Defense chief blames 'surprise attack' for ship sinking, calls it 'day of shame'

Yonhap News ^ | 05/04/2010 | Chang Jae-soon

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Tuesday a "surprise attack" sank one of South Korea's naval ships in March and that the country will remember the incident as a "day of shame" for its military.

Kim made the remark during a report to President Lee Myung-bak at a meeting of top military commanders, but stopped short of directly mentioning North Korea, though the communist nation has been widely believed to be responsible.

"Our naval ship came under a surprise attack on March 26 while on a patrol mission. We bitterly regret that it revealed a hole in the defense posture and that soldiers were killed," Kim told the meeting. "We will remember this day as a day of shame."

The 1,200-ton vessel Cheonan broke in half and sank near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea, the scene of deadly skirmishes between the two navies in 1999, 2002 and most recently in November last year. Forty-six sailors were killed.

The North has denied any responsibility, calling allegations of its involvement a fabrication.

During the meeting with about 150 top military commanders, President Lee called for an intensive overhaul of the military and censured generals over a series of problems the sinking has revealed

[Travis McGee]

The ROK needs to send a nasty “accident” to the north.

Deniable, of course.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I agree

[throwback]

but stopped short of directly mentioning North Korea

..."We bitterly regret that it revealed a hole in the defense posture"

The real hole in your defense posture is that you don't have the guts to name the enemy.

[mcshot]

I also think it’s short sighted to keep your capitol within artillery range of the enemy. If it’s going to be gone anyway it seems wise to voluntarily move it before it’s a smoking ruin.

[LenS]

How do you move over ten million people in that region? It would be much cheaper to just start building neutron bombs and irradiate everything north of the DMZ to get all that artillery.

[Cyber Liberty]

I don’t think you would move the entire city. Just the government stuff...

[Joe Boucher]

mcshot, that isn’t all that easy.
Korea is about as accsessable as W.Virginia.
Pittsburgh is there as a result of river access so is Seoul.

[usurper]

I would view any NK sub in SK or international waters as a hostile and sink it. I would not claim credit and would deny any involvement if NK complained about missing subs.

This would put NK in the embarrassing position of having lost subs and crews and no evidence to point the finger at SK. Our subs did a lot of work during the cold war we still don’t know about.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Unannounced nasty accident SK don't claim as its own as NK did. That would be what you need to in this kind of situation.

I was thinking something like blowing up the bridge over Yalu if possible. It would send message not only to Pyongyang but also to Beijing.

However, if that cannot be done, alternative is to make some strategic change. It does not have to be loudly public. Start SK’s own project for medium-to-long range missiles. Begin with the one which has the range of 2000 km. That would put Beijing and Tokyo within the range. It would spur Japan to match SK’s move, then Chicom would suddenly face the prospect that numerous missiles of SK and Japan are pointing at them. This would make China rethink its habit of scuttling any attempt of putting serious pressure on N. Korea, by providing back channel lifeline to N. Korea.

[Chode]

no ASW on that thing???

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The ROKS Cheonen did have ASW but probably could not detect those mini subs.

[Patton@Bastogne]

great idea