It’s plausible that the U.S. used the military personnel he claims the U.S. used so that they could avoid Congressional oversight. But where is the evidence they actually used said personnel? He references a source but my source with direct knowledge of Seymour’s work says that Russia paid him to write this.
Given Seymour’s work on Russia’s involvement in Syria I’m skeptical of him having credibility on the topic of Nordstream.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2018-07-22/ty-article-opinio...
https://www.rferl.org/a/nord-stream-sabotage-investigation-r...
Please note that Radio Free Europe is run by CIA.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2018-07-22/ty-article-opinio...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/where-does-germany-s...
Joe talks a lot:
"If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it." -- Joe Biden, Feb 2022, with the German's Chancellor standing next to him! [1]
So at the very least the US thought that they indeed had control over that "major NATO ally" and could make thinly veiled threats to their face. Why you think that the US would be above sabotage on a matter of strategic national interests is unclear.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-vladimir...
https://mronline.org/2021/10/11/bellingcat-funded-by-u-s-and...
If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.
US state media literally aired a puff piece for Jolani, including interviews from top DoD officials. It is staggering [1].
These are all undisputed facts which I can supply primary evidence to support. Russia is doing nothing of the sort. Some civilians possibly died as collateral as Russia targeted extremist strongholds in extremist-controlled Idlib. In fact, outside the West, Russia is credited with preventing Syria from turning into an Iraq/Libya-style disaster.
[1] - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/the-jihadist/...?
It's long but after reading this ask why you would believe this man who, in this new article, is making plenty of assertions all based on quotes from a single anonymous source.
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...
Russia Georgia Energy Crisis (2006)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_...
Turkmenistan (2009)
https://www.rferl.org/a/Pipeline_Explosion_Stokes_Tensions_B...
Highly recommend the entire LRB series. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n01/seymour-m.-hersh/mil...
>...
>"This is utterly false and complete fiction," said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. Spokespeople for the CIA and State Department said the same.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-says-blog-post-...
Also see here https://www.reddit.com/r/jimmydore/comments/10x3yfq/jimmy_do...
The John F. Kennedy assassination could not have been a conspiracy, some conspirator would have spoken sooner or later (maybe on his/her death bed).
This is obviously not a lone perpetrator, so the truth will come out.
But it may take decades, e.g.:
https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-nord-s...
As a German, not just me, when Trump threatened - yes threatened! - to withdraw lots of troops from Germany there was lots of Angst about the economic fallout. US troops are in areas that have benefited, and still benefit, very heavily from their presence.
The opinion that US troops are "occupiers" can only be found in some tiny minority fringe groups, left and right, if even that.
I'm East German even, who even maintained interest in the ex USSR territories, visiting a few times (Ukraine and Russia, both, even taking a two month long Russian language course to refresh my knowledge, so I should be biased towards the Russian PoV, but there is no way I would find your assertion anything but nonsense. Having US troops in Germany is mostly looked upon favorably, even when Germans have not agreed with some of the wars the US fought using them.
There also is a significant difference in public opinion before the Russian invasion and after. Also, opinions and the relationship were worst, by far, during the Trump years. So, during that time, and before the invasion, and definitely after Trump, the opinion was indeed more in favor of the US leaving. For some strange reason Russia decided to help out European-US alliance and to give it a huge boost...
Just as an example, it's not like that hasn't been reported many times since last February:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/international-...
They include their methodology at the top, including the questions asked.
> Data collection began a week prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan.
.
Oh and I'm of the - weakly held - opinion that it was the Russians who blew up the pipeline. I don't understand the questions here about benefits and motives - this has all been discussed to death elsewhere, anyone seriously interested in the topic, and not just wanting to annoy somebody here, would/could just have gone there and read it all. I'd suspect Poland more than the US, they've been visibly mad and very outspoken about Germany's Russia reliance and close ties for a long time, they've felt threatened by the Russians and are right next to them.
https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/68455... -- "Nord Stream 2 as a Threat to National Interests of Poland and Ukraine"
There is no shortage of candidates, and if the governments don't want to talk, not even the Russians making much noise, I see no good purpose behind all this speculation. Especially when people start making strong assertions left and right, based on carefully selected pieces of facts. What a waste of time, but I didn't want to let the "US troops occupy Germany" stand, it's just too silly. Oh, and one pipe of NS2 remaining does seem kind of significant to me. Hardly an accident.
https://www.dw.com/en/problem-is-not-interrogation-its-war-i...
