The 2010 US-SK Gov't Cover Up in Korea

Rogue Sub Killed 46 – US and SK Government Cover Up While Demonizing the “North Korea”

 

Two well respected scientific researchers have published an explosive new article that somehow seems to have mysteriously slipped under the radar of the major media outlets, the potential ramifications of which could shake the very foundations of two government administrations.

Contained in the detail is scientific proof what many experts have long suspected; that in 2010 a large submarine smashed into the South Korean warship, Cheonan, killing 46 young sailors on board.

This flies directly in the face of the United States (US) overseen and South Korean-led international investigation team which released a strongly worded report to the United Nations (UN) claiming that; “A North Korean 130t Yono-class submarine fired a 1.7t mid-sized CHT-02D torpedo and sunk the ROKS Cheonan.“

If the science in the article holds up, it points to the US and South Korean governments along with their military top brass and investigation teams; purposely ignoring facts during the investigation, manipulating what was put in and left out of the report so that a pre-determined conclusion could be reached, tampering with evidence to frame another country, and lying to the world in the process.

All in order to avoid embarrassing themselves and putting the US and South Korean Presidents in an extremely awkward position, not to mention starting a tidal wave of anti-American sentiment within the East Asian Strategic ‘lynch pin’, which could have conceivably put pressure on the very existence of the multitude of US Forces Korea (USFK) bases containing 28,500 American personnel spread across the peninsula, which local tax payers begrudgingly pay for year after year, ad infinitum.

A devastating truth

Try copy and pasting into Google the article entitled, ‘What Really Caused the ROKS Cheonan Warship Sinking?’ on the Hindawi.com academic journal website, which was published on the 20th of November.

Written by Dr. Mauro Caresta, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in England and Kim Hwang-Su, Professor of Physics at Kyungsung University in Korea, their painstaking exceedingly ‘dry’ scientific explanation revolved around the analysis of acoustic and vibration readings, in their words, a spectra of the seismic signals.

These signals wererecorded on the day of the tragedy in a number of seismic detecting stations including Baekryeong Island, which was crucially right next to where the Cheonan ship sank. The data enabled them to create an unbiased scientific picture of exactly what happened that fateful night.

It reflects the evidence unearthed by other independent experts including those depicted in filmmaker, Baek Seung-woo’s, documentary ‘Project Cheonan Ship’, which got kicked out of theatres in 2013 after government sympathizers threatened the film exhibitors.

In his documentary they utilized a thermal imaging TOD (Triangle Orientation Discrimination) camera that registered a lack of heat signature in the water directly after the incident, which clearly indicated there was no explosion.

According to the Doctor and researcher’s analysis, their recorded seismic data not only backs this up, but unveils a devastating truth. The data indicates there was not only a collision, but that the object that hit the Cheonan was;“consistent with the natural frequencies of vibrations of a large submarine with a length of around 113 m.”

The environment

On the night of the ‘accident’, the 26th of March 2010, the Cheonan warship was an integral part of the annual countrywide ‘Key Resolve – Foal Eagle’ exercise involving 10’s of thousands of US and South Korean troops. The Pentagon, which engages in more than 65 combined, bilateral and multi-lateral training exercises annually throughout the Asia-Pacific region called it “one of the largest simulated war exercises in the world”.

At sea the ‘Commander of US Naval Forces Korea’ (CNFK), controlled the simulated ‘theater of war’ with scores of shiny, ultra-modern US and South Korean warships equipped with the latest technology under the directorship of the US 7th Fleet, a component of the Pacific Fleet.

Under the depths directed by the ‘Fleet Submarine Force’ was an American nuclear-powered submarine (sub) and a South Korean ‘Type 214’.

The barrage of sonar, radar and satellite tracking and communication systems that engulfed the seas, land and air during these exercises was all-encompassing.

The probability that a 113 meter sub from Russia, China or any other ‘un-friendly’ country for that matter, who would be willing to chance its arm by sneaking into this hostile well-guarded environment, lay in wait for a warship and then fire a torpedo at it (with the potential to start a full scale war), and waltz back home again unseen is not only strategically unsound, but highly improbable.

