Life in Paradise . . . Punishment Enough?

It looks like Charles Robert Jenkins is about to defect again. How? I can only offer two guesses:

1. It was part of the deal Koizumi made on his last visit to the Emerald City.
2. Events spun out of North Koreaï¿½s control once he landed in Indonesia.

I rather think it was the former. North Korea would never have let this guy leave the country and talk to his American family if it had the slightest expectation of him coming back.

Some of my fellow bloggers have been pretty hard on Sgt. Jenkins, and let me be clear that as a seven-year veteran myself, I donï¿½t have any sympathy for deserters. I would add that I have not seen the evidence of guilt and Iï¿½m not yet convinced that was the case. Iï¿½ve been through the process of accusations and trials with enough clients to know that those two things typically yield very different conclusions. Iï¿½m willing to keep my mind open until something changes my mind. Furthermore, Iï¿½m a lot more interested in the future than the past. What can Charles Robert Jenkins tell the American people about life in Kim Jong-Ilï¿½s earthly paradise? Rather than make the UCMJ system look petty by prosecuting a guy who has already suffered so much he looks 20 years older than his real age, we ought to sentence this guy to write a book and do the rounds on the talk shows.

He may yet do his country some good, in an oblique way.

So what about the daughters? If they return to North Korea, they are as good as hostages.