> US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh disclosed the torture scandal of Abu Ghraib 10 years ago.
> He was the first to describe in detail what was happening in Abu Ghraib, quoting from the Taguba Report, a secret, internal investigation by the US army about atrocities committed against the prisoners.
The article goes on to discuss how even though second hand accounts of abuses already existed, he was the first to get access to and disclose the report, giving a detailed first party account and giving proof of chain of command involvement for the first time.
If Germany has no Russian gas (it's not possible) they won't spend any time even broaching that possibility - the only way forward is to look for other sources (which happened concurrently with the opening of the Baltic pipeline - convenient).
[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BurningTheShips
McNamara's tacit admission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HODxnUrFX6k
JFK, RFK, Dag Hammarskjöld, MLK, Malcom X, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, et al. to just name a few.
When you put it all together in historical context, it seems improbable that these were random unrelated events that just happen to advance the interests of a very powerful class that felt victimized by the end of European imperialism/American slavery and the rise of Communism and the Global South.
Otto Skorzeny is emblematic of the character that was central to this history.
Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for counterargument.
p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting. If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to already know (or feel one knows) the answer—and this is a site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of view.
Im asserting as much evidence as Hersh. https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
I'm not going to ban you because you might not have seen that other comment, but please look at it now and please stop posting like this. Regardless of how wrong others are or you feel they are, you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
> According to Hersh's story, Navy SEALs met no resistance at Abbottabad and were escorted by a Pakistani intelligence officer to bin Laden's bedroom, where they killed him. Bin Laden's body was "torn apart with rifle fire" and pieces of the corpse "tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains" by Navy SEALs during the flight home (no reason is given for this action). There was no burial at sea because "there wouldn’t have been much left of bin Laden to put into the sea in any case."
> The first hints came in the latter years of the Bush administration, when Hersh reported repeatedly that the US was on the verging of striking Iran. These included reports stating that the US might even bomb Iran with a nuclear warhead, and later that the administration had considered using US special forces disguised as Iranians to launch a "false flag" attack as a premise for war.
> The moment when a lot of journalists started to question whether Hersh had veered from investigative reporting into something else came in January 2011. That month, he spoke at Georgetown University's branch campus in Qatar, where he gave a bizarre and rambling address alleging that top military and special forces leaders "are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta ... many of them are members of Opus Dei." He suggested that they belong to a network first formed by former Vice President Dick Cheney that is steering US foreign policy toward an agenda of bringing Christianity to the Middle East.
> The next year, in 2012, Hersh reported in the New Yorker that the Bush administration had secretly armed and funded an Iranian terrorist group known as the MEK in 2005. Two sources, neither with direct knowledge, told Hersh that American special forces had flown the Iranians all the way to Nevada to train at a base there. This detail was both spectacular and puzzling: the US has bases throughout the world, including several in the Middle East; why bring terrorists to Nevada?
I'm not sure. Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who regularly release information while only citing anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence.
Just posting proofster.png [1] doesn't undo America's long history of doing weird stuff to achieve its goals. Thinking about funding terrorism in Cuba, backdooring all electronic communication ever or saying that your President did not have a stroke.
Also, someone posted further down in the comments that the White House has a history of discrediting witnesses and questioning motives. [2] Interestingly enough, it appears to me that this tactic engages citizens to follow the ad hominem attacks of their policymakers, although they don't gain anything from doing so. Maybe this dynamic is even more interesting than the article itself because the causes of this crime are only for history books. America got what it wanted anyway, and nothing will change that.
Edit 2: I've replaced the question mark with quotation marks following a suggestion by bee_rider: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713987.
-- original comment: --
We sometimes add a question mark when a title makes a dramatic and divisive claim, because otherwise readers who read the title might think that HN (or its admins) are somehow endorsing the claim. We don't know what the truth is and are neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the claim.
Edit: I dug up a few other examples where we've done this:
This is the year of the RSS reader? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34105572
Anthropology in Ruins? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34049130
The great Covid and smoking cover-up? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33869176
The basic idea is that adding a question is a flame retardant because it tends to dampen the meta-comments about the story, e.g. complaints that the admins are taking a side or whatnot.
In this case it's not really working, because the question mark is also generating lots of meta-comments. But maybe fewer than we'd get without it.