All 43 sub-capable countries around the world with their 600 subs know full well that while the’Key Resolve – Foal Eagle’ exercise is on, to stay out. In fact during the previous year’s exercises, one minor incident best illustrates the hyper-sensitive serious nature of the exercises and how ‘intruders’ are swiftly dealt with.

The aircraft carrier John C. Stennis was over flown by two Russian Ilyushin Il-38 maritime patrol aircraft and a day later, two Tupolev Tu-95 long-range bombers. In both incidents, they were immediately intercepted and escorted by F/A-18 Hornets until the Russian aircraft left the exercise area.

However, what is perhaps more reasonably plausible to the world at large because of their well-known level of ‘crazy’ rhetoric in the media, is that the ‘mad’ North Koreans might conceivably consider trying such a provocative act of war.

However, the North Koreans knew full well that General Walter “Skip” Sharp, the commander of US forces in South Korea at the time, wouldn’t have hesitated to use nuclear weapons against them, if provoked.

The just-made-available seismic signals analysis doesn’t support that conclusion either. So, it’s now a mute point. And even if some theorist now suspected a North Korean sub of instead colliding with the Cheonan, they’d be wrong about that too.

Because in its fleet of 70 subs the largest is the Romeo Class at 77 meters, which are a little lighter than the 12 largest South Korean Type 214’s, at 65 meters. Both, well short of the 113 meter mark.

 

USS_City_of_Corpus_Christi_(SSN-705).jpg

 

In search of the ‘rogue’ sub

US nuclear-powered subs on the other hand are in a totally different class range. ‘Ballistic’ and ‘Guided Missile’ subs (or “Boomers”) are massive, almost the length of two football fields like the USS Ohio, which first docked in Busan, South Korea in 2008. But the smaller SSN ‘Fast Attack’ subs, are the ones most regularly found docked around the Western Pacific.

They come in 3 types; the outdated cold war period Seawolf, the new Virginia’s of which there were only 10 built as of last year, and the backbone of the sub fleet, made famous by Tom Clancy in‘The Hunt for Red October’, the Los-Angeles. Her length?…110 meters.

According to Dr. Terence Roehrig, Professor at the U.S. Naval War College in his 2009 paper‘ROK-U.S. Maritime Cooperation: A Growing Dimension of the Alliance’, there were 3 Los-Angeles in the US 7th Fleet‘s Submarine Squadron 15 based in Guam; the Buffalo (SSN 715) , USS Houston (SSN 713) and City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705). As there were no SSN’s permanently based in Japan at that time they were the closest forward deployed subs to South Korea.

Fortunately, the US Carriers.net website allows the public to see an overview of each SSN subs deployment and maintenance schedule.

Potentially from this we can gauge if they were involved in the ‘Key Resolve – Foal Eagle’ exercises and what type of maintenance they had which generally falls into two categories; the quarterly ‘Upkeep’ which takes a month and is done pier-side on the water, or the more serious ‘Overhauls’ in the dry-dock which take anywhere from 1-3 years.

Unfortunately, the only problem is some subs have detailed records and others don’t. So, if the ‘rogue’ sub we’re looking for needed to be fixed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard after a collision with the Cheonan, the record may or may not show it, especially if publically the Navy wanted to cover it up.

The record does however show that the Buffalo in October 2008 pulled into Busan, for a routine port call in conjunction with the International Fleet Review. Then a year later in December 2009 something unusual happened.

After only 4 months on the job the normally highly competent Commander of the sub was fired due to “loss of confidence in his ability to command.” Normally the Commodore who fired him (facing drastically decreased funding and personnel shortages at the time), would have required a serious breach of protocol or a major incident to have done what he did.

The second sub, the Houston which embarrassingly unnoticed leaked radioactive material for two years, in February 2010 arrived in the Philippines, for a scheduled port visit. The next entry is in November saying that it was in Chinhae, South Korea, for a routine port call. Nothing in between.

So, either prior to or after the Cheonan sunk both subs visited South Korea, but there’s no record of them participating in the 2010 ‘Key Resolve – Foal Eagle’exercises. In fact, there’s no mention of them ever being involved, which is extremely irregular to say the least as their Submarine Squadron 15 key responsibility is to support every Pacific Fleet operation in the area.

With the 2010 exercise being “one of the largest simulated war exercises in the world”, including a number of anti-sub operations, not having at least one of their subs there would have been incomprehensible.

