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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

#41

Post by mannerheim »

kornhole wrote: post #39

I spent a few days with the chief of special operations of the joint chiefs of staff, and he told me many stories of things they would do to cover their tracks in special ops. For example, they would dismantle an airplane and file off every serial number of every part and then put it back together again. Anyone planning an operation of this scale and significance would have thought to ensure the ship had an alibi. Mo…

There's satellite photography and a picture by a photographer of the ship in question too.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#42

Post by dmix »

tptacek wrote: post #37
dmix wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd still give Hersh the benefit of the doubt he's not just listening to some internet troll type person. There has to be some reputation at play here for him to take it seriously. The odds are high it's someone connected to the US or NATO govs. At least you'd assume so. As another commenter mentioned, he claimed he used to the same fact checkers used by The New Yorker.

I would not give him the benefit of the doubt, and I have a hard time understanding why anybody would; there is more than ample reason to doubt any story he runs. I can't imagine a credible source working with him, so far has the presumption of accuracy been shifted on his work over the last 10 years. That's why a famous journalist is reduced to running stories from unnamed (and implausible) sources in the first plac…

Maybe it was an aging Intel guy relying on old reputation for credibility who later declined into pushing conspiracy tier thing, so basically two levels of Hersh like people cruising off past glory.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#43

Post by tptacek »

kornhole wrote: post #39

I spent a few days with the chief of special operations of the joint chiefs of staff, and he told me many stories of things they would do to cover their tracks in special ops. For example, they would dismantle an airplane and file off every serial number of every part and then put it back together again. Anyone planning an operation of this scale and significance would have thought to ensure the ship had an alibi. Mo…

According to the same analysis: it doesn't even make sense that they'd require an Alta-class ship from Norway's Navy in the first place; the ship was essentially just a diving platform, and civilian ships operate in those waters with far less need for cover. Moreover, the whole structure of the operation Hersh claims: EC-UBA divers planting C4 charges detonated by a sonobuoy dropped by a Norwegian P8, doesn't make sense either: remote underwater detonation is a routine operation performed in the civilian oil and gas industry. Not to mention: the P8 implicated Norway's Air Force, contradiction a big chunk of Hersh's story.

None of this checks out. You can make any number of unfalsifiable arguments about them not checking out deliberately as part of psy-ops or whatever, but at that point you've taken the whole story back to square one: we just don't know what happened, and Hersh's story has essentially nothing to tell us about it, other than that one random, implausibly-well-informed anonymous person told Hersh, one of journalism's least trustworthy figures, that that's what happened.

Look, I'm just a dude on a message board reading a set of competing claims about a subject I know literally nothing at all about. But I trust these claims more than I trust Hersh's claims, by a factor of infinity.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#44

Post by tptacek »

mannerheim wrote: post #41
kornhole wrote: post #39

I spent a few days with the chief of special operations of the joint chiefs of staff, and he told me many stories of things they would do to cover their tracks in special ops. For example, they would dismantle an airplane and file off every serial number of every part and then put it back together again. Anyone planning an operation of this scale and significance would have thought to ensure the ship had an alibi. Mo…

There's satellite photography and a picture by a photographer of the ship in question too.

Well, but, how hard could it be for the world's best resourced intelligence agencies to fake that data? Come on, man.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#46

Post by tptacek »

snapcaster wrote: post #45

How easy would it be for a military or intelligence service to fake this data? I don't really have any experience or idea on how reliable these signals are for something like this

Countervailing OSINT data isn't the only problem with the story Hersh is telling; a deeper problem is that the whole scheme doesn't make much sense. The author links to a more expansive debunking at the top of his story (it's a better link than the one we're reading now, because it incorporates all this Norwegian minesweeper OSINT), and the bulk of it is just observations about how dumb this mission structure is.

Implausibly informed anonymous single source? Check.

Midlist Tom Clancy-grade technical details, like salinity camouflaged C4 charges? Check.

Basic factual errors, like the Norwegian Navy not operating P8s? Check.

Irrational strategic details, like using Navy minesweepers as platforms for human divers during a huge, widely monitored, extensively planned military exercise? Check.

That's just this analysis. But you can work back through Hersh's credibility with similar debunkings of his previous stories. Look at the enmity Hersh's cheering section has for Bellingcat, for instance, for taking his Syria Sarin story to pieces.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#47

Post by epistasis »

molopolo24 wrote: post #27

Let us consider that, even if he was fed false-information and his story discredited we can do limited conclusions from it. It might not affirm "the West blew up Nordstream" but it certainly does not affirm "the West NOT blow up Nordstream".

For that matter, it certainly doesn't exclude the possibility that the person posting as molopolo24 was personally responsible for the attack!

And now that the possibility has been raised, we must all very seriously consider it along with all the other possibilities. This is only fair.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#48

Post by epistasis »

dmix wrote: post #17

If someone was feeding Hersh false information why would they reference the Alta class? Assuming it was some Intel op or some insider, did they just google some Norwegian navy ships that could plausibly fit the picture? Or did Hersh draw that connection himself? Hersh has been criticized for listening to cranks. Maybe some Intel officer (or adjacent gov/military worker) heard some rumours internally but there was com…

There are all sorts of interested parties in creating doubt about the attack, and the most likely is of course the master of this, Russia. It also fits very well with past bad reporting from Hersh.

The detail makes the story more plausible, later debunking matters far less than the initial report and the uncertainty that this sows in people's minds.

Taking attention away from the true culprit definitely helps. And any ammunition that can be used to make democracies in the West have more doubt and internal wasted debate definitely helps whoever actually destroyed the pipeline.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#49

Post by tptacek »

epistasis wrote: post #48
dmix wrote: post #17

If someone was feeding Hersh false information why would they reference the Alta class? Assuming it was some Intel op or some insider, did they just google some Norwegian navy ships that could plausibly fit the picture? Or did Hersh draw that connection himself? Hersh has been criticized for listening to cranks. Maybe some Intel officer (or adjacent gov/military worker) heard some rumours internally but there was com…

There are all sorts of interested parties in creating doubt about the attack, and the most likely is of course the master of this, Russia. It also fits very well with past bad reporting from Hersh. The detail makes the story more plausible, later debunking matters far less than the initial report and the uncertainty that this sows in people's minds. Taking attention away from the true culprit definitely helps. And an…

Trying to work backwards from the (likely true) notion that Hersh's story is fiction is just as intellectually flawed. We don't anything about Hersh's source or their motives. You could write an HN comment about how the CIA planted this whole story to cast doubt on the actual US-led operation to blow up (some) of the Nord Stream pipeline. Or you could write the opposite comment. There's just nothing to go on.

The only thing we can really discuss here is whether the Hersh story is credible. It seems clearly not to be. If we establish that, that's all we get: the fact that one story about what happened is false. We'll be no closer to knowing what actually happened. That's life!

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#50

Post by alienicecream »

mannerheim wrote: post #38
alienicecream wrote: post #34

[flagged]

The glowies faked the transponders! They faked the satellite imagery too! And they even faked the witnesses and photographers who saw the ship! Case closed.

I don't think it really matters if Hersh's story is correct in all the details, or if it was done in a completely different way. So I don't really understand the zeal which people have to poke holes in it. What matters is motive, means and opportunity and only a few nations, all in NATO, have all three. And no one in NATO is going to do anything like this without making sure they get approval from the US first. That's pretty much all you need to know.
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