Meta comment of my own: it's not only impossible to please everyone with moderation calls like this—it's seemingly impossible to please anyone. That's why it's really helpful to have a first principle to rely on—i.e. to know what you're optimizing for. It occasionally makes it possible to answer an otherwise hard question rather easily.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
I think the story belongs on HN because I know a little bit about the historical significance of Seymour Hersh and I think the appearance of this story is intellectually interesting. Maybe I'm the only commenter who feels that way, since most appear only to want to score points for their pre-existing political side, but it's our job to serve the intellectual interest of the larger audience, most of whom don't comment.
Re the question mark in titles, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713747. This is a longstanding practice and has nothing to do with the topic.
It's no secret that Hersh's work has become increasingly suspect in recent years. Every time he writes, he cites a single anonymous source and yet manages to go into an implausible level of detail and completeness with neatly tied up loose ends you'd only expect to find in a Tom Clancy novel. The only reason this story has been rescued from the dustbin is due to Hersh's (old) reputation, which though well earned, shouldn't just give him a pass.
https://www.businessinsider.com/robert-grenier-reflects-on-s...
https://www.vox.com/2015/12/21/10634002/seymour-hersh-syria-...
- Biden saying that NS2 will not go forward
- the pipeline is blown up
Did I miss anything? Because the rest is conjectures, one anonymous source, and references to historical events. I don't understand what does this add to the discourse.
Adding Hersh's name to the conspiracy theory (in a very literal sense) does not add any factual weight to it, it's still an unfounded conspiracy theory. It's (again, literally) an "ad hominem" argument, which is widely understood to be a fallacy.
Which also makes people linking stuff like https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi... wrong, because it's not about Hersh's integrity or lack thereof, the whole premise is wrong.
Russia has absolutely blown up their own gas pipe before...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_...
a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in the tech world that aren't making the front page.
the war/defense industry is the foundation of all US technology:
https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Chom.h...
ukraine is a massive test ground for us weapons/tech -- including operations which don't occur strictly in Ukrainian territory.
and, the world might be over any day now because of the war, so there's always that.
is there a HN in heaven/hell?
This is not merely hypothetical. Uniper, one of Gazproms biggest customers in Europe, is already suing for $12 billion in damages. And that is only one of many former customers.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uniper-seeking-billi...
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=5567609899962902 "We will put an end to Abbott's attacks on educators, raise teacher pay, improve their retirement benefits, and fully fund our classrooms."
https://larson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/larson-... "we will put an end to the decades of price gouging"
Again, "we'll bankrupt them with sanctions" easily falls under "we will put an end to them".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713787
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713529
*Biden’s and Nuland’s indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”
The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained, “There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. [...]'
This glosses over the legal fact that the President can't just carry out military operations and then never mention them again, not least on the grounds that someone needs to be in the loop in case the executive branch suffers some catastrophic attack. As far as I am aware, 10 USC 130f still requires that Congress be notified of sensitive military operations within 48 hours: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/130f
I don't see where Hersh addresses this aspect of the legal environment, he just waves it away. Of course, it could be that Congress notified but only a small number of sufficiently serious members with the capacity to keep their mouths firmly shut, but the article doesn't seem to contemplate that possibility.
>… But his allegations are largely supported only by two sources, neither of whom has direct knowledge of what happened, both of whom are retired, and one of whom is anonymous. The story is riven with internal contradictions and inconsistencies.
>The story simply does not hold up to scrutiny — and, sadly, is in line with Hersh's recent turn away from the investigative reporting that made him famous into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...
Your comment suggests an assumption that without moderation, the ranking system would indicate "what is interesting to everyone". That assumption isn't just wrong, it's super wrong. Here are some past comments about that, if anyone cares: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The short version is that without moderation, the site would be dominated by the same few hot stories repeated ad nauseum, plus an endless supply of riler-uppers. This is no way to optimize for what is interesting to everyone. As I said elsewhere in a reply to you, there are tradeoffs along every axis of this thing.
It is neither desirable nor possible to exclude political topics from HN completely. At the same time, it's important that the site be protected from being overrun and dominated by political topics. Lots of explanation of how we handle this can be found at these links, if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
* here's pg making the same point 10 years ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426
> "If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
> When asked how, the president says, "I promise you, we will be able do that."
(C-SPAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8 )
They even have a term for it - "Cordon sanitaire": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordon_sanitaire_(internationa...
