I’m glad the big dog’s trip to North Korea was successful, and the two Americans were released. However, this still made my blood boil when I read it:
Two U.S. journalists pardoned and freed by North Korea did cross illegally into that country, the sister of one of the women said.
“She did say that they touched North Korean territory very, very briefly,” Lisa Ling, sister of Laura Ling, told CNN on Thursday.
“It was something that they were never planning to do originally,” Lisa Ling said. “I mean, I said this before, when they left U.S. soil, they never intended to cross into North Korea. She said it was maybe 30 seconds. And then, you know, everything just sort of got chaotic.”
Seriously- how stupid do you have to be to do this kind of thing? And Euna Lee has a toddler, for chrissakes.
r€nato
I’m hoping that Bill Clinton said to them – after they were all safely on the airplane headed home – “what the fuck did y’all think you were doing? The China-North Korea border ain’t exactly the Four Corners Monument!”
Maude
I read somewhere yesterday that some reporters were wondering if they did the entry into N. Korea deliberately.
Look at the trouble this has caused.
Total irresponsibility on their part.
I can’t keep up with the insanity anymore.
milo
It sounds like someone driving to four corners to take their picture. Kind of stupid for someone to arrest you for getting your picture taken, sort of like getting arrested in your own home for opening your mouth. USA! USA! also. you betcha.
Da Bomb
I felt that in the beginning that it was totally irresponsibility on their part. I had somewhere earlier that they deliberately did step into N. Korea.
But I glad that The Bill was able to bring them back safely.
Robin G.
If they hadn’t gotten caught and returned with their stories of what things looked like over there, they would have been hailed nationwide for their brilliant, brave investigative journalism, risking everything in search of the truth.
They were, in fact, reckless at best, stupid at worst. But let’s face it, everyone would be singing a different tune if they hadn’t gotten caught.
Short Bus Bully
The natural selection cycle was interrupted here, and that has just added more stoopid back into the gene pool.
Bender
Obvious answer: As stupid as a typical journalist.
Drive By Wisdom
Smart enough to work for Al Gore. This guy will do anything to get attention.
General Winfield Stuck
I agree about the idiots hiking in Iraq, being idiots. These are reporters and it is a little more justifiable for them to do this. There are journalists in war zones all over the world with families and children who put their lives and freedom at risk to bring us news from dark places. How do you think we get information from these places?
I would tend to blame the NK’s for turning it into an international incident. I don’t feel sorry for them for what they’ve endured because they knew the risks, but I don’t condemn them either.
LT
They accidently cross a nebulous border in the middle of godfuck nowhere for seconds while doing good and honorable work and are arrested by goons from the one true goonland – and you sitting on your ass in Pittsburgh feel righteously outraged at their “stupidity”?
Jesus. Fuck off, already.
And what the fuck does having a child have to do with it? Lots of people with children work.
LT
@Robin G.:
Thank you. Nice to see a voice that doesn’t sound like Gateway Pundit in this admittedly short thread.
r€nato
@LT: I’m sure they also had no idea that North Korea was ‘goonland’ or that the DPRK is a rather paranoid, militaristic regime.
joes527
@General Winfield Stuck: They didn’t just risk themselves. They may have harmed the folks that they were reporting on.
nikkos
What’s amazing to me are all the people that truly believe Bill Clinton actually went to K Korea and negotiated their release- that Clinton somehow “rescued” them. In a nation in which people are locked up at astounding rates for little to no reason (I am referring to the United States) the attention lavished on this bit of diplomatic theater is completely absurd- which is to say, it is in keeping with America’s unerring fixation on itself. Maybe we should send Bill Clinton to California next: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/08/californias-prison-disaster
some guy
I dunno. I don’t think it’s hard to sympathize with them at all. I think it’s great that there are still journalists out there willing to risk their lives for The Big Story, especially when said story is human rights violations and crimes against humanity.
That said, the line between stupidity and bravery is a thin one. And, in a Schroedinger’s Cat-like way, it’s often possible to be on both sides at the same time.
But just because they were reckless or even stupid doesn’t mean they deserve to face 15 years of torture, especially since their intentions were good.
I’d rather have 10 Laura Lings than 1000 Thomas Friedmans.
malraux
It would really depend on how the border is marked. Were they on a boat that happened to float past the halfway point of the river? Or where they filming and not paying attention to how close the shore was and accidentally ran aground and had to get out to push off?
