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Subject: ROKN Patrol Corvette sucken by DPRK torpedo boat
YelliChink    3/26/2010 12:10:07 PM
Just happened 2150 Korean local time. Chinese reports say that it was DPRK torpedo boat. The ROKN corvette sunk is probably a 1200t PCC. I can't read Korean so I am not sure which one exactly. At this moment, 59 out of 104 crew have been saved so far. Best wishes to the still missing ones and condolence to families of lost sailors.
 
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SantaClaws       3/28/2010 4:01:01 AM
I don't know why it messed up my links but here you go.
 
The hull 5 seconds in.
 
youtube.com/watch?v=4vmZKvm6DAw
 
How a torpedo works and the similarity to the damage on the Korean ship.
 
youtube.com/watch?v=vYAWrkvyYdc&feature=related
 
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PPR    So far   3/28/2010 10:16:18 AM
The evidence so far suggests a North Korean patrol boat torpedoed the corvette.  

This sort of aggressive action has been used by North Korea in the past as a negotiating tactic.  They know it is cheaper and safer for South Korea to pay North Korea to behave than it is to go to war.

The only wild card in this episode is that the cover-up has been so inept.   With the corvette sinking in only 20 meters of water in a known location, there will be plenty of evidence of what really happened.  I don't doubt when they raise the ship it will be in full view of the media.  If you recall your recent history, the Spanish government fell after attempting to pin the 3/11 terror attack on ETA when it was obviously al Qaeda.  If the South Korean government sticks to this lame cover-up, it is likely to follow suit.  So would they go to war to save their jobs?
 
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Reactive       3/28/2010 12:42:49 PM
Consider this:  The ROKN ship was sunk during some sort of hostile engagement, but for some reason everybody on both sides wants to cover this one up.  I can think of plenty of reasons why.  Maybe the ROKN was either somewhere it shouldn't have been or was doing something it shouldn't have been doing and the ROK wants to keep it classified.  Maybe one or both captains screwed up both sides have decided to call it a wash and let this one go.  I would certainly think that if the NORKs sunk and enemy ship they would be crowing about it, but I would dare say that of all parties involved the NORKs would have the least to gain from any sort of an escalation from this incident.
 
Truth is, nobody wants a war in Korea.  A war is definitely an existential crisis for the North.  They can't win and they know it.  If the baloon goes up in Korean it will almost definitely mean the destruction of the Communist regime in North Korea.  The South Koreans don't want a war because they know that once the North falls they will face an enormous financial and social catastrophe trying to integrate the North into mainstream society.  This says nothing of the thousands of Korean lives that would be lost in another Korean War.  Seoul would most likely be destroyed once again, and millions of Koreans would be left homeless.  This of course assumes the North doesn't deploy a nuclear weapon.  The loss of scores of sailors is a tragedy, but I doubt they are willing to lose tens of thousands of lives to avenge them. 
 
Then there is the United States.  A war in Korea would be a disaster for the United States in general, and specifically Barack Obama.  We could lose as many troops in a few weeks of fighting in Korea than we did in several years of heavy fighting in Iraq.  If the NORKs used a nuclear weapon, even a crude one, Obama would be placed in a terrible quandry.  There would be enormous pressure to retaliate in kind, and if Obama refused to deploy our own nukes against North Korea he would be reviled by a huge portion of the populace.  However, if he did deploy tactical nukes against the North there would be a tremendous outcry by both the international community and by those here in the Left.  Once the war was over we would be expected to help in the reconstruction of the North, which is something we really can't afford right now. 
   
Trust me, there are a lot of good reasons to bury this story, even if that ship really was sunk by the North. 

 
 You say "good reasons"
 
Something that bothers me about this attitude, and indeed the attitude of the ROK in general, is that they would rather see their countrymen stamped into the ground, they would rather accept this than go to war, and not even because they fear that they might lose such a war, or really expect NK to have weaponised a nuke yet (or even that they have a capable delivery system), but that the aftermath will damage their economy. Just imagine what this actually means, in terms of moral cowardice.
 
They seem happy to ignore what is happening in the North, ignore the threats of nuclear destruction, ignore the humanitarian situation, ignore the fact that close relatives of their citizenry are currently gnawing on tree bark in the north in order to avoid starvation, they seem content to pretend to live western lives, in fact, most South Koreans actually couldn't give a DAMN about the situation to the north, so long as they are able to eat in fashionable sushi bars and live a lifestyle that was, and is, paid for in allied blood.
 
They will reap what they have sown, their desire to achieve stability at any cost will one day backfire, North Korea is an appalling, evil, nasty, vitriolic regime, vulnerable to any upset, relying almost entirely on apathy on the part of the south, they have (very soon, when Kim Jong Il Dies) The best opportunity for a long time to rid the world of this vile and evil regime once and for all, yet, as I think many suspect, their real worry is not winning a war, but the inconvenience of havi
 
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DarthAmerica    @PPR   3/28/2010 1:57:21 PM

The evidence so far suggests a North Korean patrol boat torpedoed the corvette.  