Here's a fawning local Nevada news segment about a former Green Beret training the mujihadeen, aired two months after 9/11:
1) The US would wait 7 months after Russia invaded Ukraine
2) The US would risk Navy divers for such a petty operation achievable without risking valuable personal
3) The US would not simultaneously detonate (17 hour delay between? wtf)
4) President Biden would not have immediately after taken the opportunity to interrupt broadcast and cable programming to remind us how tough he is.
> In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.
> At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r...
Here's a collection of sources compiled by someone on Quora. I dont know how biased or accurate this person is. However, there were other instances that made me think this isn't so black-and-white or "clean" as I'd like it to be.
https://www.quora.com/If-Putin-is-indeed-the-real-aggressor-...
A lot of the sources he used are from Ukranian websites so you might need to run them through Google Translate. Some are from reputable (for at least some definition of reputable) western media outlets like CNN, BBC, NYT, etc.
The embedded vidoes don't seem to work in Chrome (they just disappear when I click them) so I've extracted the link for one of them here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 - Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer, uploaded by The University of Chicago
Other videos are shorter clips to prove a point, but if anyone's interested they can see the video ID in the embedded image URL when inspecting the element.
Again, maybe this is all dogshit like you say, but I find that too dismissive of the facts presented.
Far more heat than light being generated though, though. Which is predictable with this kind of story, raising emotion is part of the desired outcome of posting it (1). "interest" in baseless speculation and conspiratorial thinking is not a good thing.
Standards are slipping, that this story is protected.
1) https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/more+heat+than...
(2): Then why blow the other three?
So for the US angle to work here what is the motivation?
At the outset of the war Germany stopped NS2 activation plans and started diversifying its energy away from Russia.
Leading up to the explosion Russia had been trying to blackmail Germany by reducing the supplies of gas. And gas was fully turned off at the time of the explosion. Russia was also playing games with Germany to try to get propaganda wins over the subject of gas by cutting gas supplies on NS1 and saying it was because Germany needed to ship it a turbine. Then Russia was claiming it couldn't receive the turbine from Germany because of the sanctions imposed by other countries. Russia was also saying, well pity that we can't supply enough gas because we don't have the turbine, but we could activate NS2 with you instead. [1]
So the clear motivation for the US could be that they did not want Germany to capitulate to Russian blackmail and give Russia some kind of political or sanction relief. That's actually somewhat reasonable as a theory if you believe Germany was susceptible to it (was it?), and assume all the other levers that the US and other EU allies had wouldn't be enough to keep Germany on the team.
The risk is that doing this and being caught would be a huge breach of trust. The claim of Hersh is that these explosives sat on the pipeline for three months.
The US even warned Germany about potential attacks on the pipeline. [2]
So now if that is the motivation, in this context leaving one of the newer, larger NordStream 2 pipelines untouched would make absolutely no sense. As you leave open the possibility for Germany to still capitulate and worse give Russia a massive propaganda win by forcing Germany to reverse its position and activate NS2.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/business/germany-russia-g... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/cia-warned-berlin-about-possib...
Weekly snapshot: Russian fossil fuel exports 16 to 22 January 2023:
* The week of 16 to 22 January 2023, the EU was the largest importer of Russian fossil fuels.
* The EU imported pipeline gas, oil products and LNG, as well as crude oil via pipeline or rail.
* The top five EU importer countries last week were the Netherlands, Slovakia, Germany, Belgium and Italy. [1]
[1] https://energyandcleanair.org/weekly-snapshot-russian-fossil...
No, it's not harmless to repeatedly claim things without evidence. No, people do not make their own judgments.
When reality and your expectations are out of sync, it's probably best not to call it arrogance.
Hersh: "Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg"
Reality: Jens Stoltenberg is the secretary general of NATO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Allied_Commander_Europ...
This is from 2015:
"The way to understand Hersh is to visualize most of his sources as Michael Scheuer-like individuals. It is not difficult to find such people in the intelligence world: obsessive, frustrated idiot savants who perceive themselves as stymied by the paper pushers, the bureaucrats"
"Hersh’s problem is that he evinces no skepticism whatsoever toward what his crank sources tell him, which is ironic considering how cynical he is regarding the pronouncements of the U.S. national security bureaucracy. Like diplomats who “go native,” gradually sympathizing with the government or some faction in the host nation while losing sight of their own country’s national interest, Hersh long ago adopted the views of America’s adversaries and harshest critics."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/single-line-nord-str...
But he does often rely on sources who remain anonymous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh#Use_of_anonymous...
