[goacom]

Seymour makes a lot of claims, but where is his proof - "anonymous" sources dont count. Maybe the US did it, maybe it did not. He claims that somehow the US did it in coordination with Norway despite the latter's close alignment to its Nordic neighbors and Germany, with which it has strong military ties.

Seymour has made some fantastic revelations in the past, which turned out to be true, but he seems to have lost his mojo in his old age. He rubber stamped the Russia+Iran backed Syrian regime in claiming that they had not used any chemical weapons - despite the UN investigative commission providing evidence to the contrary.

One could of course come up with many reasons why the US could have done such a thing - the most obvious being making Europe dependent on American natural gas. Ironically, for most of last year and into early this year, the US was unable to reap this windfall due to an explosion at its main gas export terminal in Texas.


One could argue that the US wanted to ensure that there would be no chance of future Russian gas exports if peace was restored. However, to do that, they would also have had to blow up Nordstream 2 (literally just next to N1!), which is still intact and has an even higher transmission capacity to the west. However, even if peace were restored today, the chance of any future Russian gas is slim as Europe has already moved on and is in the process of (a) locking long term gas contracts with the likes of Oman, Qatar etc. and (b)they are moving into making all future gas transmission lines H2 compatible which require various other requirements such as metallurgical (eg. hydrogen embrittlement), higher leak tolerances, and pressure settings.

All this points to no obvious benefit to the US needing to blow up Nordstream 1.

Conversely, there are many reasons why Russia could have sabotaged Nordstream 1, and it simply boils down to messaging. Russia knows that its gas pipelines are a lost investment and that peace will not result in the restoration of gas commerce with Europe anytime in the near future. However, it may have wanted to send a message to the west that their energy infrastructure is not secure and could be targeted by them in the future. The aim of course would be to make them fearful of supporting Ukraine in the war. In a way, the fear of Russian retaliation did work very well for a while, specially against Germany. At the start of the war, Germany offered 5000 helmets to Ukraine! With Russia having played its best cards, the fear of Russia has since subsided. This winter is done and the expectation is that Europe will go into spring with its gas storage close to to record levels, which should enable it to potentially manage next winter despite having zero Russian gas imports. From helmets, to 100s of tanks, the transformation of Germany as a strong supporter of Ukraine has been dramatic. The claims by Seymour have not and will not change Europe's posture towards Russia nor the US. The bridges, or should I say, the gas lines between Europe and Russia have been ruptured for a long time. Russia's only bridge of significance is with China (N.Korea and Iran are economically minor players). Moving forward, it is unlikely that Russia will even be able to meet its rapidly diminishing military export commitments to India. Furthermore, unlike the past, Russia will be too weak to broker any military conflicts between China and India, just as it has recently failed to do between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While Russia is a great benefit to India for supplying it with heavily discounted oil, this is a purely transactional relationship.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by goacom

Seymour has made some fantastic revelations in the past, which turned out to be true, but he seems to have lost his mojo in his old age. He rubber stamped the Russia+Iran backed Syrian regime in claiming that they had not used any chemical weapons - despite the UN investigative commission providing evidence to the contrary.

He also made some bizarre claims about the Osama Bin Laden killing by US Special forces again based on "anonymous" sources. Seymour's claim was Pakistan establishment cooperated with US and the special forces raid was staged. A decade later and despite regime changes both in US and Pakistan, no further substantiation has been provided.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

... USA's military-industrial complex...

Eisenhower warned them about it, so have a lot of others before and since. Amusingly (in a morbid sort of way), there are probably enough quotes about the MIC to publish a print volume, and they still wouldn't get them all in. Even more morbidly amusing, most of these are from Americans!

A few gems, from a website ironically called ammo.com:

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”

- President Dwight Eisenhower

“Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.”

- General Douglas MacArthur

“Military glory – that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood – that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.”

- President Abraham Lincoln

“Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs --to kill people and to destroy.”

- General Thomas S. Power

“The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault.”

