http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602048_pf.html

this is bad.

3/26/2010 11:35:57 AM

ruh-ROH!

3/26/2010 11:46:43 AM

Pretty bad but nothing new. These sorts of incidents happen every now and then particularly during tense moments in the relationship. Just a few years back, there was a large naval battle resulting in the deaths of 17 NK and 5 SK sailors as well as the sinking of a NK gunboat.

Still, I am surprised by the size of the vessel and am wondering what class it is. Seems too small to be a frigate, but for that many sailors to be involved, it must be larger than a typical patrol boat. Sounds kind of like the North Koreans got in a lucky shot.

Also, compared to the bad old days (commando assaults on the presidential palace, blowing up airliners, axe murdering GI's) this is small fries.

3/26/2010 11:55:39 AM

Quote :

"commando assaults on the presidential palace"

I'm good friends with a guy whose Ranger unit was called in to protect the palace immediately after that event. He also tells me about how they used to shoot North Korean spies running across the DMZ, and how his brother caught a spy in Seoul because he noticed the North Korean was wearing his watch on the wrong wrist.

Of course, I can verify 0% of these stories. Especially the last one.

3/26/2010 2:28:01 PM

Quote :

"how his brother caught a spy in Seoul because he noticed the North Korean was wearing his watch on the wrong wrist. "

Maybe he was left handed....

3/26/2010 5:16:42 PM

Yeah that last one sounds like bs I'd believe the other ones though.

3/29/2010 4:37:28 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/skorea.sailors/index.html?hpt=T2

Quote :

"No cause has been determined for the ship's sinking, although Yonhap quoted military officials as saying that an unidentified explosion tore a hole in the ship's rear, shutting off the engine. The navy plans to salvage the vessel to determine what caused the incident, Yonhap reported. It was carrying missiles and torpedoes, navy officials told Yonhap. President Lee Myung-bak met with security officials on Sunday and ordered a thorough investigation into the cause of the explosion. Military officials sought to allay fears of the families of the missing sailors, emphasizing that "no deaths have been confirmed yet," according to Yonhap. The Seoul-administered island near the scene of the incident is a flashpoint maritime border area between the Koreas. Given Baengyeong island's proximity to North Korea, North Korean involvement was feared, but South Korean officials have played down that scenario. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Friday that there was no evidence North Korea was behind the incident. Presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye told reporters there were "no unusual signs" of North Korean activity near the scene. North Korean state media remains silent on the issue."

Looks like everyone is trying to say don't blame it on North Korea without proof which seems like the right course of action to keep tensions from unnecessarily escalating.

3/29/2010 5:41:59 AM

I'm still counting down the days until Chairman Obama apologizes to the kind and gentle North Koreans for the sinking of the SK ship.

3/29/2010 8:08:20 AM

Speaking of some of those incidents back in the day ...

I was in SK for almost 2 years doing missionary service. One of the churches I worked at was located just north west of the presidential residence. My leader there had been a missionary in that area back in the day, and that same church building had the missionary homes right beside it at that time, so he was living there. Its sort of up on the mountain side that the palace has as a backdrop.

Well, one morning he woke up and heard some gunshots. Sure enough, there was a NK guerrilla up in the hills beside the churches property. They looked out the window to see a large group of soldiers arresting the NK soldier. Apparently they had been looking for him all night after an attempted break-in/assassination attempt on the president. He had been hiding in the wooded areas along the mountainside.

Pretty crazy shit

3/29/2010 12:01:56 PM

^ Sounds like the 1968 attack on the Blue House. The one NK soldier captured confessed that they had direct orders to behead the president. Later he became a christian ministers in South Korea; also his entire family was executed because he blabbed about it.

Quote :

"South Korea: North responsible for torpedo attack on warship South Korea will formally blame North Korea on Thursday for launching a torpedo at one of its warships in March, causing an explosion that killed 46 sailors and heightened tensions in one of the world's most perilous regions, U.S. and East Asian officials said. South Korea reached its conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26, following an explosion that rocked the vessel as it sailed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea's west coast. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said that subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that had previously been obtained by South Korea. .............."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051803094.html?hpid=topnews

Part of me wonders if China condones acts like this because they like having a mean dog on a short leash to intimidate SK, Japan, and US interests in the region.

5/18/2010 3:30:25 PM

If China tolerates a North Korea that does test detonations of nuclear weapons in violation of the NPT despite China and just about every other country in the region telling them not to, then sinking a warship isn't much else.

China knows that the South Koreans aren't going to do anything militarily to North Korea. So as long as North Korea doesn't directly attack China, they'll continue to prop them up as a buffer state. Besides, the North is more a thorn in the side of its American rival and her allies (Japan, South Korea).

5/19/2010 4:46:55 PM

5/19/2010 10:05:56 PM

They were nice enough to play the game near the doorway so they could watch while they wash up. What more do you want?

5/19/2010 10:13:32 PM

Quote :

"North Korea said Thursday that South Korea fabricated evidence implicating the North in a torpedo attack in order to pick on the North and any attempt at retaliating for the warship's sinking would be answered with "all-out war." South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed "stern action" for the attack after a multinational investigation issued its long-awaited results Thursday, concluding the North fired a torpedo that sank the Cheonan navy ship March 26 near the Koreas' tense sea border. "If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us .... we will answer to this with all-out war," Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea's navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang. An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea, but 46 perished in the South's worst military disaster since the Korean War."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=10696058

Heating up.

5/20/2010 11:57:15 AM

Probably this guy:

5/20/2010 2:50:44 PM

^ and he was using his stealth boat!

5/20/2010 3:01:12 PM

man i wish N. Korea would setup up a nuclear test in the northern part of their country and have it accidentally detonate before launch, ending their whole fucking regime

5/20/2010 3:33:32 PM

One of the theories out there is that whenever Kim Jong Il gets worried about a military coup he pulls some shit like this to unite his leadership in a crisis. The speculation now is that due to his poor health he's worried about being deposed before his son can take power.

5/20/2010 4:06:17 PM

Makes sense. He's essentially holding his own people hostage. Don't accept me as leader? I'll toss a match on the powder keg that will get us all killed. Now accepting me as leader doesn't look so bad, does it?

5/21/2010 7:56:23 AM

not a bad idea if you get down to it

5/21/2010 8:04:14 AM

Either creating a crisis or proving to his military officers that he's not about to capitulate to the South and can still do things with minimal retribution. This is a good example of it.

5/21/2010 3:50:52 PM

Quote :

"proving to his military officers that he's not about to capitulate to the South and can still do things with minimal retribution"

As I understand it the military's main concern is Kim running the country into the ground by being a shit leader. He props himself up by creating situations where he has to be the strongman standing up to the west.

I'm curious as to how concerned the rest of the leadership is with NKs isolationism, anti-westernism, and the whole juche BS as they're in high enough positions to actually grasp the politics of the region. Basically, how likely would it be for the new government to pursue normalization with the west and take steps towards a free market in order to improve the situation of the North Korean people if Kim weren't there?

5/21/2010 4:04:04 PM

Looks like the South has severed the few, tattered remaining economic ties with the North.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10144059.stm

Quote :

"South Korea has suspended trade with the North and demanded an apology, after a report blamed Pyongyang for sinking a Southern warship. President Lee Myung-bak said those who carried out the attack on the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, must be punished. He also announced that Northern ships would be banned from Southern waters. "

Regarding the North Korean elites, while I'm sure most understand just what an awful situation their country is in, at the same time, they're having difficulty figuring out a way to bring about reform without losing their positions of power. Most of the current elites were brought into power by Kim Jong Il and are held by personal loyalty; those that may have had the influence to oppose him earlier were purged and replaced in the 1990s. The current government is also afraid that any sort of economic liberalization will weaken the state's hold on the public; that's what drove many of their previous policies of cracking down on emerging markets and the whole currency debacle from last winter. The government at the local level may initially tolerate capitalist activity, but the national government quickly cracks down every time it begins to feel that its' losing control. Essentially, liberalization may save North Korea, but it would likely bring to an end the current political elite.

5/24/2010 12:00:04 AM

Weaksauce.

It's sad how afraid South Korea is. North Korea sinks one of their battleships, killing 46, and they demand an apology. Way to be tough on terrorism.

I get that there are thousands of missiles pointed at Seoul. I understand that Kim Jong Il is unhinged and ready for war. But it's just pathetic the way they try to appease this guy over and over again (sunshine policy anyone?) when he pulls shit like this on a regular basis.

5/24/2010 12:31:31 AM

NPR was saying that this ship incident was a ploy in order to ensure his youngest son's succession to power, although they were a bit cagey on exactly how the two were related.

Quote :

"But it's just pathetic the way they try to appease this guy over and over again (sunshine policy anyone?) when he pulls shit like this on a regular basis."

What else can they do? Most of the world doesn't want the South using military action on the North, particularly China, which no doubt looms large in SK's mind. Without the world's support, taking on the North becomes a fairly daunting task. Seoul gets all fucked up. And even if you win, what do you get? An area about as large as your own, populated with people who are openly and fanatically hostile at worst and starving, poor, and in need of massive amounts of help at best.

I can't imagine how, given the rhetoric, the South could realistically take on the North without it turning into full-blown war, and I don't see how they could win a full-blown war without reunifying the country. And reunifying with a poorer commie neighbor can be rough. Just ask the Germans -- some of them still regret it because of the economic problems with the East.

5/24/2010 12:39:02 AM

SK woudl end up being overrun if they went to war. NOt saying they woudlnt eventually push them back, but right not the NK have way to many peopel just waiting to pour over the border.

5/24/2010 11:36:59 AM

Quote :

" I get that there are thousands of missiles pointed at Seoul."

i don't think you do, not wanting thousands of your citizens to die is not weaksauce

5/24/2010 7:22:37 PM

Quote :

"And reunifying with a poorer commie neighbor can be rough. Just ask the Germans -- some of them still regret it because of the economic problems with the East."

I thought the same thing, assuming that reunification would wreck SK even further considering that the GDP disparity between north and south is about 15:1 versus the 3:1 that existed between East and West Germany.

During a recent trip to Seoul I actually talked about it with our country manager there, who actually still has family in Pyongyang and had some horrific stories about what happened to his family during the war; I believe he said that all of his mother's 6 siblings were executed. He said that reunification would extend the winning streak that SK has enjoyed for the past 20 years by creating a massive pool of extremely cheap labor. This is in line with the creation of the Kaesong Industrial Region, which is a South Korean industrial park north of the DMZ and employing North Korean labor.

5/24/2010 7:58:05 PM

OK, Mr. Joshua, let me be clear: North Korea is run by a bunch of bastards and I'd like nothing better than to see them swing from the tallest trees the peninsula could provide.

HOWEVER...

Despite your (frankly scant) anecdotes from the South, I can see why the government there isn't eager to risk potentially millions of lives in order to unite what is, at best, a vast and cheap labor pool from the North with a currently thriving market in the South.

My assumption would be that South Koreans who need work would not be any more happy about NK laborers coming in and taking jobs than are, say, Americans about Mexicans who do the same thing. We've seen how well THAT has worked out, and that's when we have a (theoretical) border.

There is a world of difference between a facility created to exploit cheap labor and sudden, universal access to an enormous amount of cheap labor. It's why you hear relatively little bitching about manufacturing going to Mexico. but you hear incessant bitching about Mexican laborers coming up here.

5/25/2010 3:48:34 AM

I'm not arguing with that. I'm just saying that there's at least some plus side to it that I didn't consider.

I'm sure that it would be pretty shitty on the short term and I'm sure that the feeling of S Koreans towards northerners would be even more severe than the disparity between ossies and wessies in Germany.

5/25/2010 3:57:07 AM

I work with a few Koreans and they just don't seem to care honestly. They've pretty much told me that both countries have missiles pointed at each other and if they went to war they would destroy each other. end of story. There would be no north and no south. They seem to think they will never go to war again because of the weapons we have today would just abolish both countries.