I did find it interesting in that Wikipedia article to read that The New Yorker's editor insists on knowing the identify of all of the anonymous sources that Hersh has used when his reporting is published in that magazine. That suggests to me that while Hersh can probably be generally trusted, his work is of a higher quality when it's published in an outlet like The New Yorker, as the editor-in-chief and other staff submit it to a more rigorous internal discussion. That's in comparison to probably no internal review or discussion by Substack.
It’s a bit strange to report on something so controversial and not make sure all verifiable claims are true…
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh#Criticism_and_co...
That even that inconsistent Bin Laden story purportedly relied on two distinct sources, and yet his Nord Stream story purportedly relies on only a single anonymous source, should be a significant red flag here. I have no reason to doubt that Hersh heard the quotes in his Nord Stream story from at least someone in government, but that source's motivations and truthfulness were not independently verified even, by his own admission, by Hersh. And that's just... not credible reporting.
Pipelines of all types are fragile things and break all the time for numerous reasons.
Do not attribute to malice which can be explained by negligence/incompetence with out evidence.
The Nordstream pipelines were not in operation, which indicated the need for maintenance. The pipelines, which carry methane under saltwater, require frequent preventive maintenance checks and services, however, it is believed that these checks may have been neglected since the Russians took over. The pipelines were officially shut down for maintenance in July 2020 and July 2021, but were met with various issues and disruptions in gas flow.
Given the pressurized and highly flammable nature of the pipelines, it is imperative to determine the causes of these issues.
Sabotage cannot be ruled out, especially given the current geopolitical climate.
However, the most likely cause could be related to the formation of methane hydrates, which can cause blockages in the pipeline known as hydrate plugs. These plugs can be difficult to remove and require a slow and simultaneous depressurization from both ends of the pipeline.
Remember, both sides, this is important!
If the depressurization is not carried out correctly, it can result in the rapid launch of the hydrate plug towards the depressurized side, causing significant damage to the pipeline. The Diesel Effect, which occurs when the valves are closed ahead of the fast-moving plug, can also cause significant damage. It is crucial that the removal of hydrate plugs be carried out by experienced professionals, given the potential consequences of a failure to do so.
https://www.stssensors.com/blog/2020/07/01/the-diesel-effect...
EDIT: Formatting
I think this video is articulate and sensible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido
A Spiegel article from september 28, two days after the incident: https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/nord-stream-spekulationen-ueb...
It links to a Times article allegedly saying the same (but behind a paywall unfortunately, so I can't check): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-probably-bombed-no...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-turbine-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joint_Special_Ope....
> Operations so secret you can't tell 8 Congressional leaders (as required by law) but you can tell Norway, Denmark, and Sweden about do not sound like a thing.
Exactly!
Since Nordstream was destroyed amidst public pressure from US energy companies who wanted to takeover the European energy market, the US has become the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas, Europeans are paying record natural gas prices, and US energy companies are reporting record profits. Again, the relationship between these things should surprise nobody.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/bidens-bi...
Later on in 2013, he changed his claim, such that he admitted some of the story is true, that is, that the terrorist leader was killed, after he encountered pushback.
Source: https://dailycaller.com/2013/09/27/hersh-slams-us-media-clai...
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-...
Meanwhile, the US controversially transferred SEALS to Germany earlier in October 2022[1].
USNS William McLean left a German port 5 September 2022[3] (there are also port call records) and headed to meet the USS Arlington on 10 Sept 2022[2] to transfer cargo.
USS Arlington loitered around docking in Lithuania and only reaching the straight near Denmark on 22 Sept.[2]
USS Arlington then meets the exact same USNS William McLean for another cargo transfer 20 days later and just 6 days after leaving port.
Where USNS William McLean went after I don't know. I know it docked somewhere close as there's an entry for 26 Sept 2022, but I don't feel like paying to know the exact location.
If you were conducting a SEAL operation on the high seas, a San Antonio-class ship would be a perfect launch vessel. A cargo exchange would be the perfect cover to swap ships. Delayed bomb detonation isn't dangerous and could explain why only 3 of 4 pipelines were impacted (aka, something went wrong with one).
I'm not saying it 100% happened (and is somewhat at odds with the anonymous source in this story), but to me, it seems like the US had the motive, means, and opportunity.
[0] https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/31497...
[1] https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-10-20/seals-gre...
