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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”

#701

Post by dathinab »

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…

Pretty much any country bordering the baltic sea + US + China + Ukrain have groups which a) have interest in it being destroyed b) have the capabilities to do so.

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

#702

Post by ClumsyPilot »

welterde wrote: post #684
slantedview wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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..

it sends a message that they could nit be relied on, and might be targetted

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

#703

Post by ClumsyPilot »

thwayunion wrote: post #171
hef19898 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily imagine any of the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine (with some local help) or even Finland, Swede or Norway doing the deed. Or, since the pipelines are well known and not difficult to reach, basically everyone with access to explosives, a boat a divers with explosives skills. None of which is particularly hard to come by.

At that moment in the war, even Putin had a lot of strong motivations -- lock out the option of bringing Nord Stream back online and close to door on de-escalation. As a side-benefit, the possibility of driving a wedge into NATO. I also found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713402 interesting. Who knows.

this is silly - no-one blows up their own assets. This pipeline was hard-won for Russia, they would not destroy it

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

#704

Post by lambdasquirrel »

dathinab wrote: post #701
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…

Pretty much any country bordering the baltic sea + US + China + Ukrain have groups which a) have interest in it being destroyed b) have the capabilities to do so.

I don’t reckon that the leaks are accidental either. The Biden Administration waited until the tide of public opinion turned further against Russia. They waited until the rest of the West had committed MBTs to Ukraine before allowing this to be leaked. There’s a message being sent here.

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

#705

Post by [deleted] »

lubesGordi wrote: post #370
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…

It is astonishing how so many people think that others can't read something like this and make their own judgements about it. I guess that they're worried that too many people will just accept this as True, and that will make the world a worse place? I just find it an incredibly arrogant position to take. If there's some other way of justifying that opinion, I'd love to hear it.

[deleted]

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

#706

Post by usrusr »

btown wrote: post #559
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…

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…

Thanks for that angle. The desire to repeat ones brightest hour can certainly be a strong force and might lead even the most careful astray when a big scoop like Abu Graib makes all further successes seem trivial. I'm not suggesting that he personally made it up, but his desire to believe could be spectacularly strong, turning him into an instrument that is easy to play by people with an agenda.

But I'm biased as well, my desire to believe is strong, only that I'm in team "'t was an inside job" so my bias is in clear opposition of these claims (but in limited to speculation, I find "Russia jumped from excuse to excuse to keep the pipelines closed anyways, so the only immediate winners of the explosions were people in Moscow who felt threatened by some real or imagined "make money not war" faction" logically compelling, but that's all there is, I guess, strongly, but can't claim to know)

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

#707

Post by lambdasquirrel »

thwayunion wrote: post #150
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…

> 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. I'd bet my last dollar that at least four nations had "blow up Nord Stream to force continued conflict" contingency plans. Who did it? Germany, Russia, USA, Ukraine, or a curve ball from the one of the Nordic or Baltic states? We'll probably never know, and none of…

No man. This was not in the Russians’ geopolitical interests. And even if Germany wanted to divest itself of Russian gas, they would not have done so, in this way.

This was leaked at the time that it is now to send a message to the Germans.

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

#708

Post by [deleted] »

itsoktocry wrote: post #367
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.

Honest question: what about this story seems so far-fetched to you that you can't give the author the benefit of the doubt? There are decades of such intelligence goings-on.

[deleted]

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

#710

Post by jasmer »

vasergen wrote: post #580
xg15 wrote: post #535

I find it extremely jarring how many reputable western media outlets immediately jumped to the conclusion that Russia did it even though that made zero sense - but absolutely refused to even consider the possibility that the US or another western state could have done it. But at this point, the article is basically "cool story, bro". The only independently verifyable bits are the public statements of Biden, Nuland, e…

> that Russia did it even though that made zero sense Can you explain then please how much sense did Russia had to start a war in Ukraine?

Putin thought he could roll into Kyiv like the USSR did in Hungary and Czech, and like he did in Crimea. Bloodless coup. Massive show of strength no rational person would try to fight.

The entire world thought Ukraine was going to collapse.

Diplomats from big countries were telling Zelensky to his face that he had '24 hours' before Russia took Kyiv.

The pipeline thing is a bit of a mystery.

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