Laura Ling, Euna Lee Sentence: Obama "Deeply Concerned" For Jailed Reporters

BBC NEWS :

US President Barack Obama has said he is "deeply concerned" by North Korea's reported sentencing of two US journalists to 12 years' hard labour.

Read the whole story: BBC NEWS

Comments

[KarlaH]

Laura and Euna went to NK to get a story. They will have one heckuva story when they get out in 12 years (assuming they make it, that is).

[Trueheart]

Dsws:

Taking hostages in order to get concessions from another nation is ancient and time-honored.
Doesn't seem to be that it matters to North Korea if it is acceptable. Their recent missile testing was unacceptable but they did it anyway. They appear to have gone off the grid.

I don't think the USA is going to make any painful concessions to China in order to get these two young women out of prison and on their way home. In the grand scheme of things, they are just not that important.

If they were representing Al Gore's news network, then their boss should do everything in his power to get them released, but he can only do so much if they crossed international borders--especially if it was their decision to do so.

Maybe we should send Madeline Albright to talk to Kim Jong Il. Apparently he was quite smitten with her during their talks in 2000.

[dsws]

I'm not suggesting concessions to get them released. I'm suggesting concessions to China to make North Korea regret having taken them hostage in the first place. I agree that they aren't that important in the big picture. There are billions of people whose well-being, basic liberties, and even survival depend in part on how interactions between countries play out. Hostage-taking as a means of international relations isn't conducive to good outcomes. It shouldn't pay.

[dsws]

Seizing hostages is not an acceptable means of carrying out international relations.

We should consider a wide range of options in response. One possibility is to make painful concessions to China in exchange for diminished support by China for North Korea. I don't know what China wants that we can deliver and don't really want to, but I'm sure there's something.

Whatever agreement we make in exchange for the release of the hostages, we should honor it. But we should not make any agreement that leaves North Korea better off than it would have been if it hadn't taken the hostages to begin with.