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“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

seymourhersh.substack.com

761–770 of 1001 posts

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

#761
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is right that sonar buoy detonation thing sounds like absolute bullshit. Incredibly risky and 17 hours.. I mean you want to do this, send a submarine, it fires few torpedoes. No more pipeline. Fast, simple, reliable. Let's say I am a Ukranian patriot, with few million in the bank. I bet given few month I could put together a team of divers to plant some C4 with a simple timer and blow this thing to hell. Or Polish…

I think it’s the Polish. Apparently their relationship with Russia is similar to a very angry pitbull has with steak. They were mass rapes by the Soviets at the end of World War II and horrible conditions for the Polish during the Soviet empire. Polish friends say there’s no shortage of young men who want the glory of blowing up something owned by the people who gang raped Grandma.

Yeah, Poles hate Russians, and the polling numbers back it up. Pew found 94% of Poles think Russia is a "major threat", and 91% have "very unfavorable views of Russia".

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/spotlight-on-p...

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

#762

There is one thing that is really bothering me in this story. I don't really care who is behind the sabotage, they would certainly not admit it for obvious reasons, and it could be more complex than it seems. But the press, here in the UK, in France and in the US, has been suspiciously "clueless", avoiding with great care to imply that anyone in the west could be behind it, even if it really seems obvious that it cou…

Can you please elaborate how exactly it was obvious (that anyone in the West could be behind the attack)? What is a motivation for the West?

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

#763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not your children to be nannied and taken decisions on behalf of! Until you can defend yourselves, you are.

Sick of hearing this BS. Who can invade EU, Russia after their showing in Ukraine? China from half the world away? EU militaries have multiple times the budget of the RU army. We don't need 11 carriers to defend ourselves.

Ukraine, in January 2022, had more tanks than Germany, France, and the UK combined.

They had more air defense than Germany, France, and the UK combined, though the systems were not quite as capable individually.

They had nearly as many active duty military as Germany, France, and the UK combined, and a huge number of reservists with experience fighting in the War in Donbass against Russian military and paramilitary forces with tanks and artillery, as opposed to jihadists with no real heavy weapons of any kind.

Their airforce was mostly comparable in size to any one of the above, though again not as capable qualitatively.

And they had a hell of a lot more artillery and artillery shells than Germany, France, and the UK combined. By a massive margin, although again not quite as capable individually. Nearly all of the NATO-standard artillery ammunition that has been provided to Ukraine has come from US stockpiles, because at the rate Ukraine consumes artillery ammo Germany, France, and the UK would be collectively tapped out in about 10 days. Not to mention HIMARS ammunition.

The Russians were also rather handicapped by the reckless, arrogant stupidity of their plan and extreme secrecy resulting in soldiers selling their fuel rations for alcohol, because until a day or two beforehand they thought was all a bunch of western lies because that's what the government was saying publicly. With the result that a bunch of vehicles ran out of fuel halfway to Kyiv. Had the invasion been done according to doctrine rather than as what they expected to be an immediate victory as the Ukrainians laid down their arms, awed by their superior military power, the story may still have turned out very different.

Anyway, Ukraine had, by a very significant margin, the largest military in Europe excluding Russia, and certainly the most experienced in fighting "real" wars. Take this into consideration when boasting about how easily the rest of Europe would be able to handle a Russian invasion.

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

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it includes direct quotes from that person in the last paragraphs. It was clearly someone Hersh spoke to directly. While I am extraordinarily distrustful of news reports using anonymous sources you do have to consider the author here. Ultimately we are deciding if we trust him and, for me personally, he lends a lot of credibility. The other side of this is, duh, of course America blew up the pipeline. I said at t…

When it happened it was clear that the US, Russia, and Poland were likely the only suspects, except they're all really weird! The US absolutely has not made return on investment, which was obviously going to happen because shipping it over is much more expensive than the pipeline, and in the meantime Biden has to deal with increased gas prices. His incentives go the other way on this. But why the fuck would Russia do…

> But why the fuck would Russia do it?