The other sub, the City of ‘Corpus Christi’, which translated means the “body of Christ”, is also strangely never mentioned as being part of the exercises. But, we found an anomaly. Just amatter of weeks after the Cheonan sinking, in mid April 2010, the sub just happened to pull into Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for its ‘Upkeep’ maintenance.

Nothing strange about that, those familiar with nuclear subs quarterly checks might suggest. But this was different. This maintenance was done in the dry-dock, which is highly unusual. Also, Guam has its own shipyard which provides repair, maintenance, overhaul and dry docking facilities.

So, why would it need to travel the exhausting distance across to Hawaii if it was only meant to be doing a standard quarterly maintenance check? Perhaps it was for something outside of the bounds of its Guam shipyards capabilities.

Just a coincidence; that a 110 meter 7th Fleet Guam based US sub which regularly visits South Korea just happened to need a highly unusual dry-dock maintenance session 4,000 miles away from its home port right after the Cheonan sunk? Could she be the rogue sub we’ve been searching for? Barring a full re-investigation into the incident, we’ll never know for sure.

But, one thing we do know for sure is, if the US and South Korean governments and their top chiefs in the military risked their credibility and their career to put this amount of effort into covering up an accident of this nature and scale, they certainly wouldn’t have done it for a ‘rogue’ sub that wasn’t theirs.

Protest ignored by Clinton

Another thing we know for sure is the researchers are not alone in their conclusions. Long before they put out their report Wikipedia states on its ‘ROKS Cheonan sinking’ page, under the heading ‘South Korea skepticism’, that Prosecutors in the National Assembly (South Korea’s Congress) questioned Shin Sang-cheol, who served on the investigation panel, about his assertion that the Cheonan sank in an ‘accident’ and that the evidence linking North Korea to the torpedo was tampered with.

Mr. Shin, who studied oceanography at Korea Maritime University, was first commissioned as a Navy second lieutenant and later discharged from active duty as a first lieutenant after serving on a patrol boat in the Yellow Sea.

Following his military service, he worked seven years for some of the biggest shipbuilding companies in the world, becoming a well respected company director. He then joined the investigative team of military and civilian experts at the recommendation of the Democratic Party, the previous name for the opposition party.

Mr. Shin was not the first to speak out. In May of 2010, the Central District Prosecutors’ Office began a probe into Park Sun-won, former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s secretary for national security, on charges that he spread false information about the sinking.

Mr. Park, a Northeast Asia energy and security visiting fellow, at the Brookings Institution, served as an adviser for a Democratic Party committee on the Cheonan investigation. He said in an MBC radio interview that the then President, Lee Myung-bak, and his administration were concealing information about the sinking.

At around the time of Mr. Park’s interview, Mr. Shin had the Defense Ministry demand the National Assembly to eject him from the investigation panel for “arousing public mistrust”. He was also later sued by the Navy.

But, Mr. Shin remained steadfast. He reiterated that he doubted the official conclusion on the sinking, saying that when he looked at the dead sailors bodies, they bore no signs of an explosion from a torpedo or a mine. He then sent a letter through the US Embassy to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who was visiting Seoul at the time. In it he outlined a plethora of clear evidence that proved the ship ran aground and then collided with another vessel.

Immediate reward

After Mrs. Clinton failed to take his findings forward, and no doubt whilst a comprehensive media strategy and compensation package were being hurriedly put together behind the scenes, an immediate ‘reward’ was given to South Korea.

President Obama selected Seoul as host of the next major nuclear security summit in 2012. Agence France-Presse (AFP), one of the world’s largest news agencies, reported that “the announcement surprised many”. Most observers at the time presumed that Russia would lead the next meeting.

 

 

It does happen

If you think this kind of incident between two technologically advanced billion dollar war machines doesn’t happen, it does. One stand out example just one year before the Cheonan disaster occurred on the night of the 4th of February 2009 when two nuclear-powered subs, both equipped with active and passive sonar, the British HMS Vanguard and the French Le Triomphant, collided underwater in the Atlantic. Vanguard returned to Scotland, under her own power and Le Triomphant to Brittany. Fortunately no one died that night.

