“The only flaw was the decision to do it.”
February 9, 2023 4:11 AM Subscribe

When a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist publishes a poorly sourced controversial story who is to decide whether it is True or False?. Coverage was sparse across the spectrum, with most major outlets appearing to publish no coverage of Hersh’s story or the White House’s rebuttal. Whilest many Reddit posts were deleted the sub reddit Boring Distoptia has a small discussion.
Seymour Hersh's wiki page has links to some interesting reading.
posted by adamvasco (226 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite

So Sy Hersh has brain worms. Didn't have that on my bingo card, but *shrugs*
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 4:15 AM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm glad to see this is up, after yesterday's deletion. I have the feeling that a lot of us are going to be sent this article from well-meaning people, and it's important to know the flaws (and...the strengths? are there some?) of the story.
posted by mittens at 4:32 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

"Reading this must be what having a stroke feels like."
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:03 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

A close family member has been learning Russian for a few decades, and her Russian learning group has several people who have already told her that America blew up the Nord pipeline. They’re kind of unhinged, and stories like this - from the Russian firehose school of propaganda - just add grist to their conspiracy theory mill.

To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s a clear story about what happened or that Seymour is a Russian agent. I am saying that it will make delusional people - people who believe in conspiracies- more confused about the real world.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:09 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Is this one of these cases where an American is incapable of thinking that anyone else other than America is capable of doing things?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:19 AM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

Pyrogenesis: Is this one of these cases where an American is incapable of thinking that anyone else other than America is capable of doing things?

The weird thing about the story… no let me rephrase that… one of the weird things about the story is that if you parse it out, Hersh is saying that it was
Norwegians who did the thing. And y’know, I’m not saying they definitely didn’t, but it would be kinda weird.
posted by Kattullus at 5:24 AM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]

"Reading this must be what having a stroke feels like."

I liked this bit from that thread:

Tbf, probably a bit much to expect the people who think the team who wouldn't shoot down a balloon in US airspace are in the same risk universe as bombing European pipelines to understand that the Treasury isn't the team you bring in for navy ops

The US has been so cautious during this whole invasion.
posted by trig at 5:26 AM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

When a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist publishes a poorly sourced controversial story who is to decide whether it is True or False?

The reader. The reader gets to decide if what they are reading is true, or not.

And I think a self-published article based on a single anonymous source from an author with a once proud but more recently dubious track record isn't exactly convincing.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:26 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

People, but Americans in particular, have always been open to conspiracies but the last decade or so has really made it clear how easy it is to get huge numbers of people to believe just about anything you want. You can just make up a story, provide little to no actual facts to back it up, and have millions believe you. Even when saner heads can present ample evidence that the story is bunk, it doesn't change a thing. This fairytale will get traction, and pointing out the weaknesses will fall on the deaf ears of the believers.
posted by tommasz at 5:39 AM on February 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

We'd a brief thread on this yesterday but also deleted. It seems folks really do not want to talk about Hersh's claims.

Americans love inventing "Russia blew up Nord Stream" conspiracy theories, but so far everything I've heard online sounds pretty bizarre. I've heard one less crazy flavor in a private chat yesterday though, but must check some details.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

You think Germany's economy is a worthwhile sacrifice, don't you?

In Germany the consensus is that being reliant on Russian gas was a huge mistake and we've mostly moved on or are in the process of moving away from it.

I'm not sure if I understand your comment fully, but if you're implying that the US has sacrificed Germany's economy because of its assistance to Russia then, well, it hasn't. Any economic damage or slowdown in Germany due to Russia's war against Ukraine can be solely attributed to Vladimir Putin & friends.
posted by UN at 5:55 AM on February 9, 2023 [36 favorites]

It seems folks really do not want to talk about Hersh's claims

Or, I don't know, maybe a single-source accusation that is being boosted by the same Twitter nutjobs that think drag queens are infecting children with the woke mind virus might not be 100% trustworthy?
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:56 AM on February 9, 2023 [56 favorites]

There are many bizarre aspects of Hersh's story to be sure though. Norway? How does the CIA not just have exactly the tools for this on hand? Is Russian intelligence really so good in the Baltic? Very strange.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:56 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's weird to me that someone blew up two crucial (at the time) undersea pipelines and we (normie public) don't have any idea who it was. On top of that, the German government doesn't seem to care. There's complete silence about this from the government and from the media. So in that complete media silence, I guess we can all hear this one guy's bad fart of an article. I don't plan to read this if it's already discredited, but I wish there was some information on who had the geopolitical motivation and ability to do this.
posted by sixohsix at 6:01 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I wish there was some information on who had the geopolitical motivation and ability to do this.

nordstream 1 cui bono
posted by BWA at 6:04 AM on February 9, 2023

I hope I can eventually get my news on this from a reliable source: the Scandinavia and the World webcomic.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:11 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Chomsky: “Anyone with a functioning grey cell knows that there is only one country with the motive and the capability to blow up the pipelines,” Chomsky noted. “And it’s not Russia. There’s absolutely no reason whatsoever why Russia would destroy one of their own capital investments. If they want to cut off gas to Europe, they just have to turn a valve. They don’t have to blow up their own pipelines.”

We'd short term price spikes but the attack massively benefits Europe mid- to long-term. We need a much faster transition to renewables or else we'll loose much more of our economy than this.

We really need a severe oil refinery "shortage" next so that driving becomes crazy expensive without pumping up the crude oil price. Russia still sells crude I think. Can you help fix that Biden?
posted by jeffburdges at 6:12 AM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Liberals finally got their good war, they should just be on board with the gleeful proclamation that Nordstream is now just a hunk of metal on the bottom of the sea. You want to win this, don't you? You want to ruin Russia's economy don't you? You think Germany's economy is a worthwhile sacrifice, don't you? Why not be proud of your country doing what it takes?

I genuinely can't tell if this is serious or parody. It's nutty either way, but at least parody would be funny.

I'm glad that the previous FPP got deleted, though it took a while. There's an interesting discussion to be had about all of the theories that are floating around (some kind of crazy, some more believable, but none ironclad), but it isn't going to come from an uncritical promotion of a single whackadoodle theory.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:14 AM on February 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

I'm sad to see one of the great reporters of the late 60s/early 70s now publishes crank theories on a for-pay email list. His career this whole last decade has been a slide into increasingly questionable stories.
posted by Nelson at 6:19 AM on February 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

I am sorry, but I wrote him off around the time of his coverage of the Syrian war during Obama's time - it's really unsurprising if, like me, you've realized he's been extremely susceptible to Russian disinfo that appealed to his knowledgeable and verified history of American interventionism.
posted by cendawanita at 6:23 AM on February 9, 2023 [20 favorites]

Glenn Greenwald's writing under a pen name?
posted by Galvanic at 6:26 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't be completely shocked if the US was involved in blowing up the pipeline, but even so I did not find this article to be at all convincing.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 6:30 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Chomsky's position is that military aid to Ukraine is prolonging the inevitable and will cause more suffering. He's spent his whole career criticizing US intervention (for good reason), it's not surprising that he's staying in his zone - all US intervention is bad.

Putin gambled that German engineers couldn't solve a problem in six months. He's made a lot of mistakes. Gas prices are back to pre-war levels. This is why the pipeline doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. Don't be distracted by it. It doesn't matter who blew it up - it was dead already. The only reason to destroy it for good - you're looking at it. It's a show, baby! It's just a show.
posted by adept256 at 6:33 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I don't really understand all the possible motivations for it's destruction but it is at least plausible that Russia did it for domestic propaganda. With maintenance access to the pipeline itself it would be easy for them. Europe was going to stop buying gas anyhow so the pipeline wasn't worth much. The mysterious attack helps cement an "us vs. them" attitude at home.

Of course you can make pretty much the same argument that a pro "western" actor did it as a way to "burn the ships" and end permanently Europe's dependence on Russian gas. Maybe its more likely that a western oil multinational did so than a government. It would have taken a much smaller conspiracy than the CIA, and most(all?) oil companies have done far worse around the world.
posted by being_quiet at 6:46 AM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hersh never met an anonymous "source" he wouldn't believe pretty much instantly, has been provably conned before, has said mildly concerning things about New York Jews controlling politicians, and believes Bin Laden was set up.

...dude is about fifteen seconds away from walking through that big door marked "QAnon".

I'll listen to his claims just as soon as Bellingcat makes them, because they actually give a shit about information rather than impossible-to-disprove unsourced BS.
posted by aramaic at 6:52 AM on February 9, 2023 [15 favorites]

My assumption is that all governments believe it was a state-sponsored action, since there's not really been any suggestion of a non-state (aka terrorist) action. If that's the case, then one or more parties will know for sure and everyone else probably has a decent guess.

Live long enough, and you're bound to find out what really happened eventually.
posted by plonkee at 6:52 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

I won't accept any conspiracy theory that doesn't include destroying Russian mystery satellites.
posted by mittens at 6:56 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The reader gets to decide if what they are reading is true, or not.

This is not how truth works.
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 AM on February 9, 2023 [52 favorites]

In this case, I think Frayed Knot was highlighting that the reader is free to use context and their own knowledge of Hersh's reliability to inform whether they think this is true.
posted by sagc at 7:06 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

There is a parallel epistemology that forked off from reality some time ago. Their own experts, their own journals, sharing a collective nightmare. Truth is subjective if you're a brain in a jar, and when the only inputs are bullshit, bullshit is the truth.
posted by adept256 at 7:13 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is not how truth works.

I think I know what you mean, Etrigan, but surely if this is not the space to unpack what any of us mean by truth then I don't know what

How does truth work? without any combativeness or illwill, I ask this question
posted by elkevelvet at 7:31 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

didn't catch the edit window to add this link, but literally coming across this in the moment and it seems timely: "Journalistic Lessons for an Algorithmic Age" by Julia Angwin
posted by elkevelvet at 7:39 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

How does truth work? without any combativeness or illwill, I ask this question

Truth doesn't work, it just exists. How we recognize it is the question.

It's kind of terrifying to me every time I see someone who had a very long track record of discernment and judgment and intelligence and acuity start to go off the deep end later in life - whether because of cognitive decline, or because they're stuck in an intellectual rut that they're loath to leave for whatever reason, or because they've developed habits of thought that they don't have the energy or desire to look beyond, or because they're surrounded by enablers. It's terrifying because how do we recognize it if we start to go down that path? Will I know when I'm losing my sense of proportion, the right balance between credulity and over-skepticism, the ability to recognize sources worth taking seriously and ones that aren't? I'm decently confident I'm not there yet, but I think most of the people this happens to are too.
posted by trig at 7:44 AM on February 9, 2023 [34 favorites]

On the one hand, the destruction of Nord Stream was always a weird incident. It seems like any reasonable observer ought to have understood that the likely result was European countries rapidly accelerating their plans to move away from geopolitically risky Russian energy sources and reducing the leverage Russia had over them, rather than bringing them to heel and discouraging them from supporting Ukraine. So on that front, I'm willing to believe that someone other than the Russians carried out the attack, and if someone else did, the Norwegians working in concert with the Americans are as good a suspect as any.

But on the other hand, the sort of "one show of force will cow them all and make them give us everything we want" misjudgment that would be required for Russia to think the Nord Stream attack was a good idea is exactly the sort of misjudgment that would cause them to do other stupid things like try to invade Ukraine with grossly inadequate forces. And screwing up and then sending their intelligence services out to try to clean up the mess by convincing a formerly prominent western journalist to run with the story that actually it was all the Americans' fault absolutely sounds like it's right out of the Russian playbook.

Add to that the timeline: By this story the US was actively carrying out this secret operation in December 2022, which means that they were probably planning it in October and November, as the Russian military buildup along the Ukrainian border was just beginning, and long before anyone was publicly ringing alarm bells that this might actually mean war. That timeline looks a lot like the one you would come up with if you accept the premise that America and NATO have always had actively aggressive intentions towards Russia and are the ones that really started this conflict. As someone who's been casually watching this stuff for many years, that premise doesn't resonate with my experience, and so the timeline seems very unlikely.
posted by firechicago at 7:48 AM on February 9, 2023 [19 favorites]

Chomsky's position is that military aid to Ukraine is prolonging the inevitable and will cause more suffering. He's spent his whole career criticizing US intervention (for good reason), it's not surprising that he's staying in his zone - all US intervention is bad.

Surprising, no - disappointing, yes. If that truly is his position - that we should not support people fighting against a tyrant because there would be "less suffering" (hint: he's wrong about that, as any history textbook would show) by letting the tyrant win, then that is a deeply immoral position, and the kicking Chomsky is getting over it is deserved.

Also, as the saying goes - foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Holding on to a position when the facts and morality are against you is not principled, but foolhardy.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:52 AM on February 9, 2023 [27 favorites]

This is not how truth works.

I agree with you but then there's also this:

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.

posted by nushustu at 7:54 AM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hersh's post reads like a screenplay that links a lot of public events and statements together into a satisfying narrative without providing any new proof to support that narrative.

I can speculate who really done it with the best of them but articles like this are basically on the level of fandom arguments in terms of shaky logic in pursuit of libidinal satisfaction.
posted by Reyturner at 7:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

Maybe its more likely that a western oil multinational did so than a government

What's Russian for terrible, discarded 007 plot lines for 200, Alex.

The NYTimes has an interesting story on ChatGPT and similar AI engines having the potential to generate and disseminate huge amounts of misinformation easily and cheaply.

I'm not saying Hersh is a Russian chatbot. But have you ever seen him and a server farm in the same photograph? Just sayin'
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:01 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm joking, of course. But now I am kinda curious what would happen if you gave a bot the body of Hersh's work, along with a bunch of information about the pipelines, and asked it to write its own summary of events using Hersh's voice.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:11 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

☑ I am not a robot
posted by adept256 at 8:14 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

If that truly is his position - that we should not support people fighting against a tyrant because there would be "less suffering" (hint: he's wrong about that, as any history textbook would show) by letting the tyrant win, then that is a deeply immoral position, and the kicking Chomsky is getting over it is deserved.

