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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”

#691

Post by pasquinelli »

hef19898 wrote: post #258
kstenerud wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just flagged this in the hopes that you'll reconsider. It's no secret that Hersh's work has become increasingly suspect in recent years. Every time he writes, he cites a single anonymous source and yet manages to go into an implausible level of detail and completeness with neatly tied up loose ends you'd only expect to find in a Tom Clancy novel. The only reason this story has been rescued from the dustbin is due to…

Yeah, instead of blog posts Hersh should write spy thrillers in tje tradition of the early Tom Clancy works. I would even pay for those, I like the setting and the narrative Hersh oresented in this blog, and the writing, are compelling and good. For a fictional book, not for journalism.

such an odd thing how so many people are likening to tom clancy. are these people comparing notes?

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

#692

Post by readonthegoapp »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #515

The fact that this subject is able to trigger so much controversy on HN is fascinating. I could understand if diplomats and politicians were upset, but regular techies?

i think any article that is a bad look for country 'x' will have that country's nationalists up in arms.

it's not just a natural reaction for nationalists, it's a strategy for people in power generally - nationalist or otherwise - it's just one way to try to make a story go away, and it's obviously had some success here on HN today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model#Flak

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

#693

Post by boplicity »

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…

What makes you think this was even written by Seymour Hersh?

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

#694

Post by boplicity »

I think I would be very skeptical that this was actually written by Seymour Hersh. This Substack was created today. There's no previous history on it. I can't find any credible evidence that this is actually Seymour Hersh.

If it's not Seymour, it sure is very effective propoganda.

Does anyone see any proof that this is indeed written by the claimed author?

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

#695

Post by meepmorp »

auctoritas wrote: post #642
meepmorp wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Definitely not Russia which was using it as significant leverage over the Europeans. There's still one pipe of NS2 left unscathed; Russia had offered to start delivering gas over this pipe, prior to the winter turning out to be incredibly mild. So the potential leverage is still there, and would perhaps have been useful had the climate cooperated. Maybe Russia took out three of four pipes just to ratchet up the sen…

Reducing the number of pipes reduced their leverage.

No, they can ration the supply and charge more. Same leverage, increased sense of urgency due to the uncertainty about supply.

It just didn’t work.

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

#696

Post by boplicity »

I think I would be very skeptical that this was actually written by Seymour Hersh. This Substack was created today. There's no previous history on it. I can't find any credible evidence that this is actually Seymour Hersh.

If it's not Seymour, it sure is very effective propoganda.

Does anyone see any proof that this is indeed written by the claimed author?

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

#697

Post by rossdavidh »

Interesting, but "While it was never clear why Russia would seek to destroy its own lucrative pipeline..." is not true. There was/is a very good rationale for why Putin (not "Russia") would seek to destroy the pipeline. It wasn't bringing in any money, but it could (a lot) if Russia gave in to Western demands to pull out of Ukraine. There are persistent rumors that Medvedev and other high-ranking Russian officials were upset at the loss of western money, and Putin might have simply wanted to burn his bridges, for the same reason Vikings were said to have burned their bridges: to put out of your side's minds the option of retreat. With no NordStream, there was less temptation to try to get the West's business back (and at the point it was blown up, neither NordStream was actually bringing in much money anyway due to sanctions).

Now this doesn't mean Putin actually ordered it. But it's not true to say that there was no plausible reason w he would.

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

#698

Post by uoaei »

dragonwriter wrote: post #14
eternalban wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won’t need a source once the news comes out. This little text bomb thrown by CIA at the Executive can only mean that the Swedes have found conclusive evidence. https://www.rferl.org/a/nord-stream-sabotage-investigation-r... Please note that Radio Free Europe is run by CIA.

> This little text bomb thrown by CIA at the Executive can only mean that the Swedes have found conclusive evidence. That’s a bizarre interpretation, since what the Swedish government says in that article, which is no different than non-US-government news source reporting on the same Swedish statement, is additional evidence of sabotage but no evidence of by whom. > Please note that Radio Free Europe is run by CIA. N…

To put a name to this organization, it is called the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

It is widely understood to be a propaganda arm of the US, developing media presences in countries where the US wishes to increase its power by manipulating narratives around contentious political topics. "Radio Free Europe/Asia/etc." is a common offering of theirs, typically skeptical or outright critical of regimes the US wishes to weaken in those regions through civil unrest.

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

#699

Post by nkurz »

boplicity wrote: post #693
drewda wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What makes you think this was even written by Seymour Hersh?

In the first few hours after publication, that would be a reasonable question. But since it's been a full day, and Seymour Hersh hasn't stepped in to say "Hey, that's not me", at this point it's quite reasonable to believe that he wrote it. It seems unlikely that the piece generated a full Whitehouse response but somehow Seymour, his agent, his publisher, or any of his close friends haven't yet issued a denial of authorship. Not impossible, but not the way I'd bet.

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

#700

Post by bee_rider »

hef19898 wrote: post #202
thwayunion wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One of those situations where everyone wants to blame everyone else for a "terrible" thing that happened, but at the same time don't really GAF because all sides were okay with finalizing a clean break between Europe and Russia for a variety of domestic and IR reasons anyways.

Now I picture a virtual waiting line of covert divers and motivated activists in front of the pipelines waiting for their turn to try it. And being pissed someone else was first! Maybe they have a class reunion of sorts ten years from now!

A dozen divers of the joint US-Russia-Ukraine-Germany “diplomacy simplification strike force” show up only to find the wreckage of the pipeline. Floating nearby, the telltale calling-card, a globe emblazoned on a white flag… Greenpeace!
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