S. Korean Navy Ship Sinking in Disputed Waters

[Ed Jewett]

There is a Russian "piece" here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/international/2010/05/100519_north_korean_torpedo.shtml which at least someone has suggested, presuming they are bilingual or have a good accurate reliable translator, shows a North Korean torpedo motor assembly with North Korean markings.

http://wscdn.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/asse...62_afp.jpg

http://wscdn.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/asse...70_afp.jpg

The presumed translation is here...
S. Korea Recovers Motor Assembly of Torpedo With N. Korean Markings

I do not know who wears "the sunglasses"
but there is always a tasty repast from multiple sources at his site...

[Ed Jewett]

To add to the debate, here is a long thread with details and scenarios and viewpoints and a strong suggestion that the event is a trial run for an Israeli false flag attack in re: Iran.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1...064332/pg1

Do they make the case? Or is this a wishful-thinking group grope?

[Ed Jewett]

Independent Media as Mouthpiece for Centers of Power

Proffering Mass Murder as Attention Getting
by Kim Petersen / May 27th, 2010

What journalism is really about – it’s to monitor power and the centers of power.
– Amira Hass, journalist

Marginalization of news discrepant from the ruling class’s ideology, propaganda, and disinformation are corporate media staples. Consequently, many critically thinking news consumers have drop-kicked the corporate media for proliferating independent news sources. The internet is rife with such independent media. Lacking, however, had been independent video and/or television news. Into this void came the The Real News Network (TRNN), which I described as a “promising video-based media entrant,” despite the noted capitalist structure of its business model.1
There are many excellent video reportages on TRNN, but sometimes it fails miserably to distinguish itself from the corporate media that serves as a corporate-government mouthpiece. A case in point is a recent interview by TRNN honcho Paul Jay with Larry Wilkerson, acknowledged as Colin Powell’s former chief-of-staff, into the mystery surrounding the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan on 26 March. Given Powell’s emphatic rejection of North Korean peace overtures — “We won’t do nonaggression pacts or treaties, things of that nature.”2 — it is not surprising what kind of response TRNN and Jay received from Powell’s subordinate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bE0-PMaiC8&feature=player_embedded#!

