US Citizen Otto Warmbier, returned from North Korea, has died

[Hungry81]

That you say "dumb white guy" says something about your ideology..and nothing very good,though you have point that there is no easy military solution to this.

Yeah he was a bit more than dumb, he was stupid, selfish and a dick. Oh lets go visit a place that hates who I am and can punish me for it. YAY!!!

 

[a_unique_person]

:


If you are trying to make yourself look like a total jerk, you are succeeding brilliantly.

It was a bigger deal. They kidnapped Japanese rather than Americans, so the rule of "I'm more interested in people I identify with" applies.

 

[SezMe]

What is clear is there is no evidence of actual physical trauma - he was not beaten about the head to cause the injury.

No, that's not clear at all. Since the family has declined an autopsy, we have only external signs of physical trauma. And those are not at all dispositive due to the length of time he was held.

 

[toto]

Having read quite a few books on North Korea including those horrific accounts of Nazi type concentration camps and intriguing documentaries such as those about the U.S. soldiers who defected to North Korea during the Korean war (biggest mistake of their lives), I find it hard to believe how anyone would visit the country as a tourist. I could to some extent relate to the anger that someone could be so dumb as to literally put their life in danger by playing such a stupid prank as nicking a propaganda poster. But when this happened I felt that this whilst such sentiments might be expressed, it should be clear that that attitude should take about one thousandth of the importance as expressing the utter barbarity of the North Korea Police State. Now that the poor man has died, posts here and elsewhere that reflect callously on the American's "stupidity" as a kind of equivalence to the cruelty of this state I find astonishingly heartless.

I assumed the man had stolen the poster but did not believe the story he told in "court". The punishment meted out was so absurdly out of proportion that nothing could excuse the country's actions. I am not sure how to react to the possibility that that the man did not even commit the crime because my position is that North Korea's actions were already utterly outrageous and if it turns out that there is proof that the theft did occur then that does not mitigate them in any way at all.

Words fail me if he didn't even do it in the first place.

The U.S and other countries such as the UK should ban travel to this country. When a BBC journalist is imprisoned for about 24 hours or more, as happened recently, this is clearly a dangerous place to be.

Journalists such as John Sweeney should reflect on the danger he put his fellow travellers when pretending to be part of an educational tour, when in fact he was attempting an undercover documentary.

Lastly I am sad Trump is getting some credit by the family, and Obama some criticism. I may be proved wrong but I wonder if Obama did not try just as hard as Trump to free the man, and that his release was just a cynical action by the North Korean Government. (Though I do give Trump credit for having the obvious disgust with the country).

 

[ponderingturtle]

That you say "dumb white guy" says something about your ideology..and nothing very good,though you have point that there is no easy military solution to this.

He went to north korea on vacation, I stand by that description.

 

[ponderingturtle]

They are already starving.

That is why I said more. Clearly we need to collectively punish the north koreans for this.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'll have to remember the Mt. Everest analogy next time a woman gets raped at a frat party.

We can actually do something about a frat party. Clearly vacationing in a war zone as we are still at war with north korea(no peace treaty just a ceasefire) might not be the best idea. That is rather different than a party.

Clearly the response to being raped at a frat party is to kill everyone who is a member of any fraternity on the campus. That just follows through with the analogy of how to respond to this.

 

[ponderingturtle]

my 2 cents:
Most likely scenario: North Korea has made it an industry to ransom foreigners back to their governments.

What foreigners has it ransomed back, and what did it get for them?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

What foreigners has it ransomed back, and what did it get for them?

These things are almost never made public, but it's standard practice with oppressive regimes.
The most public case to date is probably of North Korean "pirates" trying to ransom a Chinese boat full of fishermen:

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Sec...irates-seize-Chinese-hostages-demand-a-ransom

from the article:

"Whatever you call North Korea – rogue state or whatever – these kind of cases just keep happening,” said a Liaoning Maritime and Fishery Administration official who identified himself only by his surname, Liu. “We had such cases last year and the year before. There’s very little we can do to prevent them.”

They are also planning to ransom back South korean POWs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-cash-for-prisoners-exchange-with-North.html

We have no proof that the US is (most probably indirectly) paying Pyongyang for prisoners, but that would be very much in line with their normal actions.

 

[Ziggurat]

An actual military response would be a bad thing. But just what Trump is likely to do.

Not over this it isn't.

 

[alfaniner]

Not over this it isn't.

I think it is quite possible he would do something foolishly military or pre-emptive. Like perhaps, unleashing the FATHER OF ALL BOMBS. After all, he has to one-up himself all the time.

 

[ahhell]

We should make it a policy to shoot down every ballistic missile launch they try. You don't let people who continually threaten to destroy you develop the capacity to nuke one your major cities. That would just be stupid.

Then it would be obvious how useless the ballistic defense system actually is.

Also.

A. Wambier shouldn't have gone their, a bit like acting surprised that someone died on while base jumping.
B. That doesn't justify N. Korea(or N country orange as we called them during battle drills in the Navy) killing him.
C. There's not much we can do about it other than say, "That's awful what Kim regime did to that fellow." We should always blame the Kims, the N. Koreans are more the victims of the regime than anyone.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

We should make it a policy to shoot down every ballistic missile launch they try. You don't let people who continually threaten to destroy you develop the capacity to nuke one your major cities. That would just be stupid.

Brilliant idea, letting them test how to circumstances the defense system...

 

[Fudbucker]

Brilliant idea, letting them test how to circumstances the defense system...

It can be a learning experience for both sides. But I think we would come out ahead.

 

[Fudbucker]

Then it would be obvious how useless the ballistic defense system actually is.

Not at all. If our system has an X% success rate, that doesn't make it useless, and we can improve it with live-fire tests against N. Korean missiles. Kills two birds with one stone.

 

[Ziggurat]

I think it is quite possible he would do something foolishly military or pre-emptive. Like perhaps, unleashing the FATHER OF ALL BOMBS. After all, he has to one-up himself all the time.

This is paranoia.

 

[dudalb]

Yeah he was a bit more than dumb, he was stupid, selfish and a dick. Oh lets go visit a place that hates who I am and can punish me for it. YAY!!!

Another one of Kim's Little Helpers......

 

[Venom]

Too bad terrorism is almost nonexistent in police states.

 

[BStrong]

Not over this it isn't.

We didn't go to war w/ NK over this in '76:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident

The axe murder incident (Korean: 판문점 도끼살인사건; Hanja: 板門店도끼殺人事件,도끼蠻行事件; literally, Panmunjom axe murder incident) was the killing of two United States Army officers, Arthur Bonifas and Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The U.S. Army officers had been part of a work party cutting down a poplar tree in the JSA that partially blocked the view of United Nations (U.N.) observers when they were assaulted and killed by the North Koreans, who claimed that the tree was planted by Kim Il-Sung.[1]

But rumor control central at Ft. Bragg had the 82nd doing a combat jump north of the 38th parallel.

I'm glad we didn't.

 

[KatieG]

The family has refused an autopsy, so unless the DPRK suddenly opens up*, the cause of his death will remain a mystery.


* This is unlikely.

Maybe they don't want to know how much torture he was subjected to. That would add more pain they simply can't deal with.