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.
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.
If he denied the US killed bin Laden he would be unreliable. He never denied the US killed bin Laden. You saying he said that is what is unreliable.
He said that some of the White House and Pentagon assertions about bin Laden, which the New York Times did not question in the days after (but did question, to some extent, later on) were not accurate. Particularly that no one high up in the Pakistani Army, government or intelligence knew Bin Laden was in Abbottabad. Hersh asserted that was incorrect, as were some other things.
since by his own admission, [what you said], that is credible reporting.
it might not be a credible source or story
He's also, especially recently, made some very bold claims that so far have not turned out to be correct, whether because the truth just hasn't been revealed yet, or because Hersh was wrong or misled by his sources.
It's also worth noting that Hersh - as with any journalist - is only as good as his sources. If people choose to leak juicy secrets to him (not implausible!) he may end up publishing accurate stories that reveal nefarious conspiracies (which has happened). If people choose to give him lies and misinformation, he may end up publishing conspiracy theories instead. And as he keeps publishing, the odds that this will happen (if it hasn't already) keep increasing.
So I absolutely wouldn't write off any claim Hersh makes, but I wouldn't blindly believe it either. And here he is relying, by his own admission, almost entirely on a single anonymous source, giving details that can't really be independently confirmed.
Was Hersh told by someone that the US took out the pipeline? Probably! Does that mean the US did so? I'm not sure I'd seriously update my priors based on this.
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...
I suggest that the ethics code says don't report facts as facts that you haven't verified as facts, but if you say "I could not verified this and I heard it from one source" you are within the code. "Sources in the Administration" often report things to reporters, and most of what they say can't be verified, it can only be echoed by more than one person. And if a reporter has a relationship with one leaker who has been reliable, you're claiming they can't use that, and I'm claiming they can and do. Sure, verify what you can, but being an honest reporter is what is required, not certain fact patterns.
Yes, in a deep dive publication like the New Yorker, they will often kill certain facts or an entire story if it cannot be corroborated, but that doesn't define journalism.
It was funny how suddenly all the journalists started to report from Kentucky or Alabama instead of Fifth avenue. As the media it is your job to explain how the world works.
Worth noting that both the White House and the New York Times walked back inconsistent claims they made in the days after bin Laden's death. So the White House and Times were self-admittedly inconsistent about it. If Hersh is inconsistent it is in that light.
Hersh pokes holes in different points of the official narrative. Particularly the idea no one high up in the Pakistani government knew bin Laden was in the compound. Contradicting the White House, but very convincing to me and others.
However, to be fair to you, Hersh goes into a great deal of detail about the initial intelligence, the raid etc. Was any part of that wrong or inconsistent? It's hard to know. He didn't just make a few statements but went into a lot of detail. So there could theoretically be inconsistencies in Hersh's reporting about it too, since he covered so much ground. It is hard to know though. You just take what the White House said, what Hersh says, what the Pakistani press says and try to figure out what actually happened.
I mean, par for the course for modern journalism, I suppose.
The guy is obviously picks up lobby chatter, and lets his imagination to run.
My Lai was never a giant secret, he was just the first to bring it to the wider audience.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_compound_i...
But I'm biased as well, my desire to believe is strong, only that I'm in team "'t was an inside job" so my bias is in clear opposition of these claims (but in limited to speculation, I find "Russia jumped from excuse to excuse to keep the pipelines closed anyways, so the only immediate winners of the explosions were people in Moscow who felt threatened by some real or imagined "make money not war" faction" logically compelling, but that's all there is, I guess, strongly, but can't claim to know)
But a broken clock is right twice a day and a bad journalist can break two big stories in a career of publishing lies.
Or you could take a breath and realize that Nordstream 2 was not yet complete. It was an ongoing, non-operational project. In that context, “bringing it to an end” could easily mean not completing it. In fact, that’s the far more reasonable interpretation—-the literal physical destruction interpretation is only made by someone who wants to believe that.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...
And yeah, that is true. But when the wife was in fact murdered, then the odds that the known abusive husband did it are very high.
Maybe it was a reasonable interpretation that he didn't mean blowing up the pipeline, before the pipeline was blown up.
This is not an indictment of the US, it's just an assessment based on my own and other's extensive experiences with large, hierarchical organizations.
