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Comment by piaste | Hacker News Reader

I had your exact same reaction, except with the US at the top of the suspects list (or non-governmental agents whose interests align with the US, of which there are plenty).

The #1 reason I'm still leaning Russia nevertheless is because of an outside factor: Russia isn't screaming bloody murder about it.

If 3/4th of their pipelines had gone up and nobody in the Russian government was involved, Lavrov would already be on a plane to NYC and calling for an emergency UNSC meeting about a terrorist UK/USA attack against Russia's assets.

So far, the most they have produced seems to be a mealy-mouthed question on Zakharova's Telegram channel [0]. Given the Russian Foreign Ministry's modus operandi of blaming the West for anything and everything at the slightest excuse, this sudden quiet is extremely significant.

[0] https://tass.com/politics/1514405

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But if the Russians were screaming bloody murder, this would no doubt be used to accuse them. So:

Russians screaming bloody murder => see? Russians are the ones who did it.

Russians aren't screaming bloody murder => see? Russians are the ones who did it.

Well said. The idea that we could tell who did this by analyzing the poker faces of the various suspects is pretty fantastical.

This ignores the reasoning you are responding to in that they have patterns.

Governments, in modern parlance even though it's not new practice, troll each other - Russia in particular specializes in a particularly spiteful kind, so where is it now?

That's a very well expected and deserved consequence of being pathological liars.

Not at all. Russia didn't scream bloody murder for MH17, or for innocent Russian citizens being poisoned abroad.

They did scream bloody murder, for example, when Ukraine had the gall to fight back and raid ammo stores in Belgorod.

I noticed that the Western press is quiet, too. Normally they'd scream "terrorist attack" on every front page. Now they only cite Ukraine claiming a Russian terror attack or say nothing.

If a Canadian pipe was blown up, the headlines would be different.

I think reactions would be way different if it had been virtually any other pipeline or similar infrastructure. The Nord Streams are quite special in that everyone in the West but Germany would very strongly like them gone and even Germany isn't too thrilled about the liability they've become. If this had been an attack on important transmission lines, there would be much much larger outcry.

I wouldn't be suprised if this turns into the next "lab leak theory" in terms of censorship.

There's going to be one acceptable party line, parrotted in the media and anything else will be censored on social media as well.

There's too much at stake and the infrastructure is already there to create full on censorship for one side and non stop propaganda for the other.

Everyone is quiet because nobody knows what the party line is supposed to be. On any side.

Most insightful comment yet. +1

If a Canadian pipe was destroyed it was obviously ecoterrorists

Which examples of extremely high-stakes geopolitical meddling are you using to form that idea of normality from?

Normally we only find out long after said meddling, and what is referred to directly as terrorism is usually done so because it was committed someone easily classified as a terrorist.

If they'd blown up their own assets, they would blame the west for it anyway no?

The thinking for them doing it themselves is this is more a subtle threat like their polonium and novichok poisonings, but with less immediately political backlash (i.e. No article 5 triggered)

A "we have the capability to do this... lots of other pipes out there.... Have a pleasant day" sort of message.

There's other reasons Russia could have done it too. Drive a wedge between Germany and a country that would have a more obvious reason of hating the pipeline like US or Poland, make sure rapid return of relations and trade is harder to dissuade inner circle from toppling Putin or pressuring him to back down, etc.

We still have no idea, no top officials have made any accusations or presented any evidence, and just guessing from motives seems like a crapshoot. What we do know is one country is on an unhinged escalatory path, they're my very tentative guess without knowing exactly why they'd do it.

The incident happening virtually at the same time as the Baltic Pipe is opening also points towards Russia. "Nice brand new pipeline you got there".

The troll farms have been very quick to start accusing the 'evil USA acting against the EU interests'...

Given that their strategy have been for decades to try to sow discord in the west, EU and NATO, I would not be surprised if it was another idea towards this goal.

That's adorable. Blow up a multi-billion dollar pipeline to provide fodder for trolls.

I had the exact opposite reaction, i.e. that the sudden concerted effort to suggest Biden had said he was going to do this seemed so forced and fake to me, that it immediately made me think Russia would be the culprit.

But I guess that kind of propaganda generation is semi-uncontrollable and just happens, with whatever seems to work bubbling up as successful (literal) memes replicating.

And there's probably similar people throwing stuff against the wall about why it was Russia until they find something with enough versimilitude that it sticks in the mind.

It also made me revisit the recent book "how to blow up a pipeline" as I had the same question when I heard that title. How can you justify the short term ecological damage against the long term. I assume it's possible, I just hadn't read an in depth argument on it. Interesting to read it and see if the author has been asked to comment yet.

edit, seems they have a film out, so now publicity stunt is a plausible theory:

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/09/26/how-to-blow-up-a-p...

Some more indirect evidence that it was Russia: https://twitter.com/inteldoge/status/1573450988744331274?s=4...

How is the presence of a submarine detection helicopter evidence that it was Russia?

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