The arguments Chomsky is making could have just as easily been made against Iranian aid to anti-American groups in Iraq or Russian aid to the Viet Cong. And in both of those cases you have to reckon not only with the counter-factual question of whether the anti-imperial struggle was worse than the oppression of the imperial power (seems unlikely but I'd be willing to hear a thoughtful argument on the question), but also the realization that those struggles looked impossible at the time, but in the end they did achieve their ends: the US did leave.

The fact that Chomsky is making this argument now after making the opposite argument previously doesn't mean he's inconsistent in opposing US imperialism. The problem is that it makes it look like his objection to US imperialism is more to the US part than to the imperialism part.
posted by firechicago at 8:15 AM on February 9, 2023 [14 favorites]

How does truth work? without any combativeness or illwill, I ask this question

Yes, epistomology is clearly a central concern of our time.
posted by Slothrup at 8:31 AM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

It's not inconsistent with his anarchist ideology. He doesn't think there should be any exertion of centralized power.

What's interesting is that there was a period of Ukrainian history that was anarchist. I don't mean spray-painting an A on your skateboard. The Cossacks rejected centralized power - they had no king. That changed as power asserted itself, but for a while there was anarchy in the Ukraine.
posted by adept256 at 8:37 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

The US has been so cautious during this whole invasion.

Could be, y'know, all the nukes that Russia has.

And WRT Hersh's decaying credibility (inversely to his apparent increasing credulity), I'm reminded of Sydney Schanberg, aka the "Killing Fields" journalist, who rode the Vietnam War POW/MIA hobby horse for decades, and tended to double down whenever his claims were challenged. Maybe there's something about hitting the absolute pinnacle of your profession early on.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:43 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Live long enough, and you're bound to find out what really happened eventually.

If Hersh's story gains enough traction, I don't think it will be that long before the various state suspects respond in public loudly enough to telegraph their true feelings.

The story is certainly funky, and I suppose there is a long list of jokesters who wouldn't mind stringing along as guy like Hersh for 3 months, but the state actors involved here are the kings and queens of disinfo and propaganda. There are really only so many countries that would attempt this and get away with it, and most of them understand how an unscrupulous and disreputable spout can impact the truth of a story.

I don't know. I guess no one knows yet but his source and the Baltic.
posted by shenkerism at 8:45 AM on February 9, 2023

per adept256, "Anarchy in the Ukraine" is rumored to be the title of the Sex Pistols comeback album (and that's as true as anything Sy Hersh has written recently
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 8:55 AM on February 9, 2023 [11 favorites]

The Nordstream was likely a Russian hit to send gas prices soaring, and the pipeline between Poland and Norway was next to it, sending a separate threat message. Russia's energy-based economy is reliant on older pipelines and storage facilities in Ukraine, a fact rarely reported because the news doesn't like to confuse, or present the viewer with differing world values, because the news slant is easier to change than it is to find new viewers lost to in-depth reporting.

The problem is that it makes it look like his objection to US imperialism is more to the US part than to the imperialism part.

He is a well-known anti-American apologist, even defending the Khmer Rouge in killing regular citizens in Cambodia, actually justifying hundreds of thousands before it was known to be millions, and arguing against believing survivors who were there, because they weren't an official source.
posted by Brian B. at 8:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

The Nordstream was likely a Russian hit to send gas prices soaring

So...I'm confused on this point, which I keep hearing. If the pipelines weren't in use--with one incomplete and the other turned off due to the war, why would destroying them raise gas prices?
posted by mittens at 9:04 AM on February 9, 2023

It's not inconsistent with his anarchist ideology. He doesn't think there should be any exertion of centralized power.

Putin sure seems to be exerting some centralised power in service of centralising power further. The opposition supporting Ukraine may represent a somewhat unified faction ("the West") but its power is certainly more distributed than what's being fought against.
posted by Dysk at 9:06 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

It's not inconsistent with his anarchist ideology. He doesn't think there should be any exertion of centralized power.

Which doesn't make the position any less immoral. Saying "the US should not support Ukrainians fighting against an invader and tyrant because doing so goes against my principles" is a deeply immoral position that deserves mockery and scorn. Not to mention that he winds up in this position because he's working backwards from his principles to justify them, instead of forward from the facts and working to reconcile the two (and adjusting when they cannot.)

As Keynes is attributed to saying, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:09 AM on February 9, 2023 [15 favorites]

why would destroying them raise gas prices?

I suppose if you assumed they were about to turn on, prices for delivery in the future would soar after they blew up. Not sure that actually happened though.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:10 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Is this one of these cases where an American is incapable of thinking that anyone else other than America is capable of doing things?

It’s a case where it’s kind of hard to fully make sense of anybody doing it, so it’s easiest to fall back on one’s personal default global villain.
posted by atoxyl at 9:15 AM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

MetaFilter: fandom arguments in terms of shaky logic in pursuit of libidinal satisfaction.
posted by Gelatin at 9:15 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

(to clarify, I mean if all the people buying and selling futures contracts thought that the pipelines were going to turn on soon with some probability, and then suddenly they got blown up, that would change the prices suddenly)
posted by BungaDunga at 9:18 AM on February 9, 2023

I think blowing up energy infrastructure makes sense in so far as it hurts Russian economic leverage in Europe and reduces the possibility of a negotiated peace.

Individuals on both sides have stated their desire for the war not to end before the total subjugation of the other side and taking away bargaining chips forwards that agenda.

A rogue faction doing it for this reason makes way more sense, to me, than either Biden or Putin or any head of state doing it.

But what the fuck do I, or any of us, know.
posted by Reyturner at 9:23 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

On a reaching the pipelines level, it's not at all difficult. Most of the reports I see place the damage at 50-100 meters. 50 meters is a little deeper than recommend for pure vacation level recreational scuba divers (30-40 meters, 100 to 130 feet ish is plenty deep, and far deeper than most vacation level dives. I myself have been 50 meters underwater on a dive, though it was an unplanned occurrence.) But 100 meters is easily enough reachable by sport divers using a fancier breathing gas mixture.

So I would not put this at all past the capabilities of any nation and most corporations. I don't know enough about underwater demolitions to know what level of explosion would be needed, but it's probably not huge since all it really has to do is crack the pipe enough to let the ocean in.

Did America do it? Potentially, but Russia spite and as a threat seems more likely to me. Especially if they believed Europe was unable to quit Russian oil. As for Hersh, well...... Citation needed.
posted by Jacen at 9:25 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

50 meters is a little deeper than recommend for pure vacation level recreational scuba divers (30-40 meters, 100 to 130 feet ish is plenty deep, and far deeper than most vacation level dives.

Is it a normal depth for diving for amber in the middle of the night in bad weather?
posted by Reyturner at 9:33 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

The US was always a leading suspect for this one, conceivably Ukraine but idk about their capabilities and they might have claimed responsibility, then European neighbors trying to shore up the alliance, then Russia in an apparent strategic miscalculation. (They could have done it, of course, but you can't pin it on them just cuz they're the bad guys.)

Some people will say "it's not always about America." Well sure. But there's only one country whose military spends more than the combined spending of everyone else at the top, claims the right to operate everywhere on the planet, and has hundreds of bases in other countries on every continent. It concerns itself with the foreign and domestic policy of every other country. Since the beginning of the Cold War, and moreso in its immediate aftermath, the US has been not so much a country as the administrative system of the planet. It has been and still is unique as a military power and geopolitical actor.

Just because the broad strokes are plausible, of course, doesn't mean this story is true. Hersh says he has talked to someone who was involved in planning the operation. Essentially all of Hersh's reporting from the beginning has been based on people in US and other national defense establishments -- sometimes at the very top, usually anonymously -- being willing to talk to him. His explosive reporting on US war crimes in Vietnam was based on people in the Pentagon who were involved with the systems that produced them and then covered them up. He has built up over the decades a network of insiders who know who to turn to when they want to criticize the policy they work under.

On the one hand, this is a coherent, plausible narrative that is rich in operational detail. On the other hand, none of the governments allegedly involved are going to corroborate this. If it happened, it's one for the archives, much later, or maybe if there's a big disagreement between the US and Norway. Why couldn't Hersh get anyone else he knows to confirm any of the story?

Regardless, I am not clear on why this story is regarded as "anti-America." Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said to Ted Cruz, “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.” Many in this thread have also argued that the outcome of the attack is positive. Why, then, is it a calumny against the US to say they did it? Is it just because it would mean US officials are lying about it? It is the policy of the US government, and probably all governments, to lie about this kind of thing. If you do a secret paramilitary attack you're probably going to lie about it, unless you think it makes you look really good. In this case, anyway, if it happened, it has to be denied to protect the policy of no direct involvement in the Ukraine war. If it is my policy to lie, it seems to me, you cannot insult me by saying I am lying.
posted by grobstein at 9:44 AM on February 9, 2023 [20 favorites]

I'm already engaging with this because I have a good friend who is plugged into all these guys and their retweeters on Twitter. Some other things he recently asked my opinion on include: Matt Taibbi's nothingburger Twitter files story implying that Russian interference in elections was fake or exaggerated, various lefty stuff arguing that the US made Russia invade Ukraine due to our aggressive NATO policies, questioning Uyghur camps and how bad China really is, etc.

I basically told him that while I like more voices and openness, as a busy person I have to mostly rely on established news sources for better or worse. In the current media consolidation environment that means NYT, WaPo, Guardian, NPR, BBC ... you know, all the ones that are part of a cabal that toes the line of the deep state. It doesn't mean random dudes on Twitter, people with a self-fulfilling worldview (US bad, all other imperialists ... not as bad?), etc. So to me this is the germ of a story before it's fleshed out and corroborated. While I don't think CNN is going to pop up with a pro-anarchy anticapitalist stance on issues, I also think that if the Nordstream story has any grain of truth, then yes ALL THOSE NEWS OUTLETS will absolutely follow up, publish their own stories, etc. If they don't, I'm fine with just shoulder-shrugging and moving on.

Here's what I will say about this (versus the Twitter Files and others that are mostly read-between-the-lines): It is very, very specific. The narrative alleges meetings, training locations, how and when everything happened, etc. So is it a more elaborate lie? Or did this really happen? It doesn't seem impossible, but let's let it shake out for a week and see if it has legs.

One other thought about conspiracy thinkers on the left - they do have a pretty good argument about the general scheming and unreliability of the US government's intel and military. So ... the CIA didn't kill JFK? Well what about MK-ULTRA? What about cooking the books and lying about Vietnam? (well that was a long time ago) Well, what about Cuba and other Latin American shenanigans? (um ... long ago?) What about Iran-Contra? (less long ago) What about Iraq WMD? ( um ....) etc. For my friend at least, we've never stopped doing all the conspiratorial stuff we've done back to the beginning. It's hard to draw a line and say that after date X, we learned our lesson and are now flying right. In that context, *of course* we'd blow up the pipeline.
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

they do have a pretty good argument about the general scheming and unreliability of the US government's intel and military

...square that with Norway supposedly taking the lead on this. Norway.

Norway?
posted by aramaic at 10:04 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Hersh also denied that Assad was dropping chemical weapons on rebels. Said they did it to themselves. He's a fucking idiot. And Chomsky still, to this day, denies that there was genocide under the Khmer Rhouge. Now he thinks the world should remove all Ukranian right to self determination because Russias is mean and killing people. They both have brain worms and should be ignored.
posted by nestor_makhno at 10:07 AM on February 9, 2023 [26 favorites]

I lean on the side of the meter that points to Russia doing this. Does it make business sense? Probably not.

But, it makes a lot of sense if the purpose is/was to sow discord and distrust toward the US throughout Europe and, more importantly, NATO. I see it as a gamble to hopefully blunt/stem cooperation among the NATO allies, with the result being fewer weapons coming into Ukraine. Hersh is a more-than-willing tool in this purpose.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:19 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I find it utterly bizarre that everyone here is calling this piece by a journalist with a stellar track record of uncovering secrets things like "whackadoodle". "Unsourced"? They are called confidential sources, which any investigative journalist relies upon. And even if you suspect the credibility of Hersh's sources (despite his track record of making the right call on who he trusts), the strongest arguments in support of his narrative are: 1. the public statements made by this admin which are quoted in the article, and 2. the fact that the US is plainly best-positioned to benefit from this attack and best-equipped to carry it out. This story is literally the simplest explanation. The US is the only state with a known track record of undertaking such deep-sea operations successfully.

Years ago when I registered my account as a young naive liberal in Bush's America, I considered this a community of smart, thoughtful people. Since returning from a long hiatus I’ve been second guessing that judgement, and the fount of responses in this thread from people seemingly unwilling to engage with narratives that contradict the US-centric neoliberal consensus (because "the transphobes are agreeing with it!!"?), even when Occam's Razor and the credibility of the reporter support them, I think has sadly cemented my re-assessment.
posted by brightghost at 11:29 AM on February 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

So...I'm confused on this point, which I keep hearing. If the pipelines weren't in use--with one incomplete and the other turned off due to the war, why would destroying them raise gas prices?

It gets negative media coverage and Putin needs to control the ruble from falling. By all accounts this guy is tossing billionaires out windows to capture or influence their companies. The bomb could have been against Gazprom executives who were likely not on board with using their lines as a tool of chaos. Putin also blows up stuff as a psychopath, including Russian apartment buildings to justify invasive wars, and foreign airliners for revenge or profit. It's compulsive and I doubt he could stop if he wanted to. One could make the argument, in order to make sense, that Putin is a bomber in search of something to bomb, and they'd be more right than trying to use it for their own propaganda, because the US actually likes to take credit for bombs going off as planned or desired.
posted by Brian B. at 11:33 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm no expert and can't make a lot of sense out of this one way or another, but the thing that feels hinkiest to me, for whatever reason is this:

Imagining that this story is all true, that this anonymous source is well-placed enough to have all these details locked down, but wanting the truth to get out there... In 2023, is Sy Hersh who that anonymous source would go to?
posted by Navelgazer at 11:35 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

Brightghost, you must be talking about some other journalist with a stellar track record, not Seymour "fake Bin Laden raid/no Syrian chemical weapons attacks" Hersh.
posted by sagc at 11:35 AM on February 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

people seemingly unwilling to engage with narratives that contradict the US-centric neoliberal consensus (because "the transphobes are agreeing with it!!"?)

