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

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

#881

Post by nostromo123 » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

hackandthink wrote: post #879

nullc wrote: post #810

Can someone more in tune with global politics explain to me why it hasn't just been assumed that the us did it? We had the motive. We had the means. oh yea, and our president said we would do it in advance of it happening: "If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." (reporter: "How will you do that, exa…

The best argument against "The US blew it up" is the political risk for the US when the truth comes out. As CIA guy I would not trust Biden to keep the mouth shut.

The political risk for the US is zero. Just look at any other similar situation, for instance where the US has killed civilians by drone as collateral damage: there's a bit of outcry, a bit of finger wagging and after a couple of weeks there's some other big news and it's all forgotten.

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

#882

Post by vintermann » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

welterde wrote: post #861

vintermann wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article implicitly suggests that the goal was indeed to sabotage both pipelines fully. It doesn't say it outright, but if the hastily re-programmed explosives were triggered by a sonar buoy after three months in sea water as the article says, then it would not be surprising at all if some of them failed to go off. Precisely that the article implicitly gives very plausible answers to good questions like yours, is…

Neither the mechanism nor the reasoning in the article sound plausible to me (nor the involvement of Norway..). NS1 was already shutdown by Russia within weeks of the supposed time of installation of the explosives, after which there was no more point to explode them and it would make more sense to silently remove them again. NS2 was already dead in the water since couple days before the invasion. In addition the bad…

First, the whole point of these pipes from Russia's side, and the concern about them from the US, was that they could be used as leverage to keep EU from supporting Ukraine. So there was absolutely a "point" in blowing them up even though they were turned off. The point being, when they're blown up, they can't be turned on, thus Russia has no leverage anymore.

Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably happened, behind the scenes (and weren't that terrible, because no one really wants to denounce the US in the middle of the Ukraine war). I'll remind you that both Sweden and Denmark claimed nothing other than sabotage could be concluded, and closed down their investigations and classified the heck out of the details. Feel free to make freedom of information requests to them, so that you can get those "national security interest" refusals.

Odds are that the US didn't directly admit anything to them, but strongly suggested they shouldn't look too closely or be too specific in their statements, and that those states were quick to comply. And probably cleaned up well enough that there was nothing left for the Russians to find, in the case that they should run their own investigation (although, Russia can't run a real investigation to save their ass, they're too used to have their conclusions dictated to them, so I wouldn't worry if I was the USG).

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

#883

Post by MisterTea » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

ribit wrote: post #765

MisterTea wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Humor eludes most people.

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

#884

Post by bandyaboot » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

tazjin wrote: post #833

bandyaboot wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream [2]. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved. Or you could take a breath and realize that Nordstream 2 was not yet complete. It was an ongoing, non-operational project. In that context, “bringing it to an end” could easily mean not completing it. In fact, that’s the far more reasonable interpretation—-the literal physical destruc…

At the time the physical construction had been completed.

It was not in operation. The project had not been completed.

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

#885

Post by nkurz » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

consumer451 wrote: post #843

dang wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Hi, your job is rough sometimes, and hats off. Here is the one of the best arguments I have found here as to why the quality of this article is highly questionable: > I know nothing of him, but given that there's an entire paragraph about Jens Stoltenberg where almost every sentence is just completely factually wrong in a way that could be verified to be wrong with a look at the first paragraph on his Wikipedia page,…

Isn't this instead a great argument for why the article should be discussed here rather than banned from discussion? It's a great comment, and exactly the sort of useful criticism of the article that might actually change people's minds. If the article is hidden by flagging, these points will never be raised, and everyone stays at their initial position. But by allowing discussion, this insightful information can be shared and learning can happen. This is a good thing, right?

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

#886

Post by welterde » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #882

welterde wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither the mechanism nor the reasoning in the article sound plausible to me (nor the involvement of Norway..). NS1 was already shutdown by Russia within weeks of the supposed time of installation of the explosives, after which there was no more point to explode them and it would make more sense to silently remove them again. NS2 was already dead in the water since couple days before the invasion. In addition the bad…

First, the whole point of these pipes from Russia's side, and the concern about them from the US, was that they could be used as leverage to keep EU from supporting Ukraine. So there was absolutely a "point" in blowing them up even though they were turned off. The point being, when they're blown up, they can't be turned on, thus Russia has no leverage anymore. Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably h…

Russia already had no leverage anymore. Shutting them down was their "all in" move, but that clearly didn't cut it, so no, there was no point anymore. For Russia there were more upsides to this however: Getting out of contracts (since they can only halt deliveries for so long before fines kick in), solidifying internal positions, sending a message (since it happened 1-2 days after the opening of a Norway-Poland pipeline; also it was less than 500m from a sweden-poland undersea electrical cable), sewing chaos in the west. Not that there is any more evidence that they have done it than for the US..

And the rest is all putting the cart in front of the horse. Would it look any different if Russia (or anyone else) were the culprit? No, it wouldn't (since otherwise the fact it's classified itself leaks information). Maybe the investigation just yielded nothing conclusive? Which given the location and event (big explosion and lots of gas output making sure everything gets nicely distributed elsewhere) wouldn't be that surprising?

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

#887

Post by jonstewart » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

asimpletune wrote: post #865

beaned wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you call his sources crank without knowing who they are yourself?

I don’t think he’s calling him a crank, anymore than he’s talking about a specific broken clock being right twice a day. It’s just hypothetical to demonstrate a point. If he were a crank journalist, being accidentally right twice could still make him a journalistic legend. Therefore, we can’t trust simply because he’s famous, because a broken clock is right twice a day.

This piece posits a “crank theory” of Seymour Hersh:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...

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

#888

Post by consumer451 » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #885

consumer451 wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, your job is rough sometimes, and hats off. Here is the one of the best arguments I have found here as to why the quality of this article is highly questionable: > I know nothing of him, but given that there's an entire paragraph about Jens Stoltenberg where almost every sentence is just completely factually wrong in a way that could be verified to be wrong with a look at the first paragraph on his Wikipedia page,…

Isn't this instead a great argument for why the article should be discussed here rather than banned from discussion? It's a great comment, and exactly the sort of useful criticism of the article that might actually change people's minds. If the article is hidden by flagging, these points will never be raised, and everyone stays at their initial position. But by allowing discussion, this insightful information can be…

If people didn't just upvote things based on the headline due to confirmation bias, and if this[0] didn't exist, then sure.

Flagging exists for a reason, doesn't it?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

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

#889

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #425

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only thing we can be sure of is that this was perpetrated by government.

The Baltic Sea is quite shallow, so not even necessarily a government. Someone did it so.

Mars is unusually bright... blood will be spilled tonight.

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

#890

Post by tootie » Thu, Feb 09, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

kraussvonespy wrote: post #573

tootie wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate, but Sy Hersh has kinda flown the coop in the last 10 years. He egged on the Seth Rich conspiracy and tried to deny the US killed bin Laden. The New Yorker has basically disowned him and he hasn't had a byline in many years.

Too bad the New Yorker abandoned him. If your writing makes it past the editors, fact checkers and attorneys at that mag, you're probably golden. The effort they spent on Lawrence Wright's Scientology article was pretty hardcore: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/133561256

They explicitly dumped him because his reporting could not be validated and he insisted on publishing anyway.

https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/the-new-yorker-...