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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

#271

Post by thephyber »

kornhole wrote: post #199
mandevil wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Putin’s statement the night of the invasion didn’t blame the west, rather Ukraine.

And you conveniently ignore the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which US, RU, UK (among others) promise to militarily defend UA in exchange for UA giving up their nuclear weapons post-USSR. What good is a (non-existent) agreement for NATO to not expand if a very much real agreement to defend UA won’t be upheld?

Also worth pointing out that there’s a decent change Ukrainians we’re just tired of being chained to a corrupt neighbor whose corruption also caused massive UA government+corporate corruption.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#272

Post by halothane »

tptacek wrote: post #43
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 se…

[flagged]

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#273

Post by spurgu »

glennvtx wrote: post #255
Jerry2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of getting lost in minutia, can you explain why Biden, Nuland, Blinken and the rest of the neocon and lib imperialist gang would go on record about getting rid of NS1 and NS2 and then deny they had anything to do with it?

Biden is literally on video promising that these pipelines would be destroyed, so there is that.

Not sure you'd be downvoted for a clear and definite fact?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#274

Post by thephyber »

kornhole wrote: post #243
lispm wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Ruble is strong and Russia's GDP will grow more than the UK this year. Not. The economic numbers of Russia are now manipulated by Russia and the West. The value of the ruble in many markets is nearing zero, since Russia can't buy much for it, because it has lost access to those markets. It lacks supplies and needs to invest a lot of money into a war economy. Russia now has a war economy - the big and rising eco…

What do you mean the Ruble is near zero? All charts I see show it higher against the dollar compared to a year ago. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/fx/RUBUSD/historical-...

I’m guessing that ForEx ratio is highly dependent upon where you are when you trade it and I would wager the volumes are low or non-existent in any country that has sanctioned Russian exports like oil, gas, and metals.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#275

Post by kornhole »

jakeinspace wrote: post #214
kornhole wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US made no such official promise. Apparently not even unofficially, Gorbachev denied that Clinton ever made that personal promise.

They were informal assurances. Jeffrey Sachs was there at the time. https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/gafr872ellaha3w...

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#276

Post by halothane »

mannerheim wrote: post #128
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #97

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.

[flagged]

Nice! Love how you threw in the age factor there Buster. Yep, Seymour sure got his basic facts wrong during the Vietnam War, Watergate scandal, Abu Ghraib and more. I'd rather have him report on our state of the world than Brown Moses's team of Tik Tok experts or for that matter Team Jorge, unless you are one of them?

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#277

Post by ggm »

MarkMarine wrote: post #268
ggm wrote: post #241

Hersh is in the difficult position of needing to neither confirm nor deny his sources, because if he doesn't then no future internal leaker will talk to him: we're not going to find out "how he knows" because it kills his business. He's also like John Pilger and Glenn Greenwald very definitely bringing a specific world view to the table. Like the other two, that means his editorial has a direction. I don't personally…

Hersh also has a history of breaking stories that are true, like the My Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, and other things. This counterpoint writer has none of the yank that Hersh has. Has Hersh slipped in his age? I don’t know. But this nameless IC cutout who wrote this story has basically no credibility. Why should anyone listen to him?

Here's the Financial Times speculation. Russia, or the USA, or a Scandi country which is the USA because.. reasons. Said by Russians. Danes. Poles. Can't be natural. Must be sabotage. Could be from a boat. or a robot pig. Or 100kg of dynamite on the end of a 70m bit of string. You decide.

Seymour is in the mix, sure.

https://www.ft.com/content/294e441d-7b24-4144-a51f-75bdf70d7...

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#278

Post by fwungy »

nkozyra wrote: post #258
fwungy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Putin was not going to tolerate a NATO member a few minutes of rocket time from Moscow. But ... that's already there and has been for a long time. And now two more neighbors have pledged to join. If the intent was really to stop or reduce the neighboring countries who are NATO members, it hasn't really worked out that well.

I follow both the NYT and Wapo, and The New Atlas, Douglas MacGregor, and Alexander Mercouris.

The latter group has been far more accurate in their predictions and their analysis is far more logically composed.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#279

Post by kornhole »

thephyber wrote: post #274
kornhole wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean the Ruble is near zero? All charts I see show it higher against the dollar compared to a year ago. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/fx/RUBUSD/historical-...

I’m guessing that ForEx ratio is highly dependent upon where you are when you trade it and I would wager the volumes are low or non-existent in any country that has sanctioned Russian exports like oil, gas, and metals.

After the US seized Russian assets Russia started selling oil in Rubles. This forces its customers such as India and China to first buy Rubles usually with dollars.

Re: Blowing holes in Seymour Hersh’s pipe dream

#280

Post by maybelsyrup »

tptacek wrote: post #246
astro19238_ wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the Hersh thesis is completely made up, he still makes more sense than what this guy does. For one thing. The most plausible reason he can't find the plane dropping the buoy he privides himself. -It's a small device. -Better to use a boat. -Better to use a non military boat. Yeah? Maybe that is what they did? It's not impossible the source filled in a few gaps in his story? Or was mistaken? Or Hersh himself m…

It's not what they did, according to Hersh! It's not a minor gap in the story! Hersh claims the Norwegian Navy allocated an Alta-class minesweeper to the task of operating as a diving platform for American divers. You can't say "well, maybe that's not what happened then!" and act like the story is intact. If major details in the story are false, that's a big deal! You can absolutely still believe the US blew up the p…

> independently and axiomatically derived culpability

> ever since 2006, been a nutbag

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