It's a lot more than just transphobia, Taibbi et al have a years-long history of not only bigotry against multiple marginalized groups, but of publicizing batshit crazy conspiracy theories and anti-intellectual nonsense. They are the kind of people that, if they announce that the sky is blue, you should go outside and check for yourself.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:45 AM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Also wtf at trans rights being neoliberal nonsense?
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:49 AM on February 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

the fount of responses in this thread from people seemingly unwilling to engage with narratives that contradict the US-centric neoliberal consensus (because "the transphobes are agreeing with it!!"?), even when Occam's Razor and the credibility of the reporter support them

Well, for one, a lot of us don't actually view Hersh as credible given his past descent into conspiracy mongering. Which has been pointed out to you, and you have pointedly ignored.

But more importantly, contrarianism is neither wisdom or truth, no matter how much it tries to cosplay as such. People are not obliged to engage with weakly sourced narratives from sources with questionable backgrounds out of a sense of "fairness". And if your argument for consideration is just a variation on "wake up sheeple", I ask that you stop pounding the table, as all you're doing is making yourself look ridiculous.

Also, being in the company of bigots doesn't help your credibility, because bigots use conspiracy theories to defend their own bigotry.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:51 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

One elephant-in-the-room section missing in the Hersh article: the long history of Putin using pipeline infrastructure and gas prices/flow to exert pressure on neighboring countries — especially in Ukraine.

Even just before the Nordstream incident: Germany was not happy with the sudden "turbine maintenance" that prevented gas from flowing (there was much skepticism that the claimed needed maintenance was needed). Coincidentally this unexpected maintenance procedure occured just at the time Germany was criticizing Russia for its recent invasion of Ukraine.

Another elephant: the Hersh piece repeatedly claims Nordstream is what allowed Russian gas to be cheap in Western Europe. But it doesn't mention all the other pipelines already pumping gas from Russia to the rest of Europe. Its not as if cheap Russian gas was suddenly available to Germany because of Nordstream. It was flowing for years prior as well and it already was cheap. Nordstream did however allow gas to flow to Germany while circumventing Ukraine and Poland — making Ukraine open to invasion because, in Putin's eyes, Ukraine was now useless to Russia and Western Europe. It was an imperial project with an imperialistic agenta.

But no mention of that.
posted by UN at 11:52 AM on February 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

I guess the other thing jumping out at me is that, while the cui bono of the bombing is fuzzy at best, the cui bono from dissemination of conspiracy theories in our current day is, effectively, always the same: MAGA. And, by extension, Russia.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:59 AM on February 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

I just find it difficult to believe that government officials in multiple countries would be able to keep a massive secret across borders, across multiple news outlets, over a long enough timeline. Usually, someone leaks something in one country, deliberately or inadvertently, and then some deeper digging is done that implicates another official in another country, at which point the threads of the conspiracy start to unravel. Or, vice versa, you'd expect to see officials involved with this conspiracy reassigned to other positions, to put them somewhere quiet, or even retired or (gulp) disappeared. The same kinds of metadata or associative behaviors that companies like Palantir use to track you and I are the same kinds of informational nuggets that would be left behind for other journalists to find and build a map from. Where is this happening, though, outside of this piece? It's not even Occam's razor, it's just that there seems no other signal traffic that even hints peripherally at this, outside of conspiracy theorizing.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:04 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

So, am I correct that some people seriously believe the US is the most likely culprit for the Nordstream bombing?

Consider that any Russian entities involved in its construction had like been fully paid (or nearly so) and it was not transporting any meaningful quantity of gas. Also consider that a considerable amount of western pressure is being applied to keep it from ever moving gas.

So there is this multi-billion Euro asset that’s essentially paid for but not earning money. Rather than let it sit idle, what else could it be used for?

How about a little test to see how badly Germany needs the pipeline and how far you can push the weak, corrupt, decadent West to act on your terms?

I mean, they did nothing of any consequence when you poisoned dissidents living in exile across Europe, unilaterally annexed eastern Ukraine, or shot down a plane load of civilians. Why not just ratchet it up a notch? Worst case, the West tut tuts and slaps your hand (again). Best case, Germany panics, pays for the repairs and turns on the spigot.

After typing this out, I hafta say Hersch’s reporting totally makes sense. There’s no way anyone else might have done this.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 12:09 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don't think the bombing permanently destroyed Nord Stream. Yes, 3 of 4 lines are unusable currently, but they can be fixed. Wikipedia quotes a Times estimate of $500 million to repair it, which isn't much in the context of a major war. If they're never to be used again, it's a political decision, not an engineering one. There has been talk of it corroding eventually, but I can't imagine that being a problem after just a few months.

The idea that Biden/Nuland threatening Nord Stream 2 is proof of anything is just dumb. It's like the 9/11 conspiracy that quotes the owner of World Trade Center 7 as proof it was intentionally demolished. "They made that decision to pull, and we watched the building collapse." As if "pull" could only mean exploding it, not retreating from a fire. I guess every time an official says "we're going to stop it" you're supposed to think "with explosives!"

It's entirely possible the US did bomb the pipeline, but this article isn't very convincing.
posted by netowl at 12:12 PM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

I guess the other thing jumping out at me is that, while the cui bono of the bombing is fuzzy at best, the cui bono from dissemination of conspiracy theories in our current day is, effectively, always the same: MAGA. And, by extension, Russia.

You just need to make sure you don't get yourself on a head space where any version of events from any source that seems to vindicate Maga talking points become prima facie disinformation and conspiracy theory.
posted by Reyturner at 12:12 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Big Al 8000: Yeah, that's basically my read on it, but again, I claim no expertise here. Just going by my limited understanding, the mostly likely explanation for why there hasn't been a lot of discussion from Western states about "who did this?" is that it was a deliberately provocative act, and NATO doesn't want to let Russia dictate terms/timeline of NATO's actions in this matter.

Basically, in that narrative (which is hypothetical - I can't express enough how much I'm not an expert here!) Russia picked a target that wasn't doing anything for them anyway, the destruction of which would hopefully (for Russia) get NATO to denounce Russia for an attack they would then vehemently deny, and not do much of anything about it or, if they did, Russia could use that as pretext for rallying their own supporters. In that narrative, the smartest move that NATO could make is to basically ignore it. In folksy terms: don't swing at a bad pitch.

And if that were the case, and NATO didn't swing at the bad pitch, it would be purely upside for Russian intelligence to then go to a once-renowned journalist with a more recent history of seeming mental decline and increased credulity towards any story that goes against the U.S. (i.e. fake bin Laden raid, Assad) to kick up dust on the incident to get people talking about it again. And lookie here, the story is coming out just as a new Congress is sworn in who cares nothing about truth but really wants to make Biden look bad. Wild timing, that.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:26 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat): "a few reasons why I don't trust Seymour Hersh's thinly sourced journalism"
posted by BungaDunga at 12:31 PM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

You just need to make sure you don't get yourself on a head space where any version of events from any source that seems to vindicate Maga talking points become prima facie disinformation and conspiracy theory.

Very true, of course. And I've spent the past week with my father-in-law in the house, him being a lifelong new-age hippie who loves Trump because he'll eat up any conspiracy theory that can be placed in front of him. I'm particularly weary of this shit right now. But based on the nature of my work (I'm a TV archival producer, so most of my job involves sourcing original materials and fact-checking claims, etc.) I feel like I've got a pretty high degree of media literacy. That said, I'm certain that I cast a greater degree of doubt on some claims than on others.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:31 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Shane Harris, who wrote the WaPo story, also went on the Lawfare podcast to discuss his investigation and overall impressions.

The short version that I got from the podcast was that the three leading contenders would be Russia, the US, and Ukraine -- but that there is no hard evidence for any of them, and no one who knows the answer is admitting to it.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the US was responsible... but a story relying on a single anonymous source is probably not going to convince much of anyone who can do anything about it. At the most, I'd expect it to result in some mildly testy meetings between US diplomats and their opposite numbers in the EU. But it's not going to result in changes in policy, diplomatic concessions, or anything like that.

As an aside -- the WaPo story also relies on mostly anonymous sources. But the author interviewed 23 officials from 9 countries, all of whom were broadly consistent with each other, even if inconclusive. If Hersh's story were true, I'd expect him to at least be able to find multiple anonymous sources to corroborate each other.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 12:36 PM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

Just because the right wing almost always lies lies lies lies and abuses power and tries to destroy their 'enemies' and sees conspiracies everywhere doesn't mean they are guaranteed to be wrong you guys!!

Also, why in the world did you have to bring transgender issues into this?? Our conspiracy is that we want to be left alone in basic peace and dignity and safety. Once again, if the people who routinely spew lies and bile and threats against us, going so far to curtail rights and health care, I'm absolutely going to expect anything they say to conform to the absolute highest standards of journalist integrity before considering the accuracy. When people tell you who they are, believe them
posted by Jacen at 12:39 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

> Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat): "a few reasons why I don't trust Seymour Hersh's thinly sourced journalism"

Huh. It's interesting that the MIT missile expert he refers Charles Davis to (with respect to the Syria attacks) is also the MIT underwater demolitions expert he relies on in the Nord Stream piece. Which is not to say he couldn't be very knowledgeable in both, but from the pipeline story I had assumed he had sought out someone with very specific expertise.
posted by justkevin at 12:56 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Americans did it. Nor would I be surprised if it was the Russians who did it.

However, I know from all the crap my dad keeps filling my inbox with (he eats up Russian propaganda feeds 24/7 and is a prime example why some elderly people should not have access to smartphones) that the Russians have been pointing and shouting that it was the Yanks who did it from day one, and I am inclined to disbelieve anything Russian propaganda claims is true. And more so the more insistent they are.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:07 PM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

a self-published article based on a single anonymous source

For comparison, here is Hersh's description of the evidence and sources he used for his My Lai Massacre reporting from the original New Yorker article:

Over the past eighteen months, I have been provided with a complete transcript of the testimony given to the Peers Inquiry, and also with volumes of other materials the Peers commission assembled, including its final summary report to Secretary Resor and General Westmoreland. What follows is based largely on those papers, although I have supplemented them with documents from various sources, including the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, which had the main responsibility for conducting the initial investigations into both the My Lai 4 massacre and its coverup. In addition, I interviewed scores of military and civilian officials, including some men who had been witnesses before the Peers commission and some who might have been called to testify but were not. I also discussed some of my findings with former members of the Army who had been directly connected with the Peers commission.

The article would have presumably also gone through the New Yorker fact-checking department.

So, yes, a bit of skepticism is warranted.
posted by gwint at 1:14 PM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

Also wtf at trans rights being neoliberal nonsense?

Did a comment get deleted here? Because the one I can see doesn’t say that, even in an indirect way.
posted by atoxyl at 1:23 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

It’s predictable that Taibbi endorses Hersch here because of what we know Taibbi’s biases to be, but forming one’s judgements in opposition to what Taibbi believes because he’s wrong about other things is still pretty lazy counter-contrarianism. Even if it’s a useful heuristic for something, it’s lot less useful than looking to any of the people willing and able to poke holes in the credibility of Hersch and this specific article directly.
posted by atoxyl at 1:36 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's really not important, but just because a couple people have done it consistently and it's bugging me: There's no C in Seymour Hersh's last name.
posted by firechicago at 1:51 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

Developing political awareness during the Bush administration really did a number on a lot of people (including me). There was a lot of commonality between libertarian reactionaries and The Left in the opposition to W's Bible thumping authoritarianism at home and imperial adventures abroad. And I and a lot of others sure didn't have a very considered or sophisticated understanding of the intersections of those issues with identity.

That guys like Taibbi and Greenwald were on the side of righteousness for a while was largely an accident of history.
posted by Reyturner at 1:57 PM on February 9, 2023 [7 favorites]

but forming one’s judgements in opposition to what Taibbi believes because he’s wrong about other things is still pretty lazy counter-contrarianism.

No, that's how credibility works.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:00 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seymour Hersh bombshells in the last decade haven't aged well over the past few years. Maybe he's too useful to someone as an outlet.
posted by Brian B. at 2:03 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Maybe he's too useful to someone as an outlet
Unfortunately being trusted OR being untrusted can both make one very useful for spreading lies or the truth, respectively.
More information is needed, and on the scale of the alleged, could be this speculation outlives Seymour.
posted by shenkerism at 2:38 PM on February 9, 2023

I think it would be nice to try to disentangle the story and the source issues. While it's true that Hersch's recent track record is bad, his lifetime record is not. So, it's at least plausible that he has some contact from long ago that surfaced with there story.

It's highly implausible he has some contact from his My Lai reporting days who has surfaced with deep insider knowledge, because that was over fifty years ago and there's literally one person who was a US government insider in 1973 and is still a US government insider today; back then he was a 29 year old wunderkind, the second-youngest senator in 150 years and today at 80 he's the oldest president.

But whatever, the main question I have is why anybody* cares about who did this to the point of feverish conspiracy speculation. It happened at the bottom of the ocean; nobody's taking credit. It's probably one of a handful of countries, and I find it hard to believe that there are people whose opinions about the governments of Russia, the USA, Ukraine or Germany would substantially change plus or minus one pipeline sabotage. Like, if Hersh reported with multiple credible sources that it was the government of Bhutan, that would change my opinion about a country.

* who isn't involved in like, pipeline security as a job or whatever.
posted by Superilla at 2:57 PM on February 9, 2023 [6 favorites]

I have a couple of college roommates, one has gone pretty much fully QAnon, who I haven’t communicated with since trump was inaugurated, and one who is more progressive. The one who is more progressive I talked to yesterday. He appears to be a total Tankie, and said Ukraine should be looking to negotiate..l

Sigh
posted by Windopaene at 3:01 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

What's interesting is that there was a period of Ukrainian history that was anarchist. I don't mean spray-painting an A on your skateboard. The Cossacks rejected centralized power - they had no king. That changed as power asserted itself, but for a while there was anarchy in the Ukraine.