But also just look at what happened here in the comments. It's totally predictable. Those of us that read the article and flagged the post had prevented this. In this case flagging had worked and was not abused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe
Putin was still trying to energy blackmail Europe back then. It is hard to see the explosions as anything else but a threat that the Baltic Pipe could also be blown up -- and the Nord Stream pipes weren't very useful to Russia at that point so it wouldn't cost much to lose them.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-gas-europe-v...
So Ukraine is "essentially supporting genocide of Ukrainian civilians"?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_compound_i...
it's not just a natural reaction for nationalists, it's a strategy for people in power generally - nationalist or otherwise - it's just one way to try to make a story go away, and it's obviously had some success here on HN today:
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1623352901111517185
Reuters reported on it, the White House bothered to refute the story. It is Hersh.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-says-blog-post-...
Are people try to derail this story by flooding the submission with innocent questions?
My knowledge on this is very, very sketchy, but my understanding is the there is still a large amount of Russian gas transiting the Ukraine pipelines, Europe needs the gas so they buy it, Ukraine needs the transit money to defend against Russia so they keep the operation running. and Russia needs the gas money to attack Ukraine so they keep the operation running.
Honestly if true it is one of the weirdest situations I have ever heard about in the middle of a war.
I deliberately used an RT link because it is probably full of Russian propaganda and yet says basically the same thing as other articles. I originally learned about it via the Perun youtube channel(the best place to start if you want actual information not propaganda) but am unable to find the episode where it is mentioned.
https://www.rt.com/business/570805-russia-ukraine-eu-gas-tra...
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-suppl...
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/spotlight-on-p...
Not necessarily.
I had thought Hersh's "since the Vietnam War" line to be poorly phrased, or an editing mistake, but /u/michaelmacmanus makes an interesting point <https://np.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/10wx42b/seymour_h...>. Maybe we should take the line literally!
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...
We had the motive. We had the means. oh yea, and our president said we would do it in advance of it happening:
"If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." (reporter: "How will you do that, exactly, since the project is within germany's control?") "I promise you we'll be able to do it. (smirks, silence)"
https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=81
With that context why wouldn't the default be to assume it was destroyed by the US unless there was compelling evidence otherwise?
You guys seem to be seizing on my saying I didn't read the whole article as if it were a horrifying gotcha. Let me try to disabuse you of that: it isn't necessary to read all of every article to make reasonable moderation calls, and that's lucky, because it would be physically impossible to do so. I can barely keep up with the titles.
I haven't overridden the will of the community because the community has no single will on this. It's divided along obvious political/tribal lines. It's not my job to align with any political or tribal view, including my own. The moderation principle on HN is simple and clear: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Literally anyone with strong political views can expect to occasionally encounter something on HN that outrages them; if not, then we're doing a lousy job, because one thing's clear: intellectual curiosity ranges across political and tribal fences.
I don't think the comments were as disastrous as you suggest. It's true that the majority were negative, but not all—and in any case, it's important that HN's front page not just be a product of majoritarian sentiment. If it were, then we would clearly be failing the core principle of HN (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
Did I pick the right hill to die on at the hands of the majority? Maybe not, but (a) the sentiments would be the same if I had; and (b) we have to take some chances; if we don't, we fail for sure.
In terms of how we handle the issue of political/divisive topics on HN, there are some pretty complete explanations here, if you (or anyone) are interested: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... If you read those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd like to know what it is and would be happy to take a crack at it. Here are a couple of good places to start:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 (April 2020)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 (Nov 2019)
People have a love/hate relationship with their favorite internet forums. If you (again, I don't mean you personally, I mean anyone here) aren't occasionally running into something you hate, then we're probably doing a bad job—we're either too predictable, or too narrow, or both. I think that follows from the core idea of this place, which is intellectual curiosity: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... It's quite amazing how many unexpected and interesting things follow from that principle, but maybe this isn't the moment to make that case.
I have not engaged in deception in the statements I've made in this thread a single time. However, it is important to point out that Seymour Hersh has indeed engaged in bad faith in his statements about Osama bin Laden, by refusing to acknowledge that he either originally misspoke, or he changed his claim about the White House's statement. In either case, he is being deceptive in his statements as I've demonstrated above, exactly what it means to argue in bad faith.
It's about a documentary which made some waves, accusing the involved politicians of outright lies and exaggerations as justification for military action, which in turn then lead to the things they fabricated.
It was called 'Es begann mit einer Lüge/It started with a lie'
https://programm.ard.de/?sendung=281116097670119
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/umstrittene-ard-dokum...
