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Not saying the US didn't do it, but that theory makes less sense than any of a few other actors.
0. https://newpol.org/the-nord-stream-pipeline-explosions-chall...
Like, we're talking about destroying important russian-owned infrastructure here, and the suggestion that Russia's biggest adversary did it should be dismissed out of hand? Let's just say the Russians themselves did it and anyone who says different is a secret Russian propagandist.
My point was that Hersh's article very strenuously avoids anything that makes Russia out to be anything other than an innocent victim, lining up exactly with what Russian ministers had already said in public. That is why I mentioned propaganda, it's hard to describe it any other way.
The US is full of propaganda, too, if that helps. We've got 24-hour news channels that pretend to be in opposition to each other but seem to somehow "report" in lock-step on a variety of subjects that exactly mirror official government statements, mostly involving the military.
The US might have done this. Russian might have done this. Someone else might have done this. But Hersh's article is poor reporting, and not something a determination should be based on. Which is too bad! Hersh used to be amazing. Not sure why he so missed the mark here.
For my money, I'd bet a large sum that NATO, probably US or UK did it. Motive and opportunity.
I don't assume Hersh is Russian, that would be bizarre. I haven't said Russia is making him do it, or that he's avoiding saying anything negative about Russia out of fear or as a result of blackmail, or anything like that. I have offered no conspiracy at all. I think it quite possible that Hersh just has a Russia-shaped blind spot. Having been witness to so much US malfeasance over so long a period of time, he might just assume that everything he see must be appropriately struck with the same hammer.
Perhaps his single unnamed source is a Russian plant, or perhaps it's an anti-American plant, or perhaps it's someone who misinterpreted things he witnessed, or who knows? I don't have any particular theories about that, either. I just think it's probably important to consider all the players, not just one. It's probably important to consider important and deeply-relevant public facts when forming or accepting a theory. That's all. Otherwise you might accidentally find yourself spreading propaganda, possibly without even realizing it.
I genuinely don't see what any party really gains from the destruction. It was already an unused pipeline for which there are alternatives, so the destruction seems symbolic more than anything. That facts since then have shifted slightly in the US' favor doesn't seem to have much to do with the pipeline destruction, things were already shifting that way.
I'd probably go with 50/50 NATO/Russia, but it's still not clear why, or how we'd ever find out absent a confession in a few decades.
It's red scare all over again with this stuff. Matt Taibbi recently did a take down of accounts labeled "Russian bot" by natsec think tanks.. most of them were just generic pro Trump morons, but free association knows no bounds.
Stoltenberg was never a member of any of Norway's socialist parties, he was a member of the Norwegian Labour Party.