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I'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 cr

I'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 ago
Some 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 ago
  I 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.
  - ninjagoo 4y ago
    >> 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? The OP might be referring to the triggering mechanism running out of battery and thus unable to receive the triggering signal, rather than to water exposure.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Perhaps, but again I'd posit that the world's most advanced military wouldn't mind slapping on a few more batteries, just to be sure.
      - linkjuice4all 4y ago
        Or a drone submarine or some crap like that. The problem with this story is that there are so many ways any capable not-even-super-power could do something like this. There’s also all the 4D chess about Putin keeping his oligarchs trapped since they can’t sell the nation’s largest commodity. Or that’s what insert country with special forces wants you to think. It’s possible Hersh is 100% correct but without anyone else corroborating him we’re just left with speculation.
        KMag 4y ago
        Right. The most plausible explanation, given the number of Russian petrochemical executives critical of Putin who have died under suspicious circumstances, is that Putin wanted to greatly reduce the incentive of petrochemical oligarchs to stage a coup in order to re-open the pipeline. Putin has shown he's very wary of the petrochemical oligarchs. If removing Putin from power doesn't open Nord Stream back up, then that's one less incentive for the petrochemical oligarchs to move on Putin, at least in the short term. Presumably, Putin also wanted to make threats against the new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe in a way that kept plausible deniability. He wanted to show he could destroy that pipeline, but without committing an act of war against a Nato member, so instead he blew up an unused pipeline owned by Russia.
thoeiu4oi234 4y ago
I don't know about you, but I find these "pro-West" side to be quite specious in their arguments. What idiot really believes that Russia of all people would want to kill their own golden goose ? The argument these geniuses are implicitly making is that either Russians (or more euphemistically "Putin") is a raging lunatic, or that their readers so utterly dim-witted that they'll believe any shit that they'll spin. OTOH, US/UK... has a very long history of false-flags and extremely sophisticated psychological warfare, esp. given the international dominance of the English language.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil back on, like breaking your own steering wheel in a game of chicken and throwing it out the window. There are presumably elites in Russia who would like to see the war end and go back to business-as-usual so they can get their assets and incomes back, and blowing up the pipeline signals to them “that’s not happening. Total commitment is the only option, so don’t even bother trying to replace the current leadership.” Is this definitely what happened? Of course not, we don’t know who did it. But it is a perfectly coherent and plausible claim, and so your hyperbolic statements about “what idiot really believes…” etc. only serve to demonstrate that you haven’t bothered learning about anyone’s position other than yours, and thus that you yourself probably shouldn’t be listened to.
  - foverzar 4y ago
    > There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil back on, like breaking your own steering wheel in a game of chicken and throwing it out the window. And there is an even more straightforward debunking of that version: a) these pipelines have nothing to do with oil, they pipe gas b) these pipelines are only a fraction of all the gas transportation infrastructure: there is a huge pipeline in Ukraine that dwarfs NS1/2 combined (and Ukraine happily accepts Russian money as a transportation fee, they've even raised it recently), there is a pipeline in Belarus, there is Yamal, and there is TurkStream.
tptacek 4y ago
Be specific. Which of the arguments in this do you find "poorly constructed"?
- miguelazo 4y ago
  Literally every paragraph. Let’s start with this completely unsubstantiated and incoherent section: > The US Air Force officials reportedly proposed “dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely”. One could write an entire post on the reasons why sounds entirely made up by someone with no real grasp of what that suggestion would actually technically entail. During the supposed initial planning of this operation, from the way it is described by Hersh and his source, it appears that the CIA and entire interagency group were unaware of the fact that the Nord Stream pipelines were in fact pipelines.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't think you've picked up the argument being made there, which is that, being a pipeline, the Norwegian Navy wasn't constrained to one particular spot to disable it: it runs seven hundred and fifty miles under the Baltic Sea. The author of this post is saying Hersh doesn't know what a pipeline, not that the USG doesn't. Try another paragraph. Let's interrogate it. For instance: why is the Norwegian Navy allocating a minesweeper, a large ship that is certainly tracked by the Russian military, to serve as a diving platform for a bunch of EC-UBA divers? Why wouldn't they use a civilian ship instead?
    - throwoutway 4y ago
      > it runs seven hundred and fifty miles under the Baltic Sea. That's not a realistic measurement. Did you mean the length? The deepest part of the Baltic Sea is 459 meters deep. The ocean's deepest point is roughly 7 miles deep.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        The length, is the point.
miguelazo 4y ago
Same. I was hoping for something compelling to refute. This piece is trash and it’s a sad comment on the state of critical thinking (and liberal simping for empire) that it even garnered this much traction on HN.
- maybelsyrup 4y ago
  > liberal simping for empire To me, there are few issues more overlooked than this stuff. Structurally there's no mainstream constituency that'd critique it or even point it out, of course, but still. Crazy under the radar but right out in the open at the same time.
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    Agreed. It's glaringly obvious and yet libs make such a concerted effort to not acknowledge it. You can see them squirm as soon as you try to present them with the evidence they very intentionally ignore or even the blatant inconsistencies of their reasoning. The "Goodness" of the state has become bound up with their very identities-- not that different than the MAGA crowd's cult of personality.
astro19238_ 4y ago
Even if the Hersh thesis is completely made up, he still makes more sense than what this guy does. For one thing. The most plausible reason he can't find the plane dropping the buoy he privides himself. -It's a small device. -Better to use a boat. -Better to use a non military boat. Yeah? Maybe that is what they did? It's not impossible the source filled in a few gaps in his story? Or was mistaken? Or Hersh himself might have? I don't want to go full conspiracy mode myself here but one thing is for sure. And that is that not finding proof of a covert operation can only mean one of two things. Either that it didn't take place or that it indeed was covert. And why could the source not have said Stoltenberg worked with the Americans since the Vietnam war as a figure of speech? Hersh article is not enough to base an opinion on imo. But it's not precisely worse off after this guys rather hollow arguments. Howrver the analysis is not a bad start.
- tptacek 4y ago
  It's not what they did, according to Hersh! It's not a minor gap in the story! Hersh claims the Norwegian Navy allocated an Alta-class minesweeper to the task of operating as a diving platform for American divers. You can't say "well, maybe that's not what happened then!" and act like the story is intact. If major details in the story are false, that's a big deal! You can absolutely still believe the US blew up the pipelines, the same way you could have before Hersh's goofy story ran. But you can't claim to believe Hersh's story while systematically dismantling all of his claims. The story itself is either true or it isn't. I feel like a lot of people are defending this story because they've independently and axiomatically derived US culpability for the pipeline sabotage. I don't have anything to say about whether the US sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline. But Seymour M. Hersh has, ever since 2006, been a nutbag, and this story he's telling makes no sense. That's a much more interesting thing to discuss than our rooting interests in geopolitics! If you think he's right about the particulars, and this analysis is wrong about those particulars, say why! That's an interesting discussion to have!
  - maybelsyrup 4y ago
    > independently and axiomatically derived culpability > ever since 2006, been a nutbag

