Nothing Good Can Possibly Come of This
I posit the following: Jimmy Carter would not have agreed to go to North Korea had North Korea not agreed to release Aijalon Gomes. The North Koreans know Carter is the best friend they have in this country, and not even they are foolish enough to humiliate him by sending him home empty handed. I also posit that North Korea would not have induced Carter’s visit without the expectation of some benefit to the regime. At a minimum, they can count on Carter to hear whatever disingenuous offer they want to extend to the Obama Administration to weaken or forestall financial sanctions and broadcast that message in op-eds and NPR interviews.
My greater fear, however, is that Carter’s visit will facilitate the extension of some more tangible, regime-sustaining ransom. So it was with Bill Clinton. While he played tough and let William Perry hint darkly about air strikes, he ultimately allowed Carter to broker the Agreed Framework that irrevocably made North Korea a nuclear power. I have no cause to believe that Obama is playing us, but I have cause to be suspicious. Even paranoid people have real enemies, after all.
I’d like to hear those who supported the methods of Robert Park and Aijalon Gomes (as opposed to their intentions) tell me why Park and Gomes have done more good than harm.
They could kidnap him instead.
Since you asked…
Park and Gomes did not act in the name of any state, government or state-sponsored activity. Park was undeniably explicit in his eschewal of any state-sponsored interventions on his behalf. Both acted in the name of Jesus Christ which is far more threatening to the Juche cult and its gods (the Kims) than any state-sponsored intervention which would prima facie respect the state sponsored religion of the DPRK. As the word spreads through the underground churches that Americans are walking into North Korea to preach repentance to Kim Jong il, it is plausible that the underground Christians will be emboldened to coordinate and collaborate some kind of spiritual (and eventual political) resistance of the mandatory obseience to the Kims. That is precisely what happened to Ceaucescu in Romania.
Whatever weakens Juche helps North Koreans. Period.
KCJ,
As much as I’d like to believe your theory, I ask you to reconsider based on the following.
Btw, Robert, if you happen to read this, my heart goes out to you.
1) Robert originally went into NK saying don’t come in after me, etc. (Aijalon didn’t leave word one way or the other as far as I’ve heard, but presumably he was, at least initially, on board with Robert’s initial modus operandi when he was inspired to walk in.) But now Robert has 100% (110%?) changed on the “don’t come after me” idea: please see here if you haven’t read this yet.*
2) Great propaganda value to the regime – another former US president comes to Pyongyang, there will be plenty of video to prove it, and the regime can frame it any way it chooses.
3) Robert is now completely off his original message — in the five long paragraphs he doesn’t once mention the suffering of the NK people, the whole reason he got into this mess in the first place. Instead, he’s in a position of attacking the US govt for its lack of response and glossing over the NK govt’s role — again, while not being able to use all this media coverage to highlight the impt. thing, the suffering of the NK people at the hands of the NK govt.
If you think the news of two Christians walking into NK will reach some NK people (and it very well might), then there’s also a similar chance the rest of the story will also reach them. And one thing we don’t have to talk about in uncertain terms is the power of real video footage of another US president coming to pay tribute to the Dear Leader. Sigh.
*In case the website is taken down later, I’ve copied the contents below:
KCJ, since you asked…
You always miss a couple crucial factors.
Ceaucescu’s Romania is not North Korea – Your mimetic application of a historical event/context onto a contemporary and complicated issue is simplistic and a grave intellectual error.
State security apparatus – you apparently skipped the chapter, on whatever limited internet source you’ve been using, about state security not only in the Ceaucescu overthrow but also in North Korea.
It is true that expressions of Christianity (or more specifically, the exodus myth) have contributed to movements for freedom in repressive contexts. No arguments from me here. Abolitionism and the Fugitive Slave Act may be one example. A more recent example may be the movement for Korean liberation from Japanese occupation. But another crucial factor in these liberation movements were outside financial backers – the white, Northern middle class albeit still racist liberals (who merely wanted to abolish slavery, but resisted integration), and even perhaps the Korean diaspora and those in exile during the Japanese occupation.
