Post: #126

(06-19-2017 06:24 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(06-19-2017 06:15 PM)Goldin Boy Wrote:  This situation isn't funny

I only disagree with this part of your post. This is the dude in question:

Yes visiting NK is incredibly dangerous and stupid, but its not like thousands of Westerners don't visit NK every year, the chances of this happening were literally under 0.1%.

Sad that laughter is the reaction that comes to mind when you see a fellow man who has been tortured beg for his life. I can only assume you have either never witnessed true violence and suffering, or you have witnessed so much of it that you have become numb to it.

Post: #127

(06-19-2017 06:30 PM)ElFlaco Wrote:  empathy

I can only shake my head at some of these comments. They come across as sociopathic to me. I simply don't get it.

Post: #128

It is possible he attempted to take his own life, it is possible he got diarrhea (it can kill you), it is possible he did get botulism, or this could all be the result of torture-whatever it was , the government of North Korea is responsible for it. He was a dumb 21 year old, made a dumb decision, and suffered the ultimate penalty. He deserved better, he should not be dead.

Post: #129

(06-19-2017 06:24 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(06-19-2017 06:15 PM)Goldin Boy Wrote:  This situation isn't funny

I only disagree with this part of your post. This is the dude in question:

Sure dude... I'll bet if the shoe were on the other foot you'd have your head held high and you'd tell those North Korean commie bastards to go straight to hell amirite!

Post: #130

(06-19-2017 06:42 PM)Jetset Wrote:  Issuing a foreign national a visa to legally enter your country and then straight-up murdering him for no good reason is not usually something that goes unnoticed in international diplomacy, nor should it.

I'm 98% positive the poster theft was hyperbolic, if not ficitious. I just re-watched the apology, totally scripted by some DPRK grunt.

So what do you want to US to do? Wage war against North Korea? More sanctions that will only hurt the hurting destitute? All for some foolish kid put himself in harms way? This isn't fucking Archduke Franz Ferdinand or Helen of Troy it's just a regular citizen. Should we attack Korea before or after we bomb the Netherlands for the Natalee Holloway disappearance?

About 2,000 American visit Corea annually, 1999, 99%, of them return safely. This is fucked up but statistically insignificant. The best response is no response.

Quote:It might have been goofy as hell for him to be there, but that doesn't mean North Korea gets to go "LOL, should've read the newspaper first". It's not like he died in random street violence or a natural disaster.

I've never seen a man Whiteknight for another man before. I should rep you for making history. Your hamster is doing Mach 3 to absolve him all responsibility for taking the effort to fly to North Korea. When you're in a foreign country you are subject to their rules, not matter how kooky those laws are. You don't like that? Don't go there.

The outpouring sympathy from the rvf for this man, he's not a kid, is just as baffling to me as when BLM rallied for Trayvon Martin: In both situations you have a young man, dumber than a box of rocks, did something really impulsive and put himself in a situation that got his ass killed by someone else.

Quote:There's good reason to suspect they did this to him.

Post: #131

(06-19-2017 05:22 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  I don't get the outpouring of sympathy for this idiot.

^^^ That's because you're a pathetic piece of shit.--

(06-19-2017 05:07 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(06-19-2017 03:59 PM)Vicious Wrote:  And now Warmbier had passed. RIP.
North Korea has killed an American citizen.

Good. Fuck him. I'm about to bust out my tiny violin. If you don't wanna get imprisoned by a hostile foreign government, don't go to said nation. It's really quite simple. Stay the fuck in Cincinnati.

Post: #132

(06-19-2017 07:17 PM)Goldin Boy Wrote:  So what do you want to US to do? Wage war against North Korea? More sanctions that will only hurt the hurting destitute? All for some foolish kid put himself in harms way? This isn't fucking Archduke Franz Ferdinand or Helen of Troy it's just a regular citizen. Should we attack Korea before or after we bomb the Netherlands for the Natalee Holloway disappearance?