You don't have to go back to the Cossacks, there was a brief anarchist republic in southeastern Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, and there's even a couple of detachments in the TDF that consider themselves Makhnovists.
posted by tavella at 3:17 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

To me Hersh's story is so over elaborate, devoid of sources, and full of extremely granular detail for such a myriad of levels it extremely difficult to take seriously.

I don't believe the US is responsible but I would have an easier time believing that someone gave him this info to discredit the idea of US involvement than taking this account as actual proof of US involvement.
posted by Ferreous at 3:17 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

but to me the bigger thing is that when I've engaged with a few people who are true believers about this every single thing that discredits it is actually proof of a larger coverup or another level of US deceit. Conspiracy logic is self correcting, proof against an event is actually proof of a larger conspiracy to conceal the event. You can't win.
posted by Ferreous at 3:21 PM on February 9, 2023 [12 favorites]

What if Hersh really died in Milan years ago and his brain had been quickly and secretly airlifted to an industrial suburb of Minsk, hooked up to a AI that perennially sprouted conspiracy theories useful to the Russian government? Putin was said to be incredibly impressed with the brain-in-a-jar technology that had been developed by Disney imagineers, which his former KGB handlers had surreptitiously imported into Cold War-era USSR military labs for use by retiring Chairmen. It is rumored the future leader himself wondered if he might one day he able to use it when his own faculties started to wane. None of this is corroborated, mind you. Just sayin'
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:11 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

his brain had been quickly and secretly airlifted
posted by They sucked his brains out!

Eponysterical?
posted by snofoam at 4:18 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Actually, I can corroborate the brain-in-a-jar story, as I have heard that exact same story, so it must be true.

[in fact, I heard it just now, so it's also up-to-the-minute accurate!]
posted by aramaic at 4:20 PM on February 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Plenty of people are talking about brains in a jar from the obviously in the know sucked his brains out source so we can't be all wrong can we???
posted by Jacen at 4:22 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

NYT, let's get this scoop on the front page!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:23 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's not inconsistent with his anarchist ideology. He doesn't think there should be any exertion of centralized power.

As a broad generality, anarchists tend to be pro-Ukraine. There are a number of anarchist groups and individuals who have raised funds for Ukraine, physically taken supplies to Ukraine or gone to fight or do other work there. I'd say it's uncommon for anarchists to think that because we dislike the exercise of state power, therefore no one should fight back against an attacking state. Anarchists outside Ukraine tend to focus support on non-state action against Russia; Ukrainian anarchists tend to fight wherever the fighting is possible.

Chomsky has never been particularly typical of broader anarchist tendencies. We are pragmatic and fighty for the most part and I think the general perspective tends to be close-focus - anarchists don't do state-based actions, but if it so happens that a state is, for instance, fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, then anarchists would fight alongside them. Historically, of course, this means that you get Kronstadted the minute things settle down, but anarchists always show up anyway, it's a congenital failing. Anarchists have many, many characteristic bad habits, but "staying out of something for long-term strategic reasons" isn't one of them.

There are Russian anarchists - Other Russias has some stuff about them and the website The Russian Reader sometimes covers Russian anarchist actions.

The most common anarchist take on Ukraine is simply that no one is entitled to rule you and therefore you're entitled to fight back. Being strategic and/or principled in fighting back, recognizing that some actions might put you in a worse situation vis a vis the state, refusing some actions as too sordid - people could think like that, but "you should just lie down and let the tanks roll over you because otherwise you'd have to fight alongside the Ukrainian army" would be a real weirdo position. The people I know who are anti-Ukraine are all communists, FTR, but by no means are all communists pro-invasion.
posted by Frowner at 4:32 PM on February 9, 2023 [17 favorites]

It's really not important, but just because a couple people have done it consistently and it's bugging me: There's no C in Seymour Hersh's last name.

yeah, sorry, I don’t know why I thought that there was

No, that's how credibility works.

When Matt Taibbi endorses a no-name blogger, it’s a fair enough heuristic to decide not to check them out because you know Matt Taibbi sucks - after all you have nothing else to go on. Hersh’s reputation, for better or for worse, does not hinge on what Taibbi thinks of him.
posted by atoxyl at 4:35 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

Generally lack of credence from credible people is a big strike against credibility, but I don’t think you can invert that and say that positive credence from non-credible people is a big strike. Sometimes it’s a flag but people who believe untrue things indiscriminately are also capable of believing true things by accident.
posted by atoxyl at 4:41 PM on February 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

As I said in this case it’s very predictable that some people are predisposed to believe the U.S. is behind it and therefore ready to latch onto a somewhat threadbare story. But - the event was international skulduggery on a fundamental level, I don’t see how any theory of it can totally stay out of “conspiracy” territory.
posted by atoxyl at 4:49 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

It does seem like a lot of his reporting in the past decade or so has been heavily influenced by Russian media talking points. For example he suggested that the Novichuck poisoning in the UK wasn't state sponsored, dismissed claims about Russian meddling in US elections in 2016 and 2020. downplayed / dismissed attrocities by Russia and the Assad regime in Syria. There are many plausible explanations for what happened at Nordstream and who was responsible. Hersch has presented one of them but there is no reason to think it is an accurate account.

Hard to have much of a discussion about the accusation when he hasn't presented actual evidence.
posted by interogative mood at 5:22 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hard to have much of a discussion about the accusation when he hasn't presented actual evidence.

Agreed. And Russia is impossible for him to investigate in order to rule it out. To borrow the joke, he is looking for his lost car keys under the street lamp because that's where the light is.
posted by Brian B. at 5:55 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

When someone eventually sources a believable, verifiably true version of who did this, it will be front page news across the US and Europe, regardless of who the culprit turns out to be. The lack of attention being given to this by news sources with credibility speaks volumes.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:58 PM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

My prediction: the Russian government was trying to do something clever with the pipeline to saber-rattle, and accidentally blew it up from the inside. I got nothing against the skills of Russian engineers and technicians, but if you think the US has a dysfunctional management culture, that's nothing compared to Russia. I think this will turn out to be like Chernobyl or Challenger: management trying to be more clever than the physics allows.
posted by BeeDo at 6:24 PM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

This thread is a strange read, lots of refusing-to-think.

Setting Hersh's story aside, who has the capability and the motive to blow up this pipe?

Why would Russia do it? They can just turn a valve. The pipes cost billions and took years to build and are critical to Russia's economy. Irrespective of what Europe might say about buying no more gas, there could still have been ample opportunities to use these pipes. You wouldn't just shrug and blow them up because 'theyre not going to get used'. Who would take such a bet on the future of the very complicated fossil fuel relationships that exist in the world? Repairing the pipe is going to be very complicated, they'll have to raise it (tricky while it's full of seawater) and replace a huge section of it. The pipe is owned by the oligarchs, not Putin, why would they let him do it, even if he wanted to?

So if not Russia it has to be the USA. Who are the most powerful nation in the world, and on record as being very opposed to the pipes for loads of obvious reasons.
posted by memebake at 1:00 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

To be clear: I'm glad that pipe got busted, it's accelerating Europe's move away from fossil fuels.
posted by memebake at 1:04 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Realizing that based on the available information it is not possible to identify the party responsible is not the same as "refusing-to-think". What you call "think" here is forcing a conclusion of a fact base that doesn't support a conclusion. You presented a theory with some logic in its favor but others in this thread have provided other theories that are also logical.

Also, your facts are not entirely correct either, for example the pipeline is not owned by oligarchs, it is indeed the Russian state itself that owns it. (Ownership is more complex but the state has 51% of the 50% that is not owned by western companies.)
posted by patrick54 at 1:14 AM on February 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Many state actors could have sent divers to do this; even Hersh's story has the drivers using nothing more sophisticated for the dive than tri mix. Certianly within the abilities of any EU member or candidate member not just Russia or the US. The whole point is the action has plausible deniability stamped all over it.
posted by Mitheral at 1:20 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

One of the old Metafilter threads linked to this blog post that made an argument that the pipeline explosions were semi-accidental, as in accidents caused by poor maintenance.

Gas companies go to great lengths the remove water from natural gas, but it’s all predicated on the gas moving along. The sending side runs the gas through a media that removes water, and probably injects glycol or methanol into the stream just in case … but everything is predicated on the gas getting to the destination and out of the pipe.

Near as I can tell — and do correct me if I’m wrong — Russia charged Nord 2 with 300 million cubic metres of natural gas in July of 2021 … and it never moved. It just sat there. Under 300 to 360 feet of salt water.

To quote an email from a petroleum engineer: “Holy Jesus, that [deleted] pipline is one hairy snowball from end-to-end!”

Nord 1 got shut down after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the gas hasn’t moved since. Just … hanging around. At the bottom of a sea.

Yeah, it’s Russia. Those pipes are sodding well FULL of hydrates.

Am I saying that there is no way that these incidents could possibly be the result of deliberate direct action? No. That area is too full of idiots — HOWEVER:

It’s hundreds of millions of cubic metres of extremely flammable — nay, explosive — gaseous hydrocarbons being transported by Russians, and subject to Russian maintenance. And I’m here to tell you — Russian maintenance under the current oligarchy system isn’t any better than it was under the Soviet system.

It blew up. Until I see evidence of bad actions, I’m going to shrug and say, “Damn. Must have been a day ending in “y”.

“So, LawDog,” I hear you say, “What do you think happened?”

Honestly, I suspect someone in the Russian government pinged Gazprom, and said, “The EU is about to have a cold winter. make sure those pipelines sodding well work, so we can sell someone natural gas at massively increased prices.”

So, Somebody In Charge started running checks — and came up with hydrate slurry in both pipelines. After the running in circles, hyperventilating, and shrieking of curse-words stopped, somebody started trying to remediate both lines. Of course they didn’t tell folks down stream — no Russian want to look weak, and besides, there’s been a nasty uptick in failed Russian oligarchs getting accidentally defenestrated — they just unilaterally tried to Fix Things.

It’s methane hydrate. Trust me, if there’s a hydrate plug, there’s more than one. With both pipes having no movement for months, if not a year, there were a metric butt-ton of hydrate plugs, slurry, and rime in both pipelines.

The Fixing of Things went bad. One went Paws Up, and they started trying to stop the other — but pressurisation (both ways) is a weeks-long process, and the second went bad, too.

posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:25 AM on February 10, 2023 [13 favorites]

Why would Russia do it?

Russia sent gas to Europe through pipelines in Ukraine, it didn't stop Putin from destroying that country and its infrastructure.

Putin worried about the self-harm caused to Russia's economy, reputation, future growth possibilities? I mean, I'm not saying "It was Russia", but Putin acting in the interests of the Russian economy? Seriously?
posted by UN at 1:36 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Likely one of the things that might need more traction once historical hindsight is more present is the idea of Russia itself as any kind of major power, in Russia itself. But also, different bureaucratic incompetence express themselves differently. The mistake is always in thinking Russia (or anyone) is America's mirror in norms and habitude and vice versa, when you're making political analysis. Russians consistently make this mistake as well, so it's not a US-specific problem.

It's really quite hard to communicate, just because you have a handle on how one superstructure's emergent qualities operate, the ceiling where observations are generalizable is actually quite low.
posted by cendawanita at 2:35 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

So if not Russia it has to be the USA

i'm not at all convinced of that - and i'm not at all sure that russia and the usa can be the only suspects

aside from lack of proof for any theory, i don't know that it makes sense for russia to have shot themselves in the foot like this

and i'm not convinced that the u s would commit a blatant and serious act of war against a nuclear armed opponent

i think of other countries in the world and it's hard to say who would have benefited from this or if there was a benefit why it would be worth the risk

perhaps the pipes weren't properly maintained - at the least, that's an answer that doesn't require a leap of faith to believe
posted by pyramid termite at 3:11 AM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

This was my introduction to Ivy Bells, which makes me believe it was well within the US Navy's capability.

But seriously, underwater pipelines are sitting ducks, aren't they?
posted by whuppy at 3:35 AM on February 10, 2023

The pipe is owned by the oligarchs, not Putin, why would they let him do it, even if he wanted to?

In addition to patrick54's comment above, this point is easy to rebut. Oligarchs have been dying under (to say the least) suspicious circumstances. Whether Putin hit squads are responsible or not, to the extent that oligarchs have an interest in the pipeline, they could well go along with something Putin wanted and they didn't so as to avoid a one-way trip out a high window.
posted by Gelatin at 5:34 AM on February 10, 2023

Initially, there was speculation that this could have been accidental, but at this point all experts seem to agree it was sabotage. The explosion sites were some distance apart and Swedish investigators reported finding foreign objects with explosive residue:

"During the crime scene investigations that were carried out on site in the Baltic Sea, extensive seizures were made, and the area has been carefully documented. Analysis that has now been carried out shows traces of explosives on several of the foreign objects that were found. Advanced analysis work continues in order to be able to draw firmer conclusions about the incident."
posted by justkevin at 5:45 AM on February 10, 2023 [5 favorites]

This person argues that open source intelligence directly contracts several claims made in the piece, including location of ships and aircraft.
posted by Comrade_robot at 5:55 AM on February 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

This is hilarious thank you all for a good time reading.
posted by some loser at 6:10 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This was my introduction to Ivy Bells, which makes me believe it was well within the US Navy's capability.

It was very easily within the capability of the US Navy or any of a set of other US defense/intelligence-related agencies. But it was also within the capability of every country in Europe, too -- anyone with a small amount of explosives and some trained divers or the ability to buy an off-the-shelf undersea drone could create the explosions; getting away with it would have been the hard part, not the setting the bombs.