Who is or will fund the spread of Christianity and can combat the level of repression by the North Korean state security apparatus? Korean and Korean American churches?
Rhetoric accomplishes nothing, sir.
Dan, you’re precisely on point. These “Christians” didn’t think through their initial “missions” into North Korea, based off a myopic and self-serving perspective that they could save the North Korean people and “do God’s work.” As you pointed out, the latest piece by Rob Park is another iteration of his myopia and inflated ego.
Dan has been Rathered (as in Dan Rather). CryforKorea.com is a blog with a single entry which Mr. Beilefeld has quoted and linked to here. There is no evidence that Robert Park is the author of this editorial other than the author’s unsubstantiated claim.
The internal evidence against Mr. Park’s authorship is also compelling. No mention is made of his faith in Christ which informed his rhetoric and action until he was detained Christmas Day 2009. This is inconsistent with Mr. Park’s life and character. Had he wanted to launch a political offensive, he could have easily called a press conference with significant media coverage rather than launch an obscure blog that makes no mention of his Christian faith and testimony. In fact, the more one scrutinizes this editorial, the more it evinces a pro-DPRK tenor that is the antithesis of Robert Park’s stand against the idolatrous regime that tortured him for 43 days.
As for the facts – again, you are incorrect. Here’s what really happened BEFORE the KCNA released statement attributed to Park that was obviously contrived under duress:
So you see, the leaflets were delivered into NK prior to the KCNA statements (which have little real credibility outside Pyongyang). The word has a way of spreading in North Korea regardless of the regime’s restrictions.
And Dan-O, you must attribute the actions of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and not lay their actions at the feet of Christian activists who did not request their assistance nor their government’s interventions.
Per Romania, I never asserted that Korea = Romania. I simply pointed out that resistance was sparked by a Christian religious leaders which became the catalyst for spontaneous resistance of Ceaucescu’s regime just 1 month after he was elected with nearly 100% of the popular vote.
Lastly Mr. j, your lack of faith in the God of history in no way binds the Hands of Him with Whom we have to do. Christianity is not dependent on anyone’s money or political power. Christians have faith in the Creator and Redeemer. It will be the God of history Who will topple the false religion of Juche and the members of the underground Church will soon be above ground and join forces not only with South Korean Christians, but with international Christianity, most certainly the Vatican.
Just to clarify — I wrote of “the news of two Christians walking into NK” — I should have just said “two people” or “two Americans.”
j, I’m not sure where you’re going with all that, but I can say many if not most people helping NK refugees are Christians. I also think it’s safe to say most Christians (and most people in general) working to help NK refugees, etc., don’t support walking into NK as a way to help bring an end to the people’s suffering there.
Dan, I should clarify as well: religious fundamentalism brings unwanted and unnecessary negative effects with it.
Color me cautiously optimistic, but I think Carter’s visit could be a good thing. As I hinted in my KJI Death Pool, a visit by Carter may have been a harbinger of Kim Il-sung’s demise in 1994 and the same could be true for his son in 2010.
If Carter’s not playing mule for the CIA and bringing in toxin-laced gifts for the Dear Leader, at the very least he may “provide a psychological sanction to the North Korean leader himself that, well, it’s okay to move on now; you’ve demonstrated once again the stature of North Korea on the world stage and you’ve shown that the great leaders of our planet will come to shake hands with you.”
I hear the initial chirpings of a swan song, though I’m keenly aware it’s not over till the fat leader sings.
Oh, and Dan Bielefeld, thanks for that link. I shall give you a tip of the hat in a future post.
Dan– yes, thank you for that link.
What is a “suicide demonstration” exactly? Anyone?
Joshua– For me, the jury is still out on whether or not Park and Gomes have done more harm than good.
KCJ – Can you expand on what “precisely happened to Ceaucescu in Romania” -regarding Christian influence?
thanks.
Jimmy Carter’s visit to NK to pick up Gomez really puts a pricetag on Robert Park actually.
After all, no US vip could be bothered to go to NK and pick up a deluded fool suffering from OJC (Obsessive Jesus Complex).