As an aside, how crazy is it that North Korea’s northern border is entirely water? I was looking at it on google maps and went from sea to sea following a river. That’s bizarre.
Gregg Carlstrom
@General Winfield Stuck: Yes, but they don’t often illegally cross borders into those war zones. Journalists in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan go there legally.
That’s the stupidity here — not that these two tried to go to a dangerous place, but that they illegally crossed the border. The North Korean government had every right to arrest them, just like our government would arrest a North Korean journalist who slipped across the Rio Grande.
asiangrrlMN
I’m with Robin G., General Winfield Stuck, and LT, here. The border between the two countries isn’t well-defined at all. They were reporters trying to get a story. It’s easy to say in hindsight that they should have been more careful, blah, blah, blah, but journalists (yes, those with kids as well. Granted, they are usually men, but still) do a risky job. I am not going to second-guess these women, not at this late date.
Ash
Euna Lee has a toddler….AND?
Hundreds of journalists in war zones and in repressive countries risk themselves every day to get a story.
feebog
What LT said. I seem to remember losing a U.S. Navy vessel in North Korea when they inadvertenly (maybe) crossed into North Korean borders. No one blamed the captives, we just wanted them back. The arrest, trial and incarceration of these two women was completely and tranparently bogus. Yes, by all means, lets blame the victims here and not the completely batshit insane government of North Korea.
Punchy
Is there a freakin signpost that says “Yu b in Nurth Korreewah, Bitches”? Otherwise, if one’s out in Nowheresville hiking, just how does one know they’ve crossed?
Not saying this is how it went down, but I’m quite sure this type of shit happens regularly between the US and Canada up in the boundry waters.
I guess the moral is….when you’re likely to be within a half-mile or so of the world’s most repressive and insanely crazy regime, perhaps you ought not continue to much further…
The Moar You Know
Maybe next time these idiots will pay attention to the signage and stay a few hundred yards from the border of one of the most paranoid regimes on the earth.
Really now. How many of you hike around nuclear plants and start taking pictures through the fence? None of you, because if you did, you’d be in Gitmo as a suspected terrorist. What these sack-of-hammers dummies did was no different, and they should count their blessings that they’re not going to be eating sewage for the next 12 years, or that they didn’t end up with a few rounds of 7.62 in their backs.
LT
@r€nato:
And? all the more credit to them for having the courage to do that work.
Crashman06
@asiangrrlMN: Agreed. It’s not like the border is drawn in a nice black line across the ground. Maybe they got lost and crossed it accidentally? Maybe they were close, but didn’t cross, and the North Koreans nabbed them anyway with the hopes of generating some propaganda.
Citizen_X
I dunno. I want to hear it first hand, not from one of their sisters: did they go into NK just to say, “Woo woo! Lookitmee, I’m in North Korea!” Or did they cross over in the course of doing their fucking jobs?
If the latter, then hell yes, I sympathize.
Deborah
Does anyone actually know what the border looks like? Given North Korea’s all out paranoia I picture it as the East-West Berlin border, not the US-Canada–that is, some physical barrier and no question where the iffy spots are, rather than a big ol’ woods where you could slip back and forth.
If they deliberately crossed over, then I have limited sympathy–there is no way the NKs are going to go along with having people play red light green light along their border. “My rights as a US citizen” apply to things you do in the US, not outside it. You don’t “slip over” the border just for a minute, and expect the guards at that border not to give a shit. It’s provocation.
That said, I’m glad they’re back.
For the guys in Iran, I’m still waiting to hear whether they fall into “we were too macho to hire a guide, and got lost” or “we were making a bold statement, of boldness.” (The guy who swam across the lake and violated Ang Sung Soo Kii’s house arrest, threatening to get her back in jail so he could have his warm fuzzies, secure in the knowledge that as a westerner he’d be traded out even as all around him went to jail–he’s in the latter camp.)
Deborah
Does anyone actually know what the border looks like? Given North Korea’s all out paranoia I picture it as the East-West Berlin border, not the US-Canada–that is, some physical barrier and no question where the iffy spots are, rather than a big ol’ woods where you could slip back and forth.
If they deliberately crossed over, then I have limited sympathy–there is no way the NKs are going to go along with having people play red light green light along their border. “My rights as a US citizen” apply to things you do in the US, not outside it. You don’t “slip over” the border just for a minute, and expect the guards at that border not to give a shit. It’s provocation.