The biggest thing that makes me lean away from the US as the actor is that it is so "out of character" -- the US just doesn't have much of a track record (since the 1940s) of bombing infrastructure in Europe covertly. Our covert actions tend to look different (and often aren't all that covert, intentionally), and our force projection tends to be very high-profile. That's not any kind of proof that it wasn't the US, but it also is odd enough that it sure isn't the most obvious answer. Also, the US government has had a lot of issues with keeping secrets -- they don't blab them all, but a surprising amount of "secret" stuff gets talked about fairly soon after occurring.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:47 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

The pipe is owned by the oligarchs, not Putin, why would they let him do it, even if he wanted to?

It's owned and operated by Gazprom, which is state-owned. Even if it weren't, oligarchs are broadly beholden to Putin, not the other way around.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:58 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

(oligarchs get to "own" things insofar as Putin doesn't have them imprisoned or killed; they can't credibly threaten to kill Putin since there's every reason to believe the next guy will take their money away and give it to his friends instead. So, they rely on Putin.)
posted by BungaDunga at 7:59 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Since our usual picture of oligarchs is that they do the ruling, and that can lead to some confusion as to how Russia works, I thought this 2021 piece from Policy Tensor* did a nice job of describing sultanistic oligarchy, a method by which a single ruler gets control of oligarchs, even though they still remain rich and powerful. A more succinct description can be found here.

(*I guess I'll point out that Policy Tensor seems sympathetic to the Hersh story before anybody's like why would you listen to that guy!, but still, the breakdown of types of oligarchy was useful!)
posted by mittens at 8:20 AM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

One possible Russian motive would be that they meant to blow up the Norwegian pipelines located nearby and made a mistake. Another might be to cause divisions between the US and Germany because of the speculation it generates that the US was behind it.
posted by interogative mood at 10:17 AM on February 10, 2023

It was clearly Norway.
posted by Grandysaur at 11:08 AM on February 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

"The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil."
posted by jeffburdges at 11:57 PM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

But seriously, underwater pipelines are sitting ducks, aren't they?

For me, this is the biggest takeaway. This bombing was easy, and whoever did it got away. There was reporting at the time of ships in the area turning off beacons... but I'm not sure if this operation would even need a ship. It's more the midnight "diving for amber" operation (referenced above). This is more sophisticated than a Lake Mead barrel sinking, but not much more. Any country or organized threat could have done this.
posted by netowl at 12:40 AM on February 11, 2023

jeffburdges, your article's claims don't make any more sense than Hersh's claims. Well before any pipeline sabotage, the Russians themselves had shut down the pipeline in order to try and freeze Europe and force them to drop their support for Ukraine. So the financial losses to Russia, and the benefit to other gas suppliers that rushed to fill the void, had already occurred prior to the explosions.

If the article is going to claim that everyone else is engaged in a big lie, the article should have its own facts in some semblance of order.
posted by Balna Watya at 7:00 AM on February 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil

Straight lining the narrative is also what so-called information states do, but with disinformation. A lot of people have sincerely asked why Russia would blow up a pipeline if they could just shut off a valve, even though it wasn't working at the time and sanctions were slowing down its certification. But note how the premise of sealing it off makes sense to them, but not blowing it up. Both are the same option, but sealing it off has major problems, at home and abroad. There would be blame for people freezing, liability of contracts, angered customers across Europe hating Gazprom, and confused people at home asking why their ruble was falling. Far easier to blow it up temporarily and blame it on the evil US, then tell the gullible population at home that it now really looks like they need to control those other pipelines in Ukraine after all. It is a classic pretext for war in Russia but after the fact. Why bother to get a pretext for war when you could just invade at will, and did so? Because the war didn't go as planned and a lot of people were asking questions and the jails were too full to arrest them. The best reason for dismissing Herch's sources claims isn't that it looks like Russian disinformation, complete with the nostalgic realism of the evil American empire, but because of what he didn't say about Russia at all. Here is a video giving context for the Ukraine invasion. If half of it is true, we may wonder why our news sources are so shallow on the matter, and why Hersh's insider claims about the pipeline in question leave out the same information. Jump to 9:00 for the short version, the takeaway being that Ukraine has vast untapped fields of gas and oil, especially near Crimea, which will compete directly with Russia's energy dominance.
posted by Brian B. at 8:31 AM on February 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

I read the article a few days ago, but the longer I thought about it, the less sense the supposed operational details made. First, the US has submarines specifically configured for this sort of underwater chicanery, including the sub-surface deployment and recovery of divers and ROVs. The use of a Swedish ship and the not-too-subtle cover of a naval exercise directly above the pipeline wouldn't be necessary and would only complicate an operation that the US Navy has spent decades building specialized resources for.

Second, the US generally doesn't mess with vulnerable undersea infrastructure, because there's so much of it, and broadening the scope of a conflict to include blowing up pipelines or cutting undersea communications cables would be disastrous to the world (and thus the US) economy. Cutting undersea cables has always been seen as a sort of "nuclear option" because they're so vulnerable and difficult to defend, but most nations benefit from them and leave them alone. Pipelines would seem to be generally similar.

Third, if the Russians have such good surveillance in this area, they would presumably have hydrophones that could detect an explosion. A couple of pounds of explosive going off underwater generates a hell of a racket; that's not a subtle way to get rid of the pipeline. If you were going to go to the trouble of doing a whole clandestine operation to take out the pipeline, wouldn't you do something a bit more subtle? I'm not an expert, but I bet there are lots of things you could do to rig an undersea pipeline—surrounded by corrosive seawater, filled with flammable gas under pressure, etc.—to fail in a "natural"-seeming way, after some indeterminate delay; maybe you go in and weaken some welds, scrape off anti-corrosion coatings... maybe there's electrochemical stuff you could do, I don't know. It just seems like there are probably a lot of options to accelerate natural processes. Putting an IRA Belfast Special on the thing seems a bit bush league for a well-resourced nation-state looking to distance itself from sabotage. Unless the idea is specifically to send a message... but the US doesn't need to do that. Everyone knows the US can pretty much blow up anything it wants, anywhere it wants, unless it's under about thirty feet of reinforced concrete.

So: if the pipeline was actually sabotaged, and if you think Hersh wasn't just given a wind-up by someone with their own personal Tom Clancy story, you'd be looking for a player with much more limited capabilities than the US, without much to lose from expanding the scope of the war to include civilian infrastructure, and who doesn't mind sending a message to the Kremlin when doing so. That sounds like Ukraine to me. Remember all those Russian military facilities that mysteriously caught fire, and nobody seems very interested in explaining? The Russians don't want to admit that the Ukrainians have state-like capabilities, because it detracts from their official line that they're nothing more than rabble, and the Ukrainians don't benefit from admitting they're conducting sabotage operations on Russian soil.

If you follow this line, it makes sense that the Russians didn't say anything until now, and why they've glommed on to Hersh's "the US did it" article; it gives them a better explanation for the pipeline's failure than the truth.

Of course, all of this is just speculation. Deferred maintenance, or the effects of disuse on what was supposed to be a pipeline constantly flowing gas, could have done the job just as effectively as some divers with bombs.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:35 AM on February 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

jeffburdges, your article's claims don't make any more sense than Hersh's claims.

*Clicks link*

Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of The Washington Post or The New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net.

1. The argument about him being the greatest living journalist comes from work he did 50 years ago. His work since reeks of him being duped, as has been mentioned multiple times in this thread.

2. Can't get published in WaPo or NYT? (Try Guardian?) Well.... has it even been submitted to them? If not... as much as I dislike both... they actually do have editorial standards. Florid prose using only one source does not a news item make.

Kadin2048:

Deferred maintenance, or the effects of disuse on what was supposed to be a pipeline constantly flowing gas, could have done the job just as effectively as some divers with bombs.

Occam's Razor. Makes sense.

This post has gone... slightly better than the one that was deleted? Still seems like a lot of conspiratorial thought that is being pushed as ABSOLUTE TRUTH, which I think is bad for MeFi.

jeffburdges, can you tell us what you are trying to get to happen by your comments here and in the post you created that was deleted? Honest question asked out of curiosity.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:53 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

We might not want to ask posters to defend their character, because it demands silence as modesty, or else random others get to pretend to be a good judge of it. I'll gladly read anything Jeff posts anytime. This famous scene explains it better, the last lines.
posted by Brian B. at 10:32 AM on February 11, 2023

We might not want to ask posters to defend their character

I wasn't. I was asking him to explain his position. jeffburdges posted a link without comment. Rather than read into it or place any sort of bias on what he posted I was asking for clarification. I was trying to avoid jumping to conclusions. I was trying to understand where he was coming from.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:40 AM on February 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

The article mixes a bunch of contextual/historical information (e.g.: Ivy Bells) as well as public information (e.g.: Biden's public statements) in with new stuff that the source provided. I went in and tried to pick out what unique information exactly did Hersh's source provide:

Details from a series of top-secret meetings convened by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, including:

[...] Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.

[...] Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”

[...] [CIA Director William] Burns quickly authorized an Agency working group whose ad hoc members included—by chance—someone who was familiar with the capabilities of the Navy’s deep-sea divers in Panama City. Over the next few weeks, members of the CIA’s working group began to craft a plan for a covert operation that would use deep-sea divers to trigger an explosion along the pipeline.

[...] Still, the interagency group was initially skeptical of the CIA’s enthusiasm for a covert deep-sea attack. [...] “It would be a goat fuck,” the Agency was told.

Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

[...] The Agency working group members had no direct contact with the White House, and were eager to find out if the President meant what he’d said—that is, if the mission was now a go. The source recalled, “Bill Burns comes back and says, ‘Do it.’”

Details from the operational plan:

The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic sea a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island. [...] That would be well within the range of the divers, who, operating from a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter, would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete protective covers.

[...] The Norwegians joined the Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity in the area. In that way, someone higher up could intervene and keep a report out of the chain of command, thus insulating the pipeline operation. “What they were told and what they knew were purposely different,” the source told me.

The Norwegians were key to solving other hurdles. The Russian navy was known to possess surveillance technology capable of spotting, and triggering, underwater mines. The American explosive devices needed to be camouflaged in a way that would make them appear to the Russian system as part of the natural background—something that required adapting to the specific salinity of the water. The Norwegians had a fix.

The Norwegians also had a solution to the crucial question of when the operation should take place. [...] The current exercise, held in June, would be known as Baltic Operations 22, or BALTOPS 22. The Norwegians proposed this would be the ideal cover to plant the mines.

The Americans provided one vital element: they convinced the Sixth Fleet planners to add a research and development exercise to the program. The exercise, as made public by the Navy, involved the Sixth Fleet in collaboration with the Navy’s “research and warfare centers.” [...]

[...] The Panama City boys would do their thing and the C4 explosives would be in place by the end of BALTOPS22, with a 48-hour timer attached. All of the Americans and Norwegians would be long gone by the first explosion.

And then: Washington had second thoughts. [...] Instead, the White House had a new request: “Can the guys in the field come up with some way to blow the pipelines later on command?”

Some members of the planning team were angered and frustrated by the President’s seeming indecision.

[...]

The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a plane on short notice, but the procedure involved the most advanced signal processing technology. Once in place, the delayed timing devices attached to any of the four pipelines could be accidentally triggered by the complex mix of ocean background noises [...] To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds—much like those emitted by a flute or a piano—that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a pre-set hours of delay, trigger the explosives.

So, this one single source has detailed information about deliberations from these top-secret meetings including direct quotes of communications to and from the CIA, information about Norway's role in planning this operation (including selecting the time, place, cover story of BALTOPS 22, agreeing with the US to keep Denmark & Sweden in the dark, and knowing how to adjust the bomb technology to account for the specific salinity of the water in that area), the White House changing their mind about using a timed bomb, and the specific and possibly non-standard demolition mechanism that was ultimately used. I do not have enough expertise to determine what kind of source would have all of this information.
posted by mhum at 11:03 AM on February 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

My rather cynical take is "one with an active imagination". Apart from Hersh's journalism devolving in the last few years to primarily being a distribution point for Russian misinformation, anyone who had access to all those different conversations and planning documents would either be so high ranking that they could go to a much more credible outlet, or had such a successful espionage operation that they'd have a lot more interesting things to leak/would have actual documents to dump.
posted by tavella at 1:31 PM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]

Traction. Glasnost incoming?
posted by AillilUpATree at 10:41 AM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

By the way, the lede is terrible: should we discount the MyLai story (and Watergate) because they are also controversial and poorly (read: anonymously) sourced?

Truth is the standard, and we lack a credible competing hypothesis. The Europeans are refusing to release the results of their investigations, and Sweden passed mysteriously timed and draconian anti-whistleblower legislation around the same time that Germany exited the joint investigation into the sabotage.

Nobody over here seriously disputes that it was sabotage.

I expect major ramifications for Norway and possibly for NATO. After the war.
posted by AillilUpATree at 10:52 AM on February 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Um. Please review gwint's quote of Hersh himself on his sourcing for My Lai, especially this part: "In addition, I interviewed scores of military and civilian officials, including some men who had been witnesses before the Peers commission and some who might have been called to testify but were not. I also discussed some of my findings with former members of the Army who had been directly connected with the Peers commission."

The My Lai story was impeccably sourced and fact-checked by the famously careful New Yorker. This is a single anonymous source claiming to have an improbably wide range of access yet reduced to leaking via a Substack blog. It is the definition of poorly sourced.
posted by tavella at 11:15 AM on February 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

No credible competing hypothesis? If only there were a country with a history of blowing up pipelines.
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:46 AM on February 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Summation:
- Is it reasonable to think the US might have done it? Sure, it's not in any way out of the scope of Shit We Have Done over the years.
- Does it seem it seem in keeping with the current behavior of the US government? Not really; the Biden administration has been hesitant and conservative in supplying weapons, to the point where it's clear they'd rather risk Ukraine losing than be seen as supplying weapons to attack Russia. It doesn't exactly match with setting up a direct attack on Russian property and European interests.
- Is the story as presented particularly believable? Not really. For some reason the US "knew we had to go to Norway" because... they hate the Russians and the US somehow *lacks divers*? The country which has more subs than anyone else somehow needed an elaborate military exercise cover?