> I know nothing of him, but given that there's an entire paragraph about Jens Stoltenberg where almost every sentence is just completely factually wrong in a way that could be verified to be wrong with a look at the first paragraph on his Wikipedia page, I'm not inclined to take what he says seriously.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34717803
This is something that could be verified quickly by you and others.
I'm sure the Italians are very capable but they've never demonstrated holding off a tank force 8x their size.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/03/31/ukraines-be...
Whether the Russians can occupy successfully isn't the point, they can do a ton of damage in a short amount of time, not to mention the torture and rape.
The media became a power by itsself and it's the media which influences the government.
And they analyze how the media synchronized itself on certain topics (especially Ukraine war).
https://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/richard-david-precht-hara...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...
Flagging exists for a reason, doesn't it?
https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/the-new-yorker-...
The only nukes Germany has are those that America charitably allows Germany to borrow. If Germany grew up like UK and France and bought/made their own toys, then maybe Germany would find itself to have more autonomy.
Other outlets seem to be commenting a bit more neutral: https://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/nord-stream-2--usa-soll...
Maybe you aren't being intentionally deceptive, I can't say. But as I pointed out you are not being fair and honest about Hersh's argument, which is more nuanced than the one sentence.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ru...
But beyond the article itself, it's worth explaining my priors. The first is that the shifting finger-pointing is a classic Russian disinformation campaign. The second is that America would incur enormous risk by doing this and gain nothing; while Russia would risk nothing and had everything to gain. Both of these deserve further explanation.
Disinformation campaigns, especially false flag operations, are a hallmark of KGB operations. If you haven't already, I highly recommend you read The Sword and the Shield, by Christopher and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Mitrokhin archive is probably the best primary source the West has about KGB active measures and internal politics. The Mitrokhin archive confirms that disinformation false flags are a common theme of KGB destablization operations, such as fomenting the degradation of race relations in the U.S. by forging hatemail. Most experts agree it's highly likely Putin himself used this domestically, by staging the 1999 apartment bombings that killed hundreds and injured a thousand people, and blaming it on Chechens; the resulting fear and hatred rocketed him to popularity when he then mercilessly persecuted Chechens, gaining him the Presidency for the first time. To this day, the real facts are unknown, but what is known is this: Achemez Gochiyaev rented basement facilities to an FSB officer for storage; those basements had bombs; after the first two explosions, Gochiyaev called police, who found and disabled the remaining bombs; after Putin's ascendency, the official narrative became that Gochiyaev didn't call, but that an unnamed real estate agent turned him in; that Gochiyaev later disappeared without a trace; and that the Russian government refuses any independent investigation. Other examples of Russia flooding the information space with competing false narratives include the conduct of the 2014 Ukraine invasian (little green men); the build-up before the 2022 Ukraine invasian; and the 2016 Presidential election. Their goal in these cases, according to Mitrokhin, is to overwhelm the populace's ability to critically examine every narrative and "give up," distrusting everything instead. Russia officially blaming the U.K., while getting a senile but formerly respected journalist to claim it was the U.S., perfectly fits their SOP.
In addition, there would be no reason whatsoever for the U.S. to do something like this. The cost is enormous: already concerned about disunity in NATO, the risk of doing something like this and it being discovered would be enormous within NATO, not to mention the risk of Russia viewing it as an act of war. The benefit is nil: Germany had already halted Nord Stream 2 on 22 Feb 22, well before the September 2022 explosion, and their gas reserves were over 90% at the time, minimizing Russia's ability to weaponize NS as an incentive for Germany to oppose Ukraine aid. By contrast, there are multiple reasons Russia would do this. It's essentially zero-cost: destroying their own pipeline is unlikely to bring any retribution from any other country, and certainly wouldn't warrant direct NATO involvement. And the benefits are immense: (1) claim the West did it and galvanize the Russian population, just as Putin did in the lead-up to the bombing of Grozny; (2) make it socially unacceptable to continue the then-current protests against mobilization of reserve units; (3) undercut any later claims against Russia for cutting off fuel supplies, as now it would be impossible for Gazprom to perform on its contracts; (4) now that it appeared the war in Ukraine might drag on longer than Putin expected, make it impossible for any successor to back out from Putin's chosen course of action and resume business as usual.