- Major Ralph Peters

“In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.”

- Senator Robert M. La Follette

“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

- George Orwell

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by goacom

Seymour makes a lot of claims, but where is his proof - "anonymous" sources dont count...."

I think it's singular if I remember correctly. Which is ok if said source is credible like deep throat of the infamous watergate scandal. Only time will tell.

[EV NXT]

Here is an American spewing forth a lot of home truths about the US including destruction of the Nordstream and more and admitting that US is the worlds biggest terrorist - check out 2.31 to 6.00 in the following video:

https://youtu.be/bP5dkR6QQj8

[whitewing]

I get most of my information on the Ukraine war following the thread in TBHP.

Originally Posted by goacom

......One could argue that the US wanted to ensure that there would be no chance of future Russian gas exports if peace was restored. However, to do that, they would also have had to blow up Nordstream 2 (literally just next to N1!), which is still intact and has an even higher transmission capacity to the west. However, even if peace were restored today, the chance of any future Russian gas is slim as Europe has already moved on and is in the process of (a) locking long term gas contracts with the likes of Oman, Qatar etc.
...

Need to point out that news reports indicate BOTH Nordstream 1 & 2 were blown up. So, may be the US did do the sabotage?
Swedish and Danish authorities are investigating four holes in the Nord Stream 1 ..


https://energy.economictimes.indiati...probe/96937752

Also interesting is that Russia brought up the possibility of Sweden being involved in the sabotage on Jan 12, while the Hersh report was published in substack on Feb 8.

[vishnurp99]

Looks like some fairly vitriolic attacks on Seymour hersh has started. Just sharing an example here. Note phrases like discredited, conspiratorial, thinly sourced garbage etc.

https://news.yahoo.com/claim-discred...145731738.html

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/sta...ejNTHmgNC2zwnQ

[DIY410]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

Now coming to Russia, I think there will be more pressure on Putin to retaliate. I don't think he will do anything immediately. They will wait for the Ukraine situation to stabilize but this episode could be used to drive a wedge between USA & Europe. It will be interesting to see they deal with Norway.

You are right, Putin won't do anything even long term, he didn't retaliate for the downing of a SU24 by Turkey in syria 2016, (when there was pressure in Russia to down Turkey jets). Instead he briefly scaled back diplomatic ties and he banned Russian imports for a few months.
But then ties improved when Turkey bought the S400, Putin thinks long term. Now turkey is a thorn for NATO.

The Western MSM was telling the world that Russia was the one who blew nordstream, what would happen when Russia actually takes out some western strategic asset. The MSM and the Neocon narrative will have a field day.

MINSK agreement according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel was itself just a stalling tactic to prop up Ukraine military. Putin in all probability was hurt by this betrayal, since Angela Merkel and Putin had the best relationship among other western leaders.

The recent news that the West again sabotaged the peace talks according to Israeli Prime minister Bennet, as also been white washed by the western MSM.
The west as absolute control of the narrative. But very few bought the lies that Russia would itself blow up the pipeline, only time will tell how history is written. Vast majority of Asia, Africa and middle east and a chunk of the west population don't believe the western narrative.

The most damaging revelation about US of A will come when they release the remaining JFK files, that will open up the American public eyes.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by goacom

Maybe the US did it, maybe it did not. He claims that somehow the US did it in coordination with Norway despite the latter's close alignment to its Nordic neighbors and Germany, with which it has strong military ties.

When there is a murder common wisdom of the Police is to first check 'who benefits the most from this crime'. More often than not it is a sensible way of tracking the criminal. Similarly who benefits the most and who stands to lose the most is a good way to start here too. Regardless of our rose tinted glasses for either the US or Russia the biggest beneficiary here is USA for whom this was a master stroke to cut the German/European - Russia energy connection once and for all. It is also a great way to make war without seeming to do so and send a strong message to Germany & Europeans not to stray too far from the US shadow. From a strictly US geo-political point of view it was the right thing to do. Right or wrong, moral or immoral is a different topic which I'm not dwelling on in this post. From a strictly military point of view what they pulled off is beyond brilliant in its planning & execution.

