I think that one of the reasons that the US government was so willing
and eager to support the South Korean government in its claims is that
raising the North Korean threat gave the US additional leverage to
discipline a Japanese government that was thinking about demanding a
reduced US base presence in Okinawa.
In other words, I am pretty confident that the initial charge was
generated by the South Korean government, responding to its own
political interests, which were to reinvigerate the anti-North Korean
political atmosphere in the South and strengthen its hand in the
elections just completed. The US government was happy to oblige, even
though the evidence was scant, because of its own interests, which
included Japan as Anthony noted.
Significantly, the South Korean government has yet to make public its
400 page report. Rather it has shared only its 5 page summary--and here
I am talking about with the South Korean national assembly.
The Russians sent their own investigators to the South to do their own
independent investigation. When it was over the Russians declared that
they would not support any statement that blamed the North for the
incident.
Marty
On 7/18/2010 3:02 PM, Anthony D'Costa wrote:
A week ago in Stanford while at a conference I heard that the the
target of this sinking is Japan (and the whole issue of US' Okinawa base).
Anthony
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Marty Hart-Landsberg
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Sadly, my spanish is not good enough to understand all that is being
said in the video--but I do remember hearing that Fidel had previously
written about the sinking of the South Korean navel vessel,
arguing that
it was not caused by North Korea as claimed, but more likely the
result
of a U.S. mine.
The consensus within the progressive community in South Korea is that
the South Korean government is clearly lying when it claims that
it has
evidence linking North Korean to the sinking. The South Korean
government made these charges hoping to win big in recent local
elections; much to their displeasure they took a beating.
Here is a link to a recent piece that highlights the weakness of the
South Korean claims: http://japanfocus.org/-Seunghun-Lee/3382
if you read the article you will be shocked at how weak the official
claims actually are.
As to the actual cause of the sinking, no one is quite sure, but the
general feeling within South Korean progressive circles has
shifted from
blaming a U.S. mine to a collision with a reef, which was in fact what
the coast guard was initially told had happened when called to come to
the rescue of the sailors.
Regardless, what is happening around this issue is very similar to
what
happened before the Iraq invasion, when the US put forward all
sorts of
claims of weapons of mass destruction to justify its invasion. The
media just repeats what it is told, in this case by the South
Korean and
US governments, never giving any legitimacy to those that
challenge the
official story.
Marty
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