Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

seymourhersh.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 1001 posts

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

#591

Post by Lazare »

drewda wrote: post #541
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…

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 p…

Seymour Hersh has had a long and storied career, and he has made some very bold claims that later turned out to be correct.

He's also, especially recently, made some very bold claims that so far have not turned out to be correct, whether because the truth just hasn't been revealed yet, or because Hersh was wrong or misled by his sources.

It's also worth noting that Hersh - as with any journalist - is only as good as his sources. If people choose to leak juicy secrets to him (not implausible!) he may end up publishing accurate stories that reveal nefarious conspiracies (which has happened). If people choose to give him lies and misinformation, he may end up publishing conspiracy theories instead. And as he keeps publishing, the odds that this will happen (if it hasn't already) keep increasing.

So I absolutely wouldn't write off any claim Hersh makes, but I wouldn't blindly believe it either. And here he is relying, by his own admission, almost entirely on a single anonymous source, giving details that can't really be independently confirmed.

Was Hersh told by someone that the US took out the pipeline? Probably! Does that mean the US did so? I'm not sure I'd seriously update my priors based on this.

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

#592

Post by miguelazo »

partiallypro wrote: post #130
miguelazo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The original investigators called BS. Then the OPCW worked to silence them and brought in chumps who would stick to the script. Their latest report only confirms that it was a coverup, doubling down on fake “evidence” provided by the white helmets. https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/02/06/in-douma-cover...

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

#593

Post by evrydayhustling »

fsckboy wrote: post #578
btown wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fr…

> 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

No, credible reporting includes verifying what sources say. Hersh is transparent about not verifying, but he continues to present their statements as fact. That's not dishonest, but it's not a standard of reporting anyone should accept.

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

#594

Post by jeltz »

jdhn wrote: post #404
indymike wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

>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.

Wouldn't that imply that Norway did it?

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

#595

Post by miguelazo »

dang wrote: post #206
miguelazo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Noted.

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

#596

Post by davesque »

The fact that this story has been allowed to live on HN's front page for so long has really knocked my confidence in the forum and its moderators. I thought HN had taken an enlightened stance on avoiding juicy topics like this since they clearly lead to lots of useless speculation and uncritical thinking. They are a net drain on community health. This story does not belong on HN. I think I can say that even if it turned out to be entirely true. It's been shown over and over again that civilized discussion about high stakes political topics is impossible. For every hard fact that deserves attention, a thousand hypotheticals are thrown up with misplaced confidence. The instinct to want to believe what you wish were true is just too high. And being witness to it makes you stupider, whether or not you participate. None of the behaviors I've seen on display in this thread indicate that this story is any different.

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

#597

Post by hoffs »

dang wrote: post #200
torstenvl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Try reading it instead of skimming

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

#598

Post by masswerk »

threeseed wrote: post #219
dang wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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…

Ad (a): because tech relies on energy and related delivery networks?

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

#599

Post by ajross »

apnew wrote: post #540
hedora wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

FWIW, that doesn't really even make sense. If you had direct knowledge only of the planning, then what's the source for the execution? I don't think anyone would be surprised that there was a plan for doing this. The US plans lots of stuff. Why did "planning" even appear in that sentence? Why not "a source with direct knowledge of the operation"?

Again, there's a huge weasel word right there in the only sourcing for the whole article. That just... yikes. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe it's something an editor could have cleaned up. But maybe it's also the sort of thing Hersh's editors simply threw out as unpublishable, which is why it's an uneditted substack blog.

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

#600

Post by [deleted] »

davesque wrote: post #596

The fact that this story has been allowed to live on HN's front page for so long has really knocked my confidence in the forum and its moderators. I thought HN had taken an enlightened stance on avoiding juicy topics like this since they clearly lead to lots of useless speculation and uncritical thinking. They are a net drain on community health. This story does not belong on HN. I think I can say that even if it tur…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN