Made me want to host a NK family and take them to Walmart or any big box store.
I think they would believe the store was a fake, set up to fool them. Or perhaps that such a store is only available to the elites.
I agree in general.
But I also suppose that a careful look at the People of Wal*Mart would quickly disabuse them of the suspicion these are elite Americans. Actors in a fake store? Sure. Elites? Hah, it is to laugh.
I never thought of it much before but it wasn’t that long ago that I realized that anyone escaping North Korea heads north not south.
Presumably the difference is the South might be a preferable destination for an NK wannabe-refugee, but getting across the DMZ is a LOT harder than getting across the Yalu or the non-river parts of the NK/CN border.
For someone able to escape by boat or plane, as opposed to walking, the tradeoffs might be different.
I found this book helpful for understanding the NK world view.
Yes I’ve thought of that. But take them to store after store after store. If they still think it’s a set up. Have them pick a random city and rinse and repeat.
Yeah, but how cruel would it be to send ‘em back afterwards? Or did you meant permanently host?
Their fellow NK prisoners (that’s really what they are) would never believe them. And they would be sent to ‘re-education’ camps. Which are 100 times worse then ‘normal’ NK life. So find a way to keep 'em here. I suspect they could get refugee status. The entire country is nothing but starving prisoners.
We should get that uniform back. And I suppose the person in it. Don’t know how in the hell those negotiations would work. If this dude really wants to stay and be a propaganda piece for a while, well, let him.
So it looks like North Korea is going to deport him to the US. It’s still weird that no one yet seems to know how he spent his time before making his (IMHO very dumb) choice to defect to Happy Funtime Land.
Do we have to take him back?
Will be good news when it happens.
ISTM the Norks learned their lesson with the Jenkins fiasco. Treating PV2 King as a POW, which I speculated over on the Yahoo! comments for the earlier stories regarding him, would be a wonderful “out” for North Korea to get rid of someone they’ve discovered has no real value as a defector, seems to be what the Norks decided… I hope to be awake when South Korea’s media pack descends on Bridge of No Return (assuming that’s where the hand-over will occur) when he’s transferred into the custody of the US Armed Forces. I really don’t want to see that event live. I’m wondering how relieved PV2 King’s going to look.
Geez, you have to be a major screw up when even N Korea doesn’t consider you worth throwing in prison or killing.
Kim is known for executing people with anti-aircraft guns.
Anyway, I hope this guy gets some professional help. He’s still young enough to make something positive from his past mistakes.
Unfortunately his upcoming 15 minutes of fame will be very stressful. He’s not prepared for the glare of the media blitz.
This is high-status punishment, reserved for the prominent & powerful.
I wonder what N. Korea demanded to receive for handing back a guy in uniform?
I doubt if any information will be made public, but maybe somebody somewhere has some informed speculation?
Probably something between diddly and squat. They’ve held Americans for years before and used them for PR purposes.
That they’re releasing this one after only a couple months points more to the possibility they decided he held not even PR value. They’ve wrangled visits from former Presidents for such cases before. Releasing him without ceremony and without having any videos of him suggests that rather than some under the table dealings, they decided he had close to zero value to them and, based on what we know of him, quite possibly the reverse to even keep him. It borders on conspiracy theory to suggest some kind of hidden deal when North Korea’s strategy has, to date, involved extracting and touting extremely public concessions from the US.
I think the PR value for NK will be to see a US serviceman go to trial (or whatever) for his actions.
We might get some ‘boots on the ground’ intel from this doofus. But it probably can’t be trusted.
He’s already back in US Custody:
He’s reportedly already back in US hands. So the trial was already held, he was found guilty, and they shipped him out.
He must really be a major doofus for NK to not even see any value in publicly parading a video of him admitting to his terrible and felonious actions.