Visiting North Korea?

anyway otto warmbier was the only who could have prevented this

didn't hugnry4ass get banned for life from ilx at one point for saying that like that dude who got beheaded and cannibalized on the greyhound bus in canada should've seen it coming or something. that's kinda what this discussion reminds me of.

It's really not difficult to sympathize with someone who was murdered, even if you think it was a predictable injustice. The injustice of what was done to him is independent of whether he should have known the consequences.

I'm getting awful flashbacks to the Fidel Castro rip thread.

Oh more rude american tourists thx 4 that

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Monday, June 19, 2017 9:10 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark

this is like.......

rude to who? the north korean govt for allegedly entering the wrong floor of a hotel and touching a sign? why do you give a shit if someone is rude to the north korean govt?

Ha, you want to ban me for saying that?

Yeah, ok. Let's blame the tourism agency, not the adult who decided to flaunt the rules of the dictatorship.

It's a damn shame, but Anheuser Busch shouldn't be blamed when some 21-year-old drinks too much Bud and drives off a cliff.

The punishment far outweighed the crime, but yeah, there could have been one tiny thing that could've prevented this.

Ask me about the bullfighter who just died after getting gored. Guess what could've been done there too as well.

North Korea was morally culpable, 21-year-old was stupid. These two things aren't mutually exclusive.

it's difficult to sympathize with someone who taunts a wolf

it's not difficult, you're just invested in your own sense of personal responsibility & project it onto others, who you deem stupid for not behaving as you do. people who judge their own behaviour harshly might feel entitled to do it to other people. it's always the powerful which can't help itself, and however absurd the laws are, they are never portrayed as a provocation.

It's a damn shame, but Anheuser Busch shouldn't be blamed when some 21-year-old drinks too much Bud and drives off a cliff.

― pplains, Monday, June 19, 2017 9:21 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark

so far you've compared a government that chose to imprison and torture someone for a false crime to... a cliff and a cow

the north korean govt is... an inanimate object.... and otto warmbier drove off of it

jordan otm

the north korean govt has been caged for life by otto warmbier and only released for the purposes of sport and entertainment. when otto warmbier tripped over his robe of course the north korean govt was going to plunge its horns into otto warmbier's torso. those are the rules of engagement.

It's a damn shame, but Anheuser Busch shouldn't be blamed when some 21-year-old drinks too much Bud and drives off a cliff.

― pplains, Monday, June 19, 2017

in the annals of ILE hysterical analogizing, this might top the list.

Well this escalated quickly.

I think the assumption he was tortured is an interesting application of Occam's razor

Ask me about the bullfighter who just died after getting gored. Guess what could've been done there too as well.

― pplains, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 11:23 (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bulls don't have the capacity for logic or reasoning or diplomacy. the north koreans in power do, especially the ones who lived in switzerland.

at worst, he stole a political propaganda poster (this is of course based on taking NK's claims at face value).

his coma may or may not have been caused by physical abuse (the doctors stated there was no clear sign of abuse) but that it was definitely not botulism, like NK claimed, so they were definitely lying about what happened. very possible that it could have happened due to neglect (respiratory event with no medical intervention until irreversible damage had been done).

He was in a coma for over a year, which they neglected to inform the family.

yeah it was a bad move to commit a petty crime in a brutal regime but this is a tragedy however you slice it IMO

yeah i shouldn't have used tortured too glibly...

My point is you climb into a bullring, you're taking a chance of getting gored.

Step into North Korea, you're putting your life into the hands of a brutal, draconian dictatorship that considers these kind of actions routine.

I'm not justifying what North Korea did, but don't color me shocked either.

in the annals of ILE hysterical analogizing, this might top the list.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 19, 2017 6:42 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, i think this one tops it:

didn't hugnry4ass get banned for life from ilx at one point for saying that like that dude who got beheaded and cannibalized on the greyhound bus in canada should've seen it coming or something. that's kinda what this discussion reminds me of.

― J0rdan S., Monday, June 19, 2017 6:16 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pplains otm

it was actually for making fun of the decapitation victim (which I think ethan joined in on as well) even after Abbott had begged them to be cool and stop.

The medical evidence iirc is the botulism thing can't be proved one way or the other, since would have happened a long time ago and he's been in a coma since

Cynically speaking: foreign nationals die in custody in lots of countries. There are very few countries for whom it is a viable diplomatic strategy to make the situation look as bad as possible.