It doesn't say it outright, but if the hastily re-programmed explosives were triggered by a sonar buoy after three months in sea water as the article says, then it would not be surprising at all if some of them failed to go off.
Precisely that the article implicitly gives very plausible answers to good questions like yours, is why I think it's credible.
In addition the bad-trigger scenario would imply that the explosives and triggering mechanism remained in place on the remaining pipe, which would require the US to rush there to remove them or trigger the missing one to avoid terrible diplomatic consequences if the unexploded device were to be discovered.
I am an investigative reporter who covers crime, and my sources often insist on anonymity. There are ways to mitigate the possibility of being lied to.
All of my sources know that we have a deal: I promise to do everything that I reasonably can to keep their identity secret, and they promise me the truth. If a source lies to me or intentionally misleads me, my agreement to keep their identity secret no longer stands.
There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist, and it has worked well for years. I have never burned a source, and as far as I know, I have never published an investigative story that is wrong about anything material.
If you publish all at once, others can go and verify the details. The source is protected.
If you verify pre-publication, e.g., go to the diving school in Florida and ask too many questions, you (and the source) will be under surveillance in no time.
Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably happened, behind the scenes (and weren't that terrible, because no one really wants to denounce the US in the middle of the Ukraine war). I'll remind you that both Sweden and Denmark claimed nothing other than sabotage could be concluded, and closed down their investigations and classified the heck out of the details. Feel free to make freedom of information requests to them, so that you can get those "national security interest" refusals.
Odds are that the US didn't directly admit anything to them, but strongly suggested they shouldn't look too closely or be too specific in their statements, and that those states were quick to comply. And probably cleaned up well enough that there was nothing left for the Russians to find, in the case that they should run their own investigation (although, Russia can't run a real investigation to save their ass, they're too used to have their conclusions dictated to them, so I wouldn't worry if I was the USG).
And the rest is all putting the cart in front of the horse. Would it look any different if Russia (or anyone else) were the culprit? No, it wouldn't (since otherwise the fact it's classified itself leaks information). Maybe the investigation just yielded nothing conclusive? Which given the location and event (big explosion and lots of gas output making sure everything gets nicely distributed elsewhere) wouldn't be that surprising?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/05/seymour-hershs-u...
https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/the-new-yorker-...
You're suggesting that when Russia cut off the gas, and Germany didn't immediately capitulate, that's evidence the leverage was worthless? It wasn't even winter yet.
Also, blowing up your pipeline just as a competitor comes on line? Whatever you think of Hersh's article, it's undeniable that Norway made a lot of money on the sabotage. Even if Russia had stayed firm and sent no gas through the pipeline, the fact that they could have alone would have kept prices lower.
Third, you're suggesting that Sweden/Denmark would have kept it secret if they found evidence of Russian meddling? They absolutely would not. In fact, if there was even evidence exculpating the US, without implicating anyone else, they would have blasted it to the heavens.
NATO-aligned think tanks have gotten better at this - something I view as a good thing, despite that I am not a fan of them, and I don't think they did it willingly. But with the rise of Bellingcat, they're now routinely publishing embarrassing material on Russia that they would have LOVED to keep secret as a bargaining chip, in earlier decades.
In fact, if there was a Russian team that blew up the pipeline, they would have left a trail a mile wide in public data and the countless leaked databases (another huge one just a few days ago, from Roskomnadzor). Bellingcat, or anyone interested, could have given you their damn cell phone numbers, if it was a Russian op. Yet they have instead remained utterly uninterested in the question of how the pipelines were sabotaged.
There are plenty of powerful people trying to discredit reporters who tell who tell the truth, so we should also be skeptical of attacks on Hersh.
> known abusive husband
Not sure what you’re referring to here. If you’re analogizing what Biden said with domestic abuse, that’s just ridiculous. It’s more akin to telling the wife they’re going to need to divorce if she doesn’t stop threatening the children. If you’re saying the US in general has a history of doing things that could be compared to domestic abuse, sure, but so could all parties involved, particularly Russia. So we’re back at square one.
But it's not a comparison, it's just an example of the same statistical dishonesty.
When the pipeline was in fact blown up, of course we're going to look at vaguely worded threats in another light.