Why do so many people act as if it's so unlikely that Russia did it? They had the least to lose, their relations with the west were already ruined at that point and such an incident couldn't make them any worse.

What would be their motive? Before the explosion, Russia had illegally shut down the pipeline. Now that the pipeline has exploded, they have plausible deniability and they can say it's not their fault the gas isn't flowing. Because of that, they won't have to pay additional fines when the economic relations with the west are restored.

And don't forget that one pipe of NS2 was left intact and, unlike NS1, there was no contractual obligation to pump gas through it.

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

#765
post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of credible motive for the fascist russia. First, make allies distrust each other, sabotaging their unity. Second, create panic among the EU population, hoping for increased pressure to lift the sanctions and stop support of Ukraine defending their homeland. Third, force the issue with pending legal approvals for the remaining new pipeline. Fortunately, EU managed to store up plenty of gas and the wint…

> Fortunately, EU managed to store up plenty of gas and the winter was mild, so russian blackmail has failed. Hooray for global warming?

Are you saying that the world should just bend over to russian imperialism and merrily let them commit cultural genocide because global warming is bad? Cause I am at a loss what your comment is supposed to mean. If not for imperialism and lack of foresight and integrity among both the elites and the general population, we wouldn’t have either global warming nor these kind of wars. Global warming is already here, and it’s shitty enough, but if it will help bring down those imperialist monsters I certainly won’t cry over it.

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

#766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "put an end to it" can easily (and more plausibly) encompass approaches like "sanction Nord Stream AG into the ground".

"There will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

>"There will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

Conveniently for Russia, Nord Stream 2 still exists. Only one of its two pipes had exploded. Everyone forgets about it.

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

#767

My thoughts on the incident, organised as a series of nested propositions. 0. The Nord Stream pipeline incident was not an accident. 1. The pipeline was sabotaged by a state actor. a. Only a state had the capability to carry it out undetected. b. The sabotage was in violation of international law. c. Evidence of the sabotage would cause a diplomatic scandal. d? Either Russia or the United States sabotaged the pipelin…

> Russia had no motivation to destroy it

Russia wanted to cause panic and meltdown on EUs energy markets, but to no avail. Russia tried to sabotage gas supply by fiddling with turbines for months, but was in the end out of options, and EU gas prices were still too far from panic and collapse. Blowing up underwater gas pipes the same day that a gas pipe from Norway started to work - too good to be coincidence.

> Russia controls the pipeline, and could choose to turn it off

No, Russia cannot just turn off the gas without a force majeure cause (and even declaring the war to Ukraine, which will never be an option, is not a force majeure enough). Otherwise there are contractual obligations to fulfill, and enormous penalties in case of breaching contract.

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

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No moral objection to the content, only ethical. I don’t care what beliefs you have, I simply think it’s irresponsible to parrot — or provide a platform for parroting — unsubstantiated claims. The beauty of Hacker News, and my enjoyment of it, is that it’s moderated and I don’t often see content like this. I honestly panicked reading this! At first I was under the impression that this was breaking news. And if true i…

A different take: Given who authored this, and who is referencing it, this is now a “thing.” This being published is for sure going to have an impact on diplomatic relations. Removing it from HN doesn’t stop anyone of relevance in this from seeing it. Presidents, ministers, ambassadors, senators, etc. are probably being briefed on this. The White House is going to have to deal with this regardless of its truthiness.…

> I suspect countries are going to want answers. The U.S. saying “this is not true” probably isn’t going to cut it for the countries involved.

After seeing how Germany handled the USA spying on Merkel (phone saga), I do not expect them countries involved asking further questions or taking appropriate actions.

Welp, maybe taking no action IS the appropriate action. The west must stay united and trade must flow.

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

#769

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?

Considering the NY Post, a paper Hersh has a personal relationship with, has already written about this blogpost, I’d be really surprised if it was some kind of impersonation.

Hersh is an online individual like the rest of us, I’m quite sure he’d be aware of papers all over the world reporting on something he hadn’t written.

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

#770
post #559
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…

Did you see Zero Dark Thirty?

If so, do you trust it to be accurate?

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