TRNN claims to provide “independent and uncompromising journalism.”3 Bearing that claim in mind, how then does Jay’s interview reflect TRNN’s adherence to Hass’s journalistic criterion of monitoring centers of power?
The TRNN story presents as fait accompli that North Korea fired a missile that sank a South Korean navy ship. The viewing public, however, is presented no definitive evidence to examine? Has TRNN not learned from previous US lies — for example, about Iraqi WMD — to be skeptical of US statements?4
Is the South Korean fingering of North Korea in the Cheonan’s torpedoing buttressed by an independent assessment? Have any outside independent inspectors been brought in to assess the South Korean claim?
Jay asked why would North Korea would commit such a horrendous act. Notably, Jay did not pose another question: why would anyone else do it? Thus he omitted other possibilities, such as a false flag?
Wilkerson’s reply comes across as risible. Wilkerson accused North Korea of brinkmanship and attention seeking.
Really? Wilkerson asserts North Korea attacked a South Korean ship and killed 46 sailors to seek attention!? How does this jive with the depiction of North Korea as a hermit nation? How does this jive with the North Korea juche (self-reliance; acknowledged by Wilkerson later in the interview)? TRNN presents Wilkerson’s assertions without challenge. In other words, it serves as a mouthpiece for the US government.
Wilkerson talks of a historical cold war relationship across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Necessarily, one of the distinguishing features of independent news is presenting background information that allows news consumers to critically assess the news in its current context. TRNN did not do this. They did not state why there is a DMZ and why is Korea split.5 Cumings described the Americans’ decision to divide Korea at the thirty eighth parallel as “hasty and unilateral.”6
Why did the US divide Korea? If the Korean people had been permitted to establish their own system of governance, then the masses, which were eager to overthrow the elitist yangban class, were heading toward socialism. The political will of the people was thwarted at great cost. On the southern island of Jeju an “all out guerrilla extermination campaign” by rightists resulted in the deaths of one of every five or six islanders and the destruction of half the villages.7
Wilkerson states that the North Korea backed out of six party talks. There was no background. Jay never questioned why North Korea would back out. Indeed, why would US rejectionism of a nonaggression treaty have any bearing?
Jay asks Wilkerson about the Chinese position? Why? Why didn’t Jay ask a Chinese spokesperson or China expert? Is this proper reporting: asking an ex-US official to respond on the Chinese position without asking China?
TRNN allowed Wilkerson to state that China has no control/influence over North Korea. Would a Chinese spokesperson have said this?
TRNN allows demonization of North Korea: Wilkerson calls it an “Al Capone country” and a “bankrupt regime.” It is a well known axiom that people in glass houses should not cast stones. Therefore, if North Korea is a bankrupt regime, what of Wilkerson’s own country’s regime? Is the Obama regime above being described as a “bankrupt regime”? What about the GW Bush regime that Wilkerson served under?
This is not to resort to tu quoque argumentation; the fact that Wilkerson’s criticism can be directed at his own country does not deflect criticism against North Korea, but it does put it in a comparative perspective
Wilkerson says the PRK is a “difficult area economically.” Why? Is that strange given international sanctions engineered by the US against North Korea? Consider: why is North Korea forced to devote an inordinate expenditures to its security?
Amazingly, Wilkerson acknowledged that South Korea would surely defeat North Korea in a military scenario. Why purpose then do US bases and US forces in South Korea serve?
Wilkerson also offers some more refreshing honesty but with insufficient elaboration on Chinese concerns over the North Korean regime falling: “It would lose the buffer it has between a US ally, South Korea, and itself.” In fact, it not only is it a buffer between a US ally, it is – more honestly – a buffer between the US military and China since US forces are stationed on South Korean soil.
Wilkerson accuses North Korea of marketing missiles around the world? Probably, and the US does not do this? Did the US not sells missiles to Taiwan, much to the consternation of China? Or it is okay when the US does this, but no other nation has the right – that is, a refutation of the United Nations charter which accords equal rights among nations (absurd since the UN grants permanent security council status with veto power in the security council).
Discouragingly, TRNN undermines its claim to independent reporting in this story. Why did TRNN turn to a US source (and an obviously biased one)? Why did it not turn to Koreans?
Jay asks, “So nobody really wants this war?” Well, how about US? It has a long history of trying to knock down socialist governments.8
Is it possible to state such without conclusive public evidence of the navy ship’s sinking who was indisputably responsible? Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu stated, “The issue is highly complicated. China does not have firsthand information. We are looking at the information from all sides in a prudent manner.”
Shouldn’t independent media be equally prudent?9

1. Kim Petersen, “Dispelling the Murkiness of the Corporate Media: The Real News,” Dissident Voice, 3 July 2008. [↩]
   
2. Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Weighs Reward if North Korea Scraps Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 13 August 2003. The article noted that North Korea sought a nonaggression in exchange for dropping its nuclear program. The Bush administration reserved its right for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea. The result: three years later the North Koreans conducted their first nuclear detonation. Reuters reported that a third nuclear detonation is possible soon. Jack Kim and Jon Herskovitz, “North Korea readying for 3rd nuclear test: report,” Reuters, 20 April 2010. [↩]
   
3. “Our Mission,” TRNN. [↩]
   
4. There is a long history of manufactured pretexts by US regimes and media. See Kim Petersen, “Grasping at Straws: Searching for a War Pretext,” Dissident Voice, 4 March 2003. [↩]
   
5. US professor Bruce Cumings, a Korea expert, answered that question: “it is the Americans who bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the thirty-eighth parallel.” See Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005): 186. [↩]
   
6. Ibid, 187. [↩]
   
7. Ibid, 221. [↩]
   
8. See, for example, Carole Cameron Shaw, The Foreign Destruction of Korean Independence (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 2007 and Korean Truth Commission, Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea: 1945-2001 (New York: 2001). [↩]
   
9. I never received a response from TRNN to my queries before this article being published. [↩]
   

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

[Mark Stapleton]

To add to the debate, here is a long thread with details and scenarios and viewpoints and a strong suggestion that the event is a trial run for an Israeli false flag attack in re: Iran.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1...064332/pg1

Do they make the case? Or is this a wishful-thinking group grope?

They make a case.

However, that site is infested with Zionist shills. To whit, "You are going to have a face to face with the God of Israel"!!

FFS.

[Magda Hassan]

Analysts question Korea torpedo incident


How is it that a submarine of a fifth-rate power was able to penetrate a U.S.-South Korean naval exercise and sink a ship that was designed for anti-submarine warfare?
Such questions are being fueled by suggestions in the South Korean and Japanese media that the naval exercise was intended to provoke the North to attack. The resulting public outcry in the South, according to this analysis, would bolster support for a conservative government in Seoul that is opposed to reconciliation efforts.
As fanciful as it may sound to Western ears, the case that Operation Foal Eagle was designed to provoke the North has been underscored by constant references in regional media to charts showing the location where the ship was sunk -- in waters close to, and claimed by, North Korea.
"Baengnyeong Island is only 20 kilometers from North Korea in an area that the North claims as its maritime territory, except for the South Korean territorial sea around the island,” Japanese journalist Tanaka Sakai wrote in the left-leaning Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.
He called the sinking of the ship “an enigma.”
"The Cheonan was a patrol boat whose mission was to survey with radar and sonar the enemy’s submarines, torpedoes, and aircraft ... " Sakai wrote.

"If North Korean submarines and torpedoes were approaching, the Cheonan should have been able to sense it quickly and take measures to counterattack or evade. Moreover, on the day the Cheonan sank, US and ROK military exercises were under way, so it could be anticipated that North Korean submarines would move south to conduct surveillance. It is hard to imagine that the Cheonan sonar forces were not on alert."

The liberal Hankyoreh newspaper in Seoul echoed a similar theme.

“A joint South Korean-U.S. naval exercise involving several Aegis warships was underway at the time, and the Cheonan was a patrol combat corvette (PCC) that specialized in anti-submarine warfare. The question remains whether it would be possible for a North Korean submarine to infiltrate the maritime cordon at a time when security reached its tightest level and without detection by the Cheonan,” it reported.

American spy satellites were also monitoring the exercise, “so the U.S. would have known that North Korean submarines had left their ports on a mission,” adds Scott Snyder, director of Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation.
“The route the North Korean submarines apparently took was from the East Sea, not directly from the North across the NLL,” or Northern Limit Line, the sea boundary unilaterally imposed by Seoul. “Essentially, they went the roundabout way and came at the ROK vessel from behind,” he said.
But Bruce Klingner, chief of the CIA’s Korea Branch in the 1990s, said “anti-submarine operations are far more difficult than is often realized.
“Beyond the obvious difficulty in tracking something that is designed to operate quietly, navies are confronted with natural acoustical phenomena as shallow, noisy littoral waters and layers of water salinity which can provide cover for submarines.”
Moreover, says Terence Roehrig, a professor at the Naval War College, “the Cheonan was an older Pohang-class corvette and not one of these [newer] ships.”
“Satellite and communications coverage of sub bases can tell when subs have left base…” adds Bruce Bechtol, Jr., professor of international relations at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. “It cannot tell locations of submarines once they are at sea -- unless they surface or communicate.”
“A mini-submarine like the type that is assessed to have penetrated the NLL is designed specifically for covert maneuvering in shallow waters like those that exist off of the west coast of the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

“It appears from the reports that [the South Korean Ministry of Defense] has released that a submarine departed port off the west coast of North Korea, accompanied by a support vessel. The submarine perhaps could have come fairly close to the NLL using diesel power, then switched to battery power, which is much quieter,” Bechtol added. “The submarine could have then slipped past the NLL at an appropriate time and waited for a ROK ship to approach.”

Suspicions about what happened, Bechtol said, are unwarranted.
“The fact of the matter is, a submarine did infiltrate into South Korean waters -- and they have done so in the past fairly frequently," he said.
"It is their mission.”
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/...ident.html

[Mark Stapleton]

Without a good set of photos of the salvaged South Korean ship, its hard to tell what happened. The only one I've seen--on the blog Ed posted-- didn't show the ship's hull bent inwards near the point of impact, as one would expect following a torpedo strike. The metal was neither bent inwards or outwards.

