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I am waiting for Dennis Rodhman to get pinched in NK. Of course his propaganda value precludes that.
Mr. Rodman had best not count on that too much. He is not immune. KJ wouldn't give a rat's behind about the celebrity outcry it would cause. I don't know why KJ likes Rodman for now. Maybe he sees him as an amusement, a way to relieve boredom, a potential propaganda tool, or a curiousity. But the instant he changes his mind he could decide "bad boy" Dennis needs to be taught a lesson.
My heart goes out to his family but he bears the responsibility for putting himself in harm's way.
I feel really strongly about the US not going to extraordinary lengths to rescue people who knowingly enter dangerous situations like this. With the exception of active military, anyone who enters a high risk territory should be responsible for their own fate. How many resources -time and money - have been spent on these kinds of cases that could have been avoided?
I think Dennis Rodman goes to NK because he wants to be a goodwill ambassador for the United States. I admire him for what he's (at least attempting) to do.
I think Otto was not matur enough to visit such a country. It is not like Disneyland where you are scolded by the security service when you do something wrong.
He probably did think it would be like Disneyland. The guy was delusional and not grounded in reality at all. And many young adults, in college or just out, have no idea what these countries are really like. They have no idea how the American justice system is different. But it's more common these days, that college-aged people want to travel, anywhere, even if they can't in some cases, afford it. A lot of them have to be putting it on credit cards. It's like, they see it as a rite of passage or they have a sense of entitlement about traveling all over the world. For some of these people, like Amanda Knox and Natalie Holloway, it does not end well.
Every year, about 2,000 Americans get locked up abroad. And I'm sure a lot of them are young (under 25) and doing stupid things they shouldn't be doing in another country. They'd be better off just getting a job here in the US and start working on a career path. Nobody is going to be impressed that they traveled to all these countries, anyway. No one will care.
I've ignored State Department travel warnings in the past, such as the year I went to Thailand almost immediately after a coup, but those warnings were nothing like this:
To me, if you ignore this kind of travel warning from our State Department, you're a fool.
Agreed. There are State Department travel warnings, and then there are serious State Department travel warnings. This is one of the latter. Following the laws to a T is no protection in North Korea, because THERE ARE NO LAWS! The law is whatever Kim Jong Un says it is, and it changes from hour to hour. Someone who visits North Korea is putting themselves under the complete control of an absolute dictatorship that's currently being run by a crazy man and is still technically in a state of war with the US. That makes it a very different place from countries like Singapore or China (which have functioning legal systems, abet very different from our own, and have diplomatic relations with the US).
It's very sad that this young man didn't understand this. I wonder if he even read the State Department warning (or the very similar warnings put out by other countries such as Britain, Australia, and Canada) before signing up for that tour.
It's a shame Obama was useless. Perhaps this boy could have been released before something dire happened. Trump administration managed it quickl probably because Kim Jong Un is afraid of Trump -- must watch CNN!.
I heard Dennis Rodman, who is visiting North Korea now, brought him a gift: Trump's book, The Art of the Deal. Hey, don't give our enemies Trump's negotiating secrets! I hope Rodman can be instrumental in talking sense into the N. Korean dictator. From what little I've seen of the country online, it appears to be a tourist paradise in terms of natural beauty. It would be a shame to see it destroyed.
If you read anything about their prison camps, it shouldn't be too hard to imagine.
Poor kid. He made a dumb mistake and it ruined his life.
I saw a brief news blip of an interview with one of the docs at the hospital where they took the young man. The only thing he mentioned was that he had sustained a "major neurological injury", no other details. I figure that is courtesy of his NK captors.
What I cannot for the life of me understand is why anyone would go to NK to begin with.
It's a shame Obama was useless. Perhaps this boy could have been released before something dire happened. Trump administration managed it quickl probably because Kim Jong Un is afraid of Trump -- must watch CNN!.
Nonsense. Kim Jong Un isn't afraid of Donald Trump. He isn't afraid of anything; that's one of his problems. (The other is that he's decided that North Korea: International Mugger is a viable long-term economic plan for his country. "Nice little city you have there; pity if something happened to it..." That's his reason for wanting missile-mounted nukes.)
Quote:
I hope Rodman can be instrumental in talking sense into the N. Korean dictator. From what little I've seen of the country online, it appears to be a tourist paradise in terms of natural beauty. It would be a shame to see it destroyed.
It would be wonderful if Rodman could do that, but he can't. Some of Kim's senior advisers and close relatives have tried; all they got for it were spectacularly nasty deaths.
The only thing that is going to work is regime change. But that comes with its own problems (namely millions of starving North Korean citizens having to be integrated into South Korea, or alternately pouring across the northern border into China.)
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