South Korea raises warship, finds clues on sinking

[MarketNeutral]

South Korea on Saturday raised the front half of a warship that exploded and sank a month ago near a contested sea border with North Korea, finding clues that support growing suspicions Pyongyang attacked the vessel.

The 1,200-tonne corvette Cheonan sank in what military officials said was likely a torpedo attack.

Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in what could be one of the deadliest strikes by Pyongyang on its rival since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The North has denied involvement.

South Korea's president on Friday gave the clearest signal yet Seoul had no plan to launch a revenge attack, calming investors worried that armed conflict would damage the South's rapidly recovering economy.

"The probably catastrophic costs of a war on the peninsula will greatly constrain the U.S. and South Korean options for a military response, which thus remains an unlikely trigger for major military conflict," the global strategy group Control Risks wrote in a research note this week.

The front end of the ship was raised by a giant sea crane and drained before being placed on a barge.

One body has been found so far in the just-raised wreckage and six sailors were still missing, Yonhap news agency reported. The bodies of most of the 46 missing were found in the stern section raised earlier this month. Another 58 were rescued alive.

"The way a hatch (near where the ship split in two) had been thrown off its hinge indicates there had been a very strong external impact," Yonhap quoted an unidentified military official as saying, adding weight to the torpedo theory.

A survey team that includes experts from South Korea, the United States and Australia said after the rear of the ship was raised the Cheonan had been destroyed by an external explosion. That stoked suspicions of the torpedo attack in waters where the rival Koreas have had two deadly naval fights in the past decade.

Seoul has said it would issue its final verdict on what caused the ship to sink after it had retrieved the front section but has not given a date for releasing its findings.

The sinking of the ship is fraught with risks for South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who seeks to calm investors, shake off criticism his government tried to deflect suspicions of links to Pyongyang and faces an angry public seeking vengeance.

Lee also needs to prevent turning the affair into a weapon for his political opposition ahead of June local elections. A serious setback in the polls could damage his authority and ability to push through promised pro-business reforms.

The two Koreas, technically still at war, have more than 1 million troops near their border. The United States has about 28,000 troops in the South to support its military.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042401023.html

[Neuro]

North Korea sank the ship!

That is the truth and South Korea and the US don't do anything about it...

[Ponce]

A "clue" is not fact or evidence.............."Remember The Maine" nothing but an excuse to invade Cuba, and the same as Viet Nam, Iraq, Afkhanistan and next maybe Iran.

[Spectrism]

This was no "excuse" committed by South Korea or anyone else. It was done by North Korea intentionally.

The Obama hopey-changey club does not have the ability to deal with it, so they will ignore it. This makes South Korea look like cowardly fools.

[DMac]

South Korean Defense Minister Confirms Torpedo Sunk Cheonan; Next Step: Escalation (http://www.zerohedge.com/article/south-korean-defense-minister-confirms-torpedo-sunk-cheonan-next-step-escalation)

As Zero Hedge first reported, rumors within the South Korean community that North Korea would receive the full blame for the tragic sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan have turned out to be true. Today, the WSJ confirms (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704446704575205400833858626.html): "South Korea's top military official said Sunday that a torpedo likely exploded under the Cheonan, the South Korean patrol boat that sank a month ago near the maritime border with North Korea, edging Seoul even closer to declaring it was attacked by forces from the North." So with the obvious finally confirmed by everyone, the only question now is "what's next?" According to the WSJ, "South Korea faces several constraints in penalizing Pyongyang, starting with the prospect that a military response could escalate into a war that no one here wants. And the timing of a response may be shaped by an approaching election and the amount of time and effort it takes to rally international support for economic penalties." Alas, the animosity between the two countries runs so deep that mitigating the populist response may just be a task a tad too impossible for either administration to accomplish.

More from the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704446704575205400833858626.html):


Defense Minister Kim Tae-young stopped just short of blaming North Korea for the March 26 sinking that killed 46 sailors. "I think the bubble jet effect caused by a heavy torpedo is the most likely cause," he said.

Also Sunday, the lead investigator of the sinking said his team had concluded that a "non-contact" explosion tore the ship apart. A salvage crew on Saturday recovered the ship's second severed half, its bow, after raising its stern on April 15.

The statements marked a turning point in an investigation that has already seemed long in a place where suspicion of North Korea runs high. The event has received saturation media coverage. Government officials have already said privately that they strongly suspect the North is behind the sinking.

