of the "OSINT" arguments in this blog post do you find implausible?
- draw_down 4y agoIt was funny watching people call Hersh “some substack guy” in regards to his original post. We believe what we like.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- astrange 4y agoIt's well known that amateur OSINT researchers are some of the most reliable people around these days. As long as they aren't Redditors anyway.
- kneel 4y agoIndependent journalists vs state funded 'Intel' groups When it comes to critiquing the government I'm going to balance their incentives.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- steponlego 4y agoDamage control - ENGAGE! Hahaha.
- stephc_int13 4y agoI've read both this paper and the original Seymour Hersh article. I found the abundance of details a bit weird, to be honest, but not enough to discount the credibility of the thesis. On the other hand, this paper is poorly constructed, mostly using straw man techniques and sleight of hands to discredit the original paper. I think it's doing the opposite of what it is trying to achieve, adding free publicity on top.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y agoSome details in Hershs story were weird and made be cautious, but here is some more info that put some of that into new light: "It looks for all the world like somebody organised two totally separate operations, involving two separately triggered pipeline attacks, and that Hersh’s source only knows about one of them." https://www.eugyppius.com/p/nord-stream-update-in-lengthy-interview https://www.eugyppius.com/p/nord-stream-update-in-lengthy-in...
- EdwardDiego 4y agoI find that write-up dubious. > The fear, however, was that the bombs wouldn’t work if they stayed in the water too long. This is actually what happened with two of the bombs. Seriously? The world's largest military hasn't developed explosive devices that are sufficiently waterproof? > There were still active explosives on the sea bed as the pipes were leaking their gas, which explains why partially complicit Denmark and Sweden closed the whole area and denied all access, until they themselves had removed everything. This is just silly, and ignores Occam's Razor in order to fit a fact into a pre-determined narrative. Bubbles reduce the density of water, thus potentially reducing buoyancy (in research based around oil rigs and the like, it was found that a large enough leak pushed enough water upwards to compensate, but this wasn't a large leak). Aerated water is a known drowning hazard for workers in water treatment plants for this reason, now add enough gas into the ocean beneath a boat, see what happens. The leakage of residual gas in the pipeline into the water column posed a maritime hazard but sure, it was to remove the faulty bombs, that's why. They could have at least had the decency to mention and then explain away the buoyancy issue, at least insult my intelligence to my face.
- macinjosh 4y agoThis guy says that other intelligence agencies like from Norway being involved is evidence that is not all that secret. In reality, Congressional offices are sieves for intel though unlike Foreign intel agencies on the other hand which are professionals. He then complains that publicly available ship and aircraft data don’t line up as if they would use publicly tracked craft for a secret operation. No holes have been blown.
- cormacrelf 4y agoOne of the central claims of Hersh’s story is that it was done using publicly tracked craft during a prominent and highly observed training exercise… on purpose. Supposedly because it’s cover to be in the area at all, it’s a benign explanation for when someone suspects something. No need to do any funny business turning off transponders, if you were doing it this way, you’d want the transponders on. When you read that and then find out the ships claimed to have been used weren't even there, then yes, it does blow a hole in the credibility of the source. At best it is some Army veteran or someone like that, speculating from the outside, because the story does not line up with the facts and they don’t offer an explanation for why that’s the case. And then Hersh has reported them as being credible. If he offers more explanations now, it doesn’t ameliorate the stain, because a real source should have known those things and not made factual errors in the first place. You can’t even twist it into a story that the US deliberately did it incompetently so that reports about it would not be believed. Apparently they involved the Norwegians (telling them about a secret op!) for their expertise in how deep the sea is, as if the US doesn’t have maps of the Baltic Sea floor. Telling your allies what you’re doing in an attempt to prevent them from finding out you did it does not make sense. It does blow a hole in the credibility of Hersh’s source and his reporting. It brings the information we have about US involvement back to zero, it’s not an argument that they didn’t do it or couldn’t have done it. We all know the Americans are perfectly capable of blowing up a pipeline without leaving evidence. But nobody has any evidence they did it.
- xyzelement 4y agoI didn't read Hersh's essay, I did read this and found it logical. BUT independently from these two writeups, the thing that doesn't make any sense is the idea that Russian would blow up their own pipeline. It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible? I guess so... but it doesn't make sense as the go-to explanation.
- ceejayoz 4y ago“We couldn’t have done it” seems like a good way to sow discord among the Western allies. There’s also the theory that it gets Gazprom out of contract violation penalties.
- xyzelement 4y agoI hadn't heard of that, interesting. But curious, (1) are the penalties greater than the cost of the pipeline + all foregone future revenue? (2) Do they care? Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it, couldn't really get worse in the moment, can it?
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe cost of the pipeline was likely a sunk cost before it actually got sunk. Even intact, there’d be little chance of it being activated anytime soon. Penalties can be taken out of Gazprom holdings abroad. There’s already discussion of giving sanctioned seized Russian assets to Ukraine.
- xyzelement 4y agoSo I still fail to see the logic. If Russian assets are being seized anyway, what's the benefit to Russia to destroying the physical pipeline they control and could choose to use in the future?
- ninjagoo 4y ago> Updated to include information given my Seymour Hersh in interviews in the days following his original post. This was in bold font underneath the picture under the headline. Presumably it should be "Updated to include information given by Seymour Hersh in interviews in the days following his original post." If Oliver is relying on details to blow holes in the Hersh story, the prognosis isn't that great for Oliver's story, at the moment.