Gomes gets JC, Ling/Lee got BC, yet RP was a case of ‘return to sender’ and the north koreans immediately knew that Park would be worth very little indeed.
kushibo, I was thinking along the same lines in terms of Jimmy Carter “silent assassin” in regards to the regime,lol.
Perhaps Jimmy could bring some fresh eggs, and make kimmy an undercooked omelet.
Better yet, Carter probably could whip up a nice authentic American breakfast of steak and eggs and grits, with mad-cow infected 100% USA beef, Iowan eggs and genetically modified corn grits. That should paralyze Dear Leader’s other half!
I am generally for engagement of all kinds. And I generally think that, for example, when Obama said he would talk to certain states without condition, that is a far more courageous position than the really cowardly approach of not even attempting as much, if only to save your political rear end. If for the sake of peace and not having to bomb someone, it is always a good idea to try everything but, even if the political opposition at home is going to use it against you if you fail. To just sit back and say “they’ll use it for domestic propaganda if you go and talk to them” is just cowardly, in my view. There can be wisdom in not talking, of course, but the choice not to talk to certain states isn’t usually coming from wisdom.
But when it comes to NK, all that’s been tried already, and really, any long-term observation of North Korean behavior over the past few decades really indicates that they see such visits, by Carter or whomever, as submission to their moral superiority. Brian Myers said it best:
In the meantime you have to wonder. Now that Clinton and Carter have been, who will go next time around?
oranckay, could you please demonstrate that Obama said he would talk to certain states without condition?
Glans, have you been in a cave somewhere since 2007?
Absolute rubbish; the thought that Gomes did any good. I don’t believe underground churches in North Korea are talking about these American idiots as if they were some sort of modern day prophets. Balderdash!
Gomes and Robert Park belong in the same Niagara Falls barrel with Evan Hunziker, the drunk bastard who was eventually rescued by Bill Richardson. Laura Ling upped the ante with Bill Clinton’s rescue mission after believing that she could cross the entire Tumen to set foot on the shore and interview North Korean sentries for Current TV. Now we have Jimmy Carter volunteering to pick up another fool who voluntarily crossed the border from China thinking his rosary would ward off evil spirits.
When will this stunt ever end? Some nitwit teaching English in China is probably thinking that if he or she simply crosses the Tumen River to North Korea this winter with a bible and a bag of chips then they will earn a free ride home in a private jet with one of the George Bush’s after an extended holiday in Pyongyang.
I say let North Korea keep these knuckleheads. That would do us more good by making the North Korean government spend their own money to keep their stupid arses alive.
Glans wrote:
Glans, right here. He has said something similar at other times, most notably about Iraq. Other than this response to a question that included Kim Jong-il, I don’t recall him specifically saying he would meet KJI, but I may have missed it.
It was one of those things like, say, violent Buddhist monks, that one might miss if one is not looking for it.
I wrote:
Most notably about Iran. D’oh!
Thank you, Kushibo. You found an actual clip of Obama saying, “I would.” In the rest of his answer, he didn’t emphasize unconditionality, but he did say that talking was important. Now, as to violent Buddhists, do you have any more examples? That was almost eleven years ago.
Glans, he’s given variations of the “talking without conditions” line on a number of occasions. Since I have real-world homework of my own this morning, I won’t be able to finish this homework assignment of yours. 😉
As for the Fighting Buddhas, I would submit that there are, among the chinboista ranks, no small number of leftist clergy — Buddhist and Catholic — that take up a stick every now and then. For me to demonstrate that, however, I would have to go to a demonstration and gather empirical evidence directly, but it’s something I know from past experience and observation.
I really wish you could find some video on the 1999 clash. It was pretty egregious, which (along with it having been reported globally) is why it sticks out in my head so much. And I find it hard to believe that people who were like that at that point in time were never before and never since inclined toward such violence.
If you can’t find the video, go watch episodes of Kung Fu and imagine Chogyesa Temple as a backdrop. 😉
Robert Park’s views appear in Christianity Today:
“A life is not something to be confused about — if Aijalon can come home, it is so much more important than any political discussion which we can continue later,” Park said. “He is a very young man who has many years to love and serve, and there’s no reason for him to die — all it takes is a visit from a U.S. representative.”
