Saturday, May 29, 2010

What Did You Expect?

So, picking up on news about the Koreas, did anyone really expect North Korea to do anything but deny any accusations of sinking the corvette? The only "problem" with this is that the NK denial is very good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100529/wl_asia_afp/skoreankoreamilitarydenial

According to AP (at Seoul, not Pyongyang mind you) they said that A) They have no such submarine as a 130 tonne Salmon class and B) The torpedo parts found make no sense. Yeah, it doesn't sound like much, but look more closely before jumping to support South Korea.

For part A, the proof of burden is strictly on South Korea and their Western allies. They have no proof of such a submarine class or they are not willing to show the evidence. This is a problem, but just an accusation is not enough in a matter like this. If they come back with a photo of the submarine you can ignore this, but they likely won't. North Korea gets a lot of bad press, often for a good reason, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily behind the incident.

For part B, South Korea has claimed that they have previous torpedo parts of a NK torpedo found in their seabed plus design specifications off of a prospective weapons buyer. These two match the debris found at the site, the story goes. This made no sense to me before NK said in their press release it makes no sense. How come?

First, a torpedo is a metal tube with an engine, acoustics and control electronics but the rest is filled with propellant and explosives. It doesn't leave a lot of debris when it explodes hard enough to sink a warship. And even if it did, it would be very, very difficult to find any little pieces, especially if it's mixed with debris from a sunken ship.

I know the conditions and especially depth of the ocean are different, but the French couldn't find an airplane black box from the bottom of the sea, which actively tries to be found, while SK claims they found a torpedo piece among debris no problem. This is very dubious. Then they claim they have previous fragments. They expect us to believe the SK seabed is practically littered with torpedo parts, so littered that fishermen pull them up.

Additionally, they claim to have specifications of NK torpedoes. To this the NK National Defense Commission Major General Pak Rim Su replies better than I can: "Who in the the world would hand over torpedo designs while selling torpedoes?"

And how does SK know these torpedoes were from their Northern neighbor? Because they say the pieces have Korean writing on them. Hand written, assumedly by a foreign hand. Too bad NK replied they don't scribble anything by hand on their torpedoes, and if they mark them they are machine engraved.

Think about this. We are being taken for idiots. The South Korean accusations rely on magnificent coincidences, improbable events and lacks evidence.

Now, I'm not saying who did it or why did the corvette sink. An accident, a mine at sea or an act of aggression are all possible, but I did want to point out how poor the evidence against North Korea is here. Also bear in mind, the media has completely backed up South Korea so far.

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