This sort of aggressive action has been used by North Korea in the past as a negotiating tactic.  They know it is cheaper and safer for South Korea to pay North Korea to behave than it is to go to war.

The only wild card in this episode is that the cover-up has been so inept.   With the corvette sinking in only 20 meters of water in a known location, there will be plenty of evidence of what really happened.  I don't doubt when they raise the ship it will be in full view of the media.  If you recall your recent history, the Spanish government fell after attempting to pin the 3/11 terror attack on ETA when it was obviously al Qaeda.  If the South Korean government sticks to this lame cover-up, it is likely to follow suit.  So would they go to war to save their jobs?

What evidence? You just made two huge assertions and there isn't anything in public that would back either of them. That's bias and you need to be careful to avoid that during an analysis. RIght now, we know the ROK are going out of their way to suggest the NORKs had nothing to do with this. We also know that there are reports of firing, reportedly at birds. This means that at a minimum the process by which the ROK Navy conducts EOF and IFF procedures needs to be examined. Finally, we know that there was an explosion at the rear of the ship someplace. ALOT of things that have nothing to do with the NORKs could have caused this including various mines.

-DA 
 
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DarthAmerica    @PPR   3/28/2010 1:59:10 PM

The evidence so far suggests a North Korean patrol boat torpedoed the corvette.  

This sort of aggressive action has been used by North Korea in the past as a negotiating tactic.  They know it is cheaper and safer for South Korea to pay North Korea to behave than it is to go to war.

The only wild card in this episode is that the cover-up has been so inept.   With the corvette sinking in only 20 meters of water in a known location, there will be plenty of evidence of what really happened.  I don't doubt when they raise the ship it will be in full view of the media.  If you recall your recent history, the Spanish government fell after attempting to pin the 3/11 terror attack on ETA when it was obviously al Qaeda.  If the South Korean government sticks to this lame cover-up, it is likely to follow suit.  So would they go to war to save their jobs?

What evidence? You just made two huge assertions and there isn't anything in public that would back either of them. That's bias and you need to be careful to avoid that during an analysis. RIght now, we know the ROK are going out of their way to suggest the NORKs had nothing to do with this. We also know that there are reports of firing, reportedly at birds. This means that at a minimum the process by which the ROK Navy conducts EOF and IFF procedures needs to be examined. Finally, we know that there was an explosion at the rear of the ship someplace. ALOT of things that have nothing to do with the NORKs could have caused this including various mines.

-DA 
 
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Reactive       3/28/2010 2:03:58 PM
Interesting too that they're talking in terms of a "month" before the ship can be salvaged, Fine, but you don't need to salvage the ship in order to find out what sunk it, why the delay? The moment Dive-Teams can go in and assess the wreckage you have all you need to find out at least whether the explosion was internal/external, and identify the failure mode. They seem to be taking as long as they can whilst blaming bad weather as much as is possible. I don't know what mechanisms you can employ as a state to ensure that you get the "right" answer in this insatance?
 
Re: Hamilcar.
 
This is different. The ROKN could lose 39 sailors to DPRK shore artillery in a series of ship to shore incidents a few years ago and news manage that. Our pusillanimous incompetents during the Johnson lame duckery allowed the USS Pueblo to fall into DPRK hands by not attending to proper security of that ship. That helped to give us Nixon in the general backlash. This is more like that incident (debacle) politically in that it will not be Seoul or Washington quietly stage managed or covered up. A ROKN ship blew up noisily. If something chicane is afoot, then somebody will have to explain what happened so deep inside ROK waters to somebody and in public. The US news blackout here is MOST curious. The RoKs, however, are talking a lot and a lot of what they say is not fitting the intended or expected plot-line of an accident. In other words, something is rotten about this and I smell the stench half a planet away. I just won't commit to wild speculations and dismissals either way. I want evidence before I state conclusions.
 
Accept your point, also feel it is strange how "silent" everyone is being about this, how few serious questions are being asked. Someone made a good point about the Madrid bombings, if this is ever proven to have been a result of intentional enemy action then you are looking at a fall of government, a sinking of a ship, and the human catastrophe (awful way to go) that it entails is not something that to my knowledge is an act of war that has in many instances changed the course of human history. The fact that western outlets aren't raising any questions is indeed a bit surprising given what we are hearing from the people who were on the ship... You'd think someone might have the temerity to conduct an interview or two? Nope.
 
The reality is this: The ROK govt knows the cause of this already as long as a single dive team has gone in and taken photos, the failure modes of a hull are very distinct from each other, within a few minutes of examining a WW2 era hull on the seabed it is possible for an expert to make a reasonable assessment of the likely cause, the same is true here, if it really is a case of "waiting for a month for salvage" then you know something fishy is afoot, much like disturbing a crime scene, it should, given the presumable urgency be possible to find out within days, the fact that there is no focus at this point on actually identifying the cause points to the fact that the cause is either embarrassing, or likely to result in a popular backlash.
 
