BREAKING - Two American journalists convicted and get 12 years in N. Korea labor camp!

KFI - John Batchelor show ^ | 6-7-09 | dfu

[doug from upland]

Headline tells the story

[theDentist]

So much for Ostammer’s warm fuzzy Kumbaya diplomacy. So what’s he gonna surrender to NK to get them out?

[sergeantdave]

Hope these women like tree bark soup. American leftists, which I assume these women are, probably had the naive notion that they would be greeted as fellow Marxist workers in the struggle against the capitalist running dogs.

Leftists devour each other whenever it suits their needs - to gain power or steal money.

I wouldn’t enter NK without suport from the 1st Marine Division, 101st Airborne, the 7th fleet and a few B-1 squadrons.

[AmericanInTokyo]

I have not ruled that theory out. There could be North Korean connections to Connect TV somehow through such outfits (which they DO have connection to) like MoveOn.org or A.N.S.W.E.R.

That might get a bit conspiratorial. What is most likely is that they are double dealing after the snagging. I.e. they may not have gone there with the intent and collusion of being an inside job, but once they are there, the US, through Gore, will be forced to back channel and de-facto double deal and conspire with DPRK -- all at a price.

Liberal Koreans also got kidnapped by the Taliban, and released at a cost, but not before their own leader was killed by Taliban. People warned this Korean group NOT to go into danger's way.

[AmericanInTokyo]

The only people starting to protest their capture are (as I can appreciate) worried family members, but also a motly crew of San Francisco liberals and the usual activists and cause celebre types...who up until now did not show a rat's fart of interest about North Korea. Many in North Korea have had MUCH WORSE done to them than Euna and Laura's most excellent three month adventure--and the liberals in San Francisco were all silent during all these years and all these bodies, and all these prison camps, and all these missile launches and all these mass murders and purges and starvations. Now two of theirs are snagged...and we are supposed to go all Oprah 24/7 over it? And they get released long before kidnapped Koreans and Japanese being held there for 20 years still under detention? If they do wish to get out, I am afraid there is a long line they will have to get into at the end, not at the front just because they are "Americans" and have some kind of privilege.

[livius]

Interesting. That could be true; it wasn’t a set-up from the start, but it has provided a golden opportunity (golden in every sense!). It will be interesting to follow this; in fact, it will be interesting to see if it even gets much press coverage in the US.

[bikerman]

Ditto’s

[shadeaud]

We need Clooney and Oprah to make a trip along with Jimbo Carter. Clooney could get some decent Korean chow, Oprah can give out Ipods and Jimbo, well he can write another foolish book on how Bush failed us again(hey Jimbo, GW retired, it’s your bro now)

[AmericanInTokyo]

Oh, it will get MAJOR coverage in the USA of course. Which is exactly what North Korea wants.

The lib MSM will play it to death.

But silence on North Korea concentration camps for North Koreans. Silence on Police State tactics. Silence on missile launches. Silence on Japanese/South Koreans kidnapped and held for years on end. None of that will matter.

[HollyB]

The book, ‘Eyes of the Tailess Animals’ is a story about a NK woman who was committed to labor camp. She later escaped NK. The story is gruesome.

After reading that book, I don’t see how anyone could survive more than a couple of years there.

[Flint]

I hate it for them. But journalists think they can get away with the crap they do inside the US when they go overseas. They have no concept of the way the rest of the world works.

[spectre]

The NK dear leader will release these naive “reporters” in a couple of months. Until then,these two gals will learn how to plant and grow cabbage.

They'll be repeatedly raped and then given forced abortions.
They'll be fed practically nothing and scramble to find rats to eat. But even rats are scarse, so anything that crawls on it's belly or lives in a web will be life sustaining.

Cabbage? I Pray they have cabbage.

sw

[concerned about politics]

They are hostages ... plain and simple

I think so, too. I do question what they were doing there in the first place. They worked for Al Gore's "We're all gonna die" TV. They're definitely far left wing activists.
The liberals butt their noses into everyone elses business, and people don't like it. This time, they chose the wrong target.
I feel sorry for the young girls. They're too young to understand what liberal activism really is. Now they're going to have to pay the price for it.

[HollyB]

Ping to 165

Interesting read. Have a good day, 444.

[AmericanInTokyo]

They will be old women indeed, if they come out of those DPRK labour camps, even after 1/2 the sentence, i.e. 6 years. If they do go in there, they will see immense atrocities and humans reduced to animals; they will not come back with their minds in tact unless they have immense faith and inner courage.

[mvpel]

At the very least, it’ll shatter their delusions that all cultures are equally praiseworthy and that communism is just another cultural style.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

They work for Al Gore’s propaganda outlet. Anything is possible.

[JimRed]

I feel sorry for the young girls. They're too young to understand what liberal activism really is. Now they're going to have to pay the price for it.

I don't like to see anyone abused, but I have a hard time mourning for leftists who fall afoul of their own kind.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

Lisa Ling, Laura Ling’s sister, went undercover in NK few years back.

http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/917/3718/703.html

[Centurion2000]

Hostages ... and Obama won’t have the stones to get them released.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

The Hawaiian good luck sign!