But officials largely insisted on waiting to make a final statement until the ship was recovered, a process hampered by late winter weather and difficult sea conditions. In the meantime, officials privately say, they are looking for concrete evidence to build a case to penalize Pyongyang.

Such a response is unlikely to include military force. South Korea has stopped short of such a response to previous acts of aggression, from the 1987 explosion of a Korean Air jet near Myanmar to the July 2008 killing of a South Korean tourist at a North Korean resort by a North Korean soldier. Though the public favors punishing the North, there is no appetite for any action close to war that would disrupt the South Korean economy or destabilize the North enough to require the South to take it over.

President Lee Myung-bak said last week he has no intention of invading the North.

The likely recourse, according to a high-ranking government official, is that South Korea would ask the United Nations Security Council to create new economic penalties that would be imposed by many countries. Meanwhile, Seoul would end its own remaining economic activities with North Korea.

It is easy to see why neither side wants war to be the ultimate outcome. Yet that may be more difficult to achieve than anticipated:

If North Korea is ultimately blamed, South Korean officials don't expect difficulty building public support to penalize it.


While the long-tense relations between the two Koreas thawed after leaders met for a summit in 2000, the goodwill didn't last long. It began to disappear after a 2002 naval clash near where the Cheonan sank killed six South Korean sailors and eroded further when Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon in 2006. In the past year, two spy incidents—including the arrest announced last week of two men sent to kill a prominent North Korean defector—stamped out much of the remaining sympathy for the North.

No matter what, we are confident that US capital markets will reward the stocks of defense (and offense) companies richly. After all war is what got America (and the world) out of the Great Depression. Baby steps.

[gunDriller]

North Korea sank the ship!

That is the truth and South Korea and the US don't do anything about it...


AMAZING !

a military act that doesn't have Israeli or US fingerprints on it.

[DMac]

North Korea sank the ship!

That is the truth and South Korea and the US don't do anything about it...


They (US/SK) are in a tough position regarding NK. If they respond to the provocation of the North, and war ensues, there will likely be an immediate catastrophe in Seoul. The North has A LOT of artillery pointed at Seoul - enough guns where a 5 minute barrage will likely kill 10's of thousands in Seoul, a city only 26 miles from the border. There is also the threat of nuking Tokyo as American reinforcements make their way over to the border.

It's a real rock and a hard place situation and one of the reasons NK's saber rattling goes unchecked.

Either the US/SK (and Japan) hits NK preemptively, or, I think there is no other choice but to sit and wait, hoping that full scale war does not erupt.

[Neuro]

Good points DMac! They are between a rock and a hard place!

[Spectrism]

If war is to break out, it would have to be so violent and sudden that the use of tactical nukes (gamma) would have to happen in order to wipe out the use of artillery along the border.

The delay is probably because they do not have enough hits in place to minimize missiles/ rockets/ artillery that will rain down on Seoul. I am sure the military operations groups are working overtime with dozens of plans.

[Ponce]

This was no "excuse" committed by South Korea or anyone else. It was done by North Korea intentionally.

The Obama hopey-changey club does not have the ability to deal with it, so they will ignore it. This makes South Korea look like cowardly fools.


As of yet I haven't seen any evidence that N Korea sank the ship......therefore........it is an "EXCUSE" to invade N Korea.

[Spectrism]

This was no "excuse" committed by South Korea or anyone else. It was done by North Korea intentionally.

The Obama hopey-changey club does not have the ability to deal with it, so they will ignore it. This makes South Korea look like cowardly fools.


As of yet I haven't seen any evidence that N Korea sank the ship......therefore........it is an "EXCUSE" to invade N Korea.


Would you mind citing the denial by North Korea that they did it?

And if it is an excuse to go to war, perpetrated by US or South Korea, why is there no war yet?

[Serpo]

Of course it looks /feels/smells like NK did it but as it was under water ect no one really knows for sure and it could of been someone else trying to agitate this situation.

[Ponce]

In a court of law you don't have to prove that you are innocent but the other side has to prove that you are guilty.........nothing prov en till now.

[oldmansmith]

[quote=Ponce ]
[quote=Spectrism ]
This was no "excuse" committed by South Korea or anyone else. It was done by North Korea intentionally.


And if it is an excuse to go to war, perpetrated by US or South Korea, why is there no war yet?



An even better question is: Why is this not front page news? Imagine if this had been in the Middle East...