Russia doesn’t lose all leverage the moment they shut off the pipeline. They still have the leverage from being able to turn the pipeline back on, which impacts competitors and customers by giving the option.
Blowing up the pipeline takes that option off the table for the foreseeable future, and with the advantage that it doesn’t cause immediate dangerous supply shocks to Allies since it was already off.
Win/win for the Allies (though if public, Western Europe gov’ts would have no choice but to be pissed in public), not great for Russia who has their last leverage knocked off the table.
I personally don’t have an opinion on if the US did or did not do it, and I doubt we’d know for at least several decades.
But the US has done lots weirder stuff with far less concrete potential benefits before. hell, nearly anything the CIA had been caught doing in the 60’s or 70’s has far less plausible justification!
I was stating my opinion that the comparison was of low intellectual quality, not taking offense.
> When the pipeline was in fact blown up, of course we're going to look at vaguely worded threats in another light.
Except it’s only vaguely worded if you’re approaching it from the bias of wanting to think it was a threat of blowing it up. Approaching it a different way, they’re just the words a person would use if they were talking about ending the project, not literally blowing it up.
If Biden were going to be so aggressive as to threaten to blow up an infrastructure project of a close ally, why specifically limit it to Nordstream 2? “We’re going to lose our ever-loving minds here, but only for phase 2 of the project”.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ru...
Come on now. I get the desire for people to believe their own government could just never possibly engage in this kind of skullduggery (at least, not until they're comfortably removed from the incident in question by many decades and can safely file it under "well we don't do that kind of thing anymore"), but the idea that the Russians were the only ones with motive?!
I'm not sure what would make it so high risk. The truth could easily be castigated and maligned as "conspiracy theory," a dismissal that most people in the Western countries will readily accept. The only people with the resources to investigate and find hard evidence would either be in on it (Western/NATO allies) or easily written off as pushing lies and propaganda (the Russians).
My personal belief is that we will never know who actually performed the acts of sabotage. But taking some Biden soundbites, mixing it with some public information and some hand-waving doesn't produce any actual evidence about who actually did it.
Did they though? Looking at the gas futures chart it's not obvious to me at all. The prices suddenly spiked much higher when NS1 was suddenly shutdown. After the explosion they actually went down slightly. They did profit, but just from the actions from the Russian side (which were earlier in time).
As for whatever you mean with competitor coming online. Towards Germany the flows from Norway didn't change that much after the invasion, Europipe II from Norway to Germany was already maxed out since January 2021 pretty much.
I had been assuming that the working theory amongst the “America definitely blowed up the pipeline” crowd was that this would have been a scheme cooked up amongst the NATO allies. Because, the alternative, that America did that against the will of Germany is just utter insanity. The idea that they would risk turning the entirety of Europe against them with such an act of brazen hostility is just…I can’t even.
I'm sure if they did, that was with the sole purpose of ensuring maximum factual accuracy, and no other purpose whatsoever.
It would certainly be an extreme, and strange escalation of their previous attempts to use gas supplies as a retaliatory device. But, IMO, it’s less far-fetched than what you’re suggesting.
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...
See my other comment for quotes and sources.
See my other comment for quotes and sources.
No, but corroboration doesn't require multiple sources.
For example, sources often provide copies of official records that corroborate their story. That can be enough, particularly when the authenticity of the records can be independently verified.
Second point - agreed. If for no other reason than there is little to no incentive for any of the players to share any evidence or info they may have found that would support or disprove any of the scenarios.
For Russia, if they could prove the US did it, it would strengthens the image of the US as a powerful world player with their foot on Russia's neck. If someone else did it, it would make them look even weaker.
For Western European allies, it would make it really obvious how much influence the US has on them, especially since their own fate continues to depend on the US - and it's large natural gas supplies. Even if they wanted to cut off the US, Russia is even worse for them, and they can't stand on their own two feet against either Russia or the US right now (militarily or economically). If someone other than the US did it, it would make their key infrastructure look even more fragile and vulnerable.
For the US, if they did it, it would expose the extent they are playing dirty (hurting the 'clean hands' narrative) and lose them good will with most of the public. If they found someone else doing it, it would reduce their apparent 'dirty tricks' power folks need to worry about, which is a major deterrent to enemies and allies doing dirty tricks.
https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/162420098079862374...