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“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

seymourhersh.substack.com

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Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#281

Post by brookst »

threeseed wrote: post #262
haswell wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Maybe time will tell. This article shouldn't be allowed here until that time. Reputation is not evidence.

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.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#282

Post by dang »

spoiler wrote: post #209
twblalock wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 tha…

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!

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#283

Post by atdrummond »

davesque wrote: post #268
dang wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that's the case, then it's especially weird to me why the usual conventions on highly charge political stories wouldn't apply.

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.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#284

Post by indymike »

vanviegen wrote: post #124
mmastrac wrote: post #97

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…

> 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…

> 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.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#285

Post by spoiler »

swader999 wrote: post #190
dang wrote: post #34

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…

Why even question Hersh on this when Biden publicly admitted they would put an end to it? https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8

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.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#286

Post by hef19898 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #273
woooooo wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has the code name of the operation and a ton of alleged operational details, attributed to his sources in the Intel community.

I, too, can make up a code name and operational details. Still no evidence.

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.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#287

Post by hef19898 »

readonthegoapp wrote: post #280
threeseed wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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_Chom.h... uk…

Blowing them up requires either a shaped charge or C4 or some other explosive. Hardly high tech.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#288

Post by threeseed »

h2odragon wrote: post #260
threeseed wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it's interesting No. It's interesting to you .

Interests me too. You're always free not to read this article or thread.

Dang is manually influencing the ranking system.

So this is not necessarily what is interesting to everyone.

Re: “How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

#290

Post by MilaM »

VincentEvans wrote: post #176

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…

> 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...

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