Discussion for article #247477
North Korea’s policies and actions are reprehensible in the extreme and that should be clear to everyone with half a brain. You have to be bone headed stupid to try to do stunts like this there.
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Pretty friggin’ high price to pay.
Here’s hoping that the Obama administration can work something out: very commonly in such cases, NK is looking for some kind of concession somewhere else. It’s a kind of hostage-taking.
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It is a high price to pay, but how friggin’ dumb would a person need to be to do this?
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Indeed! Usually it’s a “Look at Me!” from the crackpot leadership. They crave some high ranking or high profile American of some note to visit and, in that, they see the “Evil West” and the US as bending to their will. It’s a sick and sad game they play, but an old and predictable one.
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That’s not even the threshold question. The real question is, how dumb would a person need to be to travel to North Korea in the first place? This is a government that might snatch any Westerner at random to hold hostage - you wouldn’t even have to do anything in particular to attract their attention.
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Kids make poor choices. Let’s hope Obama can work some magic for this kid!
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Reminds me of the people (a couple?) who were backpacking on the Iran/Iraq border and get caught by Iranians.
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And how much should we give to North Korea for release of this idiot?
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Dennis Rodman
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In rapid succession you say “another one” and then your heart goes out to him and then you think “God, what an idiot.” But in this case I’m thinking how odd the motivations were—mother of a friend offers a car worth 10K and $200,000 if he doesn’t make it? And some secret society is in the mix? Guy keeps some strange company, at the very least.
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My guess would be that none of that is true. I think he’s ginning up this stuff to keep the North Koreans happy. If he stuck to what is probably the truth - that he tried to snatch the banner as a neat souvenir of his trip - they’d be hard-pressed to explain why they were throwing him in prison. These wild background stories feed into the North Koreans’ narrative - greedy capitalist, vast conspiracy aimed at NK, and so on.
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That makes sense but the wild background stories sounded halfway plausible. Lately I’ve been feeling that not only is anything possible, really crazy stuff is a lot more probable than I might have thought in years past.
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Going to North Korea in the first place is criminal stupidity for any American not doing so in an official capacity. Before this guy went everyone was on notice that this criminal enterprise masquerading as a sovereign nation kidnaps citizens of Democratic countries in exchange for this or that. HE knew what he was getting himself into crossing the border, so the U.S. should not compromise itself for his safety. Maybe the message will get out to others to stay the hell out of there too.
Note too that they do not kidnap citizens of, say, Russia or China, for they know there will be consequences. like what the Russians did to a Hezbollah when it messed with them. I am not advocating Trumpesque admiration for the foreign policies of tyrants, but just once we should give the Kim crime family a taste of its own medicine (like we do to other terrorists), and it might back off.
Are we sure he did?
Are we sure he did? It’ll probably turn out he was doing Missionary work.
Missionary work hardly excuses entering a nation posing such risks. If your church asked for volunteers to perform Christian missionary work in ISIS controlled territory in Syria I’d have scant sympathy were you killed or kidnapped for ransom. Be a bit more circumspect in picking your battles.
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American Tourist or American Missionary? If it’s the latter, they can keep him.
Q. What is the number one job of a missionary?
A. To convince people to abandon their ridiculous superstitions and replace them with even more ridiculous superstitions.
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Kid? He’s a 21-year-old man. Overprivileged brats can’t go abroad and expect to act like drunken frat boys. Maybe in the USA he can get away with affluenza or some other nonsense. The silent majority should have their version of The Talk with their brats before they send them abroad.
American Tourist or American Missionary??
Q. What is the number one job of a missionary?
A. To convince people to abandon their ridiculous superstitions and replace them with even more ridiculous superstitions.