Actually, rereading, it feels oddly like it is primarily an attack on Norway and Norwegian military cooperation with the US. It would explain bringing them and the military exercise into the story in improbable ways. I had the impression that the single source had been cited as a US official, but skimming I can only find references to them having knowledge of the operation planning. Has he said specifically his source was American? Because it would be interesting if this was actually about Norwegian politics.
posted by tavella at 1:01 PM on February 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream
posted by Brian B. at 2:26 PM on February 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

If anyone has any doubts about Hersh being primarily a conduit for Russian disinformation these days, here's a quote from the Democracy Now interview. "I think the end is just a question of time right now, it's a question of how many more people Zelenskyy wants to kill of his own people, it's going to be over."
posted by tavella at 3:17 PM on February 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

And lest you think Hersh is just an well-meaning old man on a quest to recover lost glory who was misled by bad sources, no he's gone full tankie. Putin is merely disciplining Ukraine and has no bad intentions against anyone else. "I don't think there's any chance that Putin wants to take over Europe. I don't think he wants to take, he wants to have Ukraine tamed but he's not interested in doing anything more."

He's revolting.
posted by tavella at 8:57 PM on February 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

In those Democracy Now and Berliner Zeitung Interviews, Hersh says how Russia provided via the pipeline 'so much gas at such low prices' and that Biden chose to 'freeze Germans' by blowing up the pipeline.

And yet here we are, not freezing? It seems like such an odd thing to repeat, assuming he did basic research into German gas supplies for this article (especially the cheap gas we had prior to Nordstream 1 and 2).

He says it's all because the US wants to weaken Western Europe by controlling gas and oil supplies. And that countries here are going to leave NATO because the US can't be trusted after they allegedly blew up Nordstream. And yet... two countries have applied to join NATO?

Bizarrely, Hersh complains in that Democracy Now interview tavella linked above that there's too much hatred of Putin in the US. That's just an odd thing to say in general. I mean, wtf?

Hersh says Germany's Chancellor is from the Green party, implying there's a certain political stance he'll take due to his membership in that specific party. That's an OK mistake for simply anyone on the street to make... but when you as an expert make all these statements on political affairs in Germany and Western Europe, not so much.
posted by UN at 1:19 AM on February 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

He says it's all because the US wants to weaken Western Europe

Who wouldn't want to weaken their best friends and ideological (and military) allies in an increasingly hostile world?
posted by trig at 3:55 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Canada ball: "Whoa!"
posted by Mitheral at 7:52 AM on February 16, 2023

Here's a transcript from the Democracy Now interview tavella mentioned. This interview is from two days ago and he's straight up spouting Putin propaganda. Yuck.

I can tell you I’m not understanding the total commitment to Ukraine

Perhaps you oughtta work on your understanding, buddy.
posted by Nelson at 9:39 AM on February 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

"I think the end is just a question of time right now, it's a question of how many more people Zelenskyy wants to kill of his own people, it's going to be over."

Many accounts of Ukrainian casulties are frightful. The cemetery videos are plentiful.

It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die.

Is that a question we're willing to ask?

I sometimes wonder if all of the high emotion and somewhat performative principled attitude to what could be a post Soviet border war but has become somehow an existential test of good against evil is a little related to US adventurism over the last few decades.

Certainly if Hersh is even close to right it changes everything.
posted by AillilUpATree at 4:33 PM on February 16, 2023

Just askin' questions huh? Revolting.
posted by Nelson at 4:35 PM on February 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Blowing Holes in Seymour Hersh's Pipe Dream

The problem with this, shared by a lot of brOSINT stuff, is that it is a mix of speculation (Tom Clancy, srsly?) and mind numbing data.

All of which data rest on the extremely dubious premise that entities involved in this sort of thing keep their transponders on, or broadcast their true identity and location.

I'm inclined to doubt that.

Anyway we await the conclusive refutation.
posted by AillilUpATree at 4:39 PM on February 16, 2023

Just askin' questions huh? Revolting

It is unthinkable that western countries would prolong a war for their own reasons? Really?

Recent history says otherwise.

What level of reality are we operating at here?
posted by AillilUpATree at 4:43 PM on February 16, 2023

I go back to my original thoughts on this: the only believers are those who are already bought in. See above.
posted by sagc at 4:58 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

All of which data rest on the extremely dubious premise that entities involved in this sort of thing keep their transponders on, or broadcast their true identity and location.

If the Hersh narrative is right ("On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy.") the whole thing was supposed to be under cover of a routine exercise. It would not be routine to turn off the transponder.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:03 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Of course, transponders can be turned off and spoofed. But that runs counter to the story that this was all disguised as perfectly routine activity. You don't fly a plane around the Baltic with your transponder off if you want to your activities to appear routine.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:06 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Debunking Seymour Hersh's Alta-Class claims

Every single Alta and Oksøy class ship in the Norwegian Navy was accounted for during the period where Seymour Hersh claimed one was used to plant the charges on the Nord Stream pipeline.

posted by BungaDunga at 5:28 PM on February 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Nobody would ever lie or deceive when they're doing a secret operation.

It's the naive faith in open source data that's the problem.

That 'debunk' is particularly low-effort if read closely.
posted by AillilUpATree at 5:46 PM on February 16, 2023

You don't fly a plane around the Baltic with your transponder off if you want to your activities to appear routine.

pace Hersh's account, you're conflating the planting of the bombs with the detonation.

Some aspects of the planting were disguised as routine activity. The detonation was not.

There's no contradiction.
posted by AillilUpATree at 5:51 PM on February 16, 2023

It literally says that it was a a seemingly routine flight. A flight with transponder off would not be seemingly routine.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:53 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

The disparity between your credulousness wrt hersh's single anonymous source who was everywhere and knows everything, vs incredulousness to verifiable data is telling.
posted by Ferreous at 6:10 PM on February 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die.

Is that a question we're willing to ask?

Seriously, are you going to sit here and spew Russian propaganda? The people who make that decision are Ukrainians, and they have declined your oh so helpful suggestion that they would be better off surrendering and letting Russia complete their genocide. They decided to fight from the first moment, before anyone in the West had given them more than minimal help, well before the world knew how rotted out Russia's military was from corruption. They decided to fight, because some people and countries think it is worth fighting for their freedom _even if they don't have a guarantee of victory_. They continue to fight, even though the West is far too slow and limited with support, because they aren't fighting because the West told them to, they are fighting for themselves and the future.

And go home with that shit about "a border war". Jesus fucking christ you are obscene, trying to pretend the attempt to extinguish a nation, execute its patriots, torture its people, kidnap its children is some goddamn "border dispute."
posted by tavella at 6:16 PM on February 16, 2023 [10 favorites]

It is unthinkable that western countries would prolong a war for their own reasons? Really?

Definitely not unthinkable. Except that the wars "western" countries have been waging by choice for fun and profit tend to be the ones that don't really affect life within their own borders in any way. For people inside "Western" countries that were fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, those wars were far away and basically theoretical.

This war has had people in the EU chopping wood to try to keep warm. It's made gas costs a continuous headline issue in the UK and elsewhere, broken supply chains that were already strained by the pandemic, contributed to inflation, and brought millions of Ukrainian refugees to EU countries. If there's one thing that people truly love having in their countries, it's refugees. Especially long-term ones. There has been a lot of political discontent generated by these things. Unlike adventures in invisible "third world" countries, this war hasn't served as a jingoistic distraction for people in the "west". Instead it's strained those countries even more and fueled discontent against their governments. It's not clear how that will play out if the war lasts too much longer.

And how would "western" countries make this war end faster? They could pressure Ukraine to surrender, although given both Russia's track record and Russia's rhetoric there's not much reason to trust it to not go any further, or to trust it to not continue performing atrocities within a conquered Ukraine. The other way they could end it faster would be to pour their own weapons and troops into Ukraine. But Russia repeatedly says it would see "Western" soldiers fighting in Ukraine as a nuke-worthy red line because somehow defending Ukraine's borders from within Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia.

The "West", which in the Russian narrative would invade Russia today if Russia let go of Ukraine, has been terrified of doing anything that might give Russia any pretext to use the one actual strength it has. Remember how violently the "West" reacted to Russia's 2014 invasions and ongoing occupations, and Russia's "interventions" in Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Chechnia and [how many more should I list?] Except wait, it didn't. The "West" has consistently wanted to believe it could get away with reacting with words, or at worst some light sanctions. Not too many sanctions, since that would harm their own economies. Which are what the "West" really cares about, more than anything. And which have not been well served by this war.

Many accounts of Ukrainian casulties are frightful. The cemetery videos are plentiful.
It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die.
Is that a question we're willing to ask?

It has been asked, many times, including here, but it's much easier to ask in good faith when you're also asking questions like "what do Ukrainians themselves want" and "how is Russia treating Ukrainians within the territories it's captured" and "how has Russia recently treated territories it controls that have tried for independence" and "where exactly is Russia going to stop if nobody ever draws a line" and "if a line had ever been drawn at any previous Russian 'intervention', would Russia still have felt like it could get away with starting this war" and "wouldn't the fastest way for this war to end be for Russia to withdraw its own troops back into its own country, since it's abundantly clear the dreaded 'West' has no desire to bring the war to Russia itself, which was Russia's ridiculous justification in the first place?"

Anyway, that's a good faith answer, though I'm not sure why I bothered.
posted by trig at 6:52 PM on February 16, 2023 [8 favorites]

It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die. Is that a question we're willing to ask?

I think the West asked that question rather pointedly at the beginning of the war, and the Ukrainians answered back not in words but in action—not just by failing to surrender as the Russians apparently thought they would, but by holding off, and indeed actually driving back, the Russian Army—that they would rather risk death than live under Russian occupation.

And if you look over the history of other countries that Russia has conquered in the past, it becomes clear that to capitulate to Russia generally just means that a lot of people die of pistol shots to the back of their skulls in basements, or in death camps in remote corners of the world, rather than on the battlefield.

There are some things that it is worth risking death to prevent befalling your people or your family, and "living under Russian occupation" would be very close to the top of that list.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:12 PM on February 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

No one in the west is forcing the Ukranians to fight. (Remember, the expectation was that they would last about three days.) They could say "no thanks" to the weapons deliveries and surrender at any time. They are fighting, just like I am sure most every country in the west would fight if invaded by a hostile power.

The "just asking questions" routine is gross, particularly as a backdoor way to repeat Kremlin talking points. Whoever you are, you can do better than that.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:27 PM on February 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die.
what could be a post Soviet border war but has become somehow an existential test of good against evil

It may indeed be that this war was unilaterally started by the Russian government specifically, and Putin even more specifically, and the casualties could end in a minute if all the Russian soldiers were ordered home.

How foolish and reckless the Ukrainians are for not allowing genocide to simply roll over them in an unimpeded orderly fashion. Much less soldiers would die that way, and millions of dollars would be saved too!

Perhaps you think you're using one definition of "existential", that is "philosophy concerned with questions about how and whether life has meaning", but the rest of us are thinking of the other, "a threat to a people’s existence or survival."

I say this as the grandchild of Auschwitz survivors: Fuck outta here with your nonsense.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 7:54 PM on February 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

It could have been a classic post Soviet border war, then Biden went ahead and ruined it.
posted by UN at 9:32 PM on February 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

So of all the shitty Russian propaganda AillilUpATree dumped here, this one sticks in my craw the most.

It is unthinkable that western countries would prolong a war for their own reasons?

This war ends the moment Russia withdraws from Ukraine. Not just from the new territories he invaded in 2022, but also Donbas and Crimea. The war exists because Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and extended that invasion in 2022. "Western countries" are not prolonging the war, they are helping Ukrainians defend their home. To say anything else is the most filthy form of endorsement of Putin's aggression. Shame on you.
posted by Nelson at 9:41 PM on February 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

What's all this then? A tankie rides in on a high horse, calls everyone a patsy, and ends up supporting imperialism and genocide. Now where have I heard this one before?

That's right, every single thread about Ukraine.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:19 AM on February 17, 2023 [8 favorites]

It may indeed be that western intervention in this conflict caused a lot more Ukrainians to die.

Intervention? The West is not intervening in this conflict. The west is providing materiel. That is absolutely not the same thing, and conflating the two serves only one agenda.
posted by Dysk at 2:25 AM on February 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Definitely not unthinkable. Except that the wars "western" countries have been waging by choice for fun and profit tend to be the ones that don't really affect life within their own borders in any way. For people inside "Western" countries that were fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, those wars were far away and basically theoretical.

I want to pick up this point and underline that for this war, you absolutely can tell who in the "west"* this war is still theoretical to. I suppose for Europeans and those located there at the moment, it's an unpleasant moment (to absolutely undersell it) to have the shoe on the other foot, and join a club no one wanted to be in in the first place.

*Outside this bloc it's a little more complicated - but both the right and left outside the "west" gets bamboozled about Russia being a force for anticolonialism.
posted by cendawanita at 3:02 AM on February 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

The problem with this, shared by a lot of brOSINT stuff, is that it is a mix of speculation (Tom Clancy, srsly?) and mind numbing data.

brOSINT tipped your identity politics hand, more like team think. Comparing it to Tom Clancy is an observation, one that holds up. The laughable part about Hersh's claims is the effort to make it operationally believable to those with a cold war mentality, against the US. The briefest description of the cold war is that the US spent trillions on physically tracking/following the Soviet navy across the globe for two generations, which required submarines, especially quiet ones. This is because of nukes. The Baltic Sea was a parking lot for NATO subs awaiting their assignments. Hersh claims Norway had to show them where the shallow parts were.

Oh, it has a name department: I appreciate learning what a tankie is, after all these years enduring those who idealized communism, and therefore Stalin, as if history is just one big conspiracy.
posted by Brian B. at 8:39 AM on February 17, 2023

I wish I could get the tankies to understand that Russia is the last big European empire. They avoided the post WW2 decolonization that was forced on Britian, France, Belgium, etc. They had the advantage that their colonies were geographically connected by land to Moscow. Donbas and the other Russian enclaves in Georgia, Moldova remind me of Rhodesia
posted by interogative mood at 11:10 AM on February 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

They avoided the post WW2 decolonization that was forced on Britian, France, Belgium, etc.

