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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

#91

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

> anonymous officials. ... this is the standard for journalism on these topics

Unfortunately, it's also standard for planted false stories.

It's notable that Hersh won the Nobel prize for producing photographic evidence of war crimes.

None of his anonymously sourced articles has ever been confirmed true

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#92
post #47

There was a P8 dropping a sonar bouy a few hours before the blast. Monkeywerx on YouTube has a few videos on that. Then there's Biden explicitly stating it would be no more and they would end it, also on YouTube.

Wrong, it made a pass after the explosion. For a good reason. But here you are proclaiming that they used a plane, with its transponder on, to activate the bomb. A very very very secret operation indeed. Cloak and daggers! So much covert.

If you can't trust monkeywerx on youtube to ferret out the secret plans, who can you trust? Importantly, Hersh claims there was a Norwegian Navy P8 that dropped the Sonobouy -- but the Norwegian Navy doesnt operate P8s, the Air Force does, and they don't have any actually flying yet - they won't be in service until 2023. The plane tracked by monkeywerx is a US Navy P8. That's a pretty important difference!

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#93
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's overwhelmingly obvious that the US, or US-aligned forces, were responsible. It's not clear to me who else even has a motive to do this. US has capable forces in the region at the time, a clear motive (remove the temptation for Germany to use the pipeline). The other possibilities are Russia, they could just turn off the pipeline rather than blow it up, Germany, they could just turn off their end of the p…

> It's not clear to me who else even has a motive to do this. Putin. Blow up the pipeline so no-one can offer cheap gas in exchange for being recognized as the next legitimate leader of Russia behind his back. It's one of the simplest explanations and falls into the overall pattern. False-flag terrorism[1] is how Putin got into power in the first place. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

Cheap gas or not, the west would welcome any new Russian leader with open arms if they withdrew from Ukraine. That explanation does not seem very compelling at all.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#94
post #54

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

I agree with you, but I would take Ukraine off the list, although they had a strong motive. Ukraine's strategic cornerstone is international relations, without which they cannot win the war. Ukraine would never risk upsetting Germany, the EU's biggest economy, with such a drastic operation.

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Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#95

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

None of what you said mentions of any specific details of either article, whatsoever. What specifically is an example of an insinuation you object to? Maybe pick one straw man and point it out? Otherwise, what's the informational content behind all this verbiage?

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#96
post #54

I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends". I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however.…

I agree with you, but I would take Ukraine off the list, although they had a strong motive. Ukraine's strategic cornerstone is international relations, without which they cannot win the war. Ukraine would never risk upsetting Germany, the EU's biggest economy, with such a drastic operation.

Also, how would Ukraine pull off such a mission in a sea it has no access to?

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#97
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a single other instance in history where a country at war significantly damaged its ability to raise money for the war to “send a message”? What exactly is the message? The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?

Pacific atolls could be tourism paradise, but many were used Instead to test atom bombs.

[deleted]

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#98
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a single other instance in history where a country at war significantly damaged its ability to raise money for the war to “send a message”? What exactly is the message? The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?

Pacific atolls could be tourism paradise, but many were used Instead to test atom bombs.

As a response to the above challenge, this is quite the stretch

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#99

I actually was drawn into reading this much more than the original article. I found myself going into skim mode with the original Hersh article. So ironically, I actually learned more about Hersh's claims reading this article than the original. I've worked with a bunch of old people of late. And I'm saying that from the reference point of 52. It's hard. I don't want to be an ageist. But I regularly see how hard it is…

It's also a possibility that Hersh has been a victim of a bullshitter.

Re: Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

#100
post #2

It does seem like what happened is that Hersh got a legitimate source (probably in the US or Norwegian intelligence community) who was willing to talk about an existing plan for this kind of operation, and then spun it into a story just declaring that it happened that way. In point of fact probably every major player in the region had a plan like this. Nord Stream 2 was a huge football for everyone with interest. We…

> Why blow up a gas line but not sent ATACMS?

Because the strategic goal is is not to militarily defeat Russia, which would probably be impossible, but to drive a hard geopolitical wedge between the EU and the rising Russia-Iran-India-China Eurasian multipolar order, and thereby secure EU dependence on Washington (rather than losing it to the gravitational pull of Eurasia). A limited proxy war, and blowing up economic links between the two, are two ways of achieving that.

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