That said, I’m glad they’re back.
For the guys in Iran, I’m still waiting to hear whether they fall into “we were too macho to hire a guide, and got lost” or “we were making a bold statement, of boldness.” (The guy who swam across the lake and violated Ang Sung Soo Kii’s house arrest, threatening to get her back in jail so he could have his warm fuzzies, secure in the knowledge that as a westerner he’d be traded out even as all around him went to jail–he’s in the latter camp.)
LT, that quote sure as hell sounds like they crossed deliberately, not accidentally wandered across while filming in what they thought was China.
Halteclere
What happened here is no different than when some American decides to become a missionary, goes to a Muslim country, and begins testifying despite that country’s laws, and then creates a diplomatic incident when they are arrested.
General Winfield Stuck
@Gregg Carlstrom:
I didn’t say the NK’s didn’t have a right to arrest them. But they are the ones who blew it up into spy case with a 12 year sentence.
And as far as crossing a border being somehow worse than a war zone. I would just say war zones are full of borderlines depending on which side happens to catch, arrest, or kill you.
Journalists do dangerous things to bring us info when we had none. And all of them are stupid looking for us sitting in our living rooms. I just don’t take for granted the info I receive is risk free for those providing it. And I salute them for their bravery. Now if they had sashayed down Red Square in Pyongyang, that would be a risk too far, possibly. They were just getting a better pic a few feet inside NK, for 30 seconds.
Singularity
Right. But then our government would put two NK’s who illegally crossed our border on a plane home, assuming they weren’t laden with explosives. It wasn’t like these women were attempting an infiltration. They crossed over the border for a brief period of time.
Also, having read the article on CNN, I don’t see anything indicating that they crossed into NK deliberately. Not really sure why an accidental border crossing leading would make you blood boil, unless you were predetermined to assume the worst.
joes527
So the Refugee and aid workers who these two intrepid journalists outed by carrying notes and video of them into a situation where they they would be confiscated by the NK authorities … they are just fucked?
Because journalist gotta be journalist — consequences be damed?
Reporting on injustice is noble work.
Being stupid while reporting on injustice and making things worse is … stupid.
Brachiator
Good reporters take risks for a story. And sometimes do stupid things. It’s part of the job description. And unless we want to limit the job to single, childless people, sometimes children will be left at home.
In a similar way, some male and female soldiers willingly put their lives at risk in the service of their country leave small children behind.
And people need to seriously give up this simplistic nonsense about irresponsibility and the work that journalists do, because without the risks that reporters take, you are left with the mental pablum of government sponsored propaganda, and the soft fascism of enforced intellectual conformity.
Here is the bottom line from a report from The Committee to Protect Journalists:
And here a few more telling statistics:
Meanwhile in Iran, the stifling of press freedom is overt and shameless:
It might be a fitting way to celebrate the happy resolution of the North Korea incident to take a look at the Committee to Protect Journalists site and consider making a donation (and, by the by, I am not affiliated in any way with the organization)
http://cpj.org/
Woody
Such ‘illegal’ North Koreans (or worse, imagine they were Arabs, working for Aljazeera, and collecting damaging stories from Mexicans about the excesses, brutality, etc, of the USer Border Patrol, or ICE) would disappear so deep into the bowels of the US “security system” you couldn’t pry ’em loose. There is, for example, an Iraqi journalist in USer custody who has no known or proven links to ‘insurgents,’ but who just pissed off the local commanders.
This all has the scent/stench of Kabuki: “the Prez” needed sumpin to drive the freakin birfers and teabaggers off the front page for a couple of days. Nothing like a nice stiff jolt of Murkin exceptionalism/jingoism to change the subject.
Mission: Accomplished…
ES Blofeld
Nice to see that John can take a break from watching Leverage episodes to condemn people investigating human trafficking for entering the territory of the only regime that is directly and financially involved in the practice.
Olliander
Any guess as to how long it would have taken us to rescue them if they hadn’t been associated with Al Gore’s outfit and one of them wasn’t the sister of a B-list celebrity?
Gimme a break.
These people are adults, we should treat them as such—that whatever they did was of their own free will. And with the understanding that they knew (presumably) the dangerous nature of what they were doing. It’s pretty arrogant of them to assume they can dip their toes in the hell that is North Korea “to see what it’s like” without any repercussions.
