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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

#221

Post by usrusr »

Laaas wrote: post #209
oh_sigh wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pipeline is 80m underwater - a ship could be sailing right over and not even realize an explosion happened under it.

What about the methane? How would it interact with the ship if it was directly atop the leak?

Sure: when a large amount of gas is released to bubble up, the average density of the gas/water mix can be too low for the maximum displacement of a ship passing above to carry it's weight. Ship drops beneath the surface until it hits pure water or a mix close enough, and most ships aren't built to recover from that.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#222

Post by usrusr »

nkurz wrote: post #187
heyda wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really rule out the P-8, apparently Norway has had P-8's since 2021, in order for an aircraft to be 'fully operational' you have to do training/exercises, fly the aircraft. If the Norwegian Air Force wanted to have the P-8 fully operational by Jan 30 2023, they had to have been flying sorties before then. https://www.arctictoday.com/norway-takes-delivery-of-boeing-...

In confirmation, here's a press release saying that they have been making training flights with their P8's since June 22, with plans to make 2 flights a week: https://www-forsvaret-no.translate.goog/aktuelt-og-presse/ak...

Tom Clancy would disavow having served as inspiration if the story did not feature secret prototypes! (I know nothing about Tom Clancy and his works, that's just how I imagine them to be like: not full-out "future gear porn" but a well-balanced moderate dose of it?)

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#223

Post by erentz »

etc-hosts wrote: post #192
askheqybewq wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by a discredited journalist I'm French and I had never heard of that journalist. Can you share the link to the official list of discredited journalists so I know who not to trust going forward?

I think the commenter is labelling Hersh a "discredited journalist". The discrediting part would be his recent articles on Syrian government complicity in chemical warfare attacks, his narrative of how the Bin Laden killing actually happened, and if the Russians actually poisoned the Skripals. But you probably knew all that and I have been concern trolled. Oh well, I try.

> But you probably knew all that and I have been concern trolled. Oh well, I try.

I think the less than hour old account with random username might've given it away. :-) Unfortunately a seemingly unusual amount of that on this story.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#224

Post by usrusr »

0xDEF wrote: post #108
createdapril24 wrote: post #7

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

>For the linked article - it commits far more journalistic sins than Hersh's article - in an attempt to take it down. Through continued use of insinuation, analogies, and strawmen Like what? Give some examples. Hersh's article is just made up fiction. Hersh has a habit of making up "anonymous sources": >As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former…

Doesn't have to mean that he makes them up though: when a group of professional "truth fabricators" (or rather "doubt fabricators", they don't really need their stories to be water-proof) has learned that he makes for an effective mouthpiece eager to believe he'll be swarmed with "sources".

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#225

Post by usrusr »

nostromo123 wrote: post #208

Here in Central Europe there is a general tacit understanding that "of course it was the Americans". It just doesn't make sense to the people that Russia did it... what would it gain from this?

Crippling any "make money not war" faction that might build in Moscow. No path to money, no threat. An all-in commitment forced on the unwilling, and on the perhaps unwilling who might change their minds. And with a generous side of doubt and distrust in the West, particularly after that Biden remark. The list of possible universes we live in even includes one where Russia did it, but would not have done without that invitation.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#226

Post by usrusr »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #19
macintux wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Russia would use it as a reminder that they could sabotage other pipelines doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Can you name a single other instance in history where a country at war significantly damaged its ability to raise money for the war to “send a message”? What exactly is the message? The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?

Russia comes to mind, in the weeks before the explosions when they launched a ridiculous cascade of excuses about why they can't fulfill contracts on the existing, undamaged pipe. They quite literally left huge amounts of money on the table only to send a message. Must have been difficult, internally, to keep up.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#227

Post by dragonwriter »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #19
macintux wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Russia would use it as a reminder that they could sabotage other pipelines doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Can you name a single other instance in history where a country at war significantly damaged its ability to raise money for the war to “send a message”? What exactly is the message? The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?

> The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?

The US wasn’t the target, European powers were, and the message was about will (though like other Russian threats over the same policy issue, it was a false message, despite the dramatic form), more than material capacity.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#228

Post by sudosysgen »

macintux wrote: post #219
sudosysgen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Russia doesn't have a Casus Belli. It's not Russia soil, and the pipeline isn't even owned by a Russian company.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#229

Post by sixstringninja »

BWStearns wrote: post #167
alienicecream wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should everyone shut up until they have hard evidence to present? That doesn't sound like a very interesting way to live. Even in court circumstantial evidence is a valid form of evidence and plausible scenarios can be presented to try and convince. What is wrong with that?

If you don’t bother to fact check your evidence before making serious accusations then yes, one should shut up. Circumstantial evidence is still evidence yes, but this is just a bunch of shit that is observably false followed by salacious assertions. Presenting claims that are trivially falsifiable as true without bothering to apply skepticism because it plays into your favored narrative is not journalism. It’s whate…

I would also add. If you claim to be respectable journalist or an objective observer, I, as a reader would expect you to have done your research and have a higher standard of your publications. Given your past accolades, presenting anything less without substantial support just tells me you are just trying to make yourself relevant with contrarian views

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#230

Post by kcplate »

smcl wrote: post #217
kcplate wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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 ma…

Even a gaffe doesn’t change the core strategic value, it only adds another variable to consider as part of the possible blowback of the operation.

Regardless, it’s apparent that even with a Biden gaffe in the mix, if the US was responsible it was done in a way that preserved enough mystery to minimize the blowback.

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