5/25/2010 9:47:16 AM

Quote :

"War on the Korean Peninsula: Thinking the Unthinkable "A symphony of death." That's the chilling phrase that Kurt Campbell, who is now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama Administration, once used to describe the likely outcome of any military encounter on the Korean peninsula between the U.S., its ally South Korea and their mutual enemy across the 38th parallel in the North. The possibility of war breaking out once again in Korea is so unthinkable that a lot of people in various military establishments — the Pentagon, South Korea's armed forces and China's People's Liberation Army — actually spend a lot of time thinking about it. The truce between North and South has lasted for 57 years, but a peace treaty has never been signed, and now, in the wake of the North's attack on a South Korean naval vessel — and the South's formal accusation that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo — tensions are at their highest level since 1994, when North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire." Seoul has already made it clear that it will not seek military retaliation, and Washington and Beijing have said all the right things about trying to ensure that "cooler heads" prevail, as China's State Councilor, Dai Bingguo, said in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Beijing on Tuesday. But all concerned parties understand that at a moment of high tension, the possibility of hot war breaking out is not negligible. How might a shooting war start? Defense analysts and military sources in Seoul and Washington agree that an outright, all-out attack by either side is unlikely. Even a nuclear armed North, a Seoul-based defense analyst says, "would not risk an all-out war because it would be the end of the regime. Period, full stop." But there are ways in which smaller skirmishes could break out, and if they aren't contained, they could conceivably lead to disaster. Here are three that are uppermost in defense planners' minds: ..... Loudspeakers at the DMZ To much of the rest of the post–Cold War world, the idea seems slightly farcical: setting up big speakers on the southern side of the demilitarized zone and broadcasting — loudly — news and anti–North Korean propaganda across the border. To some it conjures up images straight out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries"). But it's no joke. Cheong Seong-chang, senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, a think tank in Seoul, believes that South Korea's plan to restart these broadcasts will likely infuriate North Korea. "Their military is already in a high state of emotion," Cheong says. And indeed, North Korea has already said publicly that it will shoot at any speakers broadcasting from the southern side of the DMZ. The defense analyst in Seoul says that if Pyongyang were to follow through, it would be "a serious act of aggression, and South Korea must counter it." ..."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1991928,00.html?hpt=T2

Going to war over "Yo man! You fucked up my speakers!"

5/26/2010 3:59:47 PM

Firing weapons across country boundaries at military equipment doesn't seem like the worst reason to react aggressively.

5/26/2010 4:08:44 PM

True, but after saying that they won't pursue military action after the sinking of a ship and the deaths of 46 sailors, it's surprising that they're threatening war if the Kim Jong Il fucks with their stereo.

5/26/2010 4:13:41 PM

Threatening to counter doesn't equate to a full scale war; there are other means of pushing back. Another anecdote, but when my father served on the DMZ, there were two instances when North Korean soldiers sneaked across and slit the throats of a few ROK infantry. The general was so pissed he sent a few commando teams across the DMZ to take a few trophies in retaliation.

Seriously though, South Korea isn't going to start a war over the North popping a few of their speakers. There are other, nonviolent things they can do such as countering with other propaganda tools.

[Edited on May 26, 2010 at 4:33 PM. Reason : spellin']

5/26/2010 4:33:45 PM

But even without resorting to war, the question is how much can the ROK do before it is so humiliating to the Dear Leader that he has to escalate just to save face with his own people?

My thought is that he can withstand limited propaganda before he either has to back down or step things up.

5/27/2010 1:06:17 AM

What would China do in an all out war??

Would they actually eat the huge economic toxic pill war with the west would cause just to save their ideological little brother down south??

5/28/2010 2:51:53 PM

That's an interesting question, but the North always has a few options as well before having to go to all out war. They can always detonate another nuclear device, launch a few missiles over Japan, etc. I assume the Dear Leader is a rational actor: his sole goal is to ensure the stability of his regime and pave the road for a smooth succession. War with the South is a practice in self annihilation. There is of course the question of whether he can still fully control the military however.

As for China, they could care less about the regime itself. However, seeing columns of US-ROK forces marching right up to their border will probably make them, particularly their military, a bit antsy. I'm not sure what they'd actually do, but I know they'll do everything in their power to prevent both war from breaking out or the North Korean regime from collapsing.

5/28/2010 4:27:45 PM

Dear leader is supposed to be in poor health. Different factions are jockeying for power

5/29/2010 12:11:06 PM

Quote :

"What would China do in an all out war?? Would they actually eat the huge economic toxic pill war with the west would cause just to save their ideological little brother down south??"

