Act of War

It's official, almost — S.Korean warship 'hit by N.Korean torpedo'. I learned the truth weeks ago, from an in-law who was part of the rescue effort, but was sworn to secrecy.

What strikes me as pathetic is that "[t]he assessment was reported to the office of President Lee Myung-Bak and the defence ministry immediately after the ship sank last month." Instead of acting, as Aidan Foster-Carter suggested almost two weeks ago, "[q]uick to deny any North Korean role (while never quite ruling it out), Seoul's spin-doctors set to work," as "the [South Korean] president's Blue House would rather you not think about it, and they've been pretty successful" — The Cheonan cover-up. Mr. Foster-Carter:

First they focused on the quest to rescue anyone who might have survived - long after it was clear that they couldn't possibly have. It was cruel to keep false hopes alive, but politically it did the trick of distracting the populace for several vital days.

A second tack, essential to defusing any sense of crisis, was to put out alternative theories. Could the Cheonan have run aground or hit a reef? May its own munitions have exploded? An oldish craft, built in 1989, might it be unseaworthy as some family members suggested?

Well, maybe. But none of this sounds very convincing. It was getting harder to deny that something had hit the Cheonan, even before the survivors - whose sequestering for nearly two weeks was itself suspicious - confirmed on April 7 that an external blast was to blame.

But what? Enter the mine hypothesis. An old mine - either the South's or the North's, left over from the Korean War or soon after - may have come adrift and floated into the unfortunate Cheonan's path. Or perhaps been floated? Or maybe not a mine, but a torpedo?

All this goes to show, suggests Mr. Foster-Carter, that South Korean president "Lee Myung-bak hasn't a clue how to handle the North." He seems to know how to handle his own people, though, on both sides of the DMZ, by allowing the "brother nation" to get away with killing a few dozen sailors to let off some steam.

Of course, it's not my place pass judgment on the above; as Koreans always plead, "You have to understand the situation." From a Korean standpoint, everything above is probably perfectly reasonable. My question is, why is America pledged to defend a country that does not seem that interested in defending itself?