Beijing suspects false flag attack on South Korean  corvette
    By  Wayne Madsen
Online  Journal Contributing Writer
    May 28, 2010, 00:18
          
 
(WMR) -- WMR's intelligence sources in Asia suspect that the March attack on the South  Korean Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, the Cheonan, was a false flag attack designed to appear as coming from North Korea.
   One of the main purposes for increasing tensions on  the Korean peninsula was to apply pressure on Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to reverse course on moving the U.S. Marine Corps base off  Okinawa. Hatoyama has admitted that the tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan  played a large part in his decision to allow the U.S. Marines to remain on  Okinawa. Hatoyama's decision has resulted in a split in the ruling center-left  coalition government, a development welcome in Washington, with Mizuho Fukushima,  the Social Democratic Party leader threatening to bolt the coalition over  the Okinawa reversal.
   The Cheonan was sunk near Baengnyeong  Island, a westernmost spot that is far from the South Korean coast, but opposite  the North Korean coast. The island is heavily militarized and within  artillery fire range of North Korean coastal defenses, which lie across a narrow  channel.
   The Cheonan, an ASW corvette, was decked out with state-of-the-art sonar, plus it was operating in waters with extensive hydrophone sonar arrays and acoustic underwater sensors. There is no South Korean sonar or audio evidence of a torpedo, submarine or mini-sub in the area. Since there is next to no  shipping in the channel, the sea was silent at the time of the sinking.
   However, Baengnyeong Island hosts a joint US-South  Korea military intelligence base and the US Navy SEALS operate out of the base. In  addition, four U.S. Navy ships were in the area, part of the joint U.S-South  Korean Exercise Foal Eagle, during the sinking of the Cheonan.  An investigation of the suspect torpedo's metallic and chemical fingerprints show it to be of German manufacture. There are suspicions that the US Navy SEALS maintains a  sampling of European torpedoes for sake of plausible deniability for false flag  attacks. Also, Berlin does not sell torpedoes to North Korea, however, Germany  does maintain a close joint submarine and submarine weapons development  program with Israel.
   The presence of the USNS Salvor,  one of the participants in Foal Eagle, so close to Baengnyeong Island during the sinking of the South Korean corvette also raises  questions.
   The Salvor, a civilian Navy salvage ship, which participated in mine laying  activities for the Thai Marines in the Gulf of Thailand in 2006, was present near the  time of the blast with a complement of 12 deep sea divers.
   Beijing, satisfied with North Korea's Kim Jong Il's  claim of innocence after a hurried train trip from Pyongyang to Beijing, suspects  the U.S. Navy's role in the Cheonan's sinking, with particular  suspicion on the role of the Salvor. The suspicions are as follows:
   1. The Salvor engaged in a seabed  mine-installation operation, in other words, attaching horizontally fired anti-submarine  mines on the sea floor in the channel.
   2. The Salvor was doing routine inspection  and maintenance on seabed mines, and put them into an electronic active mode  (hair trigger release) as part of the inspection program.
   3. A SEALS diver attached a magnetic mine to the Cheonan, as part of a covert program aimed at influencing public opinion in South Korea, Japan and China.
   The Korean peninsula tensions have conveniently overshadowed all other agenda items on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visits to Beijing and Seoul.
   Previously published  in the Wayne Madsen Report.
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