Sure if they didn’t get caught….whoopee! We got pics and stories of an oppressive regime run by some narcissistic despotic tyrannical douchebag. Yawn…
But they did get caught. And now I’m supposed to care what these people were doing of their own accord? And then listen to one of their relatives say, “oh yeah, they purposely crossed the border knowing it was illegal”. .
Not me. I have more important things to worry about, like reforming this f-ed up healthcare system for my family.
BombIranForChrist
That is exactly what my wife said when she heard the woman had a toddler: “WTF is she doing trespassing in North Korea?”
Persian
No offense dude, but in this case, and in the previous one about the missing hikers in Kurdistan, I think you’re totally wrong – it’s not stupidity to land in that kind of situation. Anyone who’s been to an airport and has a swarthy complexion knows that crossing between countries is always a bit of a risk, and that you can get in trouble for pretty much anything. You’re engaging in blaming the victims – it’s like saying Gates should have shut up just because Crowley was wearing the uniform.
Lyle4
That’s it. The border between North and South Korea is marked by some rusty signs every 2km apart. A picture of one of the signs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MilitaryDemarcationLine.jpg
Bruce Webb
@LT:
They accidently cross a nebulous border in the middle of godfuck nowhere for seconds while doing good and honorable work and are arrested by goons from the one true goonland
Nebulous? It was a fricking frozen river. Moreover they were reporting on North Koreans who had reached the relative speaking freedom of China. Which they reached how? By crossing the Tumen River!! Christ it is like ‘accidentally’ crossing into the Korean DMZ. Or just happening to ‘stray’ over the Rio Grande.
Reports held prisoner in North Korea
I am glad they are out of N.K., I don’t want to see anyone stuck in a North Korean hard labor camp, American or not. On the other hand there are any number of young Mexican mothers behind barb-wire fences here in the U.S. for the crime of crossing a border to feed their kids. Which they no-doubt think is “good and honorable work”.
To repeat. It is a river. And from the pictures a pretty damn big river. And second guessing is definitely in order. Because the only apparent reason it was “for seconds” was because that was how long it took for the border guards to scoop them up.
PeakVT
@Deborah: See the border for yourself. Much of it appears to follow one river or another, except in this area.
Fern
Much too soon to start making judgments, and way little information. Where did they allegedly cross the border? Was the border marked at this location? Was it deliberate or inadvertant? If deliberate, for what reason? Who was with them? Guide? Translator? Driver? Camera person? Locals? What advice did they get?
I’m happy to wait until they are ready to tell their story. Rage at their actions is way premature.
Bruce Webb
The two paragraphs after the blockquotes should have been within them. Only the last three lines are me.
srv
Ask any Korean male what the border is like. They have mandatory service and they’ll tell you stories of infiltrators killing people and an 18 year old friend who got shot by his own unit because he wasn’t quick enough with the pass word one night.
And that was in the 90’s. Doubt it has changed at all.
bob
You, Mr. Cole, are still a winger deep inside. The only time you really let the spittle fly is on the targets of the Right.
Give it up and go back to detailing your eating habits and posting pictures of animals. Please.
tavella
It’s not marked; it runs down the middle of the Yalu and Tumen rivers for the most part, and in some cases right up to the shore of islands in those rivers. If you go to Dandong, China, there are tour boats that cruise the river, where the big attraction is chucking bags of food to NK’ers. Kind of like a bad zoo. In some cases, they actual violating the border, as in in this account of such a boat trip. I’m pretty sure everyone on that boat would have been awfully startled if the NK guards had leaped aboard and hauled everyone off, even though they were briefly technically in NK territory.
Basically, the NK-China border isn’t marked, isn’t fortified for the most part, relatively sparsely guarded, and normally NK isn’t very paranoid (for them) of people coming from China; they are concentrating on keeping people inside from actually getting to the border. However, I suspect the Current TV team didn’t really figure the whole “white guy/obvious westerners with cameras” into that equation, plus they had a certain amount of bad luck with there being a guard post nearby they didn’t see.
To the extent I think it was foolish, it’s because it was primarily probably about getting a beauty shot — the beloved “Behind me is North Korea. Every winter thousands of North Koreans cross this river, hoping for a new life in China. But for many of these women, it will be a betrayal…” type monologue. As opposed to being absolutely necessary for details of the story.
