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Almighty God, Please Spare Us the Retch-Inducing Stockholm Syndrome Speeches (Updated, Bumped)

[Updated below]

Now that Laura Ling and Euna Lee are on their way home, I have a short list of things I do and do not want to hear from them, starting with any retch-inducing drivel about how well they were treated while they shouldn’t have been in captivity at all. Let’s make that the first thing on our list:

1.  Please spare us the Stockholm Syndrome at LAX.  Try to remember that you weren’t in North Korea to rob convenience stores, hide a dead hooker, or hand out boxer briefs infected with herpes.  If things were so wonderful at that cushy non-gulag guesthouse where you were held — unlike conditions for those North Koreans who offend His Withering Majesty — then go back.  This is not a misunderstood state that eventually made contact with its inner goodness by freeing you.  It’s a place that starves, terrorizes, tortures, and murders millions of non-famous North Koreans, including potentially everyone whose face appears in the video the North Koreans say they seized from you.

2.  The only things we want to hear at LAX are how you really got across the border and a few polite words of thanks for those who helped to free you.  Were you abducted, did you get lost, were you lured, or are you just imbeciles who were trying to cover a story you knew absolutely nothing about?  Then go home to your families and say nothing else for at least a week.

3.  When you emerge, remember why you were there.  You were there to tell the story of desperate people like this woman and tens of thousands more like her who will remain forgotten, unmourned, and unmentioned in all of the glowing, shallow, stupid press coverage that will soon follow.  They won’t be objects of hope for the great, false diplomatic breakthrough that your release from unjust imprisonment represents to unintelligent people of every race, color, creed, and political persuasion.  You can make those people minimally less unintelligent by taking a moment out of the first act of your book tour to remember the refugees and those who are dying in the real gulags.

4.  As a corollary to number 3, it’s not all about you.  Before you tell your own story, tell the story you went there to tell.

5.  As a corollary to number 4, if you actually got people killed by carrying video of them into North Korea, repent what you have done.  The ignorance and stupidity that killed them should weigh on you.  Telling their stories is a small token of the burden of repentance that you owe them.  I would much prefer, of course, that you truthfully clarify that you did no such thing.

6.  No Larry King.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever.  Larry King is a tool and a blight upon our society, and your support for him poisons a world in which my children will have to live.

7.  Please do not pretend that your experience has made you an authority on North Korea.  This doesn’t mean you can’t become one, it just means you aren’t one because of this.

8.  Please do not tell us what your release proves about diplomacy or policy, and do not humor anyone who is stupid enough to ask.  You’re not policy analysts or diplomatic correspondents.  You’re pawns.

9.  Please don’t try to redeem the cowardice of Current TV.  That is a lost cause.

10.  If you did cross the border voluntarily, mortgage your homes now and start writing checks to repay the taxpayers for whatever your ransom cost us.

Update:   Retch inducing:

Laura Ling’s sister says the two American journalists briefly touched North Korean soil before they were captured and detained for months in that communist country.

“She said that it was maybe 30 seconds and then everything got chaotic. It’s a very powerful story, and she does want to share it,” Lisa Ling told CNN Thursday.  [….]
Laura Ling told her family she was treated humanely, but meals were meager and her phone calls were monitored, Lisa Ling said.

“She had two guards in her room at all times, morning and night. And even though they couldn’t speak to her, somehow they developed a strange sort of kinship, Lisa Ling said. “She had some really lovely things to say about the people who were watching over her.   [AP]

It’s all about me, and I was treated well!   Tell it to the people who appeared on your confiscated video before the Chinese police poked wires through their wrists and dragged them back across the border to die in the gulag, or before a firing squad of onlookers.

Until now, I confess that I could not bring myself to believe that people could be this stupid, and wanted to extend Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee the benefit of any remaining doubts.  It looks like I was wrong.  This must be the most consequentially idiotic thing I’ve seen done in the five years I’ve been writing this blog — frankly, it borders on negligent homicide.  Is it any wonder why there’s so much awful journalism being written about North Korea today?