China's interest in NK is not ideological, they share a border and don't want a huge influx of poor, needy refuges

5/29/2010 12:14:56 PM

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/06/137_66986.html

A critique of the ROK government's handling of the situation by Andrei Lankov, one of the most prominent scholars on North-South relations.

Quote :

"Smart manipulations are better than honest war By Andrei Lankov People learn on the job. When Lee Myung-bak was elected President, he had a reputation of a good manager who was inept in handling public relations. However, the chain of recent events which followed the Cheonan disaster demonstrates that President Lee is quite capable of learning. This time we could witness a brilliant exercise in public relations management. The South Korean navy frigate Cheonan was sunk by a powerful explosion on March 26, and it seems that from the very beginning the Seoul government either knew or strongly suspected that North Korea was responsible for the disaster. For a while, the government took necessary precautions, preparing for an outbreak of hostilities, but by the next afternoon it became clear that a war was by no means imminent. Instead, the government found itself facing a public relations problem of immense proportions. President Lee knew perfectly well that he could not retaliate. To start with, a large-scale military campaign was out of the question. Considering the military superiority of the South, it is all but certain that such a war would be eventually won by Seoul, but at a prohibitively high cost. In the first days of the campaign large parts of Seoul would be obliterated by North Korean artillery, located just 30 km away from the downtown area of the city. The subsequent advance to Pyongyang would be costly as well. This is not the price any sane South Korean, even of the most jingoist inclinations, is ready to pay for revenge. Limited strikes against the North Korean military installations would be politically useless as well. North Korea is a hereditary dictatorship, and death of a few hundred soldiers, none of whom is a scion of the top 100 families, would have no impact on the North Korean leadership. They have already sacrificed hundreds of thousands, after all. The scale of military disasters also could be easily hidden in a country where the press is under the complete control of the government. Concurrently international markets would certainly interpret limited strikes as a sign that ``war is ready to erupt on the Korean Peninsula." The result would be a serious deterioration of South Korea's economic situation, and voters would blame the government for these avoidable economic woes. The Cheonan incident isn't unique. In the past the South did not retaliate for far more outrageous North Korean provocations. It did not do anything when in 1987 Pyongyang agents blew up a civilian airliner. It did not retaliate when in 1983 they killed half of the South Korean Cabinet. Nor in 1968 when North Korean commandos attacked the Blue House ? retaliation was briefly considered but never carried out. At the same time, President Lee understood that he cannot show Seoul's powerlessness. He did not want to appear weak and spineless in front of the public. In April when emotions were running high, an open admission of the North Korean responsibility for the Cheonan disaster would have made popular demands for revenge irresistible, and President Lee knew that anything he could do would only end badly. So, at that time, the government did everything to discourage suspicion of North Korea. In early April the Ministry of National Defense stated that a floating mine was the most likely cause, while President Lee kept repeating that people should stay calm until the results of investigation are made public. Only in May when emotions calmed down, then the North Koreans' role was discussed more frequently. The final report, published on May 20, made clear what had been obvious: the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. The opposition now loudly claims that the government delayed the report until late May in order to influence the elections. Certainly, there must be a kernel of truth to such accusations, but opposition politicians tend to overestimate their own significance: the upcoming elections are not that important, and their outcome would not change the political landscape anyway (and polls indicated that the government parties were going to fare reasonably well, regardless of the Cheonan incident). President Lee's major problem is not opposition, but rather his own supporters whose anger he wants to manage. Seoul still faces the same dilemma: it does not want to look weak even while knowing that no retaliation is possible. So, the President's address on May 24 started the second stage of the public relations campaign. The address was charged with hard-line rhetoric. However, the actual measures taken by the South were very moderate. First, Seoul banned North Korean ships from using Southern sea lanes ? but such a measure will hardly have any impact on a country which has almost no shipping and whose moderate foreign trade is conducted via sea routes. Second, Seoul stopped inter-Korean trade and economic cooperation projects, making an exception for Gaeseong Industrial Park. However, Gaeseong is the only joint project still in operation, since nearly all other activities of this kind stopped between 2008 and 2009. Finally, the military said it would resume psychological warfare by switching on the loudspeakers located on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and by launching some balloons with leaflets. The latter plans seem to have been suspended now, but at any rate it is worth remembering that these loudspeakers worked for half a century, until 2004, without producing any noticeable effect on North Korea. In other words, Seoul combines tough rhetoric with cautious, almost symbolic actions. Obviously, rhetoric should show the domestic audience that the government is tough and strong while actual measures are designed not to provoke a war or major confrontation. What will come next? It seems that stage three of the government strategy will make use of diplomatic activity. Seoul is determined to bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council, so in the next few weeks envoys and ambassadors will spend a lot of their travel allowances, and newspaper reports will talk about an uncertain and intense diplomatic game. Frankly, there is nothing uncertain in this game ? its outcome is quite predictable. China will never support the further increase of pressure on North Korea, so it will either prevent the Security Council from passing a resolution on the issue or will make this resolution toothless. In all probability, Russia will join Chinese efforts. All this seems to be well understood in Seoul. However, the diplomatic activity ? doomed to fail eventually ? will help produce the desirable impression for the public which wants the government to ``do something" in a situation where nothing can really be done. Is this game Machiavellian? Probably. But this author not merely enjoys the spectacle, but also approves of the government actions. For a while it appeared as if the North Korea policy of President Lee had been hijacked by the hard-line ideologues. The recent events have shown that this is not the case. Calculating politicians are in command, and this is good. Smart manipulation are better than an honest war which seems to be the alternative to avert. Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times."