'they're not playing 4d chess' in 3, 2 ...

xxxpost I guess idg the point of going to the trouble of making a show about why you don't feel sorry for someone, like fine, feel those things, but at best all that's going to happen is angering people who are legitimately upset about the event.

What, like his parents

i think people should be free to state their positions and defend them when other people call them crazy... nobody here knows otto warmbier

xxxxpost yeah that's not what the doctors are saying like, at all:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/14/what-botulism-comatose-u-s-college-student-otto-warmbier-released-north-korea/395354001/

obviously they can't say for sure it wasn't botulism but they're not saying "it might be, it might not be", they're casting significant doubt on whether it happened and are saying even if he did have it, it's unlikely it'd cause a coma

someone can be legitimately upset about an event that involves somebody they don't know, I know that might be *shocking*

anyway so far we've got

1. another drunk american tourist who cares
2. a 21 year old who visits north korea should not be surprised if he winds up dead

xpost in fact, that very thing happened in the Manitoba bus decapitation thread mentioned upthread.

anyway so far we've got

1. another drunk american tourist who cares
2. a 21 year old who visits north korea should not be surprised if he winds up dead

Can you explain why you disagree with 2? (I disagree with 1.)

it's not difficult, you're just invested in your own sense of personal responsibility & project it onto others, who you deem stupid for not behaving as you do. people who judge their own behaviour harshly might feel entitled to do it to other people. it's always the powerful which can't help itself, and however absurd the laws are, they are never portrayed as a provocation.

― ogmor, Monday, June 19, 2017 6:25 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's common sense for a country's gov't to expect a visitor to obey their laws. this isn't something unique to north korea

with regard to my personal responsibility, in fact, i do have a sense to at least try to view north korea and its relationship to other countries objectively, because i have probably met over a dozen people who are either from north korea, visited north korea, and have a good friend whose family escaped north korea

i'll say it again, warmbier's death is a tragedy and the north korean gov't *is* a despicable regime, but the way north korea in general is portrayed in western media is irresponsible

I cosign pretty much all of that

Can you explain why you disagree with 2? (I disagree with 1.)

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, June 19, 2017 10:24 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark

because his case is obviously extreme, even within the strict context of american tourists detained in north korea

None of the doctors quoted in that USA Today article have examined the guy or have any connection to the case btw ...?

I'm not claiming the botulism story is particularly credible by the way -- but it's a weird lie to tell

'we killed him through avoidable food poisoning, neglecting to notice his airways were paralysed, and making things worse by administering inappropriate treatment' -- this is not a narrative which makes NK treatment of prisoners look good

thinking about this more if you had asked me a month or go or something about this i would've agreed that any american tourist going to north korea should be aware of the fact that there's a very small chance that you do something seemingly innocuous there and up detained

but i have to get off the bus when that logic extends to you shouldn't be surprised if you end up in a coma with your condition hidden from the govt and your family for 1 year at which point you are suddenly returned and then you die 1 week later

it's common sense for a country's gov't to expect a visitor to obey their laws.

I'd say it's common sense for a govt to expect that sometimes foreign visitors will break the law, especially if you're running an exceptionally repressive regime. I don't think it serves any purpose to normalise or accept this sort of brutality, pointing out that it's easy to acquiesce to tyrants isn't much of a contribution

Irrespective of what obligations individuals have in North Korea, North Korea has international obligations to a) not torture detainees and b) allow consular access.

Still standing by your previous post, dylann?

i wished him the best.

at the time i wrote the original post, no american had spent more than a year in detention in north korea, except kenneth bae. there was a pattern: american was held and an envoy was dispatched to have them returned. clinton brought back laura ling and euna lee (sentenced to 12 years, entered north korea illegally from china) and they wrote books, painting themselves as human rights heroes. jimmy carter brought back aijalon gomes (sentenced to 8 years, entered north korea illegally from china), and he wrote a book, too! and robert park, who went to the same church as gomes went over, too, and he got out after less than two months. kenneth bae stayed in the longest. but things were complicated by the situation at the time and the fact that he was openly engaged in a longterm operation to attack the government in the dprk, having set up operations in yanji in china to conduct cross border activities. but even he made it out. he thanked dennis rodman and wrote a book.

north korea has abducted and tortured foreign citizens but the majority of americans make it out okay! so... i was playing the odds.