Related:   John Podhoretz isn’t thrilled with this pair, either:

[N]ow that they are out of jeopardy, Ling and Lee deserve to be held accountable, at least in the realm of public opinion, for the unthinkably bad judgment they displayed in their preposterous, vainglorious, and astoundingly naive venture. Possessing some fantasy about presenting an inside look at North Korea on an justifiably unwatched (because unwatchable) cable channel called Current TV, they thought they could sneak undetected into a Gulag state, film some footage with a DV camera, and then sneak back out to the hosannas of the Peabody Award committee. This is something they chose to do and were given license to attempt by their employers, and for which they paid a horrific, far too horrific, a price.

That must be the case as well for Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the co-owners of Current TV, who have doubtless existed in a state of terrible “what have I done” anxiety about this since the arrests. But none of them can be simply excused for the way in which their foolishness has exacted a price from the government of the United States, which has been at a loss under administrations Democratic and Republican for more than two decades as to what to do about North Korea and its threat. The interpolation of this melodrama and its resolution have made this nation’s policy toward North Korea even more messy, though that hardly seemed possible, entirely due to a preventable error on the part of two amateurish journalists and their amateurish network.

77 Responses

  1. The best commentary on the Clinton quest for a Nobel Peace Prize that will sadly not be printed by mainstream press. It is also the funniest. Which reminds me, this may be the furthest Bill has traveled to pick up a few girls….

  2. Hi Joshua,

    I couldn’t resist commenting on this story after my long absence.
    I watched CNN tonight, and David Gergen gave the best response to John Bolton’s
    editorial about Bill Clinton’s trip: “If John Bolton had his way, those two women would still be in North Korea.”

    I also heard that Al Gore had offered to visit North Korea for the release of the journalists but the North Koreans rejected that offer. Instead, they asked Laura Ling to request a visit from Bill Clinton, and then Al Gore made that request to him.
    When Clinton was president, he had planned to visit North Korea, but it didn’t happen. That may have been one of the reasons why KJI was so keen on meeting with him, in addition to the fact that Hillary is the current Secretary of State.
    It seems like the North Koreans have a special affinity for Bill, and maybe he could become an envoy to North Korea and help revive the Agreed Framework that he started.

  3. Aren’t you being a bit harsh on these women? They were, after all, kidnapped and held for ransom by the most brutal government in the world. Can’t we at least wait to hear what they have to say?

  4. Joshua wrote:

    The only things we want to hear at LAX are how you really got across the border and a few polite words of thanks for those who helped to free you. Were you abducted, did you get lost, were you lured, or are you just imbeciles who were trying to cover a story you knew absolutely nothing about? Then go home to your families and say nothing else for at least a week.

    Amen, Joshua, amen!

    The whole thing, amen! But instead of seeing them mortgaging their homes to pay back their taxpayers, I’d like them to get their hands on some project that will begin to save the number of lives — somewhere — they have endangered by their career-aggrandizing mission.

    Who does that?

  5. I love this post so much I read it 3 times from top to bottom! No joke; I actually agree with 1 through 10.
    Must admit though, I didn’t know what “Stockholm Syndrome” is. Plus I thought that second sentence in #1 was pretty harsh with terms like “dead hookers” and “herpes infected”…Yuck!
    Don’t forget there’s a total of 6 confiscated videos. 5 that were being carried plus the one that was already in the confiscated camera. Keep in mind also that the Current TV crew had already completed 3 days of interviews (March 14-16) with refugees in Yanji as they were originally scheduled to go to Dandong on March 17.
    One final note regarding #10; remember that pocketed stone mentioned in the post-trial report? * It wasn’t supposed to be a souvenir of China.

    * http://www.mcclatchydc.com/255/story/73070.html

  6. I would be utterly stunned into silence if they took even 50% of your advise. For these type of “truthers”, it’s always about them.

  8. 11. Once you’re on camera, please try to obscure the view of Al Gore. He’ll be in the background, jumping up and down waving his hands like a FoxFan on the other side of the window – claiming that he invented the [Green] jet engines that brought you home. Thank you in advance.

  9. Aren’t you being a bit harsh on these women? They were, after all, kidnapped and held for ransom by the most brutal government in the world. Can’t we at least wait to hear what they have to say?