The quote comes from the second page of the article.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
KCJ wrote:
“There is no evidence that Robert Park is the author of this editorial other than the author’s unsubstantiated claim.”
—-
Horace’s Christianity Today link backs up the claim.
Glad Park didn’t end up killing himself.
Free at last.
Not true, Theresa. Nothing in that article refers to the cryforkorea.com blog entry attributed to Robert Park.
I will say this: if he is the author of the alleged ‘letter to the editor’, then he has experienced a dramatic change of heart from his pre-torture positions in which he eschewed all state interventions on his behalf. I understand he was advocating for Gomes, but the article you and Horace point to demonstrates a much more religious portrait than the blog entry you all believe is really penned by Park. I am still not pursuaded.
Let me also say that I admired his courage and zeal for undertaking his prophetic foray into hell, but I do not endorse him as an individual nor his methods as worthy of emulation. My bottom line remains unchanged: he poked his finger in the eye of the Juche god and by doing so rattled the regime in ways that may be invisible to this audience. He made the DPRK play defense. Pax Koreana got their message to the North Korean people first – 2 days ahead of the KCNA’s contrived “confession.” I know most on this blog disagree with me and that is fine.
The idea of anyone – let alone Americans – walking into North Korea even 3 years ago would have been unthinkable. The fact that two have (I do not include Ling and Luna who did not come for religious purposes and had no intention of getting caught) in order to bring attention to North Korea’s spiritual poverty is still 99% undigested. Unless one realizes that Juche is a religion and that North Korea is a kingdom and not a communist state, the actions of Park and Gomes look bizarre.
Just for the record, I go by “Jeffery” rather than “Horace,” which is why I always sign off as I do.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Gah?
kcj, we all understand your tenuous arguments about the unlimited and unstoppable power of Christianity by now…and i’m sure the million or so people who starved to death was a part of your god’s ultimate, un-knowable, mysterious plan, too. so please spare us in the future. please.
now that gomes is free (and possibly mentally ill, one of the many side effects of torture), the kim clan can now add jimmy carter to its list of US sycophants who visited during KJI’s declining reign. for all the succession observers, since KJI wasn’t there, is it possible that Kim Jong Eun entertained carter?
KCJ-
Maybe we will never really know if that letter on the cry for korea site is truly Park, but when you compare that letter, to the article in Christianity Today, it wouldn’t suprise me.
Dan’s point about Park’s “don’t come after me” stance has now shifted to anger at the government does ring a bell….
———
Park says his concern for Gomes and frustration over the lack of media coverage and response to his friend’s imprisonment have led him to speak out—and were the cause of his plans for a July 16 suicide demonstration.
Park said he was ready to end his life because nothing was being done, “but God stopped it through the intervention of a friend.”
“I was planning to kill myself with a suicide note to bring attention to Aijalon—I feel responsible for him being there,” Park said. “He is one of my best friends, and I prayed for my life to be taken and not his.”
———-
Thank GOD he didn’t commit suicide. That would have been BEYOND FOOLISH. God doesn’t want us taking our own lives. In his zeal to draw attention to NK’s crimes, he would have ended up drawing attnention to how unstable he has become. Not the best witness.
Theresa, since I have never been to the bizarro world of North Korea where war = peace and poverty = wealth, and I certainly have never been tortured, its hard to say what Robert Park’s state of mind really is these days. I agree with you, a suicide would have been a grave sin and would only end up giving some advantage to the DPRK.
Bible study for KCJ: The Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 7.
1″Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3″Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
It is true that suicide would certainly be used by the North Korean government as propaganda.
God does not judge our actions as sinful or non-sinful depending on how they affect public policy, however.
He judges sin based on the heart, and whether we accept Christ’s sacrifice to erase that sin.
