I believe Little Fatty Junior (as many Chinese people (not the Chinese government) call him) hit those holes in one as much as I believe Warmbier stole that banner.
It’s a bit chilling to see the big lie in action. People in this thread (well, those who aren’t deluded) know…they KNOW…that North Korea lies. Constantly. They have been a regime that has been literally built around lies, have lied for decades to the world and to their own people. Yet this time they must be telling the truth because…preconceptions! Annoying man child westerner! Must just be a coincidence in the timing here! I mean, he confessed before the trial, right? And everyone knows that you can never get a confession out of an innocent man! Got to be true. Just this time though. Their constant stream of lies for decades pretty much proves that this time (and those other times they caught westerners and insurgents red handed…er, would it be blue handed?) they are telling the truth.
I actually already covered that specifically early in the thread:
Based on the reported treatment of the other 11 people detained in NK since 1996 Bae was the only one who was really put to hard labor–and he was not put in a normal labor camp where he had any interaction with North Korean prisoners. He was basically in a facility solely for himself.
I very strongly agree with this statement, and wonder about people visiting other dangerous countries as well.
In 2007, a group of South Korean missionaries traveled to Afghanistan. Before they went some of them actually posed in a picture at the airport under a sign saying that travel to Afghanistan was dangerous. They were captured and two of them were executed. South Korea had to pull their (small number of non-combat) troops out of the country to get the rest of them released.
I’m from Canada. Three Canadians have been kidnapped in Afghanistan so far and two released (one had been held for five years). I vaguely recall reading about a Canadian who had been executed there recently but I couldn’t find that on Wikipedia or Google.
The former. The quote “no sentient person goes to the border of Iran” really suits this situation, just change the name of the country.
I believe a kidnapped Canadian was executed a few weeks ago in the Philippines. Perhaps he’s the one you’re thinking of. But overall, I would not consider the Philippines a dangerous place to go. Certainly not in the same league as Afghanistan.
If you agree with that posting, then you accept North Korea’s narrative of the event, an event which is almost 100% certainly a thing that did not happen at all. What did happen, obviously, is that Warmbier has been detained by the NK government.
North Korea is not Afghanistan. The dangers associated with each one are quite different. For North Korea, the danger is being detained, fed, treated with what medical care NK can provide, and then released when and if the hostage’s own government capitulates to NK on some point absolutely unconnected with the hostage. In Afghanistan, the danger was in being kidnapped and killed by a terrorist organization. Granted, the NK government itself is essentially a terrorist organization but they don’t shoot up random foreigners visiting their country. What NK does, however, do is detain and bargain. Well, there was the one instance in which a NK soldier did shoot and kill a SK tourist, and the SK government stopped all tourism by their citizens to NK in response.
It depends on where in the Philippines one would go. Overall, of course, the country is safe for tourism. Certain areas are not controlled very well–or at all–by the national government. The US State Department has this to say:
I don’t agree with what North Korea said or did. I don’t know if Warmbier even stole the sign (and if he did, 10-15 years hard labor is not reasonable). I just want to know why Warmbier went to one of the most dangerous countries on Earth for a vacation. It was so incredibly stupid.
No amount of money, sexy women or boredom could convince me to go to North Korea. I don’t need the government to warn me off (though they would).
Except, objectively, it’s not one of the most dangerous countries on Earth for American tourists. No Americans are killed, a few are detained for a short amount of time. And you probably don’t have to deal with some of the more “normal” dangers of traveling like getting robbed.
His “confession” said he did it to impress the Z Society, which is a secret society at UVA, but the confession also said the Z Society had links to the CIA, so …
Of course they didn’t. It’s a fabrication from the Norks. How would the people at his church even know that there would be a propaganda banner in a stairwell that’s off-limits to foreign visitors?
I suspect the US Department of State did not do that either.
Serious question, why don’t they ban all travel to North Korea? There’s absolutely no logical reason for why anyone who’s not a native of the country to go there.
Also, what is the impetus behind keeping a comatose person detained for a year before finally deciding to release them? Why didn’t they ship him back to his homeland as soon as he fell unconscious? Are they aware of the diplomatic nightmare this presents if he dies thus making them responsible for his death?