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Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

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Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#211

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

smcl wrote: post #119
DeLeeuw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was always opposed to Nord Stream and for good reasons. I'm in fact glad it's gone. Many people already speculated it was the US, because Biden himself literally says "we will bring an end to it": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8 With a smirk. Even when pressed how he is going to do it. For me, Hersh' story is the secondary corroboration.

Seems to me equally likely he's saying they'd pressure Germany to not use it or introduce sanctions (to bring an end to Nordstream 2, as a source of foreign currency for Russia and as leverage over the EU). Additionally wasn't Nordstream 2 not yet operational, and mostly Nordstream 1 that was sabotaged?

Nord Stream 2 was operational. It was also targeted but one of the pipes was hit twice, leaving the other intact.

Up to that point, the Russians clearly communicated to Germany that the flow of gas could be resumed either by dropping the sanctions to "repair" Nord Stream 1 or by opening Nord Stream 2.

The reason given by the Russians as to why Nord Stream 1 wasn't running at capacity was technical problems. First it was a turbine which eventually was replaced by Germany. Next it was allegedly damage to a control unit. The Russians claimed the repairs were impossible because of the sanctions.

So up until the bombing, Nord Stream 2 was always there as a possible fallback. Had Germany run into difficulties procuring gas from other sources up until winter, there was this dangling bait in reach of the German government. A freezing population would have been very unkind to a government that refused to open the second pipeline just for political stance.

Since the bombing it has become clear that operating any pipeline through the Baltic might only last for a short time.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#212

Post by Laaas »

Wrt. the claim about BALTOPS, https://sfn.nato.int/newsroom/news-archive/2022/lasting-mine... seems relevant:

> Lasting Mine Countermeasures partnerships built during BALTOPS 22 > Experimentation on new types of unmanned underwater vehicles were also tested off the coast of Bornholm Island, Denmark during the exercise.

Them having used mines in prior BALTOPS exercises doesn't necessarily preclude what Seymour noted. BALTOPS 22 _does_ seem to have been more mine-focused than usual, according to the article.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#213

Post by dogma1138 »

alienicecream wrote: post #144

Can someone explain why some people here are so agitated over a claim that the US did it? Is it hard to believe that US intelligence would do something like this? Besides, if you hate Russia then it's a good thing right?

Because it makes no sense, blowing up NS would achieve nothing the EU was already cutting itself off Russian gas and oil.

This operation has no upsides and the downsides are so big that this is probably the only time where the meme of the guy being thrown out of the window for suggesting something in a meeting is actually appropriate…

If there was even a whiff of credible evidence that the US was behind it it would’ve set back US-EU relations by decades if not more and if there was actual undeniable proof it could’ve been the end of NATO.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#214

Post by smcl »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #211
smcl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me equally likely he's saying they'd pressure Germany to not use it or introduce sanctions (to bring an end to Nordstream 2, as a source of foreign currency for Russia and as leverage over the EU). Additionally wasn't Nordstream 2 not yet operational, and mostly Nordstream 1 that was sabotaged?

Nord Stream 2 was operational. It was also targeted but one of the pipes was hit twice, leaving the other intact. Up to that point, the Russians clearly communicated to Germany that the flow of gas could be resumed either by dropping the sanctions to "repair" Nord Stream 1 or by opening Nord Stream 2. The reason given by the Russians as to why Nord Stream 1 wasn't running at capacity was technical problems. First it…

Nordstream 2 was not delivering any gas at that point, Germany had refused the offer to open NS2 (after a series of comically timed "repairs" that just happened to require the new sanctions to be broken) and showed no signs of relenting. I think it is an enormous leap to assume that Germany would in this alternate reality inevitably relent and do what amounts to a pro-Russia stance in backpedalling and using NS2, that would not only fracture the country internally but would cause a foreign policy nightmare at the heart of the EU and NATO. As we have seen it was well within the world of possibilities to stand up LNG terminals for delivery by tanker, this would've been known to both Germany and the USA who would have been in discussion about this the entire time Nordstream was being discussed.

My position is: we just don't know yet, nothing is completely certain. I am surprised that people seem 100% convinced because they read an article by Hersh that paints a nice story and uses an as-yet unnamed source as proof and are prepared to take it all at face value. It may well turn out that the USA was responsible after all. But this recent article is, as it stands, no more than a story. It's still completely possible Nordstream 1/2 was blown by the Russians or the Ukrainians or the Brits or the Poles...

