Posted on 02/28/2019 9:38:51 AM PST by tkocur
OK - it was legal and stupid.
North Korea has made it clear they answer to nobody; that absolves them of responsibility for anything that happens to anyone foolish enough to enter their borders.
Do you disagree that Otto Warmbier is responsible for his own death? The State Department certainly warned people of the dangers before he went.
Warmbier did not kill himself, so he was not responsible. However, Kim Jong Un is responsible, because there is likely no way he did not get regular reports on that guy, they did not even have him in a prison camp, but in a guest house in Pyongyang, or in a hospital, or in interrogation sessions in the department of public security, all fairly decent places in the capital city in comparison to the gulags up in the northern part of the country in the boonies. President made it sound like in his statement that Warmbier was somehow lost in this massive system of prison camps somehow conditions unknown by KJU. (Was that what he was told, I wonder? North Korea lies about all foreigners they detain or kidnap, like the many Japanese still there). Nope, Otto was very more than likely simply down the road from Kim Jong Un for that entire year either sealed into a room in the Yangakkdo Hotel, or in the guest house for foreigners in detention, probably no less than a mile or two away.
President Trump could just as well asked Kim, over that lunch, did you send the 10-man team to Kuala Lumpur to assassinate your half brother with VX-gas at the airport in broad daylight? Or did you send your uncle up before the firing squads along with members of his family—and order many others in the party to their deaths? His answer would be the same: Cue Sgt. Schultz: “I know NOTHING.” President should be more careful in legitimizing that criminal.
Trump shouldn’t have said it - I believe that was a feeble attempt at diplomacy - but in the end, Otto Warmbier set in motion the events that led to his death.
I can only guess that one concern of any politicians dealing with these dictators is the fear (on the dictators’ parts) that they will suffer the fates of Saddam or Qaddafi (death) or Noriega (imprisonment) if they ever relinquish power. While they hold power, I assume nobody wants to spook them during negotiations.
Right on!
His confession.
But let’s say that he never did any of what he was accused of. It doesn’t change anything. Any American traveling in North Korea should expect exactly this type of thing to happen to them. For no good reason at all. It isn’t right. It isn’t justified. But it is reality.
Foolish and dangerous yes. But he was murdered. By somebody else. And that ultimately is at the feet of DPRK, as they committed the crime. Trump is almost now back to this point with his revised statements. Kim Jong Un cannot claim ignorance if these events. That’s not how NK works, nor their carefully honed “hostage diplomacy.”
Too many assume that Kim is the actual seat of power in the North. There’s good reason to think that the Nork generals run the show as much or more than Kim does. Kim is walking a tightrope as he tries to bring the Norks into the civilized world.
Kim spent his schoolboy years in Switzerland. He was an unassuming kid, well liked by his schoolmates, who followed sports and participated in theater IIRC. He knows and admires a lot about the West. His friendship with crazy Dennis Rodman tells you a lot more about the fat boy than all the belligerent talk and evil behavior that people assume comes from Kim.
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