    If they crossed the border, even unknowingly, then they were not kidnapped. If they crossed under any circumstances, then they were lawfully detained albeit the 12-year sentence imposed was unjustly harsh. None of Joshua’s points presume their guilt, and every single point is valid regardless of what actually happened.

  11. I’ve had about enough of the drivel that CNN’s in house political analysts (specifically David Gergen) offer.

    This list is a breath of fresh air, and all members of the MSM would do well to read it.

  14. Joshua, I am sympathetic to what you say. Some people from psalt came to my church to speak, and I was struck by their gentleness in the face of the horrors that go on. Therefore, I was struck by the tone of your article/blog. It sounds as if you are very angru. Do you realize that? I am writing this not so you publish it, but just for you to reflect. I don’t mean to say anything negative. I can well imagine that it is easy to become angry at the horrible injustices, but it might not be good for you to become angry.

    I pray that all of you in PSALT keep up the good work you are doing,

    Your sister in Christ, Angela
    Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.Psalm 37:8
    In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah psalm 4:4

  15. Spelunker says there were six confiscated videos. The June 16 posting, “KCNA Detailed Report on Truth about Crimes Committed by American Journalists” at http://www.kcna.co.jp isn’t that specific. Apparently, this posting is merely a summary of the “detailed report.” How can I get an English translation of that?

  16. “Your sister in Christ”? I thought Joshua was Jewish. Cheers from your sister in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

  17. I’ve been watching everything on CNN. They were understandably upset, but to be honest I don’t think that they violated too many of Josh’s outlines. The only things I saw was the “nightmare of our lives” comment (of their lives, maybe, but what about those that were sentenced and are in a prisoner camp) and Al Gore trying to dominate the scene, looking like a hawk behind the podium. Other then that, pretty well played.

  19. But honestly Angela, this is the internet. You will never be able to post anything religious without being covered in spaghetti sauce.

  20. Beautifully said, Sonagi. The tone of bigotry in your accusation of the same is almost poetic.

  21. There is no bigotry in pointing out the fact that non-Christians are not “in Christ,” an expression appropriately used among Christians. Please read your Bible. Those who do not believe in Christ are not “in Christ.”

  22. I don’t think you’re so bad, Josh. There is such a thing as righteous anger, and it’s played a critical role in many parts of the Bible too.

  23. @Glans
    Unfortunately the English version of the post trial report is not as detailed as the Korean version, also published by KCNA at the link you mentioned. I think the Washington Post might have had an article featuring the English translation of the extended version, but unfortunately I didn’t save it and now it’s no longer on the Internet. I do have the Chinese translation of the Korean version in my private news archive, and used my own English translation of the Chinese article for the facts that I cite.

    Larry King had 2 guests last night talking about Bill Clinton and the release of Laura and Euna: One was the son of Billy Graham and the other was Deepak Chopra. Graham’s son went so far as describing Bill Clinton as an angel from Heaven but later retracted that remark by saying “Bill Clinton is not an angel…” Jermaine Jackson is scheduled for Friday’s show, so the earliest we might see Laura Ling go on Larry King is next week unless she reads “One Free Korea” over the next 2 days. (She has already logged on to her Facebook account.)

  24. @Spelunker
    Then I guess I’m never going to see the North Korean side of the story.

    Clinton is human, we all know that.

    I wish Mitch Koss would tell his version of St Patrick’s Day on the Tumen.

  25. Excellent post, Joshua. I’m a longtime lurker of your blog and find it immensely helpful. Thank you for your good work.

    Thank you also for this list, which I don’t think Laura Ling and Euna Lee will abide by – unfortunately.

  26. I am hoping they will take your advice Joshua, I do want to hear Laura and Euna’s side of the story and I want to hear the stories of the people they were interviewing, and the only thing they should say they are sorry for is if any refugees were hurt because they were caught.

  27. The only missing vitriol is a strand aimed at cameraman-producer Mitchell Koss. The senior member of the crew, someone who mentored Lisa Ling, Anderson Cooper (to some extent) should have above all spoken up as the voice of reason.

    Unless of course it was his idea in the first place…

  29. A commenter on Gawker said that Laura had a reputation around the office as being very much the risk-taker. I think she’s always trying to measure up to her sister and prove herself (and if you look at her stories, they’re pretty light-weight, with lots of “oooh it’s scary here” stuff aimed at high school kids.)