- jessaustin 4y agoDon't sell him short! At this rate he'll get enough traffic from crackpot-realist dead-enders that NED will make him into a new Bellingcat.
- wsc981 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- groby_b 4y agoIt is probably worth keeping in mind that since at least 2006 or so, Seymour and the truth aren't really much on speaking terms any more. If he then posts a whole bunch of extraordinary unverifiable claims by an unnamable source, I don't really think there's much need for rebuttals.
- mushbino 4y agoWhich stories did he get wrong?
- hanklazard 4y ago> I am unsure as to why all the intelligence officials in the initial planning meetings for the mission felt that the only possible way to sabotage the pipeline would be at the short section directly bordering Russia, instead of the large section in more favorable waters. If you (US military / intelligence) knew that the entire world was going to blame you after this happened, you might feel that was critical placement for the sabotage. You would also plan to immediately seed the entire media ecosystem with “Russia obviously did this” statements and the explosive placement would bolster your claim.
- ggm 4y agoHersh is in the difficult position of needing to neither confirm nor deny his sources, because if he doesn't then no future internal leaker will talk to him: we're not going to find out "how he knows" because it kills his business. He's also like John Pilger and Glenn Greenwald very definitely bringing a specific world view to the table. Like the other two, that means his editorial has a direction. I don't personally mind that, I take it on board and think about what I think is factual and what I think is supposition. The problem however, is that authors like this become aware people are skeptical of their supposition and editorial and they always wind up shifting voice from "I think" to "I know" and .. then you're in a bad place.
- MarkMarine 4y agoHersh also has a history of breaking stories that are true, like the My Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, and other things. This counterpoint writer has none of the yank that Hersh has. Has Hersh slipped in his age? I don’t know. But this nameless IC cutout who wrote this story has basically no credibility. Why should anyone listen to him?
- ggm 4y agoHere's the Financial Times speculation. Russia, or the USA, or a Scandi country which is the USA because.. reasons. Said by Russians. Danes. Poles. Can't be natural. Must be sabotage. Could be from a boat. or a robot pig. Or 100kg of dynamite on the end of a 70m bit of string. You decide. Seymour is in the mix, sure. https://www.ft.com/content/294e441d-7b24-4144-a51f-75bdf70d723c https://www.ft.com/content/294e441d-7b24-4144-a51f-75bdf70d7...
- tptacek 4y agoAbu Ghraib was an important story, and Hersh's last real story. The cheese subsequently slipped off his cracker. The Vatican does not in fact secretly control US Special Forces Command. The good thing about this story is that you don't have to "believe" the author. It makes a series of falsifiable arguments about Hersh's story. Which of them do you contest, and why? This isn't a duel of credibilities. This whole "IC cutout" thing says more about how you're looking at this issue than it does about the story itself.
- chillbill 4y agoI’m not going to comment on the how propagandized HN audience seems to be. Instead I’ll just post additional reading as it seems only things going with official narratives get the upvotes: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/how-to-blow-up-a-pip...
- charintstr 4y agoThe amount of pro-Russia apologia on this thread is pretty incredible. There are a number of salient points raised in this article discussing how details of the original article are implausible. However instead of addressing any of these points or inconsistencies directly, people simply say this rebuttal is "non-credible." I had expected more from this readership.
- joshsyn 4y ago[dead]
- jesterson 4y agoWhat I like about audience here is - majority still express critical thinking while assessing events. If you are looking forward to primitive discussions "Russia bad US good" based on emotions, you may look to other communities, there are aplenty.
- localplume 4y ago[dead]
- hulitu 4y ago> OSINT & Analysis by Oliver Alexander OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), natural gas, current events. Get in depth analysis covering a multitude of subjects straight to your inbox. This looks like an account made to "explain stories". Even the picture is of "young army cadet". He has exactly 1000 followers and i bet the account is only a couple of days long. TBH i hoped that the 3 letter agencies employ better people. To debunk the story he needs a better story, not a literary analysis.
- thetinymite 4y agoEd Crooks, formerly of the FT and now at WoodMac had this to say in his energy pulse this week. > While there is clearly still a great deal that we don’t know about this incident, one crucial aspect of Hersh’s story — the supposed US motive for sabotaging the pipelines — seems flawed. He argues that “President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponise natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions” in Europe, and was determined to stop that. But by September 2022, when the blasts happened, Russia had already stopped flows through Nord Stream, claiming it was unable to operate the pipeline because of the West’s sanctions on critical equipment that required maintenance. There was consensus among commentators and politicians that flows were unlikely to resume. > Blowing up Nord Stream did not really change the outlook for European gas markets. One thing it did do was provide a more solid justification for Gazprom’s argument that it was unable to supply contracted volumes to Germany. And that is something that will weigh in future arbitration of damages claims from European utilities. https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/us-oil-demand-on-course-for-long-slow-decline/ https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/us-oil-demand-on-course...
- hammon 4y ago[dead]
- caeril 4y agoStreisand Effect in full force. The man who meticulously researched, blew open, and legitimized half a dozen "conspiracy theories" in his storied career is now a senile old man who can't wipe his own ass, let alone do properly sourced research, overnight. Every lapdog of the establishment is, as they did before, working overtime to discredit Hersh. Every article I see decrying Hersh, particularly from FVEY-associated authors, only works to bolster the credibility of the original claims. They want to hide it, as they always have, since the sixties. Barbara would be proud.