^I agree that it’s unrelated to the poster. North Korea occasionally takes hostages when it wants to barter with a Western power.
None of us know exactly why or how he came to be there. I don’t buy that it was arrogance, or stupidity, necessarily.
I am extremely thankful that he was released, for his sake and for that of his family. Let’s hope he recovers.
We’ll, I’ve read that they worried he might die while in custody and they couldn’t take that risk, especially since he would no longer have been a bargaining chip foe whatever they want to bargain.
“But there seems to me to be a certain amount of arrogance and privilege involved in thinking he could go to a country that is known for its authoritarian regime and commit a petty crime that the authoritarian regime construes as an insult (it was not just any banner he stole, but one bearing the likeness of the authoritarian leader himself) without being subjected to unspeakably harsh punishment and inhumane treatment. This is a well-educated kid who should have known better.”
That is not arrogance nor privilege— Maybe privilege because you are in the USA.
it’s total ignorance and youthful denial of the cruelty that can exist in the world by someone who has grown up in a free-speech society.
Did I say denial? multiply that…
I wouldn’t go victim blaming.
The blame is on the North Korean government not the student. Yes, he broke one of the “rules” of a dictator society that he couldn’t process in his head. I’m sure it never really crossed his mind that taking a poster off the wall translated to such harsh imprisonment. That simply doesn’t compute in our democracy.
Their present regime is to blame for his punishment not him.
The student didn’t know better. He wasn’t malevolent. It reminds me of the caning incident of the student in Singapore. It’s an unfortunate lesson about being American and how to conduct oneself overseas. My prayers are with Cindy, Fred and Otto. As someone said, he certainly did not deserve this.
But should any US resources be used to get a tourist back from a country he has been told not to visit, where the US has no diplomatic ties, where dangers are known? I feel sorry for the family, but do not feel we should spend our diplomatic currency, whatever it is, on obtaining a release.
We have these decisions to make with a lot of ‘adventurers’ who get into trouble and require the US Coast Guard, parks department employees, state department employees, and other such organizations to risk their lives and spend money to rescue people who do things that are reckless or even just plain stupid. Sometimes we charge the out-of-bounds skiers, the tornado chasers, the hurricane surfers to be rescued.
If Dennis Rodman is arrested and retained in N Korea, I don’t want 10 cents of US money to go toward his release. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton? Only if they are on official US business. They can take the risk if they want to, but the US can’t be responsible (and I understand the US may be behind ‘unofficial’ visits by former diplomats - that’s different).
I think reasonable people can disagree on this and still be reasonable. I get what you’re saying and completely respect it. However, I think the US government should move heaven and earth to ensure the safety of its citizens. I am very bothered by the Americans who are still held in Iran, and I don’t think it speaks well to the administrations that have allowed that situation to continue.
^^^Agreed. In America, we still take care of our own. Even those foolish enough to venture out against all advice.
It would be an empty threat for us to say we are not coming to get our citizens. As Americans, we might be angry at the foolish travelers but we can’t stand to have one ours held. It calls to our national spirit to help them get free.
Obviously this situation is much worse than others, but as soon as I heard about this, I thought of the kids stealing political lawn signs, the Penn State frat bros, and the kids kicked out of Harvard for their inappropriate FB posts. These kids did really, amazingly stupid things and at their ages should have known better, and now their lives and the lives of others have been forever changed.
And the sad thing is, despite all of the coverage around all of these antics, someone else will do something really, amazingly stupid tomorrow.
I always tell my kids that when bad judgment meets bad luck, catastrophe occurs. Since they can control their actions, but not the rest of the world, I tell them to think once, twice and a third time before taking actions. Andd then I pray because any of us can make a catastrophic mistake at any time and it’s by the grace of God that they are safe every day.
While what Otto Warmbier did was imprudent and stupid considering the paranoid totalitarian nature of North Korea’s government and their decades long antipathy towards the US in particular, what he did is far less than what Michael Fay of Singapore caning fame did.
Michael Fay was charged with and plead guilty to 50 counts of vandalizing cars in Singapore and seemed to have had a history of anti-social/criminal behavior before and after that incident*. Unlike Warmbier, what Fay did would have been criminal offenses if they were committed in the US. The only area of dispute was the punishment he received…which ended up being much lighter than what a Singaporean citizen would have received for the same offense due in part to US diplomatic pressure.
In short, Otto Warmbier is at most, a young person who was at most exceedingly imprudent…but nowhere near as malicious or bad in his conduct than Michael Fay.
- Assaulting his own father sometime after the incident. Multiple arrests for various offenses. In short...what some in the former British colonies like Singapore would consider a "bad egg".
^^^ Agree on Fay. I meet a young lady who ran in his circle in Singapore and even she thought he was too much for their crowd of acting out teens.
He didn’t steal the poster, he did take it off the wall but left it laying on the floor. Barely more than an idiotic college student prank, he just did it at the wrong place.
Huh.I think stealing it would have been better. Then he could have said that he just wanted it as a momento of his stay in their wonderful country with its great leader.
Leaving it on the floor looks like disrespect.
My heart goes out to his parents.
SMH. If he’s been in a coma for a year, I strongly doubt he will ever be OK again.
@cobrat oh okay. I thought it was just the gum incident where he threw gum on the street. In any case, my heart and prayers go out to Otto and his family.
Agreed. Especially considering by all accounts so far, Otto’s prior history was a positive one.
A near opposite of Michael Fay. And one thing which made Michael Fay’s case worse was not only the extent of the vandalism* he caused by his participation in the vandalism with a group of fellow bad eggs, but the fact one of the damaged cars belonged to a justice on the Singaporean Supreme Court.
- The group of bag eggs did more than spraypaint cars. It also extended to slashing tires and the use of hatchets to damage car bodies. Granted, Fay only confessed to spraypainting cars according to the reports...but his association with the same group of kids doing worse damage factored into his initial sentence before US diplomatic pressure reduced it.
I’m with you on this. There’s certain countries(Iran, North Korea, Syria), where if you’re dumb enough to go there, you shouldn’t be able to count on the US government to bail you out.