    I still want to know when David Neumann is going to make a public statement–forget Gore. Al’s not hanging around the office, approving stories and signing petty cash reports. Someone signed off on this, someone decided that Euna Lee would be fine, and someone isn’t talking.

    And whose version will be in the book? I heard that Laura didn’t want any messages from Koss.

  31. Gawker is a toolbox. Those bastards didn’t publish my comment about Mitch Koss even though the subject of their stupid article is Mitch Koss. I hate moderated forums; it’s so absolutely annoying to get censored by both CNN and Gawker.

  32. @Glans

    조선민주주의인민공화국 중앙검찰소는 피심자들의 진술과 증거물들인 록화촬영기 1조, 록화테프 6개, 수자식사진기 1대, 돌 1개, 사진 17매, 동화상자료 2건 등에 의하여 범죄행위 전모가 확정된데 따라 5월 11일 피심자들을 중앙재판소에 기소하였다.

    This is the excerpt from the North Korean post trial report listing material evidence including 1 video camera, 6 videotapes, 1 digital camera, 17 photographs, and a souvenir stone.

    Here is another excerpt for you; this is from Donald Kirk’s article in the Christian Science Monitor and mentions something unfortunate about the content of those videotapes:

    The fear of betraying contacts, defectors – and the families they left behind in North Korea – haunts Durihana, a Seoul-based organization whose pastor, Rev. Chun Ki-won, was imprisoned for ten months in China some years ago for assisting defectors fleeing through China toward sanctuary in Mongolia. Mr. Chun introduced Ling and Lee to defectors, gave them contact names, and advised them of the risks of going too close to the line with North Korea.

    “They didn’t cover the faces of the North Koreans they interviewed,” says Choi Song-jun, a Bible student who works for Durihana. “We really worry about it. We pray for them and for their relatives. Nobody knows what happens to them.”

    Here’s the link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0417/p06s10-woap.html?page=2

  33. Richard wrote:

    The only missing vitriol is a strand aimed at cameraman-producer Mitchell Koss.

    Delivered long ago. I for one have been bashing Koss since day one, maybe even more so since the chivalrous bastard managed to save his own skin without giving a rat’s ass about his colleagues. Since I don’t condone doing violence to people, I think I wished a daily ice cream headache on him until Lee and Ling were released.

  34. @Spelunker
    Thanks. That’s chilling. I can’t read Korean, but I see 1, 6, 1, 1, and 17. There’s also 2, 5, and 11. Maybe those, and the extra 1, are innocuous items. The Kirk excerpt is even more chilling – those folks don’t have a famous sister, don’t work for a former VPOTUS.

    Lisa Ling was on Anderson Cooper 360 by phone. She said that Laura told her that they were in North Korea only thirty seconds, and then it got chaotic. That seems to contradict reports that one of the videos had them bragging about being in a North Korean courtyard illegally. Lisa said that Laura will tell the story soon, possibly in an editorial.

    Nothing was said about Mitch Koss.

  35. Lisa Ling has already violated the first item on the list of Dos and Don’ts by saying that her sister “won the guards over” and developed a “strange kinship” with them even though they couldn’t speak to each other.

    The ordinarily non-credible North Koreans were correct that the women had entered North Korea, and I suspect longer than thirty seconds. The North Koreans, not the women, hold video evidence of the incident and could release some of that evidence to clarify any conflicting claims.

  36. @Glans
    The word “courtyard” was a poor English translation of the original Korean text. Unfortunately it was published in haste by several news media outlets eager to be the first to publish the post-trial report. In later articles the word “courtyard” was properly translated into “territory” so that the confiscated video’s narration was “We have just entered North Korean territory without permission”.

    The numbers 5 and 11 are the date that the corresponding evidence was presented to North Korea’s central court (May Eleventh). The number 2 is for 2 media notebooks. (Sorry about that exclusion yesterday.) Those notebooks included phone numbers of refugees and aid workers that they had met in Yanji, according to a recent BBC interview.
    Not very innocuous, I presume.