So, if Dr. Caresta and Professor Kim‘s analysis of the seismic data is correct, and a sub the size of the USS City of Corpus Christi and the warship Cheonan did collide in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Possible ramifications

So what happens now, who will have the courage to take this treasure chest of information forward and do something with it? And what are the possible ramifications; inside the US and South Korean government administrations, along with their military top brass and the individuals in the investigation teams who clearly ignored the facts, manipulated their report, tampered with the evidence to frame another country, and lied to the world?

At the very least the findings in the research article demand that on behalf of the victims families, the Cheonan case be re-opened and the incident re-investigated, this time by a new independent international team of trustworthy members, hopefully lead and chosen by a strong minded and non-politically affiliated expert such as Mr. Shin or Mr. Park.

Sewol victims families stance – fully vindicated

This travesty of justice also calls into question the trustworthiness of the re-investigation into the recent Sewol ferry disaster which is about to begin in South Korea. The tragedy claimed the lives of 304 people, mostly middle school students, some of whom could be later seen on TV in slow motion replays banging on the windows calling out for help.

The victim’s families starved themselves and slept on the street in order to encourage the rest of their fellow countrymen and women, to get behind them and force the government’s hand into finally signing off a special bill in the National Assembly. All they wanted was to properly re-investigate the tragedy and because they didn’t trust the authorities in charge, have the power to indict the perpetrators.

They still don’t have the power to indict, as that was ironically claimed by the ruling conservative Sae-nuri party to be ‘un-constitutional’.

They are the same party, under a different name, that presided over the Cheonan investigation, and who at first not surprisingly wouldn’t agree to the families request for a special bill. The opposition party who supported them walked out of the National Assembly for a month or so supposedly stopping up to 7,000 other ‘business-type’ pieces of legislation from being passed.

Through the government-influenced mass media reporting, this convinced most people that the families were holding the country to ransom. Surely now, all South Korean people who care about justice and those interested observers around the planet, will realize that they and their supporter’s mistrust of the government was well placed, and their never-say-die stance, has been fully vindicated.

 

 

A case for the courts

Perhaps the ramifications will stretch even further than that. If the past President during the investigations, Mr. Lee, and the current President, Miss Park (who was the leader of the then named Grand National Party at the time), and a number of top officials who are still part of the set up, allowed and were in full knowledge of the investigation teams manipulation, tampering and lying…isn’t there a significant case to be put forward for them to individually face criminal charges in the Constitutional Court, and if those charges stick for their ruling party to be dissolved?

The only problem with that is the judges, a number of whom were chosen by, and/or are associates of, the very people they would be assessing on trial. This is a well recognized problem in South Korea. Perhaps in that case it might be more appropriate to haul the individuals concerned before the more unbiased International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

But, that would first require the support of China and Russia (who South Korea purposely shut out of the Cheonan investigation process), with their substantial vetoing power on the UN Security Council. Damn. Oops.

Some might say that’s taking it too far, some would say not far enough. One thing is clear though, if we can’t trust our governments on serious matters of this kind, what can we trust them on?

Certainly, a ‘watch this space’ notice deserves to be hung over this intriguing development, as the innocent well-meaning citizens who’ve been lied to, marginalized and generally castigated in public by those in the seats of power, now potentially have the ammunition to rise up.

This is assuming they want to, that the analysis of the seismic data holds up, that a solid case can be built around it and there are enough gutsy attorneys, trustworthy investigators and creditable witnesses who are willing to put their career, perhaps even their lives, on the line for justice.

And what of the Americans

If it does escalate, the Americans in the highest echelons of power today who were in some way entangled in their own self-created mess, won’t be able to just sit on the sidelines with their arms folded. If their US sub did in fact kill those young sailors and they lied, concealed, cajoled and allowed a communist country to be wrongly framed for it, the Chinese and Russians will certainly ensure they too will serve their day in court.

The result of which could shake the very foundation of their government and put a dent in their military forces self-proclaimed right to ride around on their democratic ‘chariot of freedom’, making the world a safer place.

While you ponder all that, as it is our custom, we’d like to sign off with an excerpt from a Dharma quote by the revered Korean Buddhist Monk, Venerable Song-chol, entitled ‘Karma:

“Karma is what you do and what you reap as a result.”

 

By JT Sebastian, Collapse Network

 

 

 

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