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

Some 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 ago
I 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.
- ninjagoo 4y ago
  >> 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? The OP might be referring to the triggering mechanism running out of battery and thus unable to receive the triggering signal, rather than to water exposure.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    Perhaps, but again I'd posit that the world's most advanced military wouldn't mind slapping on a few more batteries, just to be sure.
    - linkjuice4all 4y ago
      Or a drone submarine or some crap like that. The problem with this story is that there are so many ways any capable not-even-super-power could do something like this. There’s also all the 4D chess about Putin keeping his oligarchs trapped since they can’t sell the nation’s largest commodity. Or that’s what insert country with special forces wants you to think. It’s possible Hersh is 100% correct but without anyone else corroborating him we’re just left with speculation.
      - KMag 4y ago
        Right. The most plausible explanation, given the number of Russian petrochemical executives critical of Putin who have died under suspicious circumstances, is that Putin wanted to greatly reduce the incentive of petrochemical oligarchs to stage a coup in order to re-open the pipeline. Putin has shown he's very wary of the petrochemical oligarchs. If removing Putin from power doesn't open Nord Stream back up, then that's one less incentive for the petrochemical oligarchs to move on Putin, at least in the short term. Presumably, Putin also wanted to make threats against the new Norway-Poland Baltic Pipe in a way that kept plausible deniability. He wanted to show he could destroy that pipeline, but without committing an act of war against a Nato member, so instead he blew up an unused pipeline owned by Russia.

thoeiu4oi234 4y ago

I don't know about you, but I find these "pro-West" side to be quite specious in their arguments. What idiot really believes that Russia of all people would want to kill their own golden goose ? The argument these geniuses are implicitly making is that either Russians (or more euphemistically "Putin") is a raging lunatic, or that their readers so utterly dim-witted that they'll believe any shit that they'll spin. OTOH, US/UK... has a very long history of false-flags and extremely sophisticated psychological warfare, esp. given the international dominance of the English language.