    Here is the Chinese version of the trial report that I referenced from North Korea’s Naenara website:

    http://www.kcckp.net/ch/news/news_view.php?19+571

    朝鲜民主主义人民共和国中央检察院通过被审者的陈述与证据——录像机一台、录像带六个、数码相机一台、石头一个、相片十七张、多媒体资料二件等，确证了犯罪行为全貌，据此5月11日将她们向中央法院提出公诉。

    I’m glad you saw AC360 last night, Glans. I did too, and sent the show’s blog a message that mentioned Mitch Koss at least 3 times. CNN’s moderator is intimidated by intelligent questions about the intent of Current TV’s crew when crossing the border and so not only was my comment “awaiting moderation”, it even was deleted into oblivion. Since Anderson Cooper and Mitch Koss are old friends I think CNN might be trying to protect him. Either that or somebody at CNN really can’t stand Spelunker’s comments.
    Here’s a sample of the ones that were admitted by the moderator:

    http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/06/evening-buzz-americans-freed/

    Janine from PA.
    I’m glad the ladies are home but next time I think they need to use a GPS system that has any hostile country they are near marked so they know where they are.

    Geoffrey- Washington, DC
    By all account, the border between China and North Korea is either one of two rivers so it should be extremely clear where you can and cannot go.

    Rob
    Another example of arrogance and attitude that got out of hand.

  38. On Lisa Ling – she is who she is – probably the most vivid image in my mind was the contrast of a very controlling Lisa Ling contrasted with a very beautiful humble Euna Lee, who spoke with her actions more powerfully than anything Lisa Ling had to say in words – let’s face it, Lisa Ling is who she is…

  39. I am so mad after reading this. And what irks me is that these two women’s goal was to gather info on defectors so they could tell the world – and their stupidity hurt the cause of the very people they were ostensibly trying to help.

    Irene, as for “a very beautiful humble Euna Lee” – she may have been humble in comparison to Laura or Lisa Ling, but let’s remember a few pertinent facts. Euna Lee is a “FOB” with a US passport – she’s a former int’l student who acquired US citizenship by marrying an American man. She had lived in South Korea until 1995 and her parents have always remained in South Korea.

    I am not surprised that Laura Ling, and not Euna Lee, addressed the country on live TV. Ling at least speaks perfect, unaccented American English. For PR purposes, and to protect Euna’s ego (and possible insecurities), it was a no-brainer that a FOB whose English is most probably, well, FOBBY and accented, was not going to speak. Further proof of her “fobbiness” is that she bowed the moment she got off the plane. Ling, despite her Asian background, did no such thing.

    And as the Washington Post reports, when she drove off in an automobile’s passenger seat, she looked down. Very, VERY typical Korean behavior. American? Only on paper.

    If anything, Euna Lee should have known better than Ling not to get that close. She’s old enough to have gone through South Korea’s intense anti-communistic educational system in the early-mid 1980s. Did she think that the moment she stepped on “Buk-Han,” that little girls wearing hanboks were going to run to her to ask her to join them for Pyongyang naengmyun?

    That they never denied the North Koreans’ accusations, that they crossed illegally onto the DPRK, was IMO tantamount to an admission of guilt. Now they came out and admitted it.

  40. I darn near choked on my chicken tenders when CNN’s Erica Hill attempted to seek further analysis from Lisa Ling on whether the rocks in Laura Ling’s rice were put in there intentionally.

  41. In defense of the Gawker commenter I quoted, considering how few Current staffers have braved the company’s ban on talking, tweeting, or blogging about the story, I think it’s better than nothing.

    And I had also wondered if Euna Lee’s presence on the trip was that she (1) was happy enough to get a company-paid trip to Korea and (2) was too cowed by the bosses to say no to either the assignment or to Ling and Koss or whoever thought crossing the border was a great idea.

    And I’m sick of Lisa Ling talking for her sister. I’m sure all of North Korea is now in love with Laura Ling.

  42. Excuse me, HUK, I think the reason Euna bowed is because a gentleman introduced her by name over a loudspeaker as she was getting out of the plane and then she received applause at that moment. She is acknowledging the cheers from people assembled in front of her inside the hangar, not performing some Korean cultural ritual. Your analysis of “fobbiness” is topped only by the above CNN investigation into whether the North Koreans deliberately put rocks in Laura Ling’s rice.

