North Korea Sentences 2 American Journalists to 12 Years of Hard Labor | Hacker News Reader

North Korea Sentences 2 American Journalists to 12 Years of Hard Labor

nytimes.com

18 pointsnirmal14 comments

I think this is the beginning of the end for North Korea. They have done a good job annoying the world, but kidnapping US citizens is probably going to have consequences for them.

(Although maybe not, as everyone seems to have forgotten about the people that North Korea kidnapped from Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japa...)

The consequences and public reaction would probably be more severe if the journalists were white instead of Asian American.

Any evidence to support this statement? Personally, I am just as outraged either way. (Actually, everything about North Korea makes me mad, but I am especially annoyed when they kidnap Americans.)

NYTimes: U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/world/asia/08korea.html?_r...

Well, yes and no. Navy SEALs would have to simultaneously rescue the hostages and disable NK's nuclear capability. That's a tall order.

They don't need nukes. South Korea is well within range of conventional weapons.

In any case:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Nukes are NK's only weapon effective against a carrier battle group.

Apparently, Seoul is in range of conventional weapons, making for millions of "hostages".

Take out the nukes and then demand the hostages handed over unharmed. If they as much as flinch you nuke the country.

The only way you can deal with that guy is to play hardball and be very predictable.

I don't think this will work. What do the leaders of North Korea care if you kill off its people? They have been doing it themselves for years.

That's why this is a delicate situation. North Korea can incinerate Seoul (and perhaps Tokyo) instantly. The leader is a psychopath, and has nothing to lose. So we can't really negotiate -- they don't want anything, and they can kill a lot more people than we can.

(It's depressing to consider how easily one person can kill millions, and how we can't do anything about it, or punish him if he does.)

That's why ST6 has multiple assault groups:)

It is kinda difficult to be sure if they were journalists or spies, right? If they were indeed spies, they are getting the same punishment Korean spies would be getting in the US.

While the media portrays them as victims, it would be kind of naive to believe it is completely true.

The problem is that they were captured on the border - which could very well mean that they weren't even in NK.

The role of journalist and spy is virtually the same in the western world, hence the use of some journalists as spies off an on by all countries over the last several decades. Their job is gathering information by talking to people.

A true "spy", however, is somebody who infiltrates and pretends to be somebody they are not in order to gather information to be kept secret by an opposing entity. If these journalists were going to publish, or had a history of publishing, and were acting as journalists normally do, then for all intents and purposes it makes no difference if they were also acting for an intelligence service or not -- they were journalists.

Countries that don't have freedom of the press can certainly view things differently, but then again, for them all journalists are spies simply by their job description of finding stuff out that used to be private and publishing it. So while NK may have a point, and may even be partially factually correct (I don't know) it's extremely likely that they're also just kidnapping easy targets and using them as pawns.

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