US Sank the South Korean Corvette Cheonan 

作者是我朋友岛津洋一。AC首发。

Hillary Clinton overplayed her hand by claiming "overwhelming evidence" in favor of the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March. An embarrassing abundance of facts indicate, that to the contrary, that the US military was involved in the blast that killed more than 50 seamen.  

Torpedo Claim Scuttled 

The prime physical evidence shown so far is of the propeller shaft with North Korean serial numbers, supposedly from the "torpedo" that sank the Cheonan. None of the metal parts, however, show any signs of bending, the main bearing is completely intact, and the propeller does not have any stealth coating. This "evidence" is merely a piece of scrap metal.  

A torpedo moves at between 40 and 50 knots per hour to strike ships capable of moving at more than 30 knots per hour. The speed of the impact would drive the propeller shaft into the explosion, meaning that a part as fragile as a bearing would have been broken and thinner metal parts bent or sheared away.  

The North Korean torpedo claim was scuttled when South Korea's investigative panel recently concluded that the chemical residues from the blast were consistent with a torpedo made in Germany. How a German-made torpedo was acquired by the North Korean military is a complete mystery, since the EU maintains a strict arms embargo against the DPRK and its allies. 

The chemical residues from a high-density explosive could just have easily come from the naval ordnance of dozens of advanced industrial countries. One point is clear: In the early phase of the analysis, the South Korean government claimed the presence of gunpowder residues on the hull. This is now proven false. 

No Detection of Submarine 

Byeongnyoeng Island is the westernmost part of South Korean territory, separated from the coast of North Korea by just a narrow sea channel, so close that it is in artillery range from the peninsula. Three naval clashes have occurred in recent years near this remote island. The heavily militarized island serves as a key center for US-Korean anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations in the Yellow Sea..  

The US-Korean military intelligence base on Byeognyoeng operates extensive sonar arrays and passive acoustic undersea microphones that detect the slightest noises and movements. Nothing out of the ordinary was detected on the night of the explosion, according to the South Korean military. The Cheonan itself is an anti-submarine vessel with highly sensitive detection equipment that should easily picked up the presence of a hostile sub and torpedo.  

The South Korean government has yet to make public the sonar and acoustical data from detection stations on the night of the attack. So far, the absence of a sonar record indicates that the weapon was not a torpedo as claimed. 

US Navy Was Nearby in Exercise Foal Eagle 

Immediately after the Cheonan blast, four US navy ships quickly arrived, before South Korean vessels, and began the salvage operation. The four ships - the missile cruisers Shiloh, Lassen and Curtis Wilbur plus the salvage ship Salvor - were in the Byeonyeong area for ASW maneuvers.  

What was an American salvage ship with 12 navy divers doing in the vicinity of Byeongnyeong during a joint naval exercise? Since there were no minesweepers with the naval group, the Salvor could only be there for one reason: To install and inspect seabed mines in the waters off Byeongnyeong. Seabed mines are positioned on the ocean floor and, when activated, are propelled horizontally. The mines are magnetically guided to strike at a ship's keel. 

On inspections of their operational systems, the seabed mines have to be electronically activated. Perhaps an American diving team forgot to switch off the device and left an activated mine, which rose up to blast the Cheonan. 

Out of the Command Loop: False Flag Attack 

There is another possibility. In 2007, the USS Salvor was put under the Military Sealift Command, meaning the ship is not directly supervised by an area fleet commander. Operated under the low-profile logistical organization, the often secret work of the Salvor is not reported up the US Navy chain of command. This well suits its secret missions, such as retrieving instruments and weapons from sunken vessels of foreign navies (for example, German torpedoes or Russian submarine guidance systems), conducting naval espionage against port facilities and oil platforms (for example in areas such as Bandar Abbas in Iran) and to covertly plant magnetic mines on ships or seabed mines around enemy naval bases.  

The covert operations capability of the Salvor is not a James Bond fiction, not when its regular salvage diving crew can be augmented by teams of US Navy SEALS. The tantalizing question therefore arises: Did the CIA order a "false flag" attack against an allied navy? False flag attacks, which are acts of provocation aimed at blaming an adversary for purposes of sparking a war or a sanctions regime, have a proven record in  US naval  history. The mysterious sinking of the battleship Maine sparked the US invasion and occupation of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Phillippines in 1898. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which led to the US military involvement in Vietnam, has proven to be a conspiracy by Pentagon hawks. It was later shown that North Vietnamese patrol boats were nowhere near US Seventh Fleet warships.  

The possibility that a Navy SEAL diver either placed a magnetic mine on the hull of the Cheonan or activated a seabed mine cannot be discounted. The SEALS are trained to exactly carry out such covert operations.  

"Bad Cops" and "Good Cop" in East Asia 

If the US did carry out the Cheonan attack and murdered more than 50 South Korean sailors, the reason must be of a strategic nature. The Obama administration has been steadily pressing Japan and South Korea to become more aggressive against the DPRK. The long-term posture is for Tokyo and Seoul to be the "bad cops" waging a hard line against Pyongyang and Beijing, while Washington takes on the role of the "good cop" who is friendly and reasonable to these adversaries. The ultimate goal is not only regime change in Pyongyang but to coerce and seduce China into becoming the "junior partner" or concubine in the international harem known as the American Imperium.  

The current government is Seoul is composed of hawks who are eager to take on the bad cop role, but the Washington is resorting to threats and political blackmail against the governing Democratic Party of Japan. 

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada has countered the American pressures by exposing the existence of a "Secret Treaty" since the 1970s, allowing the US to bring nuclear into Japan in exchange for the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty. The secret treaty points to the presence of a "secret government" or Deep State created by the US Occupation of Japan..A network of pro-American agents was placed in key positions inside the Tokyo prosecutors office, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Japan, the Self-Defense Agency and the Cabinet Ministers office to ensure Japanese compliant with US diktat. The  hegemonic features of this arrangement are similar to the Deep State apparatus in countries like Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand and, of course, NATO.  

As the Cheonan investigative collapses under the fabric of lies, the East Asian nations for the sake of their own security should impose a "no-fly, no-sail" zone against the US military in the Yellow Sea. This could be the first step toward an East Asian Treaty of Peace and Cooperation.