On the other hand, in the process of reporting this story, the National Geographic writer broke probably dozens of Chinese laws, and actually hid some of the refugees in his own hotel room so they wouldn’t be arrested before their guide could pick them up. And that story is the reason I know so much about the sex trade in NK refugees… which is what journalism is for. And some of that law breaking was for the purposes of taking better photos, which makes a better, more powerful story, which means people like me are more likely to read it, and know about such things. So I can’t really get too upset at them for doing the same.
Oh, and here’s a description of the Tumen river border from that story:
FoxinSocks
I think people have this impression that just like on a map, international borders have these big red lines that cut through the countryside and that only an idiot could miss. There might also be neon signs letting you know you’re crossing into another country.
During the war in the Balkans, when we were busy bombing Serbia, a couple of colleagues of mine accidentally crossed into that country. They were driving down a country road in northern Kosovo, took a wrong turn and before they knew it, they were in enemy territory.
More recently, my father and his wife while in the Andes accidentally illegally crossed into Chile from Argentina. They had to find a border checkpoint and explain the situation. Luckily the border guards were quite understanding.
Finally, I once asked my father, who fought in Vietnam, if he had ever entered into north Vietnam, Cambodia or any other enemy territory. He said he could’ve very easily and that he oftentimes had no way of knowing on what side of the border he was on.
My point is that it can happen and I’m not going to be like these right-wingers who seem to criticize so easily from the comfort of their armchairs.
LT
@Lyle4:
It wasn’t the DMZ line. It was the border with China.
General Winfield Stuck
@joes527:
I’m sorry Joe but that’s just a load of bull. The tweet you provided just says social workers were concerned that the two journalists may have endangered the refugees, but don’t say how or that Ling and Lee had any contact with them. If they did carry notes or whatever, I didn’t see it with your link.
Social workers always say that when something stirs up the oppressors, whether it’s military activity, journalists or whatever. They are just trying to preempt any fallout on their clients in a generic way.
The reporters were just trying to inform the world of the plight in NK, and what’s that worth in helping the refugee cause?
Just Some Fuckhead
When I’m planning an incursion into the territory of a hostile foreign power, I prefer to take along an M4A1 assault rifle as my primary weapon and two MK23 pistols as backup. There is nothing more exhilarating than running along a ravine, a pistol in each hand, firing to the front and side simultaneously. These weapons would serve me well as I fight my way into Tijuana for some real tequila, not the fake shit they sell in America. (Real tequila has a very drunk worm in it.)
Now, if I was planning to invade a country with the world’s largest standing army on perpetually high alert, I’d also carry an HK MP5 submachine gun, a regular M60 machine gun, grenade launchers, grenades, mortars and perhaps anti-tank rockets if I had the space in my pack. Can you be over-prepared for the slaughter of 700,000 enemy combatants?
Of course, for a maniacal last stand there is no weapon more effective than a Benelli M4 shotgun, the weapon that practically screams, hey assholes, I’m dying over here, come and get some!
I don’t know what these so-called journalists were thinking.
Robin G.
I guess I’m just surprised that, given all the (legit) complaining we do around here about “reporters” who do nothing but sit behind desks and read press releases and engage in pundit circle-jerking, that so many are prepared to jump all over these women who took major risks to engage in actual investigative journalism.
shelley matheis
Sophia
@Gregg Carlson.
Yes, but they don’t often illegally cross borders into those war zones. Journalists in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan go there legally.
That isn’t true. The BBC, at least, often has or uses correspondents who are illegally in certain countries. John Simpson, for example, has spent time being hunted Robert Mugabe’s forces in Zimbabwe, stayed in Belgrade after Serbian authorities expelled journalists from NATO countries, and smuggled himself into Afghanistan in 2001 wearing a burqa. I would have to be willing to sacrifice a great deal of very important reporting and a lot of insight into those places to call any of that stupid.
And he has kids, too.
Marco
Add me to the chorus who don’t think what they did was wrong or stupid. I am kinda surprised at this post and some of the reaction to it. It wasn’t as if their Girls Gone Wild shoot accidentally rolled over the border.
What if Christiane Amanpour decided to sit home?
tavella
Umm, no, it’s not; it’s really quite lightly guarded in the area we are talking about. Like many people here, you seem to be projecting the DMZ border onto the PRC-DPRK border. The two are very different.
Woody
These “reporters” were sent specifically to dig up embarrassing stories about PRNK. They were there specifically to ‘document’ PKNR outrages on the border.
They weren’t innocent tourists.