6/4/2010 11:20:19 AM

Quote :

"High-ranking U.S., North Korean military to meet in DMZ on Tuesday High-level military officers from the U.S.-led U.N. Command and North Korea are slated to meet Tuesday in the village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the United Nations said Monday. They plan to discuss the March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan. The U.N. officers will be U.S. colonels, as the United States holds responsibility for U.N. security forces in Korea. North Korea has accepted a U.N. proposal for the meeting of colonel-level leaders to be a precursor to talks between generals on the contentious naval incident. The demilitarized zone was created as part of the armistice signed between North and South Korea in 1953 that halted the Korean War, but the war has never officially ended. The United Nations and North Korea began occasional meetings between generals -- "General Officer Talks" -- at Panmunjom in 1998 to lessen tensions. There have been 16 such meetings to date, the last one in March 2009, the United Nations said. ....."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/07/12/un.north.korea/index.html?hpt=T2

Wonder if anything wonky will happen.

7/12/2010 7:06:29 PM

We're buggin' out!

7/12/2010 7:12:16 PM

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100708/full/news.2010.343.html

Quote :

"The controversy started before the report was even released. An expert placed on the JIG by the opposition party — Shin Sang-chul, a former officer in the South Korean navy who had also worked at a shipbuilding company — suggested that an accidental collision with a US warship, and not North Korea, was to blame. The United States and South Korea had been carrying out military exercises in the area at the time. On 10 June, the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a Seoul-based organisation that acts as a watchdog on government authority, sent an open letter to the United Nations Security Council in which it raised eight questions concerning the contents of the JIG's report and six problems concerning the transparency of the investigation. The letter alleged that the report's claim that a torpedo-induced water column sank the Cheonan contradicted earlier testimony from survivors that they did not see a water column or only felt water droplets on the face. The letter also questioned why the supposed torpedo launch was not detected, despite active sonar equipment aboard the Cheonan. Seung-Hun Lee, a Korean-born physicist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, says the most problematic part of the JIG's report is the linking of the adsorbed material on the propeller of the torpedo with that found on the ship. In the JIG's report, electron dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis shows the samples to be nearly identical to each other and with those produced in a simulated test explosion: each has similar-sized peaks showing the presence of aluminium, oxygen, carbon and other elements. X-ray diffraction analysis likewise shows the torpedo sample to have the same signature as the ship sample. But on one point, the EDS data and X-ray data are different — the X-ray data lack any sign of aluminium or aluminium oxide. To explain the discrepancy, the JIG's report suggests that the aluminium had supercooled into amorphous aluminium oxide, rather than a crystalline form. Amorphous aluminium oxides do not produce an X-ray diffraction pattern. But the supercooling of metals into amorphous forms is a delicate process, says Lee. "It's impossible that 100% of it would be amorphous," he says. Lee's own experiments show that aluminium in such conditions would primarily be crystalline."