All this points to no obvious benefit to the US needing to blow up Nordstream 1.

This is merely your conclusion. You have offered no data or perspective to lend weight to your conclusion. Imagine the Pakistani Kahuta reactor gets sabotaged one fine afternoon and you say well it seems the Pakistani blew it up themselves and the Israelis and Indians have nothing to gain whatsoever. That is what your argument sounds like to my neutral ears. I'm happy to stand up for the US when deserving {as I often do in my threads on aviation} and call a spade a spade when required.

Seymour has made some fantastic revelations in the past, which turned out to be true, but he seems to have lost his mojo in his old age.

Having been wrong a few times in the past has zero bearing on him being right this time.

One could of course come up with many reasons why the US could have done such a thing - the most obvious being making Europe dependent on American natural gas. Ironically, for most of last year and into early this year, the US was unable to reap this windfall due to an explosion at its.

I don't buy that this was done to make Europe dependant on US gas supplies. The US is clever enough to know about potential for supply coming from Qatar etc and that Europe will diversify its sources having been bitten twice first by Russia {Ukraine war} and then by USA {blowing up the Nordstream}. The aim is to show Russia that the US can and will bite. But it is unlikely this investigative piece of journalism will get legs in the West. Neither side in USA wants to make a noise on this and the Europeans are too dependant on USA to squeak. They have swallowed their pride and with the Russian bear growling at their doorstep will not protest against the US. Life will simply move on.

Originally Posted by DIY410

The Western MSM was telling the world that Russia was the one who blew nordstream, what would happen when Russia actually takes out some western strategic asset. The MSM and the Neocon narrative will have a field day.

+1
Thank you for saying this. If indeed the Russians had done it the Western press would have had a field day on the topic. The fact that it stayed so muted indicates strong political influence in both USA and Denmark-Germany- Norway etc to put a lid on it. Those who believe the Government's in the West do not lean on their media on what to suppress need to do their homework better. You hear of it less because they do it with greater subtleness than back home in India.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

W
This is merely your conclusion. You have offered no data or perspective to lend weight to your conclusion.

Isn't it the same with Hersh. He wrote a blog post without any sources or data to lend weight to his theory.
His whole theory is "USA benefits, so USA did it"

That said, in case of interntional incidents involving USA, he has often alleged something contrary to what is the mainstream accepted account.

Eg Korean Airlines shootdown, Osama raid, Skripal poisoning, and now this.

One issue with this claim is that the Norwegian P8s were not operational during this time.

Another issue with all his claims is that all his claims are basically "An anonymous source told him this".

Even India is not spared

Hersh wrote in his 1983 book, The Price of Power, that former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai had been paid $20,000 a year by the CIA during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Desai called the allegation "a scandalous and malicious lie" and filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. By the time the case went to trial Desai, by then 93, was too ill to attend. CIA director Richard Helms and Henry Kissinger testified under oath that at no time did Desai act in any capacity for the CIA, paid or otherwise. A Chicago jury ruled in favor of Hersh, saying Desai did not provide sufficient evidence that Hersh had published the information with the intent to do harm or with reckless disregard for the truth, either of which must be proven in a libel suit.

[Hayek]

Don’t think Seymour Hersch has a lot of credibility - like Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson etc, he has for several years been against the US role internationally and an apologist for Putin, Assad and other such thugs.

There is no evidence whatsoever he has provided in his article, except assertions based on anonymous sources. To my mind, it is clearly an article aimed at providing support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine - I would class it as Russian propaganda.

The US does not have to destroy the pipeline to stop the EU from importing Russian gas - sanctions are sufficient to do the job. Whenever Europe has been given a choice between relations with the US and any other nation, it picks the US. And that is obvious because the EU is ultimately an American protectorate, dependent on the US for its defence, and also for key technologies and markets.