We don't know shit, let's not pretend we do.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#215

Post by klrpa »

Laaas wrote: post #212

Wrt. the claim about BALTOPS, https://sfn.nato.int/newsroom/news-archive/2022/lasting-mine... seems relevant: > Lasting Mine Countermeasures partnerships built during BALTOPS 22 > Experimentation on new types of unmanned underwater vehicles were also tested off the coast of Bornholm Island, Denmark during the exercise. Them having used mines in prior BALTOPS exercises doesn't necessarily preclude what Seymour noted.…

[flagged]

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#216

Post by klrpa »

travisgriggs wrote: post #84

I actually was drawn into reading this much more than the original article. I found myself going into skim mode with the original Hersh article. So ironically, I actually learned more about Hersh's claims reading this article than the original. I've worked with a bunch of old people of late. And I'm saying that from the reference point of 52. It's hard. I don't want to be an ageist. But I regularly see how hard it is…

[flagged]

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#217

Post by smcl »

kcplate wrote: post #181
smcl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me equally likely he's saying they'd pressure Germany to not use it or introduce sanctions (to bring an end to Nordstream 2, as a source of foreign currency for Russia and as leverage over the EU). Additionally wasn't Nordstream 2 not yet operational, and mostly Nordstream 1 that was sabotaged?

“Put an end to it” seems to carry a bit more finality then “we are going to encourage to not use it, or introduce sanctions to not use it”. Especially in light of the damn thing actually being destroyed…and an end being put to it. The action that was taken, even though it’s not acknowledged, has brought weight to the statement.

I think if they were planning to do this they wouldn't have sent Joe Biden out and said "alright, drop a little hint that you're going to bomb Nordstream in the event of a Ukraine invasion". And if they were planning to do so and Biden blurted it out (because ... he's Joe Biden) I imagine any plans to bomb the pipeline would surely have been scrapped as he'd have just given the game away.

More realistic is the old man who has famously delivered gaffe after gaffe, who has repeatedly stumbled on his speeches and said dumb shit, said something a bit inelegant that everyone's now seizing on like a bunch of qanoners baking the latest q-drop on 8chan

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#218

Post by GAN_Game »

JackFr wrote: post #41
htwaterx wrote: post #17

While interesting, the author appears to be nitpicking. It does not really refute Hersh's story, because these minor inconsistencies appear in any news article, including the NYT. It is irrelevant whether Hersh gets all details right, the important thing is whether his source is correct on the big picture or not. It seems to me that the veracity of Hersh's claims cannot be decided by textual analysis, but rather by a…

Asserting that “[Jens Steltonberg] was a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since.” when he was actually born in 1959 is not a small thing. It’s simply making things up.

Your refutation to this is he was born in 1959? That refutes what part?

Was he politically involved during the Vietnam War, atound Vietnam issues? Yes. Enough so that the Times wrote an article about that specific nine years ago https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ex-vietnam-protester-to-h... .

So what else in his age makes it not a small thing? That he cooperated with the American intelligence community back then? If he was some random teenager I guess it would be no random thing. However, his father was defense minister of this NATO country. Him spying on the student peace movement and relating details to his father and whoever his father had dealings with is the accusation. He certainly did a complete about face on the US military - or did he? Maybe this was his inclination from the beginning.

Incidentally NATO had a massive intelligence operation against the Norwegian student anti-NATO movement which was in the papers a few years ago.

I'm sure you had no clue the papers talked about his importance as a supposed anti-Vietnam activist years ago. I'm sure you had no idea his father was defense Minister of a NATO country. You're attempting to "discredit" the article by seeing a date, knowing none of these details, and deciding it discredits the article.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#219

Post by macintux »

sudosysgen wrote: post #210
macintux wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is the only country who could do it without risking provoking a war. Russia knew they weren’t going to make any money on it due to the strong reaction to the war on Ukraine. Russia could have decided to do it to remind Western Europe that it could do the same to other pipelines they depend on. None of that is determinative that Russia did do it, but it’s sufficient to me to indicate that they could have done i…

Really? You think Germany would declare war on the US?

Russia owns the pipelines. The U.S. would be risking war with Russia by blowing them up.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#220

Post by _kbh_ »

kubectl_h wrote: post #157
erentz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me also add these point that everyone seems to want to ignore: NordStream 2 was never put into service. Germany halted it due to the invasion. This was considered a very big deal. At the time of the explosion on 26 Sep there had been no gas flowing on NordStream 1 at all. None! Flows on NS1 were shutdown by Russia on 31 Aug. This came after a series of declining flows from Russia accompanied by various efforts by…

> (one of those pipes was suspiciously left undamaged). You do not offer any reason for Russia to blow up three of four pipelines just to leave around one.

> You do not offer any reason for Russia to blow up three of four pipelines just to leave around one.

Forces the certification and use of Nord stream 2.

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