They got caught, detained, accused, tried and convicted of illegally crossing onto PRNK.
The whole thing strikes me as kabuki…
JK
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s my understanding that Lisa Ling and Euna Lee were researching a story. Regarding the 3 Americans recently detained in Iran, they are freelance journalists. However, they were not researching a story. they were allegedly in the region for recreational hiking.
My reservoir of sympathy for Americans detained on foreign soil was used up with Lisa Ling and Euna Lee.
As far as I’m concerned, the 3 Americans in Iran can’t rot in prison for 10 or 15 years. What kind of fucking morons decide to go hiking in one of the most dangerous goddamn parts of the world? There’s plenty of beautiful, scenic territory in the United States to go hiking such as the Appalachian Trail.
JK
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s my understanding that Lisa Ling and Euna Lee were researching a story. Regarding the 3 Americans recently detained in Iran, they are freelance journalists. However, they were not researching a story. they were allegedly in the region for recreational hiking.
My reservoir of sympathy for Americans detained on foreign soil was used up with Lisa Ling and Euna Lee.
As far as I’m concerned, the 3 Americans in Iran can rot in prison for 10 or 15 years. What kind of fucking morons decide to go hiking in one of the most dangerous goddamn parts of the world? There’s plenty of beautiful, scenic territory in the United States to go hiking such as the Appalachian Trail.
Chuck Butcher
Gee, maybe the difference between stupid and just doing a job is knowing what the consequences are and being willing to accept them. That doesn’t mean I think there is something reasonable about a 12 yr hard labor sentence but it is also pretty generally known as the NK policy.
How is it that people who deliberately break a law are victims? You could call them brave or stupid or a lot of things but the word victim is inapplicable by definition. This is the equivilent of calling a house breaker who gets shot in the act a victim.
There was absolutely nothing inadvertant about their crossing and that has been known from the start, it was deliberate. What is not known yet is just what part of doing a job it is they were doing. There are a shitload of NK refugees on the Chinese side of that border, not to China’s pleasure.
I’m glad BC & Co got them out, but I’m well short of calling them heroes or victims – lucky works.
LT
@JK:
You suck at being human.
LT
@shelley matheis:
Exactly.
YellowJournalism
I know nothing about the North Korean border to judge whether they were stupid or not for entering near it, but the last comment on John’s post just bugs the hell out of me. I’m sorry, but I don’t often hear about how male journalists shouldn’t be in dangerous areas because they have kids. This reminds me of the people who criticize women in the military for enlisting when they have families and small children. Why is it abandonment when a woman does it but noble when a man does the same thing?
I’m more inclined to go along with those who say these women were doing their jobs and trying to do them better than most “journalists” in the MSM bother to these days.
shelley matheis
Downpuppy
Border mistakes are really pretty easy. Take the time I learned the hard way that there’s a little piece of Juarez on the El Paso side of the river. Please.
Jay B.
A bunch of fucking bootlicking assholes here pretending that the charnel house that is North Korea has something like “laws” to protect civil society or something. Everything they do — everything — is to crush their people’s wills and stifle humanity. Laws? Jesus fuck. Sure, they’re justified in sending those stupid cunts to hard labor — totalitarian states have LAWS after all — because they may or may not have accidentally crossed a border. Just following orders, of course.
I hate it when the US government does something like this, why on Earth is it any less offensive when the incomporably hellish , incomporably authoritarian shithole like North Korea does it?
Fucking sheep, the lot of you.
Patrick
On Laura’s sister Lisa Ling:
She spent several years as a foreign correspondent for television and magazines covering worldchanging issues: she hunted down cocaine labs in Colombia, reported on civil war in Algeria and the Albanian refugee…Her ground-breaking undercover (and under-burqa) reports on the everyday lives of Afghani civilians and the Taliban were aired on major news outlets around the country…
I remember particularly Lisa hiding under a Burqa in Afghanistan, when at one point someone told a joke, but since only men were allowed to speak, if she had laughed it might have given her away and cost her her life. It was an amazing, dangerous, but immensely informative look at a culture we had not seen up close.
I am with “some guy” above who would 10 Laura (or Lisa) Lings than 1000 Thomas Friedmans.
Jay B.
I’m also taking this a bit personally, as I met and corresponded with Harry Wu, who spent 19 years of his life in Chinese prison camps because he was committed to showing the atrocities of that n hellgovernment. He was right and courageous to do so. Why people mock and belittle those who choose to EXPOSE human rights abuses to stand strongly on the side of those who commit them is something that’s utterly disgusting to read.
