61–70 of 439 posts
It feels rather damning that Hersh didn’t verify some of the easily verifiable claims that his source made. Why would you not have researchers do some fact checking on the story before publishing it so loudly?
he did do fact checking, with people he had previously worked with at New Yorker https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/seymour...
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…
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This is a non-statement. NATO is 29 other countries besides the US, all with their own motives, and you can contrive of motives for every other global power with the means to blow up a pipeline; the "opportunity" part of it doesn't even make sense.
You find it plausible that a global power outside of NATO would commit an act of international terrorism like this, blowing up the critical industrial infrastructure of a NATO member and everyone would just let it slide? Or that any one of 29 NATO member countries would do this acting all on their own?
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He's in "I want corroboration" territory for me. The big scoops - My Lai, Abu Gharaib - were backed up with hard evidence and other organizations confirming the allegations. Stuff like "the US faked Bin Laden's burial and chucked chunks of him into the mountains" have, thus far, not been.
Abu Ghraib happened, and My Lai happened, and Hersh was first who brought these two stories to light. Neither were some giant secrets, and were previously dismissed as unsubstantiated rumour. Hersh collected enough factoids together to substantiate them enough to become a news story, rather than a military legend.
Yes, but critically, also not the last. Other journalists corroborated, more sources came forward, evidence, hearings, photographs, convictions.
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Yup. Hersh also published bogus claims about the Syrian nerve agent attacks on civilians, claiming they were not done by the Syrian government, but by "outside agents". Among his claims was that the Sarin was made by "mixing two inert chemicals", which is utter bullsh*t; the synthesis pathways for those deadly chemicals are notoriously difficult and hazardous, including things like hydrofluoric acid, which is extreme…
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You find it plausible that a global power outside of NATO would commit an act of international terrorism like this, blowing up the critical industrial infrastructure of a NATO member and everyone would just let it slide? Or that any one of 29 NATO member countries would do this acting all on their own?
I think we have zero information and zero clues about who did this and trying to reason axiomatically about it, as HN is wont to do, isn't going to get us any closer to the truth.
As to clues, there are plenty. Biden proclaiming that he would put an end to Nord Stream 2 is a clue. That no one seems to be in a big rush to find out who did it given the scale of this and that it destroyed important infrastructure of a NATO member is a clue. That "there is no evidence that Russia did it" as the Swedish investigators said, is a clue.
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I think we have zero information and zero clues about who did this and trying to reason axiomatically about it, as HN is wont to do, isn't going to get us any closer to the truth.
That's exactly what reasoning axiomatically does, it gets you closer to the truth. It gets you from "I don't know anything" to "these are the plausible theories". I wonder why you think that allowing people to speculate based on these "axioms" is so dangerous? If they're wrong, they're just wrong aren't they? As to clues, there are plenty. Biden proclaiming that he would put an end to Nord Stream 2 is a clue. That no…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we have zero information and zero clues about who did this and trying to reason axiomatically about it, as HN is wont to do, isn't going to get us any closer to the truth.
That's exactly what reasoning axiomatically does, it gets you closer to the truth. It gets you from "I don't know anything" to "these are the plausible theories". I wonder why you think that allowing people to speculate based on these "axioms" is so dangerous? If they're wrong, they're just wrong aren't they? As to clues, there are plenty. Biden proclaiming that he would put an end to Nord Stream 2 is a clue. That no…
It doesn't, it just lets you wrap your biases and motivated reasoning in a veneer of rigour that isn't really there. After all, you're the one picking the 'axioms' out of an infinite set and they aren't used for anything else.
There isn't anything wrong with idle speculation but there also isn't anything wrong with people pointing some idle speculation is largely baseless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a non-statement. NATO is 29 other countries besides the US, all with their own motives, and you can contrive of motives for every other global power with the means to blow up a pipeline; the "opportunity" part of it doesn't even make sense.
You find it plausible that a global power outside of NATO would commit an act of international terrorism like this, blowing up the critical industrial infrastructure of a NATO member and everyone would just let it slide? Or that any one of 29 NATO member countries would do this acting all on their own?
That's a very odd description of a never-functional, decertified piece of infrastructure owned and constructed by a sanctioned geopolitical foe.