Also, is it common to recover intact the torpedo motor assembly? I would have thought the torpedo would have exploded into a million pieces, although I'm no expert.

[Ed Jewett]

Go back at least ten entries deep at this blog... http://willyloman.wordpress.com/

[Jan Klimkowski]

The spooks of MI6 have spoken, uh, leaked to the Daily Express, that they've, ahem, listened, um, to some spooky Voice Recognition Confirmation software thang.

Which has proven the case they were trying to prove.

That it was a fiendish and diabolical North Korean plot.

So that's that then. Case closed.

Not. :thumpdown:

I particularly enjoyed the astute psychological analysis offered by spookdom's finest shrinks:

MI6’s report contains a personality profile on Kim Jong-un, 27, which described him as being: “just like his father”.

NORTH KOREAN LEADER'S SON 'ORDERED' SHIP ATTACK

THE order to attack and sink a South Korean warship was given directly by the youngest son of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, according to a secret MI6 report.

The news emerged as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met South Korean President Lee Myung-bak yesterday in a bid to contain mounting tension between the two countries. It is being seen as further proof that Kim Jong-il is grooming his youngest son to take over, as he fights the effects of a cerebral haemorrhage.

MI6’s report contains a personality profile on Kim Jong-un, 27, which described him as being: “just like his father”. It adds: “He has the same hard-line political outlook and explosive temper. He will ignore worldwide condemnation. He boasts that North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world and when he takes over, he will have his finger on the nuclear trigger.”

Last year North Korea announced it intended to abandon the terms of the armistice which ended the Korean War in 1953. It was then, according to the MI6 report, that Kim Jong-il promoted his youngest son as head of the navy.
Cheonan, a 1,200-tonne frigate, was sunk on March 26 by a North Korean submarine, with the loss of 46 lives.

The event led South Korea to seek a UN resolution condemning the act and reparations.

MI6 was tasked to establish the chain of events in readiness for a meeting of the UN Security Council, of which Britain is a member.
Some of the details were provided by one of Britain’s three nuclear submarines, which was patrolling nearby at the time of the attack.

The torpedo strike was recorded by the British crew, which reported that the South Korean frigate “instantly split in two and sank precisely two minutes later”. Kim Jong-Un was identified as personally giving the order to attack by British technicians, who ran his voice through a Voice Recognition Confirmation database.

The MI6 report concludes: “There are few good options for South Korea. It can go to the UN but in reality China is very unlikely to back serious economic sanctions against the North. Military action would only ever lead us to higher risks of escalation.”

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/1780...hip-attack

[Mark Stapleton]

Go back at least ten entries deep at this blog... http://willyloman.wordpress.com/

Thanks for that Ed. Recommended reading.

The official story of the sinking of the Cheonan looks as credible as the magic bullet theory. Hilary Clinton is a pathetic saleswoman for the US/Israel/MSM war machine, and she really should be tried for this. Lucky she didn't secure the Democratic nomination in '08, otherwise America would already be involved in yet another disastrous war.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Did an American Mine Sink the South Korean Ship?

by Yoichi Shimatsu

BEIJING - South Korean Prime Minister Lee Myung-bak has claimed "overwhelming evidence" that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that there’s "overwhelming evidence" in favor of the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean Navy warship Cheonan. But the articles of proof presented so far by military investigators to an official inquiry board have been scanty and inconsistent.

There’s yet another possibility, that a U.S. rising mine sank the Cheonan in a friendly-fire accident.

In the recent U.S.-China strategic talks in Shanghai and Beijing, the Chinese side dismissed the official scenario presented by the Americans and their South Korean allies as not credible. This conclusion was based on an independent technical assessment by the Chinese military, according to a Beijing-based military affairs consultant to the People Liberation Army.

Hardly any of the relevant facts that counter the official verdict have made headline news in either South Korea or its senior ally, the United States.

The first telltale sign of an official smokescreen involves the location of the Choenan sinking - Byeongnyeong Island (pronounced Pyongnang) in the Yellow Sea. On the westernmost fringe of South Korean territory, the island is dominated by a joint U.S.-Korean base for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations. The sea channel between Byeongnyeong and the North Korean coast is narrow enough for both sides to be in artillery range of each other.

