Held hostage in North Korea

FOR NEARLY FIVE MONTHS, two American journalists have been held hostage by the government of North Korea. Most Americans, it seems, couldn’t care less. The abduction of the two women - both married, one the mother of a young daughter - hasn’t evoked one-tenth of the passion that followed the death of Michael Jackson or the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. Why aren’t we up in arms over this abuse of our fellow citizens? Why is there no deafening hue and cry for their release?

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were seized by North Korean guards on March 17. They were on assignment along the country’s border with China, investigating the plight of North Korean refugees and human trafficking victims. The North Korean regime has a history of abducting innocent foreigners, then using them to extort bribes or propaganda concessions from the West. So there is every reason to doubt its claim that Ling and Lee illegally crossed the border, let alone that they freely confessed to “criminal acts’’ or to planning a “smear campaign’’ against North Korea.

1. Current TV has as one of its principle’s one Albert Gore. You can’t embarass the Goracle in the media.

2. Since you can’t embarass the Goracle these American’s don’t really matter and they’re on their own.

3. State controlled media only care about 1 and 2.

Like all liberals, those two gals do not think fellow socialists are any threat to them, and any problem can be resolved with a short discussion.

But maybe 12 years hard labor will make them have second thoughts - if they survive the first five. And if they somehow manage to get out before they either starve or are beaten to death, then they will have many great money making opportunities - all of which will state it was their own fault and the poor NKs were just doing their jobs.

if they somehow manage to get out before they either starve or are beaten to death, then they will have many great money making opportunities... or, perhaps, blindingly brilliant opportunities to show all their judgment,discernment and wisdom all together, like this freaky-deaky Dutch girl:

Well, Yes, the Taliban Raped Me, But They Also Respected Me — They Are Not Monsters

From the Brussels Journal comes the mind-blowing story of a left-wing Dutch journalist, Joanie de Rijke, who went to Afghanistan to conduct a sympathetic interview with Taliban jihadists who had just killed ten French troops. Naturally, she was abducted and serially raped for six days. And now she is angry . . . not at the chief Taliban thug — who showed her "respect," though, regrettably, "he could not control his testosterone" — but at the Dutch and Belgian governments who refused to pay the $2 million ransom the jihadists demanded. And of course, in the Netherlands, the media and the government are furious at Geert Wilders for pointing out the obvious:

This story is a perfect illustration of the moral decline of our elites. They are so blinded by their own ideology that they turn a blind eye to the truth. Rape? Well, I would put this into perspective, says the leftist journalist: the Taliban are not monsters. Our elites prefer to deny reality rather than face it. One would expect: a woman is being raped and finds this unbearable. But this journalist is not angry because the Muslim involved also showed respect. Our elites, whether they are politicians, journalists, judges, subsidy gobblers or civil servants, are totally clueless. Plain common sense has been dumped in order to deny reality. It is not just this raped journalist who is suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but the entire Dutch elite. The only moral reference they have is: do not irritate the Muslims – that is the one thing they will condemn.

[Andy McCarthy, NRO's Corner, 6 June '09]

AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE! AL GORE FAILURE!

...in case you haven’t heard....

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