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

681–690 of 1001 posts

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

#681

Post by graedus »

klrtwm wrote: post #677
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…

Initially I had the same reaction. After reading the piece slowly again my impression is: This is not a conspiracy theory. It is very carefully and lucidly written, with so many details, each of which can be refuted. How does he know about all the meetings between the CIA, Sullivan, etc. Why does no one refute individual facts? I think he did have a source who provided all this. If the source lied, tough. Investigati…

Yes, he refers to his source throughout the piece. I believe it's just one anonymous source for the entire thing though.

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

#682

Post by jacquesm »

dang wrote: post #393
nindalf wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dan there’s no sugarcoating this - you’ve got it wrong on this one. I say this as a supporter of your moderation policies in general. The sooner you reverse this decision, the better for everyone.

That's certainly possible! But I would need to hear an argument about why, which actually addresses the reasons I've given in my responses in this thread. So far I haven't heard that. In fact, no one seems to have even tried (maybe I missed it amid the inundation - I've been trying and failing to keep up for a couple hours now).

I think the argument is pretty simple: if you overrule the flags on any article that by a pretty simplistic reading of the guidelines should be flagged because (1) it is nationalistic flamebait and (2) does not present actual evidence even though the title pretends that it does by stating things as fact when they clearly are not then it is your own judgment about the veracity of the article that drives you to do so.

That judgment normally should not weigh as much as the combined judgment of the community members with flag powers. At that point you may as well disable the flags because your trust in the judgment of the community has eroded to the point of non-existence.

I think at best this should be presented with a title of 'How America could have taken out the Nord Stream pipeline' because as it is the facts are not supported by any evidence and there are some clear flaws in the article (for instance, see the comments by user 'weatherlight'). The reputation of this particular reporter was at one point in time absolutely stellar but has gone steadily downhill and I think you should update your priors as to whether you still want to stand by him when making unverifiable claims. Note that no reputable paper would put this in print, which is why you find it on substack, the place where conspiracy and controversy finds its audience.

Note also that this article essentially claims privileged knowledge about an act of war, gets a whole pile of details factually wrong and yet the main claim apparently should stand and get the benefit of the doubt, including a title that states this all as fact (those quotes and question marks are just confusing). Something that grave should not be amplified until it is presented with more foundation.

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

#683

Post by pasquinelli »

beebmam wrote: post #614
GAN_Game wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-cla…

now you mention it, it is odd they never produced a body.

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

#684

Post by welterde »

slantedview wrote: post #665
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. Something that wasn't made clear in the article is that US energy companies have been massive beneficiaries of the Nordstream destruction. The US is now the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas. That wouldn't have happened if the pipeline(s) were still operational.

NS1 and NS2 are not the only pipelines Russia could be using to export gas to Europe, but there are several land-based ones too. After shutting down NS1 (they claimed equipment issues) they only moved marginal flows (if any) onto those pipelines. Blowing up NS1/NS2 doesn't really change anything here..

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

#685

Post by boomboomsubban »

beebmam wrote: post #644
pessimizer wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote doesn't say that the US didn't kill Bin Laden. You're implying that by adding an unnecessary parenthetical "in which the terrorist leader was killed in 2011." There's nothing simpler and better for your case than typing the quote where he said the thing you say he said. Otherwise, you're actively spreading misinformation on social media, and intentionally using rhetorical games to obscure the lack of evide…

Let me make sure I understand what you're saying here. You're saying that I'm spreading misinformation when I stated that: Seymour Hersh, with respect to an article about the Osama bin Laden raid, said that not a single word in it was true. He then later went on to admit that indeed, some of those words were true, that Osama bin Laden was indeed killed. Would you be willing to explain how a strictly historical truth,…

You took a completely literal reading of a one sentence quote from an interview as his full opinion on the matter, and ignored that he immediately said that one sentence was not an accurate representation of his entire view. The Guardian even corrected the initial interview adding his further clarification. That seems like misinformation to me.

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

#686

Post by beebmam »

GAN_Game wrote: post #641
beebmam wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-cla…

In an interview with the Guardian he said, as you quote "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true". You take this statement he made and translate it to "his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden". The original quote you print is much clearer. I certainly don't translate his quote to what you translated it to. Speaking of changed claims, both the White House and New Y…

I don't have a problem with people who change their claims, and willingly admit that their claims have changed. This is what I'd expect from decent humans and respectable journalists.

I do have a problem with people who change their claims and then deny that they changed their claims, like Seymour Hersh did, with respect to Osama bin Laden and stating that not a single word from the White House was true. That's disingenuous and it makes his credibility questionable, especially if he's going to rely on anonymous sources for his claims.

To address your claim that perhaps he was being hyperbolic in his statement: fine, but at least admit to that. He hasn't. He denied that he said it in the first place, which is a lie.

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

#687

Post by brianwawok »

mistermann wrote: post #621
btown wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you name a single news org or reporter who does not engage in that practice?

The sun? The onion ?

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

#688

Post by coffeebeqn »

slantedview wrote: post #634
coffeebeqn wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility but that statement is hardly an admission of future sabotage. I would imagine the US has more tools than deep sea bombing to convince their allies. Very high risk operation

Sure, a threat is not an admission of guilt. But I think most people were unaware of this statement, and how aggressive the US' posture towards the pipeline was, which is important context for this article.

They must have not been paying attention. Trump was very vocal against it and was laughed at by the genius German technocrats. The Obama admin was also against it

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

#690

Post by pasquinelli »

sampo wrote: post #518
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…

> Hersh reporting on this counts as significant new information This is from 2015: "The way to understand Hersh is to visualize most of his sources as Michael Scheuer-like individuals. It is not difficult to find such people in the intelligence world: obsessive, frustrated idiot savants who perceive themselves as stymied by the paper pushers, the bureaucrats" "Hersh’s problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoev…

> Hersh’s problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoever toward what his crank sources tell him, which is ironic considering how cynical he is regarding the pronouncements of the U.S. national security bureaucracy.

i don't have opinions about journalists, because i'm a normal person, but that sounds like a needed antidote to, say, slate's complete lack of skepticism regarding the pronouncements of the U.S. national security bureaucracy.

Post reply on HN