Jay B.
I’m also taking this a bit personally, as I met and corresponded with Harry Wu, who spent 19 years of his life in Chinese prison camps because he was committed to showing the atrocities of that n hellgovernment. He was right and courageous to do so. Why people mock and belittle those who choose to EXPOSE human rights abuses to stand strongly on the side of those who commit them is something that’s utterly disgusting to read.
Here’s something on Harry Wu. Learn something.
Dave
Consistently defending the sanctity of the North Korean border since 2002?
Don
What other things might cause job-related deaths for journalists? Misfiring keyboards? Exploding USB memory sticks?
I’m not saying violence against reporters isn’t unfortunate and serious, but of course that’s going to be the leading cause of death in a white collar job. That’s just a meaningless statement that elicits an emotional reaction but provides no useful information.
Persian
@65: And Lisa Ling is gorgeous. Don’t want to sound racist… but she kind of looks like Lucy Liu.
celticdragon
Hear hear. About frakking time we had journalists with…ah what’s that word…oh yeah!
Courage.
Give me an intrepid reporter willing to do something dangerous to expose human rights abuses any day over the insipid, groveling boot lickers in the Washington Press Corps.
Ripley
Others have already said it better, but as a faithful reader/sometime commenter, gotta chip in: You’re way off on this one, Mr. Cole. I might understand a reasoned argument of your point, but ‘stupid!’ just comes off as giving in to the festering shards of one’s inner McCain-voter. Less, please.
celticdragon
Brachiator
@Chuck Butcher:
You’re joking, right? A law says that if you are a woman and appear outside without a male relative’s consent, or you wear pants, you can be beaten or killed.
And your response is, “Tough cookies. That’s the law.”
A law says that if your toe steps onto a country’s border and you will then be sentenced to 12 years hard labor, maybe with a little … enhanced interrogation thrown in for good measure.
And your response is “Tough cookies. That’s the law.”
A law says that if we deem you to be a terrorist, even if you are a United States citizen, we can snatch you from your home and transport you to Gitmo, interrogate you with enhancements, hold you for an undetermined period of time,
And your respone is “Tough cookies. That’s the law.”
And while I suppose we could rely on the CIA factbook and the official responses of our government, sometimes, you know, just sometimes, the independent reporting of journalists — even when they are violating another country’s laws — might provide sufficient intelligent reporting so that an informed citizenry does not let their elected government or a gaggle of neocon goons bamboozle us into an unnecessary conflict.
JK
@LT:
What kind of asshole would think it’s safe to go hiking in fucking Kurdistan? These 3 Americans who were detained in Iran are goddamn, fucking morons.
How many fucking times are we going to go thru this nonsense of thrill-seeking Americans deliberately putting themselves in harm’s way, getting arrested, and then having to be rescued.
The State Dept has plenty of problems on its plate. Now it has to waste valuable time and energy to win the freedom of some jackasses that are too fucking stupid to realize that there are some places that are just too goddamn dangerous to visit for recreational purposes.
celticdragon
yeah, Chuck, keep telling us. We might even believe you after three or four hi-balls…
I wonder how people illegally smuggling Jews out of occupied France would have viewed this blatant authoritarian idiocy.
Dave
Does anyone really think these people were sentenced for *trespassing*??
Anyway, John, I think I’ve noticed that when your blood is boiling, you’re wrong. I think you used the same language when you were pissed off that homeless people were squatting in foreclosed houses. That was pretty stupid too.
Downpuppy
I’m not saying violence against reporters isn’t unfortunate and serious, but of course that’s going to be the leading cause of death in a white collar job. That’s just a meaningless statement that elicits an emotional reaction but provides no useful information.
Information on 742 journalists killed:
http://www.cpj.org/deadly/
ES Blofeld
Contrary to JK’s incredible ignorance, not a single American has been killed in Kurdistan since the No Fly Zone was put in place. What happened in this case is that the 4 Americans (one ended up not going) asked the locals for a good place to hike, and they suggested (after apparently misunderstanding what a hike is) Ahmed Awa, because of the scenic waterfall there. Had the locals known what was intended, obviously they would have suggested a place further away from the unmarked border.
