“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

All: Whether he is right or not or one likes him or not, Hersh reporting on this counts as significant new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), so I've turned off the flags on this submission.

If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.

I'm honestly really shocked by your stance on this. Regardless of whether or not this information is credible, this seems like text book flame war kindling. In the past, I've thought HN's policy of "you can discuss things like this in other forums" was wise and I've been corrected by it myself many times. Why wouldn't that apply in this case?

One thing that makes this distinct from much of said kindling is that it hasn't been reported on before. This isn't someone coming into an unrelated comment thread and commenting "9/11 was an inside job!"

I would encourage any who disagree to consider truly why this reporting upsets them.

I get really upset when claims are made without evidence to support them. It might be a moral failing of mine, but for some reason I really loathe when assertions are made without evidence.

One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence.

> Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.”

"This is ... complete fiction." is a claim that the story was fabricated. I think it's worth examining who would be doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain, especially considering who is making the counter-claim and what they would have to gain from that.

>One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence.

Are you familiar with Christopher Hitchens? That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Until the author provides evidence of their claims, there's nothing required to dismiss them.

Maybe it's because I see a distinction between "dismiss" and "deny". Where someone might dismiss ("There is no evidence to back up these claims") there are instead denials ("They made this up"). Anyway, I don't mean to change your mind, just to provide a different perspective.

I think there's a trivial semantic difference between the two terms. The assertion that someone made up a story is the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no evidence to back up their claims.