They didn't avoid it forever, as the 1980s shows.
posted by Galvanic at 12:28 PM on February 17, 2023

Yes and no. I'm sure you can find people in Chechnya/Ichkeria who'd tell you they never really decolonised. And then there's South Ossetia, and Crimea, and Donbas...
posted by Dysk at 12:01 AM on February 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

That applies to Wales and Scotland as well. Decolonizations are almost never complete.
posted by Galvanic at 9:07 AM on February 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

(Northern Ireland too! Also France has things you can still point to, as does Denmark. Probably others, too.)

And yeah, the UK is its own flavours of fucked up, but it hasn't annexed anything or started any land wars with its immediate neighbours recently. Just Brexit.
posted by Dysk at 11:18 AM on February 18, 2023

British forces are currently or recently intervening in Mali, Iraq, against the Boko Haram, and in Somalia. That’s not remotely Ukraine but it’s hardly nothing.
posted by Galvanic at 3:29 PM on February 18, 2023

There was indeed a reason I was very specific in claiming who Britain hadn't started wars with.
posted by Dysk at 8:24 PM on February 18, 2023

Cute, especially when you’re talking about an island nation, but “hasn’t started wars with immediate neighbors” is not the same as “didn’t experience decolonization”
posted by Galvanic at 7:28 AM on February 19, 2023

Like I said, Britain is its own flavours of fucked up. And I'm not sure I claimed that Britain hadn't experienced decolonisation (though it has, to a limited extent), just that Russia hadn't.

And I would say that there is a difference between the kinds of military interventions the UK is currently involved in (notice again that I am being very careful how I bound this), and an annexation of the kind Russia has done recently, and is currently attempting. I am not here to endorse Britain or its foreign policy, far from it, but the odd focus on it is a bit like whataboutism.

Wars of empire are bad. This was true in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is true now. I am trying to talk about now.
posted by Dysk at 7:59 AM on February 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

The analogy to western European colonies doesn't match up well with Russia and its colonies.

I'd argue it went through a 'full' decolonization by western European standards when it lost control over Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia etc. But it also didn't lose consolidated territories in the east in the same way that the northeastern United States still 'holds onto' Texas, California, Alaska etc.
posted by UN at 8:17 AM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

Interesting perspective from Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo on Hersh. Excerpt:

I’ve had questions from a number of you about why there’s been so little mainstream media pick up of Seymour Hersh’s claim that the US destroyed the Nordstream pipeline last year. As a factual matter, I think it’s highly unlikely that this is true. But my point here isn’t to dispute the report. People know that Hersh is one of the most high profile and celebrated investigative reporters of the last half century. So how is it he’s suddenly seen as an unreliable source of information?

On this point I think I can shed some light.

Over the years I’ve spoken to various of Hersh’s editors and what I heard was pretty consistent: an ingenious reporter totally reliant on having good and strict editing. Basically half or more than half of what he’d come up with wasn’t remotely reliable. But if you could winnow out that crazy stuff and single source claims that didn’t pan out there was some really great stuff there. In other words, they described Hersh as the kind of reporter who is desperately in need of a good and demanding editor.

This feature of Hersh’s reporting came out sometimes in the first decade of this century when he was doing a lot of reporting for The New Yorker. Hersh’s published pieces would make one series of claims. But then out on the college lecture circuit or perhaps at conferences he would make much more dramatic claims that would start whole new news cycles. People would say, why didn’t we hear about this new revelation in the article? I’m not talking about any particular example of this. But in general, I suspect this is why. On his own he’d air claims that couldn’t get past his editors in print.

posted by Kattullus at 10:54 AM on February 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

am trying to talk about now.

Well, then you shouldn’t have invoked post WWII decolonization as something Russia didn’t experience. I pushed back on that —correctly — and now you’re reacting with precision parsing. Thanks for the waste of time. Enjoy.
posted by Galvanic at 1:03 PM on February 19, 2023

No analogy is perfect, but I think The British Empire and the Russia. Empire have a lot of parallels. Russia has 21 Federal Republics. These are places like Tuva, Dagestan, Chechnya, where Russian settlement hasn’t supplanted local indigenous communities. I see similarities between these and the British colonies where settlement occurred but settlers never made the majority of the population eg large parts of Africa. Then there are the oblasts and other subject areas where Russian settlers mostly displaced indigenous populations. The Russian political system seems to treat them as high status colonies, but still the power is in Moscow. I think of them as heading in the same direction as Canada, New Zealand and Australia in the future. They want to govern themselves and are tired of Moscow extracting the wealth from their regions and returning very little. The alternative would be a federal system more like the United States (setting aside our own colonial legacy). The Russians lost the British equivalent of Egypt and India in the 1990s.
posted by interogative mood at 1:25 PM on February 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, then you shouldn’t have invoked post WWII decolonization as something Russia didn’t experience.

I didn't. I pushed back on the notion, introduced by someone else in the thread, that Russia uniquely didn't experience decolonisation. You interpreted that more broadly, and disagreed with a bunch of stuff I didn't actually say.
posted by Dysk at 9:23 PM on February 19, 2023

(...pushed back on the notion that Russia experienced a total decolonisation, that should be. It's the middle of the night here.)
posted by Dysk at 9:31 PM on February 19, 2023

I'm actually in Chomsky's current 8-week course on political economy, and he's available every Thursday for Q&A.

One thing I noticed is the stuff we cover is nothing like what people say about what he said. Even the people (on reddit) who cite Chomsky, often cut out the important bits of nuance as to why he's saying what he said.

I've found that if you take his class for 4 weeks and pay attention to the readings and lectures, you would be able to deduce the following:
a) He is not unsupportive of the Ukrainian efforts per se; rather, he just doesn't feel the need to talk about that aspect because the West is so fully in support of waging this war
b) He raises Ukraine as one example in a historical context of many other such examples about war and conflict.
c) His general position is that the problem is that the USA is the primary benefactor of the current way of conducting Ukraine. He laments the destruction of Ukraine and further is angry that the US will be the primary benefactor of the post-war outcome, i.e. that the US leadership is knowingly exploitative and hypocritical in this respect.
d) He also mentioned the pipeline bombing in context of media manipulation. See JeffBurdge's comment link above and read the original paragraphs above and below it. In other words, Chomsky isn't just engaging in speculating about conspiracy; he is using it (in class lecture) as an example of how media manufactures ideology.

So the problem as I see it is the course, taught by Chomsky and Marv Waterstone (professor of anthropology), is cumulative. It's like any other university-level class: you can't skip the first 3 weeks and then get to week 4 and try to make heads/tails of his "position" on Ukraine. The cumulative stuff cannot be omitted and without it you would have a pretty superficial understanding. That level of rigor is absent in social media discourse and even a lot of the leftist articles as well, there's no substitute for putting in your homework hours.
posted by polymodus at 10:50 PM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

*"benefactor " should have read "beneficiary", I just realized my diction and this may not be clear given the context of paraphrasing some of the things the professors mentioned in class.
posted by polymodus at 12:00 AM on February 20, 2023

That level of rigor is absent in social media discourse and even a lot of the leftist articles as well, there's no substitute for putting in your homework hours.

The alt-right figured out several years ago that they can defend their Jordans Peterson and the like by saying “Oh, but you’re missing the context and have to spend several days catching up on all of his YouTube videos and books and entire Twitter thread before you can really critique this!” It doesn’t look any better from thee opposite angle.
posted by Etrigan at 5:47 AM on February 20, 2023 [9 favorites]

The Problem With Russia Is Russia by Oksana Zabuzhko

One intellectual holdover from the imperialistic 19th century is the idea that preserving the Russian empire would be less catastrophic, in terms of humanitarian consequences, than recognizing the right to life of dozens of peoples whose lot under Moscow’s rule was never anything other than dogged survival, under the threat of extinction. This prejudice helped the empire to survive twice in the 20th century, in 1921 and in 1991. It is high time to rethink it.
I remember only too well how the specter of extinction was stalking Ukraine through the 1970s and early 1980s, until the Chernobyl disaster finally broke our social paralysis and pushed Ukrainians to take our security into our own hands. In those police years, those who dared to speak Ukrainian in public could be at any moment humiliated with the Russian colonialist phrase “Govorite po-chelovecheski!” (“Speak human!”) If you heard it once and were unable to respond — any discontent about the superiority of everything Russian was labeled Ukrainian nationalism, the worst political crime of the time — you could never forget the experience.

(Not directly pipeline related)
posted by UN at 8:38 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

a) He is not unsupportive of the Ukrainian efforts per se; rather, he just doesn't feel the need to talk about that aspect because the West is so fully in support of waging this war

Allyship is something you do, not something you claim. Especially given that there are a number of people who are trying to force Ukraine to the negotiation table because they want to "stop the fighting" without grasping why Ukraine continues to fight, you don't get to claim you support Ukraine without actually showing you do.

c) His general position is that the problem is that the USA is the primary benefactor of the current way of conducting Ukraine.

And?

There are so many problems with this argument, not the least of which is how else is Ukraine and the West supposed to respond to an outright invasion of Ukraine with the intent to destroy the country? In a previous thread I talked about how telling a victim that they could have handled dealing with their abuse "better" or "without violence" is another form of abuse that undercuts their right to self defense, and this comment is a good example of how that works. It also goes back to the above comment, as such arguments undercut any "claims" to allyship.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:49 AM on February 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

His general position is that the problem is that the USA is the primary benefactor of the current way of conducting Ukraine.

It's all very well to say that in an ideal world, Ukraine wouldn't be dependent on much more powerful allies to survive, but what exactly is the alternative he's thinking of? Would direct NATO intervention be less hypocritical and therefore better, or what?
posted by BungaDunga at 10:38 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

The alt-right figured out several years ago that they can defend their Jordans Peterson and the like by saying “Oh, but you’re missing the context and have to spend several days catching up on all of his YouTube videos and books and entire Twitter thread before you can really critique this!”

Agreed, and it looks like a bad month for Chomsky. Fox News was reported to have been terrified of its audience. In other words, citizens with their cultural ideology based on church rumors, basement podcasts and social media comments demanded corporate lies to validate the rumors and Fox News serviced them. Not Chomsky's model at all. Then there is this new study which suggests that cognitive sophistication does not attenuate the bias blind spot, but likely makes it worse. Chomsky's blind spots are on full display here, a critique based solely on his hypocrisy, showing how weak the left becomes when it swaps a reality-based economic message for self-contradicting conspiracy theories. Finally, many are dismissing Chomsky's innate language model amidst renewed interest in recent AI chat-bot hype.
posted by Brian B. at 10:44 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the North Sea, definitely nothing suspicious going on at all. Definitely just Russians being innocent again, probably just being framed by those nefarious imperialist westerners.
posted by aramaic at 2:25 PM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

The alt-right figured out several years ago that they can defend their Jordans Peterson and the like by saying “Oh, but you’re missing the context and have to spend several days catching up on all of his YouTube videos and books and entire Twitter thread before you can really critique this!”

The problem with this argument is that just because the alt-right weaponizes this meta-argument does not mean the argument itself is automatically invalid. I actually took the course 5 weeks ago, and since then I can objectively point to several ways Chomsky is distorted in interviews, compared to the contents of the actual course that he and Waterstone are co-teaching.

So I could say, people should take Vincent Racaniello's virology lecture and watch his series in full to understand his opinion on masking and vaccines. And I'm saying the same thing. Unlike the alt-right, I actually put in the same effort as I would as an undergrad and I read the materials and understood it. At some level you actually have to put in the work. The fact that the right-wing (or as another example, people who make the appeal that one must read the bible in order to have valid questions about God) is making a sophistic move. But this isn't that move because as I said even halfway through the class was sufficient to change my own opinion about how both pro- and anti-Chomsky talking points have been wielded in journalism and online social media.
posted by polymodus at 2:58 PM on February 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Allyship is something you do, not something you claim. Especially given that there are a number of people who are trying to force Ukraine to the negotiation table because they want to "stop the fighting" without grasping why Ukraine continues to fight, you don't get to claim you support Ukraine without actually showing you do.

First let me get this out of the way: I'm Asian American, LGBT, I was born in Taiwan and am of HK heritage, and given these political contexts which I am sure people can see some parallels with, I really don't need to be lectured presumably by a white person online what "allyship" is.

Now if your comment is to express that Chomsky claims to be an ally of Ukraine, he made no such claim. I am simply clarifying that from what he's said, he does not think of it in those terms. What he has said explicitly, for example, is that he conditionally supports the war effort, the condition being to the extent that the material support does not e.g. enlarge the American military industrial complex (which we spent a whole week on in class, yes, with further context). Whether you call that ideological allyship or not would be irrelevant to him. That's the distinction.
posted by polymodus at 3:20 PM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

What he has said explicitly, for example, is that he conditionally supports the war effort, the condition being to the extent that the material support does not e.g. enlarge the American military industrial complex (which we spent a whole week on in class, yes, with further context).

See, here's the thing - that's actually a rather shitty and immoral position. It's him saying that Ukraine has a right to defend itself from oppression and annihilation only to a point, at which he feels they're obliged to "take one for the team" because he feels that it's more important that the US is constrained than Ukraine remain a free and independent nation. And I'm sorry, but I don't feel there is any "context" that makes it better.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:43 PM on February 20, 2023 [7 favorites]

the condition being to the extent that the material support does not e.g. enlarge the American military industrial complex

So, any support at all... as long as it doesn't involve sending them anything with a pointy end?
posted by BungaDunga at 3:46 PM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

There are so many problems with this argument, not the least of which is how else is Ukraine and the West supposed to respond to an outright invasion of Ukraine with the intent to destroy the country?

See, here's the thing - that's actually a rather shitty and immoral position.

