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Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

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191–200 of 439 posts

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#191
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious: how do you know this, and is this logical? IE, how do you know what Putin is doing and how he's thinking? What give you that insight? And - even assuming you do, does this make sense? Who is the "would be challenger" who would say "well, damn. I am going to oust Putin and take over the world's largest country, but ... nah, not gonna bother without Nordstream"?

You’re right. Clairvoyance is the only way one could possibly infer anything. My bad.

I am asking why you think what you think. Doesn't sound like there's a reason?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#193
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of that, interesting. But curious, (1) are the penalties greater than the cost of the pipeline + all foregone future revenue? (2) Do they care? Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it, couldn't really get worse in the moment, can it?

“Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it” So they’re at war with their only potential customers. Sounds like the pipeline has zero commercially value to Russia since it’s unlikely anyone would buy the gas. So there’s no monetary concern to stop Russia doing whatever with it.

Pipeline has zero current commercial value. It has potential non zero future commercial value. And there's no benefit to destroying it. Why would they have?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#194
post #161

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?…

“They” in your 2nd paragraph is probably making it hard to reason out. You’re imagining Russia to be a nation with somewhat rational self interest, right? It isn’t. Russia today is Vladimir Putin serving Vladimir Putin’s interests. He is desperately trying not to be ousted after having stepped on his own dick in Ukraine. Destroying his own asset could have been motivated by wanting to reduce the value of what a would…

I hear he has a 70-80% approval rating in his country. They have a czarist tradition, and he fits it.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of that, interesting. But curious, (1) are the penalties greater than the cost of the pipeline + all foregone future revenue? (2) Do they care? Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it, couldn't really get worse in the moment, can it?

The cost of the pipeline was likely a sunk cost before it actually got sunk. Even intact, there’d be little chance of it being activated anytime soon. Penalties can be taken out of Gazprom holdings abroad. There’s already discussion of giving sanctioned seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

So I still fail to see the logic. If Russian assets are being seized anyway, what's the benefit to Russia to destroying the physical pipeline they control and could choose to use in the future?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#196

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.

Some details in Hershs story were weird and made be cautious, but here is some more info that put some of that into new light: "It looks for all the world like somebody organised two totally separate operations, involving two separately triggered pipeline attacks, and that Hersh’s source only knows about one of them." https://www.eugyppius.com/p/nord-stream-update-in-lengthy-in...

I find that write-up dubious.

> The fear, however, was that the bombs wouldn’t work if they stayed in the water too long. This is actually what happened with two of the bombs.

Seriously? The world's largest military hasn't developed explosive devices that are sufficiently waterproof?

> There were still active explosives on the sea bed as the pipes were leaking their gas, which explains why partially complicit Denmark and Sweden closed the whole area and denied all access, until they themselves had removed everything.

This is just silly, and ignores Occam's Razor in order to fit a fact into a pre-determined narrative.

Bubbles reduce the density of water, thus potentially reducing buoyancy (in research based around oil rigs and the like, it was found that a large enough leak pushed enough water upwards to compensate, but this wasn't a large leak). Aerated water is a known drowning hazard for workers in water treatment plants for this reason, now add enough gas into the ocean beneath a boat, see what happens.

The leakage of residual gas in the pipeline into the water column posed a maritime hazard but sure, it was to remove the faulty bombs, that's why. They could have at least had the decency to mention and then explain away the buoyancy issue, at least insult my intelligence to my face.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of the pipeline was likely a sunk cost before it actually got sunk. Even intact, there’d be little chance of it being activated anytime soon. Penalties can be taken out of Gazprom holdings abroad. There’s already discussion of giving sanctioned seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

So I still fail to see the logic. If Russian assets are being seized anyway, what's the benefit to Russia to destroying the physical pipeline they control and could choose to use in the future?

The value of an unusable pipeline is zero. Worse than zero, if you have to maintain it.

Gazprom wasn’t fully sanctioned at the time, and seized assets can be returned later. Penalties would eat into that.

And again, sowing discord by accusing someone else probably is worth something.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#198
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Here's the video of him saying it Feb 7 2022. He could have been referring to decertifying it, which happened shortly after, since someone asks how they could do it given it is under German control and blowing it up doesn't require it to be under your own control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4BuMaGlKp0&t=1m50s

[deleted]

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#199

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?…

As I've argued before, the issue here is that invading Ukraine doesn't really make any sense from the Russian perspective. They've lost so much money in trade, their army is shattered, their soft-power is in shambles, and they've pissed off even the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine that used to view them as friends. This is why there was a lot of dissension in the West over a year ago about whether the Russians woul…

There is a lot missing from this account such as: The US promising not to expand NATO beyond Germany. The Maidan coup in 2014. The Minsk agreement where Kiev agreed to stop bombing the Donbas but has still killed over 14K people doing so.

The Ruble is strong and Russia's GDP will grow more than the UK this year.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#200
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…

What is your explanation for why the White House, State Department, and CIA immediately responded with public statements about that "blog post" from a "discredited former journalist"? What is your explanation as to why Washington hasn't put forward an alternative explanation for what happened to the critical infrastructure of their treaty ally, given they have the most powerful intelligence service on the planet? Thi…

There are multiple possible reasons for why Washington hasn't put forward an alternative explanation. Maybe they really don't know. Or maybe they do know but can't publicly reveal it in order to protect intelligence sources and methods. Or maybe they did do it, but using a different technique than Hersh alleged. Or maybe they intentionally leaked a false story to Hersh to muddy the waters.
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