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No kidding. Do we really believe that he stole that poster in any case? How do we know it wasn't fabricated? Perhaps he was forced to do it and "just happened" to get caught on the security cam. NK has been pulling that kind of crap for a long time, it would not surprise me.
Since the only information about this we are getting is from North Korea, we really don't know the true details. But I recall from news very early on, they found a poster in his luggage when he was getting ready to leave. He took the poster apparently as a souvenir. Now I'm reading where he just tore down the poster from where it was on a wall.
Which one is the story? What was the person in the video doing?
Many experts have their suspicions that he did it at all. The surveillance video is fuzzy at best, and you never saw the perpetrator's face. Also note that the poster wasn't stolen, it was just put on the ground.
He seemed drugged at the show trial, and the excuse that he gave about why he did it made absolutely no sense and was clearly not his words. His family was facing no financial difficulty to need a $10,000 car, and no church would hang the poster on it's walls. That sounds like a North Korean assumption about what US life is like, not reality.
It's all just tragic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FC76-81
Since the only information about this we are getting is from North Korea, we really don't know the true details. But I recall from news very early on, they found a poster in his luggage when he was getting ready to leave. He took the poster apparently as a souvenir. Now I'm reading where he just tore down the poster from where it was on a wall.
Which one is the story? What was the person in the video doing?
I'm not convinced that he actually did anything. At first I took the CCTV footage at face value, but later I realized that I was taking NORTH KOREA'S WORD FOR IT. So I immediately became skeptical.
If anyone can find an independent account of him having the poster in his luggage, then I might believe he did it. But how do we know it wasn't planted there?
Severe brain damage. They beat him so bad . Terrible and I am so angry! For taking a sign. This will fuel hatred of North Korea for what they did to this innocent kid.
His parents must be devastated. So very sad!!
This world have much evil.
They didn't beat him at all...there were no signs of current or old trauma
this had to be some sort of oxygen deprivation...whether torture or whatever
I'm not convinced that he actually did anything. At first I took the CCTV footage at face value, but later I realized that I was taking NORTH KOREA'S WORD FOR IT. So I immediately became skeptical.
If anyone can find an independent account of him having the poster in his luggage, then I might believe he did it. But how do we know it wasn't planted there?
Hell, who knows if, after arresting him, they didn't immediately drag him back to the hotel and force him to act out "stealing the poster" right then and there? Weird angle of the camera for a stationary security video. It's almost like someone was standing there with a tripod.
I'm not convinced that he actually did anything. At first I took the CCTV footage at face value, but later I realized that I was taking NORTH KOREA'S WORD FOR IT. So I immediately became skeptical.
If anyone can find an independent account of him having the poster in his luggage, then I might believe he did it. But how do we know it wasn't planted there?
We don't. It wouldn't be the first time NK trumped up charges to detain an American. There are 3 more there right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NLVgal
WTH did they do to the poor kid?
Rest In Peace kiddo. Being young and foolish shouldn't be punished by death.
No, it shouldn't. If every American were punished by torture and death for stupid things they did in their early 20's - this nation would be barely populated.
HuffPo and Salon Gloat Over Otto Warmbier Losing His "White Privilege"
What disgusting publications these liberal sites are. As Otto was suffering brain damage at the hands of the North Koreans, they were publishing articles mocking his white privilege and delighting in the fact that he was being harshly punished. And they didn't even bother to remove these articles now, after his death.
Quote:
After Otto Warmbier, a student visiting North Korea, was detained and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, Salon and the Huffington Post gloated over his punishment. Warmbier was an American citizen held by a hostile foreign government, but all these obsessed outlets could think about was his male whiteness.
Salon called him “America’s biggest idiot frat boy” in a piece covering Larry Wilmore’s equally cruel coverage of him. Salon then promoted the piece in a tweet, saying, “Frat boy Otto Warmbier gets the ‘Nightly Show’ treatment he so richly deserved.”
. . .
The piece wasn’t just callous. It reveled in Warmbier’s destruction. “What a bummer to realize that even the State Department with all its influence and power cannot assure your pardon,” Sha said. “What a wake-up call it is to realize that your tears are met with indifference.”
. . .
While an American was rotting in a North Korean prison, these partisan hacks delighted in the tragic circumstances that would lead to his death— because he was a white male.
I'm not convinced that he actually did anything. At first I took the CCTV footage at face value, but later I realized that I was taking NORTH KOREA'S WORD FOR IT. So I immediately became skeptical.
If anyone can find an independent account of him having the poster in his luggage, then I might believe he did it. But how do we know it wasn't planted there?
I think far more surprising than how North Korea has acted in this situation is how many people are willing to take it all on face value (and that's not picking on you BigD!). I see many people arguing BUT HE CONFESSED! Sure, at a show trial. In North Korea. After G-d knows what was already said or done to him. The confession doesn't make sense. The CCTV footage is sketchy and could be almost any tall male. It's all so suspect.
Yes, it was a bad, bad idea to go to North Korea. I get the feeling he thought it was like going to Cuba which for years was banned by the US government but was relatively safe for Americans to travel to (via Canada or Mexico). He had also spent time in Israel which is quite safe but always has an air of danger. He erroneously thought that North Korea was the same, and paid for it with his life. Unfortunately, it seems that many are willing to condemn him and look past the very thing they correctly cite: that North Korea is INSANE and not to be trusted.
When I was 20-21, I lived abroad in 3 different countries and spent a lot of time traveling on my own. Looking back, I'm shocked that I made it out alive. I was a smart kid, but felt invincible and wanted to fully experience the world on the large scholarships I had at my disposal to study abroad where ever I'd like. I remember passionately arguing that the best option for me academically would be to go to Bolivia for a summer on a filmmaking study abroad program to spend time with coca farmers. 20 year old me thought that was a sound decision. 29 year old me is very glad advisors pushed me toward going to Iceland instead. The fact is, some of the decisions I made would have gotten me killed on a more unlucky evening. By the grace of G-d go I.
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HuffPo and Salon Gloat Over Otto Warmbier Losing His "White Privilege"
