Celebrating the liberation of these journalists goes without saying.

Nevertheless, this was accomplished by private 'entrepreneurial' elements and not through normal governmental and political channels. That is important, I think. Somehow, one can't help having the impression that much more was at stake in this event than merely this liberation.

I must confess, in watching the speech by one of the liberated journalists, that, for a brief moment at least, I felt a very eerie, subjective, 'feeling' that I was listening to some bizarrely composed statement by someone accepting the Academy Award, making sure to mention and include the entire entourage of "those who made it all possible".

In all events, the episode ended well for the journalists, which is the most important fact in the circumstances. The Event as a whole is and remains an interesting development on many fronts and levels.

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As a bank, you can write a mortgage your client cannot afford. As a borrower you can sign a mortgage you cannot sustain. As an automobile buyer you can buy a gas guzzler. Our Government will throw cash at you to correct your irresponsible decision, while responsible people pay the bill. Now, we have two journalist who obviously never heard of North Korea and decided to enter that country. Does anyone really want to read the writings of journalists, who demonstrated such profound lack of judgment? I wonder how much this "rescue" is going to cost us. Why can our Government not allow, that people live with the consequences of their actions? What about supporting and rewarding people, who are making the right decisions?

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Reading and seeing all the news regarding the release of these two silly young ladies much has been made of the compassion and humanitarian effort by Clinton and Co. Or was it a favour for his old pal Gore?

There are several unanswered questions, how the hell did the ladies manage to cross the river into North Korea? What was their true objective? Was it a well worked propoganda stunt? They had no military connectios so why were the big guns wheeled out for their return?


While Clinton is seen to come to the defence of these two ladies based on humanitarian grounds would it be too much to ask him step into the US procurement of Gary McKinnon?

After all the girls only faced 12 years in prison while Gary is facing life imprisonment for some stupid security jerks in the Pentagon not doing their job properly

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no.

And Bill Clinton's problem during his presidency was that he was too nice of a guy. And the self-rigtheous, foaming-at-the-mouth Rethugs took advantage of him.

Mr. Obama, there are lessons to be learned here.

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Little known background: Laura Ling's sister sneaked into North Korea in 2006 to do a documentary for National Geographic. (NG's "Inside North Korea" is available for rental through NETFLIX.)

Cutting through today's self-congratulatory media hype, Laura and Euna (United Stateseans of Korean descent and looks) were NOT casual "journalists" haplessly wandering across the Yalu river, the heavily guarded border between China and the prison-state of North Korea. Pardon me if I doubt my government (yet again) but I wonder what hand the State Department and/or CIA had in getting Ling Lee into the boat. How much of my tax dollars supported this and the ensuing theater? Was Bill Clinton already positioned in the wings to extract these "innocents" for our country's glory? Who wrote Laura's academy award release speech?

Well, the adventures of Ling Lee certainly distracted me from old news like the past(?) torture (and SODOMY!!) at Guantanamo that is rapidly disappearing under the rug of "looking forward."

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Well done!!

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Why sneak in if not trying to sneak in??? So lots of bad food and hard times...and probably the North Koreans from what little I've heard aren't eating so well themselves. Maybe the leftover paranoia of the cold war should get doused with some cold water.

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I have a sneaking hunch our President might have had something to do with this as well.

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These two individuals were provocateurs who, for whatever reason, either as individuals or as spies (that possibility should never be excluded) created an international incident. Let's not make their behaviour heroic. The message needs to be sent that the world is not a US playground, where Americans can intrude wherever they want to, welcome or not.

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Nice article, very helpful. thanks!!


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Nice article, very helpful. thanks!!


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