Bottom line is this: Russian disinformation is the KGB/FSB's modus operandi. We saw this all the time in Iraq: a news outlet would make a claim that the U.S. had caused civilian casualities. We investigated every allegation of CIVCAS. But most of the time, when RT would make a claim of CIVCAS, it wasn't even in a location we had performed a strike. All they were doing was flooding the information environment with the narrative that the U.S. was killing civilians.
This post by Hersh is deeply disappointing. It would hardly be a clearer case of Russian propaganda if it had a giant Z plastered above the fold. It doesn't deserve any credit, and—with respect to dang and the decision he has made—it doesn't deserve to be on HN.
Further reading:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-and-Shield-audiobook/dp/B00...
https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Is-Coming-Garry-Kasparov-audio...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/08/07/u...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_2 ^ a lot of different parties, including the US didn't want this to happen.
How many times has Russias the past 30 years weaponized its gas pipelines? Speak to Moldova, or Estonia, or Ukraine. https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/russia-using-energy-weapon-agai...
I'm not saying the Russians did it, I personally think it was a maintenance accident.
During the Vietnam War (1955-1975) Stoltenberg (born 1959) was -4 to 16 years old..
Hersh possibly confused Jens with his father Thorvald Stoltenberg. Who travelled to North-Vietnam in 1970 to negotiate between them and USA, and who was commended for his negotiating skills by the am. intel community in a declassified rapport from 1980.
Links/sources follow:
«Thorvald Stoltenberg and Reiulf Steen visited Hanoi in 1970.»
https://vietnamkrigen-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2010/02/2...
«In a new biography of Thorvald Stoltenberg, it is described how Norway brokered peace between the parties in the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s.»
https://www-vg-no.translate.goog/nyheter/innenriks/i/Pk947/n...
«Defense Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg was praised for his negotiating skills in a so far classified CIA report from 1980.«
https://www-nettavisen-no.translate.goog/nyheter/cia-vurdert...
During the Vietnam War (1955-1975) Stoltenberg (born 1959) was -4 to 16 years old..
Hersh possibly confused Jens with his father Thorvald Stoltenberg. Who travelled to North-Vietnam in 1970 to negotiate between them and USA, and who was commended for his negotiating skills by the am. intel community in a declassified rapport from 1980.
Links/sources follow:
«Thorvald Stoltenberg and Reiulf Steen visited Hanoi in 1970.»
https://vietnamkrigen-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2010/02/2...
«In a new biography of Thorvald Stoltenberg, it is described how Norway brokered peace between the parties in the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s.»
https://www-vg-no.translate.goog/nyheter/innenriks/i/Pk947/n...
«Defense Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg was praised for his negotiating skills in a so far classified CIA report from 1980.«
https://www-nettavisen-no.translate.goog/nyheter/cia-vurdert...
During the Vietnam War (1955-1975) Stoltenberg (born 1959) was -4 to 16 years old..
Hersh possibly confused Jens with his father Thorvald Stoltenberg. Who travelled to North-Vietnam in 1970 to negotiate between them and USA, and who was commended for his negotiating skills by the am. intel community in a declassified rapport from 1980.
Links/sources follow:
«Thorvald Stoltenberg and Reiulf Steen visited Hanoi in 1970.»
https://vietnamkrigen-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2010/02/2...
«In a new biography of Thorvald Stoltenberg, it is described how Norway brokered peace between the parties in the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s.»
https://www-vg-no.translate.goog/nyheter/innenriks/i/Pk947/n...
«Defense Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg was praised for his negotiating skills in a so far classified CIA report from 1980.«
https://www-nettavisen-no.translate.goog/nyheter/cia-vurdert...
It was the year before Norway took part in extensive bombing of Libya«
https://e24-no.translate.goog/karriere-og-ledelse/i/xPlw8V/h...
«lieutenant colonel Tormod Heier said: - In its first years, the Stoltenberg government had a bad reputation in the USA, partly because we did not contribute in southern Afghanistan. After SV was weakened in the 2009 election, Libya became an opportunity to repair relations with the United States. This has contributed to the fact that Norway has now moved up a division in NATO .
And as a thank you for his efforts, Jens Stoltenberg was appointed Secretary General of NATO.«
https://www-dagsavisen-no.translate.goog/kultur/2014/10/15/s...
It has a range of roughly 20 miles necessitating carrying it near the location. That "giant assault ship" is exactly what you use to carry one of these. It also explains how you haul a few hundred pounds of explosives down a hundred meters for planting.
https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/162420098079862374...