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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

#101
post #51

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?

> 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?

Plausible? It has happened many times. In 2014, Russian military intelligence operatives blew up ammo depots in Czech Republic and nothing happened. Ammo stored there was to be sold to Ukraine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#102
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he did do fact checking, with people he had previously worked with at New Yorker https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/seymour...

They fact-checked "salinity-matched C4"? My god they're terrible.

"The American explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water"

This was the most ridiculous part. I can't think of a reason they would prefer to use an explosive charge in a position visible to inspection.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you qualify Hersh as one of journalism's least trustworthy figures, it's impossible to take the rest of your comment at face value.

I think you have to separate Hersh pre-2010 and Hersh after-2010. He was once one of the greatest journalists in the world, but the last decade he has been putting out poorly-sourced, falsifiable garbage. Watch the interview he gave the other day (mentioned in this article) and tell me you walk away from it with more confidence that he's fully "there" as a journalist. He goes on a tangent about how Ukraine is doomed…

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Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#106
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

When you qualify Hersh as one of journalism's least trustworthy figures, it's impossible to take the rest of your comment at face value.

I completely agree. He has a Pulitzer Prize, five Polk awards, two national magazine awards. Broke My Lai, Abu Ghraib, and exposed the Israeli nuclear program.

He is easily the most accomplished journalist for several generations.

That doesn’t automatically mean this story is right but to dismiss him in emotional and inaccurate terms doesn’t speak to a rational, evidence-based interpretation of the facts.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#107

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".

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Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which axiom gets you that it must have been a state actor who did it?

For me it's the one where governments with the most capable intelligence agencies in the world are quiet about who committed an act of international terrorism against an important piece of industrial infrastructure at the bottom of the ocean. One largely owned by Germany, a key NATO member. If this was some eco terrorism (imagining for a moment that they would have the means to procure the explosives and expertise to…

In 2014 there was a sabotage operation against a munitions depot in Vrbětice in the Czech republic, a NATO member. There was no official attribution for half a decade. Lack of immediate attribution as a basis for assigning responsibility seems mostly cherrypicking and vibes.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#109
post #75

They had means, motive and opportunity, and they even said that would do it. When pushed Biden said, "we'll put an end to it (Nord 2)". And the number of hit pieces against the journalist in question is telling. Using wholly dubious paid for misinformation from Bellingcat. But if you still think the US are innocent there is really not much more that can be said.

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Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have to separate Hersh pre-2010 and Hersh after-2010. He was once one of the greatest journalists in the world, but the last decade he has been putting out poorly-sourced, falsifiable garbage. Watch the interview he gave the other day (mentioned in this article) and tell me you walk away from it with more confidence that he's fully "there" as a journalist. He goes on a tangent about how Ukraine is doomed…

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