  43. And of course Spelunker, Laura Ling didn’t bow for what reason?

    If Euna Lee weren’t the FOB she is, she would not have bowed that way when her name was announced.

    Thanks for the compliment – I’m truly flattered. (sarcasm off)

  44. By “FOB” you mean “Friend of Bill,” as in Steve Bing, who bankrolled Clinton’s trip, right?

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-bing-bankrolled-bills-korean-mission-1768516.html

    Perhaps I, too, am a FOB, but it seems to me that bowing, a sign of gratitude, is far more appropriate for the occasion than pumping fists up in the air, a sign of triumph. As far as body language goes, what make you of Bill Clinton putting his hand on his heart as he bade his hosts farewell?

  45. I am aghast that the famous Lisa Ling did not say this about the Korean refugees instead of the self-serving misguided “it’s all about me” comments – similarly, I am equally aghast at the “us not them” comments from a select few here. Here’s what I would expect to hear from someone of Lisa Ling’s stature:
    America, a leader of human rights, a great generous nation: it is time to
    step up to the plate. It is what our nation does best. In the sixties,
    when China was suffering from a massive famine after Mao instituted the
    Great Leap Forward (1952), 250,000 Chinese escaped to Hong Kong. Hong
    Kong appealed for international help. Then President John F. Kennedy
    enacted an emergency executive order allowing the immediate immigration
    of five thousand people from Hong Kong to the United States.

    It is not too late.

  46. “Perhaps I, too, am a FOB, but it seems to me that bowing, a sign of gratitude, is far more appropriate for the occasion than pumping fists up in the air, a sign of triumph.”

    Sung-Yoon Lee, whether or not Euna Lee’s bow was appropriate or not is not my point. I personally do think it was more graceful than a pump-fist, although that wouldn’t have been inappropriate either, IMO.

    I mentioned her bow to highlight that she, as a woman born and educated in South Korea, she was and is a native Korean… one who just happens be live in America now.

    Euna Lee should have known better than to illegally enter North Korea. At 36, she was in elementary school in the early 1980s, just a few years after Park Chung Hee’s death, and the anti-communistic education that had been an integral part of South Korea’s school system for decades was still very much in force. Even if she had stopped living in South Korea after 1995, there’s no way she would have forgotten that entering North Korea w/o authorization was a no-no… especially since she knew that doing that as a ROK citizen = no return.

  47. Nobody knows about Euna Lee, largely in part to people like HUK and Lisa Ling who feel the need to control things and speak on their behalf – the only thing we do know is that Euna Lee’s actions upon reuniting with her daughter says more than anything than either HUK or Lisa Ling could say with mere words.

  48. Irene, who said anything about speaking on behalf of Euna Lee? Did I ever say I knew what her intentions were? I am using information posted on the website created on her, and Laura Ling’s, behalf.

    She lived in South Korea until 1995. She acquired US citizenship by marrying her husband. Her parents continue to live in South Korea. And news published today said she lives in LA’s Koreatown, a very large Korean enclave in the United States. Or are you suggesting she lost her “Koreanness” and forgot everything she was taught as a child about North Korea?

    Calculating her current age of 36, she was an elementary school child in the early 1980s, a time when anti-communistic ideas were a basic component of South Korea’s schools. A person of this profile had no way of not knowing that it was dangerous to enter North Korea illegally. For a person with her background – ROK-born ethnic Korean – it was even riskier. She should consider herself very fortunate that her passport was issued by the government of the USA and not that of the Republic of Korea; otherwise, I speculate only the Ling family would be celebrating. Ask the families of ROK citizens who have been in DPRK captivity for years, even decades, and who want the celebration the Lings and Lees had this week.

  49. Let’s ask the families of ROK citizens who have been in captivity for years, even decades – they would say you’re obsessed with the wrong focus – if you’re so interested in their plight, I suggest that you advocate on their behalf instead of wasting your breath on issues that are moot.

  50. Irene, why don’t you read what this particular South Korean man had to say about relatives in North Korean captivity before addressing me with posts which show you repeatedly miss the point? I’m not trying to be hostile towards you, but frankly your posts are really getting tiring.

    51. 1 2