Analemma_ 4y ago
There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil back on, like breaking your own steering wheel in a game of chicken and throwing it out the window. There are presumably elites in Russia who would like to see the war end and go back to business-as-usual so they can get their assets and incomes back, and blowing up the pipeline signals to them “that’s not happening. Total commitment is the only option, so don’t even bother trying to replace the current leadership.” Is this definitely what happened? Of course not, we don’t know who did it. But it is a perfectly coherent and plausible claim, and so your hyperbolic statements about “what idiot really believes…” etc. only serve to demonstrate that you haven’t bothered learning about anyone’s position other than yours, and thus that you yourself probably shouldn’t be listened to.
- foverzar 4y ago
  > There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil back on, like breaking your own steering wheel in a game of chicken and throwing it out the window. And there is an even more straightforward debunking of that version: a) these pipelines have nothing to do with oil, they pipe gas b) these pipelines are only a fraction of all the gas transportation infrastructure: there is a huge pipeline in Ukraine that dwarfs NS1/2 combined (and Ukraine happily accepts Russian money as a transportation fee, they've even raised it recently), there is a pipeline in Belarus, there is Yamal, and there is TurkStream.

tptacek 4y ago

Be specific. Which of the arguments in this do you find "poorly constructed"?

miguelazo 4y ago
Literally every paragraph. Let’s start with this completely unsubstantiated and incoherent section: > The US Air Force officials reportedly proposed “dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely”. One could write an entire post on the reasons why sounds entirely made up by someone with no real grasp of what that suggestion would actually technically entail. During the supposed initial planning of this operation, from the way it is described by Hersh and his source, it appears that the CIA and entire interagency group were unaware of the fact that the Nord Stream pipelines were in fact pipelines.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't think you've picked up the argument being made there, which is that, being a pipeline, the Norwegian Navy wasn't constrained to one particular spot to disable it: it runs seven hundred and fifty miles under the Baltic Sea. The author of this post is saying Hersh doesn't know what a pipeline, not that the USG doesn't. Try another paragraph. Let's interrogate it. For instance: why is the Norwegian Navy allocating a minesweeper, a large ship that is certainly tracked by the Russian military, to serve as a diving platform for a bunch of EC-UBA divers? Why wouldn't they use a civilian ship instead?
  - throwoutway 4y ago
    > it runs seven hundred and fifty miles under the Baltic Sea. That's not a realistic measurement. Did you mean the length? The deepest part of the Baltic Sea is 459 meters deep. The ocean's deepest point is roughly 7 miles deep.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      The length, is the point.

miguelazo 4y ago

Same. I was hoping for something compelling to refute. This piece is trash and it’s a sad comment on the state of critical thinking (and liberal simping for empire) that it even garnered this much traction on HN.

maybelsyrup 4y ago
> liberal simping for empire To me, there are few issues more overlooked than this stuff. Structurally there's no mainstream constituency that'd critique it or even point it out, of course, but still. Crazy under the radar but right out in the open at the same time.
- miguelazo 4y ago
  Agreed. It's glaringly obvious and yet libs make such a concerted effort to not acknowledge it. You can see them squirm as soon as you try to present them with the evidence they very intentionally ignore or even the blatant inconsistencies of their reasoning. The "Goodness" of the state has become bound up with their very identities-- not that different than the MAGA crowd's cult of personality.

astro19238_ 4y ago

Even if the Hersh thesis is completely made up, he still makes more sense than what this guy does. For one thing. The most plausible reason he can't find the plane dropping the buoy he privides himself. -It's a small device. -Better to use a boat. -Better to use a non military boat. Yeah? Maybe that is what they did? It's not impossible the source filled in a few gaps in his story? Or was mistaken? Or Hersh himself might have? I don't want to go full conspiracy mode myself here but one thing is for sure. And that is that not finding proof of a covert operation can only mean one of two things. Either that it didn't take place or that it indeed was covert. And why could the source not have said Stoltenberg worked with the Americans since the Vietnam war as a figure of speech? Hersh article is not enough to base an opinion on imo. But it's not precisely worse off after this guys rather hollow arguments. Howrver the analysis is not a bad start.

tptacek 4y ago
It's not what they did, according to Hersh! It's not a minor gap in the story! Hersh claims the Norwegian Navy allocated an Alta-class minesweeper to the task of operating as a diving platform for American divers. You can't say "well, maybe that's not what happened then!" and act like the story is intact. If major details in the story are false, that's a big deal! You can absolutely still believe the US blew up the pipelines, the same way you could have before Hersh's goofy story ran. But you can't claim to believe Hersh's story while systematically dismantling all of his claims. The story itself is either true or it isn't. I feel like a lot of people are defending this story because they've independently and axiomatically derived US culpability for the pipeline sabotage. I don't have anything to say about whether the US sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline. But Seymour M. Hersh has, ever since 2006, been a nutbag, and this story he's telling makes no sense. That's a much more interesting thing to discuss than our rooting interests in geopolitics! If you think he's right about the particulars, and this analysis is wrong about those particulars, say why! That's an interesting discussion to have!
- maybelsyrup 4y ago
  > independently and axiomatically derived culpability > ever since 2006, been a nutbag