In class Chomsky and Waterstone had us read the suppressed preface to Animal Farm, it's a great essay and they constantly refer back to it. And the context to that is the long historical arc of how Gramscian hegemony responds to anything in general. This is instructive, because of how wide-rangingly the two professors frame the process of political education so that students have the tools to try to answer these questions in a critical way. I highly recommend the class because it covers points, issues, and theoretical contributions (e.g. since you yourself chose to use an ad hoc theory of international conflict based on interpersonal abuse) that are not discussed elsewhere. It's actually nontrivial workload because of the amount of material covered that's distilled into a half semester.
posted by polymodus at 3:51 PM on February 20, 2023

I appreciate you giving your personal perspective here, polymodus. Still, I have questions. Understanding there’s a mountain of context (much of which is indeed familiar to me), there are some basic things I don’t understand in Chomsky’s arguments. It’s basically this:

- Good news for those in Taiwan or Hong Kong — they get a pass from Chomsky as long as they don’t get too close to the US. Chomsky swipes right.
- Unlucky for those "self-centered" Poles and Ukrainians who made the mistake of fighting against the oppression of Soviet Union which, actually, was 'not that bad'. Chomsky swipes left.

Yeah, there are people who had it worse. It doesn’t change three years in a refugee camp and homelessness and joblessness and eating canned garbage for me and my family went through thanks to Soviet control over my country. Well, I appreciate that insult, Chomsky — the gatekeeper of righteous struggles for independence.

If Chomsky had the same opinion on Taiwan or Hong Kong (= "Chinese police state: not so bad really!") would you be convinced of his lectures, polymodus? That’s not a rhetorical question. I can respect being empire-critical but I genuinely don’t understand how this isn’t seen as a huge blind-spot in Chomsky’s thinking. Isn’t it obvious no matter how much context you support it with?
posted by UN at 5:52 AM on February 21, 2023 [8 favorites]

UN Security Council meeting notes on the Nordstream sabotage and Hersh's article.

(With statements from Russian Federation, Mozambique, Ecuador, Gabon, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Switzerland, Japan, United States, Albania, Brazil, France, China, Malta. Interesting read if one is interested in the wider geopolitical context.)
posted by kmt at 1:33 AM on February 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

...they get a pass from Chomsky as long as they don’t get too close to the US.

I agree, because Chomsky was indoctrinated very young, writing articles for leftist publications at age ten, according to Wikipedia. His ideas were probably always pitted against Americans, since they originated when social reform meant outlawing private property, a radical notion in North America, but not in old Europe. His childhood conception of a political revolution likely wasn't a democratic one, but a movement that socialists modeled on agrarian village values. Chomsky doesn't want to be confused for a corrupt liberal, instead preferring righteous blame as rhetoric. It's a pitch to choose sides, not just make small changes. Authoritarianism is of course downplayed in most radicalism, but human nature is expressed by absolute power, not overturned by it. So we are still dealing with that ten year-old who clearly once believed that Russia and China did everything mostly right, except the mass abuse, while the US did everything wrong, prospering as proof of the misdeeds.
posted by Brian B. at 2:49 PM on February 22, 2023

Oliver Alexander, an OSINT person who posts on twitter, has an interesting speculation. He initially was just looking at the ship and plane records, pointing out that none of the ships or planes that Hersh was claiming executed this were anywhere near the locations. Then he started to look for ships that actually *did* do anything odd near the locations, and found that the ship laying the damaged Nordstream 2 pipe had to stop and wait out a storm at exactly the point where it later ruptured. Waiting out the storm would have involved dropping and recovering the pipe, something with obvious opportunities to damage it. Other OSINT types had already noted that a ship called the Minerva Julie, travelling to St. Petersburg, had a truly odd period of zigzagging over the sites a couple of weeks before the explosions, the owner having potential connections to Russia's MIC.

So his speculation is that perhaps NS2 was a natural failure, which caused Russia to have to bring forward their backup plan of blowing NS1 because the pipes were likely to be inspected in the wake of the first failure and the explosives discovered. It's only an interesting thought for the moment, but unlike Hersh's fairytale has the advantage of actually being based in the real world behavior of ships.
posted by tavella at 3:43 PM on February 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

And also provides potential explanations for such things as why the 17 hour delay between NS2 and NS1 explosions and why only three pipes. I'm also wondering if there is any testing that Russia could have been doing on NS2 to make sure it was ready to carry gas before they blew NS1 that could have triggered an existing weakness in NS2 (due to the pipe-laying interruption.)
posted by tavella at 3:56 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

New allegations of possible tax fraud/evasion by government officials is coming to light in Germany... It seems a German foundation created to evade US sanctions against companies dealing with Nordstream did not pay taxes on millions of euro it received from Russia. When it became clear that these moneys would bring 'complications' to a few people involved, one of the government officials threw tax returns from the foundation into their fireplace [what that would achieve I do not know. Maybe they simply panicked but clearly they did not want those tax returns seen].

And in other news, Seymour Hersh did an interview for Russia Today. Because of course.
posted by UN at 9:41 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Hersh goes full antisemitic, claiming that "it's just a question of can Zelenskyy steal enough money to make him happy to get out". Any of our Hersh groupies want to tell me again why I should respect this piece of shit?
posted by tavella at 10:38 PM on March 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

^Hersh laughs off any suspicion surroundings his source and rolls into the details from his source as if they are facts. This is evidence that he made it all up like a novel plot to convince himself, perhaps not knowing how to novelize it. He slams Biden for not ordering an investigation to the pipeline, "Because he already knows the answer." This is Hersh's smoking gun. But Biden would know if he didn't order the explosion, so not ordering an investigation of a pipeline he doesn't own or control nor would have destroyed, actually makes more sense. Hersh drops a lot names he can't remember, and offers childish substitutes that aren't funny, not even clever, exposing his deep bias against his targets. He reminds me of Guiliani now.
posted by Brian B. at 8:07 AM on March 5, 2023

The Times is reporting that "New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year".

It's unclear to me reading the article how solid this is, vs yet another theory with some limited evidence.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 AM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it could be another fairy story. Though at least the Ukrainians have a very clear motive, legal justification given Russia is at war with them, and an established history of extremely daring raids during this war. I'm not sure that it is something they would put the resources into, though, they kind of had their hands full locally without sending a strike team across half of Europe. Plus they were and are interested in keeping the EU and allies on their side, so being caught would have been damaging to that.

And it still doesn't explain the only three issue; if there was a failed explosive sitting on the other Nordstrom 2 line, I would expect it had would have been discovered by now. It'd be nice to get clarification from Denmark as to whether they found explosive residue at the N2 site, or if it was just Sweden at the N1 site.
posted by tavella at 9:36 AM on March 7, 2023

From Zeit (German):

The German investigative authorities have apparently made a breakthrough in solving the attack on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. According to a joint investigation by ARD's capital city studio, the ARD political magazine Kontraste, SWR and DIE ZEIT, it has been possible to reconstruct to a large extent how and when the explosives attack was prepared. According to this, traces lead in the direction of Ukraine. However, investigators have not yet found any evidence of who ordered the destruction. On the night of September 26, 2022, three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were destroyed by explosions on the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

Specifically, according to information from ARD-Hauptstadtstudio, Kontraste, SWR and ZEIT, investigators have managed to identify the boat that was presumably used for the secret operation. It is said to be a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians. The clandestine operation at sea is said to have been carried out by a team of six people, according to the investigation. It is said to have involved five men and one woman. According to the report, the group consisted of a captain, two divers, two diving assistants and a female doctor, who allegedly transported the explosives to the crime scenes and placed them there. The nationality of the perpetrators is apparently unclear. The assassins used professionally forged passports, which are said to have been used, among other things, to rent the boat.
posted by Comrade_robot at 10:10 AM on March 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

That's a much more reasonable operation than the one Hersh described. Kind of scary that attacking underwater infrastructure is so easy.

And it still doesn't explain the only three issue; if there was a failed explosive sitting on the other Nordstrom 2 line, I would expect it had would have been discovered by now.

There were four explosions... they hit one of them twice. Specifically, they planted explosives on all but one Nord Stream 2 in one area, then another pretty far south that ended up on the same Nord Stream 2 line as they already hit.
posted by netowl at 10:38 AM on March 7, 2023

So set three, had to leave the area, set a fourth in a different area but got the wrong line? Seems possible, and definitely suggestive of someone with less resources than the US, who I suspect would have extremely clear imagery of where the pipelines were. I'm not sure the ownership of the yacht means a lot, though. In fact, if I was sending a covert team and didn't have the sort of sub that could drop off a dive team or ROV, I think I'd probably rent a ship from a company not associated with my nation or organization, and I might very well pick one that would set up a false connection. I.e., if I was running a Ukrainian operation I might rent a Norwegian or Russian owned yacht. And vice versa.
posted by tavella at 11:17 AM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

The ZEIT article does mention the possibility of a false-flag operation. The Ukrainian yacht ownership struck me as an odd detail — I mean, it seems it’d be simple enough to grab a yacht with veiled ownership in some tax haven, especially when you have access to professionally forged passports, explosives, maps of pipelines and all that. Unless, of course, you want it to be known which country did it ... but then, why would Ukraine want its western partners to know if it was them? I suppose it’s plausible it was simply a very convenient and good yacht for bursting pipelines.
posted by UN at 11:56 AM on March 7, 2023

The leaks are leaving open the possibility of non-state / unauthorized Ukrainian actors, which is interesting. In this way, the anonymous US officials have stopped short of accusing Ukraine of blowing up the pipeline, which as the Times says is the kind of accusation that might destabilize the pro-Ukraine coalition.

But they also leave open the possibility of an authorized Ukrainian operation, and / or one by "elements" of the Ukrainian state. So they are coming pretty close to accusing the Ukrainians.

I wonder what it means. There's always two questions, What happened? and Why are we hearing what we're hearing? Maybe someone on the US side is trying to warn the Ukrainians to cool it in some way. Alternatively, maybe we're about to learn a whole lot more about this and they're trying to get ahead of the story.
posted by grobstein at 12:18 PM on March 7, 2023

"New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year".

Not buying this. It would have to be a heavily-financed operation, with access to equipment, planning, training to pull off something incredibly difficult. Underwater explosives at 100m below the surface, and the means to do it silently, and cover it up? Not some random pro-Ukranian group, unless that's a nickname for a division in the CIA.

The Times article also doesn't give any real proof for this allegation, it sounds like trying to distract people from the real story, whatever that may be.
posted by chaz at 2:02 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

A bit more in-depth reporting here, with reports from German prosecutors: Spuren führen in die Ukraine
posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:42 PM on March 7, 2023

So set three, had to leave the area, set a fourth in a different area but got the wrong line? Seems possible, and definitely suggestive of someone with less resources than the US...

Of course, some sophisticated actor could have done it that way to suggest that while also leaving a usable line. The fourth exploded 17 hours before the others, but who knows what time delays they had. These new yacht reports say they left port on September 6 which is 20 days before it exploded, and the 3 explosions registered as a single seismic event, so that suggests very long delay electronic timers.
posted by netowl at 4:44 PM on March 7, 2023

The evidence seems pretty thin. Unnamed officials are the worst sources as we saw with the justification to invade Iraq. Some random group of Ukrainians with a boat just sailed out there with home built bombs and managed to dive down there, place the bombs and set them off remotely all on their own? And the boat was owned by a couple of Ukrainians.
posted by interogative mood at 6:03 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Also, this lovely bit from the article:

"Ukrainian officials are not always transparent with their American counterparts about their military operations, especially those against Russian targets behind enemy lines. Those operations have frustrated U.S. officials, who believe that they have not measurably improved Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, but have risked alienating European allies and widening the war.

The operations that have unnerved the United States included a strike in early August on Russia’s Saki Air Base on the western coast of Crimea, a truck bombing in October that destroyed part of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Russia to Crimea, and drone strikes in December aimed at Russian military bases in Ryazan and Engels, about 300 miles beyond the Ukrainian border."

In other words, not only does the US refuse to let Ukraine use any western weapons to hit Russia, they are big mad when Ukraine uses their *own* weapons to hit Russians, sometimes even on their *own* territory. Which is why I continue to believe that a big part of the major NATO powers don't want Ukraine to lose, but they also don't want them to win. They would much prefer a stalemate and that is the reason for the slow and limited supply of weapons. They especially don't want Ukraine taking back Crimea. They prefer the Russia they have now, and are afraid that a genuine full defeat will result in it falling apart. I do think it is based in fear of a destabilized nuclear power rather than just being randomly evil, but the result is the same -- the nuclear power gets to continue to take chunks of neighbors, and constantly corrupt and destabilize the remainder.
posted by tavella at 8:36 PM on March 7, 2023

It sounds like the officials who are upset about those things should be replaced as they are probably Russian agents or at least seem to have a very bad sense of what it will take to win this war.
posted by interogative mood at 9:14 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ukraine denies involvement
posted by Comrade_robot at 5:14 AM on March 8, 2023

Wieck is a lovely little port for stand up paddling, sailing, Nordic Walking, enjoying fresh Fischbrötchen ... and now, move over Norway, it's the destination to head out on a pipeline busting voyage on the Baltic Sea. Careful though, you don't want to get caught on the live webcam.

Locals, including Rostock's former port caption, quickly pointed out that the boat in question would be impossible to navigate through the river port of Wieck — the water is too shallow. Entertainingly, the route (Rostock via Wieck then into the Baltic) also "irritated" the investigating team.

Should be interesting how this story progresses.
posted by UN at 10:27 AM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

So the latest claim is that the operation was financed by a Ukrainian oligarch, and that this has been known since a week after the bombings. Whose team somehow managed to be skilled and sophisticated enough to mine three pipelines without being detected with a team of only six people, but yet also hired a Ukrainian yacht, didn't wash down the boat and "left a peculiar calling card" pointing at the oligarch.

While there's certainly a Ukrainian oligarch with a history of funding private military operations and many billions of dollars of losses on Russia's account, those latter details do rather smell of a setup at best. The operation is at least more believable than Hersh's pointlessly elaborated one, but I'm still thinking we have yet to get the real story.
posted by tavella at 11:38 PM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

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