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LOL at all these people who willingly believe North Korean propaganda. It's highly unlikely that he stole a poster. He went with Young Pioneer Tours, a company based in mainland China with beautiful glowing all-5-star reviews on the travel sites, gushing with praise for the company and for beautiful North Korea.
It's all propaganda. He'd need to be insane to steal something there. This outfit allowed a young man to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and effectively brain damaged. If he's truly been in a coma for multiple months, his brain is probably damaged beyond repair. You don't come back from that.
Botulism, seriously? Botulism is a bacterium you get from tainted canned food. It's deadly if not treated. OK, so maybe he contracted botulism. Then they treated it with a sleeping pill? This is nonsensical.
North Korea is a horrible, absolute dictatorship that some day is either going to destroy South Korea and northern Japan, along with the West Coast of the U.S., or we're going to have to destroy them. It may happen in a few months, or in a few years, but it's going to happen. Don't go there. There's no such thing as people-to-people diplomacy when it comes to N.K. It's an insane country.
LOL at all these people who willingly believe North Korean propaganda. It's highly unlikely that he stole a poster. He went with Young Pioneer Tours, a company based in mainland China with beautiful glowing all-5-star reviews on the travel sites, gushing with praise for the company and for beautiful North Korea.
Yeah, a tour company whose motto is "providing budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from" ... so there's already a spirit of rebellion from the start. I don't think it's so unlikely that he stole a poster. Not saying he definitely did it. Just saying I think it's definitely in the realm of possible.
This! I wouldn't go there if you paid me. Mexico is even a "no" for me these days. There's plenty to see and do in the good old US of A.
Funny, my host family in Mexico were terrified of allowing their daughter to study in the US.
While NK is a different situation (and I have my doubts this young man stole the poster in the first place), you're at risk anywhere you go even in the good old US of A. Every time you get in a car, you are putting your life at risk. I can't imagine never traveling or spending time in other countries because fear ruled me.
I'm adding "Visiting NK" to my list of things to do before I die...it's going right after "Base jumping the Eiffel Tower...w/o parachute".
I feel bad for the guy, making a bad life choice that proved to be fatal -- and in the process caused his family so much grief, not to mention a political firestorm.
It's not NK propaganda. The guy was crying, whining, begging, freely admitting to stealing the poster. He didn't think his actions were that bad. It was a joke to him. His confession was real. If you chose to believe the North Korea targeted him and not his companions, then I might have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you... real cheap.
LOL at all these people who willingly believe North Korean propaganda. It's highly unlikely that he stole a poster. He went with Young Pioneer Tours, a company based in mainland China with beautiful glowing all-5-star reviews on the travel sites, gushing with praise for the company and for beautiful North Korea.
It's all propaganda. He'd need to be insane to steal something there. This outfit allowed a young man to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and effectively brain damaged. If he's truly been in a coma for multiple months, his brain is probably damaged beyond repair. You don't come back from that.
Botulism, seriously? Botulism is a bacterium you get from tainted canned food. It's deadly if not treated. OK, so maybe he contracted botulism. Then they treated it with a sleeping pill? This is nonsensical.
North Korea is a horrible, absolute dictatorship that some day is either going to destroy South Korea and northern Japan, along with the West Coast of the U.S., or we're going to have to destroy them. It may happen in a few months, or in a few years, but it's going to happen. Don't go there. There's no such thing as people-to-people diplomacy when it comes to N.K. It's an insane country.
Considering that North Korea's technology, science and medicine seem to be about about 60 years behind the developed world it would not surprise me that they would treat botulism with a sleeping pill. But this story is certainly getting stranger
What a hard lesson to learn, you don't mess around with NK. Imagine taking down a poster in a hotel room gets you 15 years of hard labor. Meanwhile in the US you can trash the President up to and including killing him on stage (shakespeare in the park) cutting off his head like isis (Griffin) and criticizing everything he says and even things that the protestors think he might say and do.
NK and the US is like night and day.
Maybe he can be treated and he will come out of his coma and be able to live the rest of his life.
Thank you for the comparison....I thought the same thing yesterday but hesitated to post it.
LOL at all these people who willingly believe North Korean propaganda. It's highly unlikely that he stole a poster. He went with Young Pioneer Tours, a company based in mainland China with beautiful glowing all-5-star reviews on the travel sites, gushing with praise for the company and for beautiful North Korea.
It's all propaganda. He'd need to be insane to steal something there. This outfit allowed a young man to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and effectively brain damaged. If he's truly been in a coma for multiple months, his brain is probably damaged beyond repair. You don't come back from that.
Botulism, seriously? Botulism is a bacterium you get from tainted canned food. It's deadly if not treated. OK, so maybe he contracted botulism. Then they treated it with a sleeping pill? This is nonsensical.
North Korea is a horrible, absolute dictatorship that some day is either going to destroy South Korea and northern Japan, along with the West Coast of the U.S., or we're going to have to destroy them. It may happen in a few months, or in a few years, but it's going to happen. Don't go there. There's no such thing as people-to-people diplomacy when it comes to N.K. It's an insane country.
I believe his neighbor or family friend admitted to asking him to steal a poster as a souvenir, so that part is NOT a lie. He was an idiot and tried to steal a poster in N. Korea, that is not in dispute.
But I think we all agree that the act of stealing a souvenir in not considered an act of a crime against a nation nor warrants a life imprisonment of hard labor. In a normal society it wouldn't even be at the level of a criminal offense, being yelled at and a kick in the behind usually being sufficient.
I believe his neighbor or family friend admitted to asking him to steal a poster as a souvenir, so that part is NOT a lie. He was an idiot and tried to steal a poster in N. Korea, that is not in dispute.
But I think we all agree that the act of stealing a souvenir in not considered an act of a crime against a nation nor warrants a life imprisonment of hard labor. In a normal society it wouldn't even be at the level of a criminal offense, being yelled at and a kick in the behind usually being sufficient.
Different countries=different laws
A lot of people around the globe consider the death penalty in the United States to be abnormal.
A lot of people around the globe would consider the United States' drug laws and lengthy prison sentences for possession or small time sales to be cruel and barbaric.
The bottom line in this case is that an entitled American visited a foreign country known for having harsh laws and a sketchy justice system and chose to break the law anyway. The punishment may have been harsh by US standards but the kid should have known that breaking the law in NK was not something to do lightly.
I also notice that many times when Americans break the laws of other sovereign nations, many people automatically leap to their defense and claim that they were victims of a corrupt system, the punishment was too harsh and demand that our government intervene in securing their release. Warmbier is a good example along with the idiots that drive into Mexico with guns and ammo in their vehicles.
How would Americans feel if the rest of the world thought they were exempt from our criminal laws or believed that the punishment should be doled out according to whatever their local standards were for a similar act?
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