I read the first half of the article, and skimmed the second. It doesn't claim to be sourced from anywhere, and the only paragraph that discusses sources and fact checking is when they point out the White House says the entire article is a work of fiction. It doesn't present any evidence that it happened (other than that the US has a big swimming pool that the navy trains in), and summarizes itself by saying that it was a perfect plan (presumably meaning it left behind no evidence), except that they actually did it.
What am I missing?
While I am extraordinarily distrustful of news reports using anonymous sources you do have to consider the author here. Ultimately we are deciding if we trust him and, for me personally, he lends a lot of credibility.
The other side of this is, duh, of course America blew up the pipeline. I said at the time that we were the most likely culprit.
There's a very small subset of groups who have the capability to do this and even fewer who have the motivation. It forces Germany/EU to stop buying NG from Russia and start buying LNG from the US (among others) with exceptionally minimal political risk to the US.
The US will just continue to deny that we did it, this article will get no traction in mainstream media. If incontrovertible proof ever did surface the media will just bury the story and if anyone involved is forced to comment they will just spin it as a good and necessary and just thing that they did to help Ukraine with a dose of natural gas bad because of climate change and all will be forgiven.
The third paragraph in the article.
Again, there's a huge weasel word right there in the only sourcing for the whole article. That just... yikes. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe it's something an editor could have cleaned up. But maybe it's also the sort of thing Hersh's editors simply threw out as unpublishable, which is why it's an uneditted substack blog.
Makes a lot of sense to connect the dots given that it's a covert activity.
Often planning is done by senior members, who get out of the military more frequently (especially recently) and the younger people who are operational stay quiet.
The people who were on the operation, aren't going to talk right now, because they are still operating and aren't ready to spill the beans and write a book/movie script.
"Makes a lot of sense" is hardly the standard for legitimate journalism though. Did it happen or not? How do you know? Does your source know that it happened or just that it was planned? Do you make that clear? Hersh really does not.
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...
Why do so many people act as if it's so unlikely that Russia did it? They had the least to lose, their relations with the west were already ruined at that point and such an incident couldn't make them any worse.
What would be their motive? Before the explosion, Russia had illegally shut down the pipeline. Now that the pipeline has exploded, they have plausible deniability and they can say it's not their fault the gas isn't flowing. Because of that, they won't have to pay additional fines when the economic relations with the west are restored.
And don't forget that one pipe of NS2 was left intact and, unlike NS1, there was no contractual obligation to pump gas through it.
>Now that the pipeline has exploded, they have plausible deniability and they can say it's not their fault the gas isn't flowing.
How the hell thinking they have nothing to lose and also worried about a contract at the same time sound or consistent?
Umm, the US has made a terrific return on investment. EU supplies have shifted dramatically away from Russia to Norway and the United States following the end of Nordstream.