News broke this Monday that two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been sentenced to “12 years of reform through hard labor.” The pair stood trial last week in North Korean Central Court after being arrested for “illegal border crossing and hostile acts” while covering defectors along the N Korea/China border.
Though this sentence seems brutal and unimaginable, the likelihood these two women serve this punishment is slim to none. We hope.
The US solution: dispatch green crusader, freedom fighter and ever growing Tennessee legend, Al Gore, to the plea for their release on humanitarian grounds. While it is a noble goal to free the journalistas on humanitarian grounds—do we honestly think these trigger happy anti-Americans are going to release these chicks on the altruistic nature of their hearts?
North Korea is going to run a hard bargain and in the light of US and world tensions with the infamous communist power, it’s no surprise. The US is considering placing North Korea back on the terror list and imposing financial sanctions as a result of the UN’s recent nuclear test.
Just last week North Korea launched a series of missiles, one such missile could have the potential to reach the US. These missile firings violated UN security sanctions.
While the administration pledges to keep negotiations with North Korea isolated to the fate of the journalists; that is close to impossible. Should Gore or former US ambassador to the UN, New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, fail to secure the freedom of the pair Americans are going to fly into a frothing fervor of freedom—a wail that will not be satisfied until these two set foot on American soil.
Tickers beat across the screen of every major news network in the US with images of these girls. The media is playing to our compassion, and if these American beauties go down in some axe grinding prison camp American citizens are going to flip.
So our question now becomes, not will they be released, but when and under what concessions?
