“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline” • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by weatherlight » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:22 PM UTC

rainsford wrote: post #606

weatherlight wrote: post #261

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 (fa…

SOCOM does actually get a brief mention, but in a way that makes the whole story even less plausible. At the beginning, Hersh claims that the divers used were chosen because they were just "Navy only" and not part of SOCOM, which is allegedly a legal loophole to avoid having to report the activity to the Gang of Eight in Congress, apparently done because of concerns about leaks. Setting aside how legally questionable…

Here's the rub, SOCOM via JSOC is the only command that POTUS has any sway over (Thanks Obama.). The more you read the less plausible any of this is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joint_Special_Ope....

> Operations so secret you can't tell 8 Congressional leaders (as required by law) but you can tell Norway, Denmark, and Sweden about do not sound like a thing.

Exactly!

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

#612

Post by slantedview » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

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…

Biden stated last year: "If Russia invades [Ukraine] there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." [1] This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved.

Since Nordstream was destroyed amidst public pressure from US energy companies who wanted to takeover the European energy market, the US has become the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas, Europeans are paying record natural gas prices, and US energy companies are reporting record profits. Again, the relationship between these things should surprise nobody.

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/bidens-bi...

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

#613

Post by cycomanic » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #284

vanviegen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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.

I am not really qualified to judge on the verity of the article, but the statement that's there is no strong "integration" between the US government and the gas and oil industry (and other ones for that matter) is absurd. The US fought wars over access to cheap oil (Gulf war 1) has put extremely lucrative deals for their own oil companies into place after forcing regime change (gulf war 2), has highest officials transition to highest jobs in industry (Cheney), has shown multiple times that it will use intelligence apperatus for industry advantages (the spying scandal in Germany, airbus vs boring contracts...). Many (most) US military operations over the last 30 years can be directly attributed to economic motivations.

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

#614

Post by beebmam » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:25 PM UTC

GAN_Game wrote: post #582

beebmam wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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 parts of 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…

Seymour Hersh regarding the Osama bin Laden raid, in which the terrorist leader was killed in 2011: "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true".

Later on in 2013, he changed his claim, such that he admitted some of the story is true, that is, that the terrorist leader was killed, after he encountered pushback.

Source: https://dailycaller.com/2013/09/27/hersh-slams-us-media-clai...

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

#615

Post by BWStearns » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:26 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #126

davesque wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Amusing you should say that given that the author is literally a 9/11 truther (truther light maybe, but still)[0]. Hersh has clearly become a gullible mark the past decade or so who lets otherwise justified skepticism of US policy curdle into useful idiocy.

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-...

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

#616

Post by weatherlight » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:28 PM UTC

weatherlight wrote: post #611

rainsford wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SOCOM does actually get a brief mention, but in a way that makes the whole story even less plausible. At the beginning, Hersh claims that the divers used were chosen because they were just "Navy only" and not part of SOCOM, which is allegedly a legal loophole to avoid having to report the activity to the Gang of Eight in Congress, apparently done because of concerns about leaks. Setting aside how legally questionable…

Here's the rub, SOCOM via JSOC is the only command that POTUS has any sway over (Thanks Obama.). The more you read the less plausible any of this is. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joint_Special_Ope... . > Operations so secret you can't tell 8 Congressional leaders (as required by law) but you can tell Norway, Denmark, and Sweden about do not sound like a thing. Exactly!

I'd like to preface everything that Ive written thus far with the following.

Yes, I'm former military.

The United States does shady things and has a long history of doing so. The United States is a capitalist imperialist hell-scape for a lot of people. Counties/states do not have friends, they have interests.

That being said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

What was written in that piece does not mesh at all with what my mental model of how the US military work, How pipelines work, etc.

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

#617

Post by LarsDu88 » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

It seems like the only consistent aspect of Seymour Hirsch's reporting is that it supports whatever narrative the Kremlin is pushing, whether that's the Kremlin of 1970 or the Kremlin of 2023.

The dude could have been a Cold War asset from day one!

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

#618

Post by nibbleshifter » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

avgcorrection wrote: post #547

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…

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.

He is a nutcase, and cites another well known crank - Postol.

Its amazing fanfic.

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

#619

Post by meepmorp » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

dcdc123 wrote: post #601

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…

I blame it on the lack of downvote buttons. (*for most users)

dang specifically disabled flagging on the article, so it can't go away via the normal "downvote" mechanism.

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

#620

Post by fsckboy » Wed, Feb 08, 2023, 11:30 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #602

fsckboy wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I have to disagree. The very first line in https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp is "verify information before releasing it." Disclosing that there is only one source is a first step, but an insufficient one. And the tone of the article, from the headline onward, reports not only that "a source said X" but presents "X" as factual. That's simply not a credible practice.

you're suggesting that the ethics code requires you to state how many sources you verified with, and the number Hersh reported is too small a number. (you're going to deny you suggested that, but just keep reading, there's a point here)

I suggest that the ethics code says don't report facts as facts that you haven't verified as facts, but if you say "I could not verified this and I heard it from one source" you are within the code. "Sources in the Administration" often report things to reporters, and most of what they say can't be verified, it can only be echoed by more than one person. And if a reporter has a relationship with one leaker who has been reliable, you're claiming they can't use that, and I'm claiming they can and do. Sure, verify what you can, but being an honest reporter is what is required, not certain fact patterns.

Yes, in a deep dive publication like the New Yorker, they will often kill certain facts or an entire story if it cannot be corroborated, but that doesn't define journalism.