Anyway, Bill Clinton is in Pyongyang now finalizing negotiations for their release, so the lucky date should be within 5 days of the prediction I made back in June.

It’s been fun posting here on “One Free Korea”. I really like this intelligent blog and promise to be a regular reader even after Laura and Euna are released. Thanks to Joshua (no relation to William) Stanton and all of the people who make this site such a unique wonderful resource for Korea analysts.

Kam sa ham ni da!

We all know the regime in North Korea is so paranoid about its “survival” that from an early point in its history, it created “classes” or classifications of all the citizens – based on perceived loyalty to the state – with elaborate plans to kill the lower classes if war with the US should erupt.

And that these bottom layers of loyalty are the ones that were purposefully starved off during the famine and since and that ends up in the concentration camps.

In short, we know NK has killed off millions of its own people because it thought it just couldn’t trust them enough…

In fact, we know that the Koreans from Japan who were very loyal to the regime to the point that they came back and gave their wealth to the state — ended up in the concentration camps because the regime just didn’t like to take any chance they might lead to its downfall.

—- How hard or easy would it be for such a regime to decide that two American reporters trying to do one of those stories that makes North Korea the talk of the human rights circuit (well, not really that much, judging by Amnesty Int’s websites – but we’re talking about a paranoid regime here) and makes it harder for NK to get its demands met — are really a national security threat that needs to be dealt with – in the worst possible terms?

But there is one important reason to not let them go… especially if they want to teach errant journalists reporting about the trafficking in the area a quite punitive lesson.

I think it is easier to rattle off a few likely reasons why Pyongyang would want to hold them and only on at play right now for why it would let them go:

It’d let them go to get paid off with the right amount.

It would hold them to send a message. Or as a vendetta for what the sister did. Or just because it is a sadistic, megalomaniacal regime that does things like this!!

Everything all of us know about the regime in Pyongyang is that it has been a sadistic, evil place that has done things to its very own people that don’t make any sense at all out in the rational world where people have hearts as well as brains…

Looking back at North Korea’s long history of seemingly bizarre and negative actions — why do so many people have faith Pyongyang basically wants to return these two American reporters just as soon as it can get a little money for them?

It is very possible that is exactly what is going on —- but I can’t have any confidence in it based on what we know as fact in history…

If Laura or Euna gets too sick there’s a good chance they’ll be let go sooner, but still not without a price.

There seems to be roughly two camps of thought on North Korea’s intentions – both largely left undefined or semi-clear: 1. North Korea just wants to make a quick buck but doesn’t really won’t to be held responsible for this brouhaha and is either itching to return them and be done with it or would simply like to have the situation resolved as quickly as possible with a pay off.

2. My opposite feeling that it is just as likely or more likely that the North has the women and plans on keeping them on hand to satisfy its own whim whenever it feels like it years into the future — that it might give them up if the price is right but it will be quiet satisfied to hang onto them as long as they aren’t forced to give them up.

I think this difference in base assumptions also explains differences in points of view on the importance of where the women were actually taken and how much or little the US government should get involved.

If I thought the two women were most assuredly going to be released in at least a matter of months if not weeks, and that North Korea wouldn’t dare do anything drastic with them considering they are going to be out of pocket in the near future and can tell their tale to the whole world — I wouldn’t worry so much about them —- and I’d probably think the US silence at least could make some sense and I might think more about specific points in the whole ordeal like where they were nabbed.

Especially on the US government indifference part — why give NK the satisfaction of showing you care if the whole issue is highly likely to be solved in a matter of weeks with a quiet payoff of a couple of million by some non-government entity?

I guess that is my best hope for the future now since the US government is following that route of virtual indifference —- but when I think about Pyongyang’s mindset – I can’t help but thing that is just one possibility and probably not the most likely one at all…

Wearing a PLA uniform to cross the border and check out some birds? Hmmm. Which species of birds are found only on the North Korean side of the border? Do these birds have accurate maps and know which islands belong to 中 and which ones belong to 朝? How did you manage to get a rifle to authenticate your uniform or did you open the phrasebook and point to the words “나는 망루에 소총을 남겨 두고 왔어요”?