The US has been letting India have it both ways, partly because India is exporting refined Russian crude to the rest of the world thereby keeping product prices in check, and because so far, they feel keeping India onside vs China is more important. But if the US were to say that we will not let data from US companies move to India (killing our outsourcing industry) if India imports Russian crude, you can bet that even Modi would buckle the next day.

[JithinR]

The number of holes that this one kids articles blows into this apparently explosive story just tells me that I am not smart enough to even understand what is going on in the world most of the time.

Same for most of the members here. We all love to feel like we are special and have some insight (different from MSM narrative) into the world.

Gives some meaning to our boring mundane life.

I agree that ultimately the US looks like it would benefit the most from this explosion. But I am also wary of that conclusion simply because it's the most simple answer there is (...and the simplest explanation need not always be the right one, Occam's razor is not gospel).

Besides, even I am not dumb enough to think that
a story based on a single anonymous source can be called investigative journalism. Besides, who's the source who has insight into both the political and military spectrum (at the highest levels) of the US government.

Are we sure that perhaps President Biden is not the source of our main man?

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by JithinR

Are we sure that perhaps President Biden is not the source of our main man?

Or is it Scott Ritter? Hersh wrote a foreword to Ritter's book "Iraq confidential" and this article mentions they are close enough.

“It’s tragic,” Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker’s investigative reporter, said when we spoke this fall. Hersh grew close to Ritter in the late ’90s and appeared as a character witness at his trial in Pennsylvania last April.

[vishnurp99]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The US has been letting India have it both ways, partly because India is exporting refined Russian crude to the rest of the world thereby keeping product prices in check, and because so far, they feel keeping India onside vs China is more important. But if the US were to say that we will not let data from US companies move to India (killing our outsourcing industry) if India imports Russian crude, you can bet that even Modi would buckle the next day.

So I also think about this quite a lot. I believe that India & US today have a symbiotic relationship economically while Russia & India have a symbiotic relationship militarily.

Economically I believe that US needs India at least as much as India needs the US. Sure, US can kill the outsourcing industry in a day if they want to but today market caps of most US tech companies are dependent on access to 1.5 Billion people strong Indian market which has a median age of 28. US and most of Europe is aging. The median ages range from 38.8 - 50 ish.

if a day comes when India says that the Indian market is not welcome for Facebook/Instagram, Google & Amazons of the world, the market caps of most knowledge based/data based companies will simply collapse. Military industrial complex will also suffer.

Note that China is already no-go, Russia is no-go, Large parts of the islamic world is no-go already. Africa seems to have a leaning towards China & Russia based on the recent past. So USA is in no position to cut their nose to spite the face.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

So I also think about this quite a lot. I believe that India & US today have a symbiotic relationship economically while Russia & India have a symbiotic relationship militarily.

Economically I believe that US needs India at least as much as India needs the US.… market caps of most US tech companies are dependent on access to 1.5 Billion people strong Indian market which has a median age of 28.

if a day comes when India says that the Indian market is not welcome for Facebook/Instagram, Google & Amazons of the world, the market caps of most knowledge based/data based companies will simply collapse.

Of topic response - Mods, please delete if inappropriate.

Agree we have a symbiotic relationship with the USA economically - but that is NOT because of the Indian market. The Indian market is irrelevant economically for most US companies - if Amazon pulled out of India, it’s losses would decrease and its market cap may rise. We have a grossly mistaken view about our attractiveness as a market today. In 15-25 years, it may be different - but the US has been happy to shut down a much more attractive market (China) and could do that to India.

The symbiosis is because of Indian engineers role in keeping costs down for US companies, the success of English speaking Indian Americans, and the view that India (like the US) is a secular democracy with English speaking local interlocutors who think like Americans. If we think that the 1.4 billion market (which is not really a market, there are less than 50 mm Indians in the relevant market for most American companies) gives us a license to behave like China, we would get treated far worse than China has been treated.