We take a break from teabaggers in near-riot, people who believe Barack Obama is an illegal alien who hates white people, and the GOP alternative to health care reform to consider journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. After accidentally crossing the border between China and North Korea (or, perhaps, after being tricked into crossing it), they found themselves in the custody of what few would argue wasn't the most totalitarian state in the world. Charged with being in North Korea to launch a "smear campaign" against the regime, the two journalists were sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. You'd imagine that a North Korean labor camp would make a Stalinist gulag look like Club Med -- this was a virtual death sentence.Ling and Lee were undoubtedly arrested to be used as pawns in a geopolitical chess game. And it's this fact that lends credibility to the theory that they were led across the border by North Korean agents masquerading as guides. That Laura Ling's sister Lisa had previously embarrassed the North Korean government probably didn't help matters any.
After four and a half months in a North Korean prison, Lee and Ling were given a pardon and released yesterday.
Agence France-Presse:
Bill Clinton has safely left Pyongyang with two US journalists after they were pardoned by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, a spokesman for the former US president said Tuesday.
“President Clinton has safely left North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They are en route to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families,” Clinton’s spokesman Matt McKenna said.
North Korea said Clinton delivered a special message to Kim from US President Barack Obama during his historic trip, which followed acute tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile tests, but the White House denied this.
The families of the reporters were unsurprisingly "overjoyed" at the news. In fact, pretty much everyone was happy with the result -- with one glaring exception, former Bush ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