i will say that... the majority of americans detained in north korea were hostile to the north korean government and engaged in activities intended to destabilize the north korean government. i'd encourage everyone to read about the detainees that went before warmbier. they were not innocents that stumbled into north korea and were then framed for their crimes. their treatment was disgusting and they faced trumped up charges for questionable charges--but most of them admitted to committing crimes in north korea. the other three americans detained in north korea now have a history with missionary groups (two worked for at pyongyang university of science and tech, a collaboration with a south korean non-profit group funded by american evangelical money and one had a history of missionary activities and links to evangelical groups operating out of yanji).

i don't think warmbier was an exception (except in being a clean cut white american kid and the media caring about his family crying on tv). he's part of a religious movement that has sent its people over and over again to north korea to fuck with the government there.

i think a travel ban like "the north korea travel control act" would have trouble stopping the problem, as american tourists have mostly been chill and missionaries will just cross from china illegally or sneak in with humanitarian groups, which would probably cover working at PUST.

it sounds like the u.s. state department has difficulty keeping the lines of communication open and doesn't have much credibility with the dprk. joseph yun the special rep for nk policy met with north koreans in secret to secure visits with americans detained. even if dennis rodman is the face of informal contact with north korea, it seems like there must be a number of americans doing good things in the country (lots of off-the-radar humanitarian activity), so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to cut the u.s. off from north korea even more. i don't think concerns over being a source of hard currency and legitimacy make sense, when the chinese and russians are in pyongyang. second, stop antagonizing china.

like dylann said, visiting NK as an american is playing the odds, doing so with the intention of being even tangentially involved in subversive activities is another, and you're always hedging against the unknowable -- you having some medical emergency, a sudden change in diplomatic relations, any number of things that would be a distant thought if you were traveling to somewhere familiar

so this was an hell of an outlier compared to what we've seen previously, but there's no indication that NK is jailing people more aggressively that we've previously seen, it's unclear why Wambier was in that condition, and the only new information is that NK's reticence to talk about people they have jailed extends to americans in comas

americans in comas

🎵i know, i know, it's really serious🎵

interesting writing post-warmbier:

"dangerous exploits: otto warmbier and the risks of travel to north korea," craig s. smith: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/insider/dangerous-exploits-otto-warmbier-and-the-risks-of-travel-to-north-korea.html

chinese state media on warmbier/trump's nk policy: China has made the utmost efforts to help break the stalemate in the North Korean nuclear issue. But by no means will China, nor will Chinese society permit it to, act as a "US ally" in pressuring North Korea. If Washington decides to impose third-party sanctions on several Chinese enterprises, it will lead to grave friction between China and the US over the Korean Peninsula issue. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1052689.shtml

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21723779-travel-ban-american-citizens-north-korea-may-be-offing-outrageous-death-otto

from piie: https://piie.com/blogs/north-korea-witness-transformation/people-people-engagement-north-korea - a study of the surprising amount of people-to-people engagement in north korea / https://piie.com/blogs/north-korea-witness-transformation/warmbier-and-rodman stephan haggard on travel ban/rodman diplomacy / https://piie.com/blogs/north-korea-witness-transformation/challenges-engagement I am sympathetic with Moon Jae-in’s effort to recalibrate North-South relations. But I am also glad to see that he is standing on principle and that hastily conceived efforts such as summit celebrations in Pyongyang (link is external) were canceled rather than rushed. / https://piie.com/blogs/north-korea-witness-transformation/more-us-sanctions-how-far-should-we-go

more on sanctions, us-dprk relations: http://sinonk.com/2017/06/19/a-roundtable-review-of-van-jacksons-rival-reputations-coercion-and-credibility-in-u-s-north-korea-relations/ For Jackson, the persistent militarized rivalry that causes recurrent but contained crises on the peninsula is produced and reproduced by the choices of US officials. By backing down in successive crises, the United States invites future provocations by signaling that it is unwilling to fight a general war over small skirmishes or continued advancement of the DPRK nuclear and missile programs. At the same time, these decisions have enhanced the credibility of US threats when they are issued, which deters broader conflict. As reputation is often deployed to argue that the United States is weak, it is a refreshingly nuanced diagnosis.

nate thayer on phoenix air, contractor that flew to pick up warmbier: http://www.nate-thayer.com/did-north-korea-poison-u-s-prisoner-otto-warmbier-with-botulism/

https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/otto-warmbiers-release-reminder-brutality-north-korean-labor-camps/ Start with China. One of the major barriers to intervention in North Korea is China’s protection of the country. Pray God would raise up leaders in China willing to take a stand for religious freedom and human rights. Pray China would open its borders to North Korean refugees rather than sending them back.