Add to the list: Don't go to North Korea over your holiday break for a sooper awesome "party tour."

After putting down a deposit for a $1,200 five-day, four-night “New Year's Party Tour,” Otto learned from the confirmation e-mail that his visa would be arranged by the company and presented to him when he met the tour group at the Beijing airport. The State Department had an advisory in place against traveling to North Korea, where he'd be beyond the American government's power to directly help him. Otto's parents weren't thrilled by the trip, but as his mother later explained, “Why would you say no to a kid like this?”

Why indeed.

https://www.gq.com/story/otto-warmbier-north-korea-american-hostage-true-story

Yeah, well, the Saudis were looking after the kid. That's not just a piece of garbage.

I have 2 sister in laws. One Iranian, one from dubai (yes my brothers have a type) The Iranian one escaped, with her siblings but not her mom, to France at the fall of the Shah. She has horror stories you wouldn't believe. Her mom survived, but she hasn't seen her mom in years.

The other got picked up from middle school one day by her parents, as usual, but they went straight to the airport and flew here, her parents had got visas and her dad a job here. They hadn't told her or her 2 brothers for fear of the wrong person hearing and interfering.

Both of them recognize the authoritarian bent of our current democratic party, the sexual thrill they get from exerting control of all kinds, and both know where that leads. Both vote Republican.

Isn't it a hub, though? Don't a lot of flights to India, Australia etc transfer around there?

I mean yeah, after this story I am hella never going to fly to their airport or use their airlines, but nothing like this happpened before that I know of.

I don't get why they didn't just do a blood or urine test.

Stop me if you've heard this joke.

American tourist in Mexico is stopped and arrested by the cops. "Hey, you can't do that, I know my rights!" said the tourist. "Ah, we are familiar with your Miranda. In this country, Miranda wears a funny hat and dances on tables."

Aren't these the same people sho clutched their pearls when Trump called some third-world countries "shit holes?" Hate to tell ya folks, but there are some shit holes in this world.

The incident in Doha is illustrative of what happens when government power acquires primacy over individual liberty; when collectivism reigns.

Any police agency in the US that pulled random women of a specific nationality off a plane and then subjected the to an invasive cavity search would find itself subject to a barrage of lawsuits, most, if not all, of which it would lose.

> Miranda wear a funny hat....

STOP

Oops. Qatar, not Saudi Arabia. And they've issued an apology.

I wonder how many American citizens are yanked off planes and strip searched?

Seems to be an issue for the Australian embassy.

Kevin, thanks for the link. That was a very riveting piece.

Kevin, thanks for the link. That was a very riveting piece. ~ JD at October 31, 2020 1:20 PM

I agree, that was an interesting piece, Kevin.

Nice view into the intricacies of negotiating with a regime like North Korea and each president's approach to it.

Conan, perhaps one of the few things on which we'll ever agree.

Kevin: Add to the list: Don't go to North Korea over your holiday break for a sooper awesome "party tour."

Although I certainly have no interest in visiting North Korea -- on a party tour or otherwise -- my impression is that, for the most part**, it's safe to do so but you'd better be 100% sure you dot your i's, cross your t's and don't cross the regime.

The piece didn't say conclusively whether or not Warmbier tore down that propaganda poster in the hotel but, if he did actually do that, it was an incredibly boneheaded and dangerous thing to do. As the author mentioned, ordinary North Koreans can be tortured or murdered for such a minor infraction as that (which, of course, the despicable regime doesn't view as minor.)

** Even if you do hew to the straight and narrow, the regime could still decide to arrest you on some false charge in order to obtain a bargaining chip which is precisely why I'd never risk going there.

Even if you do hew to the straight and narrow, the regime could still decide to arrest you on some false charge in order to obtain a bargaining chip which is precisely why I'd never risk going there. ~ JD at October 31, 2020 2:59 PM

It may not be the only thing we ever agree on. After all, I liked Connery in The Man Who Would Be King, too.

My impression is that Warmbier was, in fact, arrested as a bargaining chip. Given his age, he was probably targeted as an easy mark. He was, to them, a soft, middle-class American teenager who would collapse under vigorous questioning and the threat of torture; one with American parents rich enough to have some influence, at least as the North Koreans understand political influence in America.