Tag Archives: Euna Lee

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Ling and Lee are free: All it took was a former president

If you were wondering where Al Gore has been in the  diplomatic effort to free his two employees jailed in North Korea, Bill Clinton provided you the answer.

Gore wasn’t big enough.

It takes a former president with with enormous global charisma to do what was needed to produced  Laura Ling and Euna Lee. the two journalists with Gore’s Current TV found guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in North Korea.

Jimmy Carter wasn’t big enough. Bush I and II? Are you kidding?

The North Koreans wanted Bill Clinton over for dinner.  And they got him.

Once I heard Clinton was heading to see Kim Jong Il, I knew it would be just a matter of days that the pawns in question  would be produced, safely in all  his high drama.

Now the question is what does the U.S. give up in exchange. Clinton is a start, but it’s just the beginning to a real transition to…..?

It’s unclear. Currently, there are no official diplomatic ties between the U.S. and North Korea. So Clinton going as an unofficial offical keeps the status quo both in check, but potentially in flux.  Obama and Clinton can maintain their hardline. But Kim Jong Il gets to show all his people that he still has standing, with or without nukes. He’s got Bill Clinton over for kimchee  and a photo op.

Americans are supposed to be puzzled as to what’s next.

But if you’re in North or South Korea, you’ve got to be in awe.

If you’re starving in North Korea, you have hope today.  U.S. recognition brings the possibility of change.  If you’re in Seoul, you have to worry.  If you’re in either country and you  doubted the power of his hairness in North Korea, you are simply starstruck. The guy who looks like he’s on his death bed still has some juice. He got Bubba to stop b,  and all the players got a little something.

Clinton got to ride into the sunset the hero. You think Clinton hesitated to be in that role, one-upping both his wife and the current president (both of whom were admittedly hamstrung).  Clinton’s stock rises.

It certainly was worth it to Kim Jong Il.

And Laura Ling and Euna Lee ?

They now come home safely, with the story of their lives.

blog, journalism, news, politics

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the new face of U.S./North Korean Impasse

Forget about Kim Jong Il’s bad hair days, and images of the dictator as an Asian Dr. Strangelove.

Today, my heart goes out to fellow Asian American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

They are now the human face of  the North Korea/U.S. impasse.

The U.S. and North Korea have no diplomatic relations. Apparently, someone in Pyongyang thinks Ling and Lee may help force the issue.

North Korea has sentenced the two women to 12 years of hard labor, according to KCNA, the North’s official news agency.

The two were arrested in March while doing stories for Current TV about North Korean families desperate migration for food along the Chinese border.

Yesterday, in a closed session, the Central Court, the highest in North Korea, convicted the journalists for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”

Their exact crime is irrelevant. Ling and Lee were simply too good and too convenient for the North Koreans to pass up. They’re now in place as the perfect tools to help solve the non-diplomatic “diplomacy that exists between the U.S. and North Korea.

Everything in this story is tea-leaf reading, with Ling and Lee up to their eyeballs in the muck.

It’s all rather surreal, where things aren’t always what they appear.

The State Department and Hillary Clinton have issued public statements condemning the convictions and say all that can be done is being done. Whatever that means.

Meanwhile, North Korea has been banging a loud drum, firing off nuclear tests in the past two months. The country wants to be accepted as a nuclear power and doesn’t mind alienating friends and foes alike. The U.S. response to the testing has been predictable. Beyond a perfunctory public condemnation, the world has been waiting to see a more forceful response from the U.S. to punish North Korea.

Pyongyang complicates matters by dangling Ling and Lee.

Pyongyang has put bait on the hook. Does the U.S. send an envoy? Does it lead to at least the beginning of the end of the long diplomatic impasse?

These issues take time, unfortunately. But the harsh sentence to Ling and Lee indicate the North Koreans mean business.