Anti-sub warfare is based on sonar and acoustic detection of underwater craft. Since civilian traffic is not routed through the channel, the noiseless conditions are near-perfect for picking up the slightest agitation, for example from a torpedo and any submarine that might fire it.

North Korea admits it does not possess an underwater craft stealthy enough to slip past the advanced sonar and audio arrays around Byeongnyeong Island, explained North Korean intelligence analyst Kim Myong Chol in a news release. "The sinking took place not in North Korean waters but well inside tightly guarded South Korean waters, where a slow-moving North Korean submarine would have great difficulty operating covertly and safely, unless it was equipped with AIP (air-independent propulsion) technology."

The Cheonan sinking occurred in the aftermath of the March 11-18 Foal Eagle Exercise, which included anti-submarine maneuvers by a joint U.S.-South Korean squadron of five missile ships. A mystery surrounds the continued presence of the U.S. missile cruisers for more than eight days after the ASW exercise ended.

Only one reporter, Joohee Cho of ABC News, picked up the key fact that the Foal Eagle flotilla curiously included the USNS Salvor, a diving-support ship with a crew of 12 Navy divers. The lack of any minesweepers during the exercise leaves only one possibility: the Salvor was laying bottom mines.

Ever since an American cruiser was damaged by one of Saddam Hussein's rising mines, also known as bottom mines, in the Iraq War, the U.S. Navy has pushed a crash program to develop a new generation of mines. The U.S. Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command has also been focused on developing counterparts to the fearsome Chinese naval "assassin's mace," which is propelled by a rocket engine.

A rising mine, which is effective only in shallow waters, rests atop a small platform on the sea floor under a camouflage of sand and gravel. Its detection system uses acoustics and magnetic readings to pick up enemy ships and submarines. When activated, jets of compressed air or solid-fuel rockets lift the bomb, which self-guides toward the magnetic center of the target. The blast rips the keel, splitting the ship or submarine into two neat pieces, just as was done to the RKOS Cheonan.

A lateral-fired torpedo, in contrast, "holes" the target's hull, tilting the vessel in the classic war movie manner. The South Korean government displayed to the press the intact propeller shaft of a torpedo that supposedly struck the Cheonan. Since torpedoes travel between 40-50 knots per hour (which is faster than collision tests for cars), a drive shaft would crumble upon impacting the hull and its bearing and struts would be shattered or bent by the high-powered blast.

The initial South Korean review stated that the explosive was gunpowder, which would conform to North Korea's crude munitions. This claim was later overturned by the inquiry board, which found the chemical residues to be similar to German advanced explosives. Due to sanctions against Pyongyang and its few allies, it is hardly credible that North Korea could obtain NATO-grade ordnance.

Thus, the mystery centers on the USNS Salvor, which happened to be yet right near Byeongyang Island at the time of the Cheonan sinking and far from its home base, Pearl Harbor. The inquiry board in Seoul has not questioned the officers and divers of the Salvor, which oddly is not under the command of the 7th Fleet but controlled by the innocuous-sounding Military Sealift Command. Diving-support ships like the Salvor are closely connected with the Office of Naval Intelligence since their duties include secret operations such as retrieving weapons from sunken foreign ships, scouting harbor channels and laying mines, as when the Salvor trained Royal Thai Marine divers in mine-laying in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, for example.

The Salvor's presence points to an inadvertent release of a rising mine, perhaps because its activation system was not switched off. A human error or technical glitch is very much within the realm of possibility due to the swift current and strong tides that race through the Byeongnyeong Channel. The arduous task of mooring the launch platforms to the sea floor allows the divers precious little time for double-checking the electronic systems.

If indeed it was an American rising mine that sank the Cheonan, it would constitute a friendly-fire accident. That in itself is not grounds for a criminal investigation against the presidential office and, at worst, amounts only to negligence by the military. However, any attempt to falsify evidence and engage in a media cover-up for political purposes constitutes tampering, fraud, perjury and possibly treason.

Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, is an environmental consultant and a commentator on Asian affairs for CCTV-9 Dialogue.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=19428