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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

#151

Post by torstenvl »

baybal2 wrote: post #11
ceejayoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hersh was emphatically not the first to bring My Lai to light. Hugh Thompson reported the incident, and although it was initially swept under the rug by lower-level commanders, it wasn't until after Calley was charged (Sept 1969) that Hersh reported on it (Nov 1969).

He deserves credit for his excellent, Pulitzer Prize-winning work covering My Lai. But to my knowledge he has never once been the first to report on a scandal and been right about it.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#154

Post by stephc_int13 »

I've read both this paper and the original Seymour Hersh article.

I found the abundance of details a bit weird, to be honest, but not enough to discount the credibility of the thesis.

On the other hand, this paper is poorly constructed, mostly using straw man techniques and sleight of hands to discredit the original paper.

I think it's doing the opposite of what it is trying to achieve, adding free publicity on top.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#155

Post by hutzlibu »

julianeon wrote: post #137
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".

You can't draw conclusions of any kind from false information; that's the problem with false information.

Of course you can, you now have valid information about the source of that false information - and can make hypothesis about the motives.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#156

Post by hutzlibu »

simplicio wrote: post #141
floxy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't followed any of this really at all, but is there a compelling reason why Ukraine isn't at the top of everyone's list? Seems like they would have the motive to prevent Germany from giving-in to Russian demands to keep gas flowing and at the same time hurt Russia. It doesn't seem like it was a highly technical or expensive operation that would have prevented a smaller player from accomplishing it, and in fact…

I think the 2 reasons people don't suspect Ukraine is that: a) it seems kinda implausible they have ability to blow up the pipe-line, nevermind to do so without being detected in what has to be the most cloesly monitored body of water on the planet. b) Germany was already backing them. Blowing up the pipeline might make Germany marginally less likely to backslide, but if Ukraine were caught blowing up the pipeline, G…

(FWIW, I think the most likely suspect is the one that doesn't usually get mentioned, that Germany blew it up to demonstrate their resolve regarding Russian sanctions)

This is very unlikely, the german government simply never would have the balls to do anything remotely drastic.

But they likely would close their eyes, if someone else would do it.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#157

Post by xyzelement »

I didn't read Hersh's essay, I did read this and found it logical. BUT independently from these two writeups, the thing that doesn't make any sense is the idea that Russian would blow up their own pipeline.

It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible? I guess so... but it doesn't make sense as the go-to explanation.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#158

Post by macinjosh »

This guy says that other intelligence agencies like from Norway being involved is evidence that is not all that secret. In reality, Congressional offices are sieves for intel though unlike Foreign intel agencies on the other hand which are professionals.

He then complains that publicly available ship and aircraft data don’t line up as if they would use publicly tracked craft for a secret operation.

No holes have been blown.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#159

Post by andrewflnr »

hutzlibu wrote: post #155
julianeon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't draw conclusions of any kind from false information; that's the problem with false information.

Of course you can, you now have valid information about the source of that false information - and can make hypothesis about the motives.

Only if you're very lucky do you actually know any of these things. There's generally a very wide space of things that could have happened, and knowing that exactly one of them is wrong narrows things down very little. The space of motives for people to muddy the water is similarly wide, so you probably don't know anything new about the source.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#160

Post by ceejayoz »

xyzelement wrote: post #157

I didn't read Hersh's essay, I did read this and found it logical. BUT independently from these two writeups, the thing that doesn't make any sense is the idea that Russian would blow up their own pipeline. It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible?…

“We couldn’t have done it” seems like a good way to sow discord among the Western allies.

There’s also the theory that it gets Gazprom out of contract violation penalties.

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