What an incredibly mean thing to say.
Not really, she is frank enough to be honest. This poor kid paid the death penalty for stupidity. It sucks, but it was pretty damn stupid in the end.
Incredibly accurate actually.
Once when I was visiting a Grand Canyon tourist area I saw people (some wearing sandals) walking out onto outcropped sections of the cliff and standing or sitting at the edge.
It was an incredibly stupid thing to do. The view from that point was no different than the view from any other safer location. Had they fallen one couldn’t help but weep for them, but it’s still obvious that they were doing something incredibly stupid.
But even the Grand Canyon idiots had more sense than any US citizen who journeys into NK. Any westerner going into that country on their own is not only putting their own lives in jeopardy, they are putting a burden on their families and government who will have to take extreme measures to ensure their safety should nutso fatboy decide to play political games.
This isn’t new stuff. Anybody who HASN’T been in a coma the the last 20 years should know to stay the fuck out of NK.
“Honest” does not exclude “mean.”
Had one of those people at the Grand Canyon fell to their deaths, I would be more compassionate than to say that the person deserved it.
These are Dopers you’re talking to. More cold blooded mother fuckers you won’t find even at your local zoo in the reptiles exhibit.
They are more interested in ruminating about other’s levels of stupidity, than in acting like human beings and expressing any sort of compassion or empathy. Well, sometimes. Start up a thread about cute kitty pictures and things change.
Don’t forget the high percentages of Dopers who think it’s taking a big risk just to leave the house. We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.
And then the dwarves arrive!:mad:
One thing I’ve wondered is if maybe he tried to commit suicide via hanging. I’m sure he was very frightened and perhaps desperate. It wouldn’t be the first time a prisoner did something like that. It would also be an explanation for the bizarre reason NK gave for his condition.
The only other reasons for his condition that make sense to me are an overdose of medication which stopped his breathing, or some sort of water torture that went too far.
I think it was probably just an old fashioned beating that got out of hand.
I have extreme sympathy for the family. Sure it was unwise to travel to NK but traveling anywhere, one should have an expectation to come back conscious and continuing to live. This is ultimately North Korea’s fault. Why are countries pussyfooting around and not completely eviscerating that country? I suspect it is because China’s influence in the reason, but what other reason besides that? R.I.P. Otto
I think somebody fucked up bigtime shortly have Warmbier’s trial, the NK authorities panicked, and it’s taken until now for them to finally decide what to do (& get Supreme Leader to go along). Usually North Korea simply holds Americans for years in “VIP” (by North Korean standards) prisons for years until they can get some kind of concession, real or perceived, from the US.
Not so sure they would have tried to outright strangle him, which is what would have had to have happened to put him in this condition. If you want to torture someone without leaving marks/clues behind that wouldn’t be on the list. Near-drowning would be, and could have had this result. But who knows …
This makes sense to me too.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “eviscerating”, but if that means explosions, it has to do with the fact that the people running the country are bad guys, and the people living in the country are just regular people, lots and lots of them. Let’s not explode the regular people to get at the bad guys if we can avoid it.
Water-boarding gone wrong?
It’s not like the US could make a brouhaha about it’s use.
I’m trying real hard to find a post above where someone states that the man deserved to die. The fact that someone’s stupid decision to face an obvious danger killed them is just that. A Fact.
People can be complex enough to express both sorrow and logic. One doesn’t exclude the other.
I simply am aghast at the posts of some of you. Seriously, he was “stupid”? Look, he went to North Korea as a member of a fucking tour group and got arrested for some bullshit charges that we can never prove. Did he steal a propaganda poster? Who the fuck knows. or cares? It’s like that kid that got caned in Indonesia or wherever (Singapore?) for vandalism. Except the difference is, he paid with his fucking LIFE!
If this had been a fucking cat some of you assholes would have been up in arms. The dude went to North Korea, knowing it was a dangerous regime but for fuck’s sake, he went there as part of a tour group, and I am sure the expectation was to have government sponsored “handlers” that limited where they could go and what they could see. Nothing more or less.
Have some fucking sympathy for his grieving family, whom I am sure expected he would be returned alive at some point, and not as a vegetable after God knows what happened to him in the arms of Kim Jong Un. Fuck them and fuck you too for your miserable opinions of him. He didn’t deserve to die, even if he stole that poster as he was accused of. Jesus guys!
Being young, impulsive, and thoughtless should NOT be a capital offense. :smack:
Sadly, it frequently IS a capital offense. 
The DPRK did not need to help make it so. :mad:
A point of order: That kid in Singapore did MANY thousands of dollars of damage in vandalism. People in the west don’t understand just how bloody expensive a car is in Singapore, or how hard it is to get one. That wasn’t just a prank, that was real economic harm he did.
A very, very, very predictable outcome for an American going to North Korea.
Not really. A good number of Americans go to DPRK every year - hundreds - and only very rarely does one get arrested. Even then, they usually come home again, after some very harrowing experiences.