This is for conspiracy theorists and those who know the history of false flag operations. On the matter of the North Korean affair.

Oh, you mean like 9/11? ;)

Ok, the risk of this is way too high. 25 million people or so live in the Seoul metro area, most of which could be killed in 10–30 minutes with conventional weapons launched from the NK border. In a day most of the 60 million or so South Koreans would be dead in an all out attack, without using a nuclear weapon.
This is not something to mess around with.

@patg7590
Yes, like the 9/11 conspiracy theory, or the Gleiwitz incident, or the Reichstag Fire, or Operation Northwoods, or the second Golf of Tonkin Incident, or the Lavon Affair, or the shelling of a Soviet village by Soviet forces then blaming it on the Fins.

I think you have a good point. Cui Bono? Who benefits? Perhaps the US wants a reason to take on NK, who knows. And don’t think for a second that the US gov wouldn’t risk SK lives if they thought it could save American ones/further US interests.

Under this administration not at all.

Several parties would benefit. The CIA would gather valuable intel on how a third world nuclear power with despotic leadership, such as NK and allegedly Iran would behave when faced with a military invasion of their country.
They could use this Intel to find out if an Invasion of Iran could be done without Iran using its alleged nuclear arsenal.
The American Military Industrial Complex, the Military and the entire defence apparatus would gain a convenient excuse for further expansion.
The US government would gain more influence and power on the international stage, to advance their imperialist ambitions more easily.
It would also gain an excuse to erode civil rights even more, using the more prevalent nuclear threat posed by rogue nations as an exuse.

@WestRiverrat
Only if you assume that the current administration has total control or knowledge about what its agencies do. Which they do not.

North and South Korea have been fighting for years. I don’t think it was us… and I’m usually quick to point a finger. :)

@ragingloli – the US has ~25,000 troops based in South Korea from what I can work out. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as any sane man (many of the proponents should write SF novels; there’s more money in it), but I see the “how far can you push a nuclear power” scenario as extremely unlikely – given your own premiss about limited involvement, and the economic consequences of such an action.

If you were to push a conspiracy theory about the incident, I would suggest that the Chinese government, in collaboration with an African government would be more interesting. At least the premises would hold face validity.

NK is testing the resolve of the Obama administration. For the past 4 administrations, US has caved in to NK when they threaten violence on SK.

They are just testing to see if we have the resolve to allow SK to retaliate. And I doubt even the CIA would pick a country run by an unstable despot to test this theory.

I woundn’t be surprised at that senerio if Bush was still president. It sounds like just the kind of operation that would please Cheney. If such a thing happened, I would bet that it was behind Obama’s back More that likely it was the little dictator of N. Korea that is trying to distract he people from the fact that he is starving them to death.

I couldn’t really speculate with any root in plausibility. My gut reaction, though, is more centered on the multiplicity of crises and that there’s likely a center of intention for that or possibly these crises are symptoms of a power struggle between two or more factions operating behind the scenes.

There’s a good bit of discussion of the incident on abovetopsecret.com, including an assertion that the torpedo fragments had German markings.

@arpinum That is the stupidest post I have ever read on fluther.

@beancrisp Care to justify your remarks?

Supposedly there is lots of evidence pointing to NK.
There are satellite photos of the sub leaving NK port 3 days before and returning one day after.
SK dredged the ocean site on 5/15 and pulled up other parts consistent with NK torpedoes.
The prop, motor and steering section match the CHT-02D torpedo shown for sale in NK military advertising. (It worked)
The blue marking is similar to that shown on a previously captured NK torpedo.
The SK ship was blown up from the outside

It’s a simple case of nut case leadership..

Some people have been reading too many spy novels and have contracted incipient paranoia.

North Korea had no motive to do this, unless it was a revenge torpedo from an incident last year prior in which the South fired a torpedo on a DPRK boat that had traveled into disputed waters.

The odds are, this was a provocateur event, not created by North Korea.

Conspiracy theories make me niggly, i think it discredits the intelligent critique one normally associates with the left and spoils a lot of good work built upon educated, lucid, substantive arguments or even a good instinctive hunch based upon worldly experience. Having said all that, this kind of insane incident blows the pandaron box of conspiracy theories wide open. Sadly though people have died, they have paid the penalty for the madness and paranoid brinkmanship between a Superpower who have declared Communism illegal and a country under siege, determined to stick with it no matter how much it’s people suffer, out of bloody minded principle.

Despite the popular belief of conspiracy theorists the world over, the vast majority of our worlds leaders (let alone our own countries leaders) do not want to start a war with anyone (let alone a war that would likely mean millions of deaths).

North Korea did it. It may have been just some trigger happy paranoid captain in the North Korean navy, but they still did it.

Observation only.

@ragingloli, here is an article that speaks more in detail about what I was referring to.

@kevbo
A very interesting article, thank you.

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-sinking-of-the-cheonan-another-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/

Haven’t read all of it yet.

@kevbo That article is a waste of your time and full of false info.

We have satellite imagery that has a North Korean sub leaving port in the area.

They found torpedo casings with North Korean markings on them at the site.

The South was slow to accuse the North because they were doing a thorough investigation and knew that they didn’t want to inflame their crazy neighbor to the north without any actual reason (should they have found it wasn’t the North).

And the investigation has been verified and approved of by every foreign nation thats looked at it, excluding only China, who has stuck to a “No comment” approach publicly, while privately being said to agree that it was the North.

South Korea, the United States, and the entire world have no reason to want to go to war. Why plant a false flag to start a war that you don’t want that will cost millions of lives? And even if it were somehow plotted by people who do want a war, our investigators aren’t idiots, they’d have found that out.

North Korea did this. Be it some crazy sub captain or an actual planned attack, they did it.

One might postulate that North Korea is a foil used to pressure Japan to comply with our defense interests. I don’t think it’s farfetched to imagine that possibility here. It can be regarded as an established pattern that precedes this particular incident.

@CIA not observation only

North Korean leadership is stupid and isolated enough to make these mistakes on their own. We do not need to throw gasoline on their fires of stupidity.