Could anyone with more knowledge on the subject matter provide any thoughts as to whether these criticisms are legitimate or bogus?

Below is a link to Lee's and Suh's study:

http://theglobalrealm.com/2010/07/08/rush-to-judgment-inconsistencies-in-south-korea%E2%80%99s-cheonan-report/

7/16/2010 9:47:51 PM

While there are still some who'll nit pick at the molecular level, nearly all the evidence clearly points to a torpedo attack. The international investigation confirms this, and perhaps the only nations who investigated that would be neutral on this issue such as Sweden and Canada were forced by the weight of the evidence to agree with it. If you go from an opposite direction and do a process of elimination, the evidence removes pretty much every other possibility from a collision to an old mine. Also, no other nation had any real benefit or motivation to take such an extreme action.

One Washington insider, Chris Nelson who is a self professed liberal Democrat, speculates that people keep clinging to these sorts of stories, these 1% probabilities, because for them to accept the truth that the North Koreans deliberately attack and sunk the vessel has such serious implications that NGO's, particularly those who had promoted open engagement or humanitarian cooperation with the North, would be forced to completely reevaluate their positions and reshape their paradigms if they ever acknowledged that the North did such a thing. One either has to accept that North Korea did this deliberately, returning the peninsula to the "bad old days" of the Cold War, or even scarier, the North is no longer able to fully control its military.

7/18/2010 2:59:44 PM

Well it wouldn't be the first time that liberals stuck their heads in the sand when confronted by reality.

7/18/2010 3:38:22 PM

Quote :

"U.S. sends carrier to South Korea The United States is sending the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to South Korea this week in a display of "the strength of our alliance and our constant readiness to defend the Republic of Korea," the ship's commander said Monday. The visit comes after months of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula after the sinking of a South Korean warship in a torpedo attack in March. A multinational inquiry found North Korea responsible for the attack on the corvette Cheonan, in which 46 South Korean sailors were killed. North Korea has denied any connection with the attack and said it is the victim of an international conspiracy. Earlier this month, the United Nations formally denounced the sinking of the Cheonan, but did not specifically mention North Korea. In anticipation of the U.S. announcement, Pyongyang at the weekend said the presence of the carrier would be a "reckless provocation," according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. It said the U.S. and South Korea were trying to save face after suffering a "diplomatic defeat" in the United Nations. Two U.S. destroyers will also join the George Washington for its call in the port of Busan. A third destroyer will visit Chinhae, U.S. Forces Korea said. The four-day port call begins Wednesday. "The U.S. Navy maintains a robust forward presence in the Asia-Pacific region and the people of the Republic of Korea are our good friends and allies," George Washington commanding officer Capt. David Lausman said in a statement Monday. The 97,000-ton George Washington, based in Yokosuka, Japan, is the only U.S. carrier whose home port is outside the United States."

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/19/u-s-sends-carrier-to-south-korea/?hpt=T2

7/20/2010 12:38:49 AM

Same thing has happened many, many times before.

For chrissakes, the ship was stationed in Japan. Why do you bloody well think we had it over there?

We'll do our little dance, as well we should, to remind everyone we have the biggest swinging dicks in the region.

7/20/2010 1:49:00 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

Quote :

"N. Korea fires on S. Korea, killing 2 and injuring more than a dozen Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea fired artillery toward its tense western sea border with South Korea on Tuesday, killing two South Korean marines, the South's Defense Ministry said. Fifteen other South Korean soldiers were wounded, five of them seriously, defense officials said. Three civilians were injured in the attack. About 100 rounds of artillery hit an inhabited South Korean island in the Yellow Sea after the North started firing about 2:30 p.m. local time, the Yonhap news agency said. Yonhap initially reported that 200 rounds had hit. The Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the number of rounds. South Korea's military responded with more than 80 rounds of artillery and deployed fighter jets to counter the fire, defense officials said. Firing between the two sides lasted for about an hour. The South Korean army also raised its alert condition, Yonhap said."

11/23/2010 6:19:20 AM