South Korea: Ship Was Hit By North Korean Torpedo
Navy Was Warned of North Korean Suicide Subs
Last month’s sinking of South Korea’s Cheonan ship along the disputed naval border with North Korea has reportedly been solved, with reports that South Korean military intelligence had confirmed a North Korean torpedo attack not long after the sinking.
The revelation was only released today by South Korea’s Yonhap News, which confirms that they still have found no torpedo fragments to conclusively prove the attack. It does however raise questions.
Perhaps the most important is why the Defense Ministry lied and said they were “confidence” that the sinking was definitely not an attack by North Korea, which came at about the same time that they were reporting to the president that it almost certainly was.
In addition, the attack does not appear to have been a shock, as the South Korean Navy was warned by military intelligence earlier in the year to be on the lookout for possible attacks by “human torpedoes” in the region.
The term “human torpedo” is actually something of a misnomer, and actually refers to tiny one-man North Korean attack subs which are designed specifically to launch suicide attacks by colliding with naval vessels. Again, no proof has yet come to light that proves any such thing was used in the Cheonan attack.
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E. A. Costa
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Were the North Koreans advertising their new products?
If that sounds cold, hasn't the US done exactly that in its wars since Korea and Vietnam?
Mullen had better order a catalogue from the North Koreans to see what the USN may be up against.
wichi62
April 22nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Yeap right, the NK used a most advance torpedo capable to avoid any kind of detection and also can hit Chicago…. wow,!!… amazing, probably it’s the same technology used by USA to destroy the Iranian civilian airplane in the 80′s!!
Stephen
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:07 am
"The revelation was only released today by South Korea’s Yonhap News, which confirms that they still have found no torpedo fragments to conclusively prove the attack."
They can't prove it beyond reasonable doubt, so how can they claim at this moment that North Korea is guilty. Perhaps they should gather real evidence before they make such dangerous claims or are they infected with "exceptionalism" by the US.
E. A. Costa
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 am
"We will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state. Its current path is a dead end."
Philip Crowley
Well, guess that settles that. With Iran and North Korea added to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and half a war in Pakistan, the US, bankrupt and collapsing, has only four and a half wars to fight.
Meanwhile, Chinese trade, as planned, is expanding at a startling pace in Latin America.
E. A. Costa
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:12 pm
If North Korea has an undetectable Stealth torpedo or mine or minisub, the US is in trouble, even if it is just a North Korean Frogman with a suicide vest.
As for whether the story is true or not, it's a doublebind.
Do the US and South Korea want to try for an encore just to be sure?
dedreckon
April 24th, 2010 at 3:09 am
They are still lying. The North Koreans have their own anti-ship cruise missiles, similar to the type that disabled the Israeli guided missile corvette off the the Gaza Coast during "Cast Lead."
They have a range of about 60 nautical miles and test fire them quite often, especially when the US navy has ships within a few hundred miles off their coast as a warning.
Everyone knows the NK Navy possesses these weapons but they (South Korea and the US) are going to lie about their existence to the end.