NK News Interviews Matthew Miller to Find Out Why He Went to North Korea
I thought maybe that former North Korean detainee Matthew Miller had some mental issues to explain his odd detention in North Korea, but after reading this great NK News interview with him it turns out he is just an idiot:
It’s a story that begins with North Korea trying to refuse to imprison him, and ends with him going home on the personal airplane of America’s top spy.
It’s clearly more than an average vacation, yet this is exactly what 25-year-old Matthew Miller – the Bakersfield, California citizen who had his release from North Korea secured last Saturday by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper – has just experienced.
Enduring 210 days held prisoner by Pyongyang, Miller’s tale – now revealed exclusively by NK News – shows more signs of being an extreme vacation causing a major headache for Washington than the “six years of hard labor” North Korean state media called it when he was sentenced in September.
Despite fears in Washington about Miller’s attempt to claim “political asylum” during a tourist trip to North Korea this April, an interview with NK News shows that, far from being arrested upon entry, it took considerable effort for the curious American to get entangled in the DPRK legal system.
During his nearly six months in custody, Matthew Miller said he wanted to find out what North Korea was like beyond the tourist trail, something it seems he was successful in discovering.
“This might sound strange, but I was prepared for the ‘torture’ but instead of that I was killed with kindness, and with that my mind folded and the plan fell apart,” Miller told NK News this week from California.
“I sincerely apologized to North Korea, it was not coerced at all,” Miller said of his court statement to DPRK legal authorities.
“Before going I did not think I would feel guilt for my actions toward North Korea. Over time that changed and I did feel guilt for the crime, so in that sense I consider what I did to be a mistake even though I did achieve (my) goals.” [NK News]
I recommend reading the whole interview at the link, but even the North Koreans saw that this guy was an idiot and were eager to get rid of him. It just makes me wonder if idiots like this should be charged with a crime for basically wasting everyone’s time, even the North Koreans with his stupidity? Or charge him for the cost of using the airplane to fly him out of North Korea?
Laura Ling and Euna Lee each signed book deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I imagine that Miller, Bae, and Fowle will sign similar book deals.
Laura Lings’ Book: Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea
http://www.amazon.com/Somewhere-Inside-Sisters-Captivity-Others/dp/0062000683
Euna Lee’s Book: The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist’s Release from Captivity in North Korea
http://www.amazon.com/World-Bigger-Now-Journalists-Forgiveness/dp/B008SLOKKY/
“It just makes me wonder if idiots like this should be charged with a crime for basically wasting everyone’s time, even the North Koreans with his stupidity?”
He WAS charged and convicted of a crime. As I said elsewhere, he should have been made to serve at lease a year’s worth of his time before we felt obligated to do anything to release him.
[Civis americanus sum] should have its limits. There should be a deterrence for abusing then assuming the protections of American citizenship while being a dumbazz.
JoeC, I am referring to an American crime. Something needs to be done to dissuade these idiots from traveling to North Korea.
GI: We have laws on the books to prevent these citizens from going there and prosecute them if they do. It just takes the government having the intestinal fortitude to enforce those laws.
There is no need to remind anyone here that the United States remains in a state of war with North Korea.
Aiding the enemy (they are doing so even if in their naivety (and/or insanity) they think they are doing the opposite)…
I totally agree they should, at a minimum, be held responsible monetarily for their rescue. The norKs did not kidnap these clowns. We in some cases even hold people fiscally responsible for rescue in our own country when they do something ridiculously stupid.
As I have said before, North Korea has not detained anyone who did not have it coming… or, more accurately, who was not begging for it.
The solution is to make it clear that if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes… and the American government is under no obligation to get involved.
Ling and Lee not only got a lot of attention and sympathy, they got high-dollar book deals. This kind of thing attracts freaks and misfits like antifreeze attracts puppies.
There is a trend in socity which rewards foolish, outrageous, and incorrect behavior… and the American government has been leading the charge in some areas of this.
This is one of the many dysfunctional results.
Well, it’s not like the dude actually saw anything at all resembling a real jail, and certainly not a real North Korean jail. Basically, he was just kept in a hotel and not permitted to leave until the US government did something, anything, that the North Korean government could use to tell itself the US government has bowed to the North.