As for Lee and Ling, again: they were researching the human trafficking of North Korean refugees and prisoners. This wasn’t a fishing expedition as some armchair moralists here seem to think.
Betsy
I don’t really understand the need to condemn them so forcefully. It’s true they weren’t “innocent victims,” in the sense of not knowing what they were doing or that it carried a risk. Journalists do things that place them in great danger. They take on that risk willingly. Whether that’s a good thing or not is debatable, but why these women were worse than others I don’t really understand.
And ditto to what others have said about the child. Again, people can debate whether parents should take highly dangerous jobs, but I don’t see how Lee was a more irresponsible parent than a coal miner or infantryman/woman.
srv
@ES Blofeld:
Er, uh, you would be the incredibly ignorant one. You’re off by a couple dozen:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/15/us/court-martial-nears-in-case-of-helicopters-shot-down.html
JK
@ES Blofeld:
Give me a fucking break.
Just because no American has been killed in Kurdistan in several years does not make it Switzerland or Colorado.
Iran is in turmoil after a bitterly contested election and currently has a very hostile relationship with the US. Given these facts, the 3 Americans were shitheads for getting so close to the Iranian border. Stop making excuses for their fucking recklessness.
Anne Laurie
Of course if those Americans in Kurdistan were just “idiots hiking”, the Iranian authorities have been given another excuse to hold them forever. And given past CIA/NSA/DHS shenanigans, a considerable percentage of those who hear about this assume that even if Ling/Lee didn’t have some kind of wink-wink-say-no-more agreement with the Langley boys, then surely the Kurdistan Three must have. Because, yeah, being a journalist, doing your job, is one thing — kind of a willfully stupid thing, sometimes — but going halfway around the world just to put yourself in a position to be arrested for wandering across an invisible border in a country your nation is at war with? That’s a level of Positivistic cluelessness that only an American can achieve!
JK
They asked the locals for a good place to hike, and they suggested (after apparently misunderstanding what a hike is) Ahmed Awa, because of the scenic waterfall there –
at which point, the 3 Americans said in unison “Lah, dee, Dah Lah, dee, Dah Lah, dee, Dah.” just like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall.
Jay B.
but going halfway around the world just to put yourself in a position to be arrested for wandering across an invisible border in a country your nation is at war with?
And which country would that be?
Jay B.
but going halfway around the world just to put yourself in a position to be arrested for wandering across an invisible border in a country your nation is at war with?
And which country would that be? Because it’s certainly not Iran.
tammanycall
Perhaps a condition of their release was that they’d say they did cross the border, even if they hadn’t.
Grasping at straws, I know, but just thought I’d throw it out there.
Brachiator
OT: WordPress errors. Using Windows and Google Chrome
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shelley matheis
J.D. Rhoades
Stupid? Yeah, in a “hold them for a couple of hours, yell at them, then kick their ass back across the border” way.
Not in a “twelve years hard labor” way.
JK
@shelley matheis:
Shelley,
If you’re such a great admirer of these 3 Americans, why don’t you go hiking in Kurdistan, get as close as possible to the Iranian border and see what happens.
Have you ever believed in the concept of Personal Responsibility?
bob h
How stupid do you have to be to go camping on the Kurdistan-Iran border at a time when the Ayatollahs are in Great Satan mode? Fuck these people.
Jay B.
Yeah, let ’em rot in a shitty hellhole prison because of insane religious bigots! Serves them right for walking around on hills.
John Cole
@bob: How are these guys targets of the right?
LT
@John Cole:
They are targets of the Right because they were freed by (sort of) Bill Clinton. You haven’t seen or heard about tDick Morris’ screed on Fox News about how they should stay there and do their time?
tomvox1
Holy s#*t, I feel like I’ve stumbled into Redstate. Why is Juan Cole regurgitating Right Wing/Bolton-esque talking points? Blame the victim much? North Korea’s regime is certifiably bats#*t crazy so let’s factor that into the equation, OK? And the toddler comment is waaaaay out of line, dude.
Whispers
I’ve got to agree with tomvox1 that the toddler comment is out of line. The implication here is that a mother must always think of the children first. I’m guessing such a comment would not have been forthcoming had the person been a father. The next time I see a risk-taking father berated for not thinking of his children first will be the first time in my life I’ve seen such a thing.
Marshall
I have to say that I never thought for a minute they would serve those 12 years. This is an obvious propaganda move by the DPRK, they’ve done it before, and likely will do it again.