Politicians Unhappy President Trump Accepted Kim Jong-un’s Answer About Not Knowing What Happened to Otto Warmbier
The Warmbier case is clearly taking a backseat to the larger US goal of trying to get North Korea to denuclearize:
Donald Trump took Kim Jong Un’s word that he knew nothing of the torture of an American college student while in North Korean custody, an about-face that sparked a bipartisan backlash back home on Thursday.
AFP
The US president appeared to side with the reclusive leader about the 2017 case of Otto Warmbier, drawing outrage from incredulous Democrats who accused Trump of repeatedly aligning with tyrants.
The 22-year-old Ohio native was returned to the United States in a coma and died shortly afterwards. A US judge concluded Warmbier was tortured by North Korean authorities.
At the conclusion of his Hanoi summit with Kim, Trump told reporters he talked with Kim about the “horrible” Warmbier case.
“He knew the case very well, but he knew it later,” Trump said, adding that “some really bad things” happened to Warmbier while he was detained.
Kim “tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”
You can read all the so called outrage from the usual suspects at the link.
Otto and his parents made the choice for Otto to go to North Korea. It was a poor choice. And stopping nork missiles and nukes was never going to go over well with either the Democrats or Otto’s parents, even if he had not been injured or killed.
Evidence supports that Otto was not tortured. Most likely a suicide attempt interrupted by guards but Otto lost oxygen to his brain for too long. Make bad choices win bad prizes. Another idiot who thought the rules didn’t apply to him, or he could reach people on an “individual” level and there is no evil blah blah blah…
Tragic but should never have been there in the first place.
For about a day I was angry when I heard the reports, then gave this some thought. Why would the Norks hurt a valuable bargaining chip? Young kid, they probably tried to turn him, it didn’t work. Yeah he young enough and stupid enough to think rules didn’t apply to him so I can believe he was roughed up and beaten to make him fall in line, but I’m they figured out quickly the deepest secret he had was the secret handshake from pledging a fraternity. So the torture made no sense to me. Flyingsword, your theory makes a lot of sense, perhaps I’ll search for more info on that.
And I’d like to ask you, four dudes, then what about those North Korean refugees that Trump invited to his speech in Washington a year and a half ago? Nothing to tell them either when you’re negotiating with an evil dictator. What Trump is doing is no better than Moon. Your criticisms of Moon is hypocritical when your president is acting like Moon himself.
Appeasing, next time you’re negotiating with someone, try insulting them. See how it works. And let us know.
Trump is setting Kim Fatty up. If the norks agree to play ball, everyone wins. If not, Kim will have no one to blame when regime change happens some time after he renounces his earlier promises to Trump.
But, unlike Moon, Trump isn’t sacrificing his nation’s security, jailing political opponents, and funneling illegal dollars to support Kim Fatty’s gulags.
Trump also isn’t instructing his navy to threaten allies…
I think we have a lot more important things to worry about than Warmbier. Who shouldn’t have been in the DPRK in the first place (and most likely attempted suicide which left him in that condition, based on all available evidence). Father, “He was adventurous!”
Okay, and if he was adventurous and fell off a cliff rock climbing who would they blame.
@Liz
The mountain.
J6J, doubtless…wish he’d just done that instead of creating an international incident.
Think some perspective is in order. Something I’ve never read mentioned yet…Warmbier came back (ostensibly) a year after his “attack with botulism”.
The doctors said his skin integrity was very good.
As a nurse who has worked with incapacitated patients, I can tell you that’s a sign he was well taken care of. Consider this: Christopher Reeves died of complications from a pressure ulcer (aka bedsore). It’s very difficult to keep the skin of an incapacitated person intact. They have to make sure to move them (the alter the pressure points) every two hours, at a minimum. At any rate, not saying KJU isn’t a horrible person, but there’s really no available evidence that this person was tortured. I don’t blame the parents for wanting to make an international incident out of it…but the rest of us should be a little smarter.
Liz, I agree. I wish I was smarter. 🙂