Please be careful saying that all suicide is a sin. Suicide would not occur in a non-sinful world, it is true. However, suicide results from a countless numbers of factors, some of which (but not all) could be sin and affected by sin. Suicide is too complex (physical, psychological, spiritual, etc.) and internal of a matter for people to be able to categorize it, to know whether the person is a victim of a sinful world or a perpetrator of sin. That all suicide is sin is actually just theology, not revelation. And the idea that suicide is an unforgivable sin is just not in the Bible anywhere (those sins are listed, and suicide is not there), and contradicts God’s basic tenants to us about sin-that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that his grace is unfathomable, that only God can know the heart.
If someone were to consider people’s sufferings so deeply the despair drove him to suicide, but another never troubled himself an ounce for others’ pain, I think the first would be more closely following the greatest commandment Christ gave us to love.
Had there not been a long, well-established theological tradition on this subject, I could gladly yield to your appeal for moderation. And by comparing the sacrifice of Jesus to suicide – it is you, dear brother who are not only off base, you are in the wrong dugout.
KCJ:
Bro, is the “well-established theological tradition” to which you refer more important than the Bible itself? The point is that the situation is important. Can you honestly disagree? You believe every single person who commits suicide will go to hell? Is that biblical? Read, e.g., Judges:
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. 3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, 5 because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (Note, this guy would be Samson)….
Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. (Note that he actually actively engaged in the act that killed himself. He did not just pray to God that he could be removed from the Phillistine’s clutches and have his sight restored, which was certainly not beyond God’s ability.)
I am not saying that RP’s suicide would have actually been justified, just that he could have believed it were so, and God is the ultimate Judge not you or me.
Just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean we can stop reading the Bible and thinking for ourselves.
It is based on the Bible, Biff. Samson did not commit suicide; he died in an act of asymmetric warfare. I understand where you are going with speculation about Robert Park’s motives and the mercy of God, but our sacred duty here on earth is to witness to Christ and the commandments which under no circumstances allow for suicide.
I agree that we must read the Bible and think for ourselves but we are not permitted to interpret the Bible in such a way as to countermand the clearly revealed will of God, as in this case, the 5th commandment.
We ought to focus our spiritual resources on the condemnation of North Korea’s idolatry and the suffering Church there which bears the marks of the Lord Jesus in their collective and individual bodies.
Dan-
That’s a relief.
KCJ:
Maybe we’re just arguing over terminology. My understanding was that RP was supposedly planning to kill himself in order to try to save the life of his brother. Maybe we can agree that if someone really did that, it’s not necessarily “suicide”. It’s not killing oneself to kill oneself, but rather killing oneself for a purpose (e.g., assymetrical warfare). Suicide for its own sake is certainly not encouraged in the Bible, but Jesus also said “no greater love hath a man, than to lay down his life for a friend”.
I agree that it’s better to focus our resources here on the suffering in NK Korea. Honestly, I was just perterbed that you were lecturing another Christian on this topic, which is far from clear in the Bible, given that it was not a straight “suicide” that we understood was contemplated. Apart from that, whether a “Christian” who dies in a sinful act (a “mortal sin” as you say–which many of the great men of the Bible have certainly committed at one time or another) is condemned to hell is not for us to judge. We can just say the act is sinful.
biff wrote:
KCJ is a conservative Catholic, as far as I’m aware, and in traditional Catholicism, it’s pretty clear.
Robert Park, on the other hand, is a Protestant, so he may not see it in the same way as KCJ.
I’m an unorthodox Christian, and I feel God is telling me to bang my drum that Robert Park is mentally unstable and perhaps needs to save himself; at the very least he doesn’t need an army of cheerleaders feeding his Moses/Messiah Complex.
Ah, the Catholicism explains a lot re: the traditions, “mortal sins”, etc. Thanks for clarifying that. Seems more discussion on that topic will likely not be useful, then, since we may end up debating papal indulgences and cults.
Agree that RP did not set the greatest example. Neither he nor AG succeeded in becoming martyrs. RP’s recent correspondence doesn’t seem that helpful either (and it’s just strange). If he truly believed in what he did, he should have realized that strong arming a U.S. diplomat to go fish AG out was not necessarily the result that would achieve the greatest good.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens. God can use many things for His purposes, but I do tend to doubt that the streets of Pyongyang are abuzz with rumors that RP and AG came and successfully challenged KJI. At least KCJ is an optimist. Time will tell.