We shall see..
 
 

 
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Hamilcar    Before he went to Munich.   3/28/2010 2:11:27 PM
Chamberlain called in his service chiefs and asked if they were ready for war.
 
Whether or not he should have pulled the trigger anyway and gambled, is one of history's hottest debated questions. Hindsight tells me yes. The Germans were no where near ready. If Chamberlain called Hitler's bluff, then the German generals would have killed the maniac and set up a Franco type regime and we would have forty bumpy years of German fascism. Not nice, but disagreeably manageable. Think of it as Napoleon the III's France with a German accent, BUT NO ONE KNEW THAT. 
 
What the British service chiefs knew was Guernica then. This especially bothered the RAF, which since 1935 had been in a mad dash to prepare to meet the Luftwaffe, as soon as they knew who exactly the bozos (Goering and that swine-pig, Udet) that ran the German aviation side actually were. 
 
The RAF estimated  from their own intelligence that the Luftwaffe could kill from 15000 to 300,000 people in the opening stages of an air campaign against Britain for which they had no real defense. Fighter Command wasn't ready.
 
So the RAF plead with Chamberlain for a year. They wanted TWO. 
 
Chamberlain gave them what he could. It was just barely enough time.
 
THAT is what a politician, who is a patriot, sometimes has to do.
 
It made Chamberlain look weak and like a coward. He wasn't. He just tried to do the best for his people that he could with the best information he had at the time.
 
You can still be right and be wrong, you know. 
 
By the way, that example does not apply to a certain Chicago political thug and his gang of power-mad buffoons.
 
H.   
 

 
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SantaClaws       3/28/2010 2:12:04 PM
Explosion at the rear? The video clearly shows that the ship has been severed in half.



The evidence so far suggests a North Korean patrol boat torpedoed the corvette.  




This sort of aggressive action has been used by North Korea in the past as a negotiating tactic.  They know it is cheaper and safer for South Korea to pay North Korea to behave than it is to go to war.




The only wild card in this episode is that the cover-up has been so inept.   With the corvette sinking in only 20 meters of water in a known location, there will be plenty of evidence of what really happened.  I don't doubt when they raise the ship it will be in full view of the media.  If you recall your recent history, the Spanish government fell after attempting to pin the 3/11 terror attack on ETA when it was obviously al Qaeda.  If the South Korean government sticks to this lame cover-up, it is likely to follow suit.  So would they go to war to save their jobs?






What evidence? You just made two huge assertions and there isn't anything in public that would back either of them. That's bias and you need to be careful to avoid that during an analysis. RIght now, we know the ROK are going out of their way to suggest the NORKs had nothing to do with this. We also know that there are reports of firing, reportedly at birds. This means that at a minimum the process by which the ROK Navy conducts EOF and IFF procedures needs to be examined. Finally, we know that there was an explosion at the rear of the ship someplace. ALOT of things that have nothing to do with the NORKs could have caused this including various mines.




-DA 



 
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DarthAmerica    @Reactive   3/28/2010 2:21:28 PM
Reactive,

It's not that simple. It has nothing to do with being gutless. If there is a conspiracy/coverup, and the intent is to prevent an incident the ROK has to respond to. Then it is for reasons of prudence. ~20% of ROK population lived in Seoul and they are in range of enough NORK artillery that even a nuclear weapon would probably not make a difference in terms of casualties should fighting break out. If you are going to war, you need to be sure absolutely no other or better options exist. FInally, you need to make sure you are acting in verifiable evidence. Waring on principle sounds good but it's not very practical. If the USA or USSR went to war on principle then we probably would not be here.

Seriously, the friendly fire, accidental explosion and mines are the things that need to be looked at in detail before we start rattling sabers.
 
-DA 
 
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SantaClaws       3/28/2010 2:26:25 PM
Also, the captain of the ship was rescued. Do you honestly think they need months worth of investigations when you have 56 witnesses, one of which is the captain? Is the captain really that daft to be engaging a flock of birds and then not have any clue why he lost an entire ship?
 
Here are the facts.
 
1. The ship was in a contested area between the N. and S.
 
2. The DPRK issued threats of violence that day.
 
3. Relations between N. and S. have been strained recently with the new S. administration because they have not followed with the sunshine policy of the last 2 administrations. N. Korea has been rather beligerent in trying to reopen tourism from the S.
 
4. The ship was engaged with a flock of birds for 15 minutes. I don't think anyone really believes that.
 
5. Photos of the ship show is has been severed in half.
 
6. This would not be the first time the N. has used violence as a political tool.
 
 
This isn't a Sherlock Holmes case. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one.
 
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