I’m not having a go at anyone, and I know this is the kind of argument that could go on indefinitely, but one little thing that always gets me is people’s selective interpretations of the 5th Commandment, especially among ‘politicised’ Christians, be they Conservatives from the US or Communists from Colombia (and of course it’s not just Christians either).
They may argue on the one hand that, say, suicide is a mortal sin, a direct violation of the 5th commandment which is an unequivocal statement of God’s will…but then on the other hand, when it comes to innocent people being murdered in the name of a cause they support (take for example an Israeli Captain emptying his rifle into a 13 year old Palestinian girl in the name of the ‘security’ of Israel), well, then the excuses and more creative interpretations of that Commandment start coming, don’t they?
To clarify, I’m not picking on Christians here — I just used that example because the above argument was between Christians. God knows, adherents to other religions engage in the same moral acrobatics.
Dan, that’s a sad story re: the 13 year old girl. However, the article makes it clear that the Captain’s Druze, not Jewish (he feels the Jews were accusing him unfairly). Druze consider themselves “an Islamic Unist, reformatory sect”, apparently. Not sure that conservative Islam wastes much time thinking about the 5th commandment. Thereligionofpeace dot com has some interesting data about religious based killings. If they included Jucheism, I bet KJI could give the world of Islam a run for its money.
Yeah, it’s a terrible story, right? Unbelievable. And unfortunately there are many more like it.
I’m not saying his religion is a variable in, or ‘to blame for’ what he did; what I will say is that he had no problem reconciling his actions with his Druze faith (for the record, the Druze are generally very much tied to the idea of Israel as a Jewish State). And i have no doubt Jewish people who defend his actions will find some way to make it work with their Jewish faith. And indeed we can have no doubt that Hamas will take advantage of this and other tragic injustices to excuse killing further innocent Israelis and Palestinians, as per their own interpretation of Islam.
My point is that people are happy to go to some lengths to bend their religious ethics around their political beliefs. If Mr Park had waged a miraculous one-man war against Juche, killing hundreds of soldiers and Kim Jong Il with his bare hands, and united Korea himself, he’d still have support among some Christians, 5th Commandment or not. Then if he said “look, I’m gay”, most of them would probably change their mind and say he’d burn in hell. Go figure.
If even a handful of Soldiers know (it is they who police up the leaflets that drop just over the 38th parallel) they will tell when they can. It is simply delusional to imagine that the rank and file citizens of Pyongyang don’t know that Park’s renunciation was contrived under torture. They live there. They’ve seen it over and over.
Biff, I think we are in violent aggreement here. 😉
KCJ wrote:
Which is precisely why Robert Park’s messianic junket would be demoralizing to them: Even someone with God on their side buckles under to the regime.
You do recall, don’t you, that he confessed to all they accused him of.
Er…do we know if he was tortured, though? I mean, torture is subject to a pretty narrow definition.
Confessed under duress. Even John McCain did that. There are limits to human endurance, even with supernatural grace assisting. It was no more a real confession than if they had written the entire screed word-by-word and then forced him to sign at the bottom. The people in NK know this – it is standard procedure there.
Dan: Those closest to Park say that he was tortured.
KCJ wrote:
But confessed nonetheless. His grand plan faltered in the face of that duress, and that takeaway message — that not even those with God on their side can stand up to the regime very long — is the demoralizing lesson those who wish for an alternative will get.
So what? John McCain was a fighter pilot who crashed, not someone claiming to be bringing a message from God. That John McCain succumbed is hardly surprising or demoralizing. Not so Robert Park.
Please, no more Robert Parks. Please, no more Aijalon Mahli Gomeses.
If people want to do something that may risk their lives, help get refugees out of China, or even North Korea. Don’t hand the DPRK propaganda victories.
Those saying he was tortured were generally saying it before he was even released. It was something automatically assumed without evidence. Has any emerged?