In point of fact, the Franco-Mexican War was mainly fought over the harassment of ordinary French nationals on Mexican soil and the Mexican government's refusal to compensate them. Likewise, the Royal Navy's bombardment of Kagoshima was triggered by the brutal murder of an ordinary British national for disrespectfully failing to dismount from his horse in front of a samurai (supposedly, the Englishman's last words were "don't worry, I know how to deal with these people" before he was stabbed repeatedly), and the Japanese government's subsequent refusal to pay compensation and punish the samurai involved. Whether they were acting provocatively or not, there is plenty of precedent to start shelling when it goes too far, because there's some reason to worry that failing to set limits may teach the world that your citizens can be brutalized for fun.

With that said, no, I don't think we should go to war. However, your statement was that the Trump Administration should simply ignore it. These are not the only two choices.

Quote:Your hamster is doing Mach 3 to absolve him all responsibility for taking the effort to fly to North Korea. When you're in a foreign country you are subject to their rules, not matter how kooky those laws are. You don't like that? Don't go there.

You're confusing his personal responsibility for his own safety (and there's some room to debate just how irresponsible he was, given that you acknowledge he likely did not actually violate their laws) for the government's responsibility for the nation's safety (which may not be served by letting a suspected unjustified and deliberate torture and murder of a citizen at the hands of a foreign government slide, especially given that whether he broke the law or not, he was not sentenced to death).

Your judgment is clouded because you disagree with his choices and don't want to see him "white knighted". I get it. However, the petty moral hazard of enabling his questionable decision to travel to North Korea is a moot point: he died. This is not relevant to whether or not it's in the best interest of the United States to take punitive measures to make an example of North Korea's conduct.

Post: #133

I'm going to be following this story...

I'm going to talk to some doctors I know and ask their opinion on what could have caused the massive brain tissue loss in this case. I don't think blunt force trauma does that. His captors may have experimented on him with bacteriological weapons, nerve agents, psychotropic drugs...we just don't know.

This looks like a message. This was a clear message from Pyongyang: don't push us too far. Just like Kim Jong Un sent a message when he murdered his half-brother with sarin. He actually wants the world to know he's capable of atrocities.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see the US try to cover up the details. Why? If the public knew that this kid was out-and-out murdered, they might demand some response. And the sad truth is that, as long as Kim Jong Un and his pathetic country is hiding behind Beijing's skirts, there is little we can really do. Maybe there are more ways we can put the screws to Pyongyang, but it's not easy when the Chinese protect and coddle him. No matter how bad Pyongyang acts, the Chinese are not going to want the regime deposed.

.

Post: #134

(06-19-2017 07:51 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  I'm going to be following this story...

I'm going to talk to some doctors I know and ask their opinion on what could have caused the massive brain tissue loss in this case. I don't think blunt force trauma does that. His captors may have experimented on him with bacteriological weapons, nerve agents, psychotropic drugs...we just don't know.

This looks like a message. This was a clear message from Pyongyang: don't push us too far. Just like Kim Jong Un sent a message when he murdered his half-brother with sarin. He actually wants the world to know he's capable of atrocities.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see the US try to cover up the details. Why? If the public knew that this kid was out-and-out murdered, they might demand some response. And the sad truth is that, as long as Kim Jong Un and his pathetic country is hiding behind Beijing's skirts, there is little we can really do. Maybe there are more ways we can put the screws to Pyongyang, but it's not easy when the Chinese protect and coddle him. No matter how bad Pyongyang acts, the Chinese are not going to want the regime deposed.

.

The damage could also be from oxygen deprivation, waterboarding can have this effect.

Post: #135

Well, I guess Dennis Rodman is not doing a good job as a replacement of Zbigniew Brzezinski so far. By the way, who said that Dennis Rodman had just saved the World?

Post: #136

RIP Otto.

If you go to a country like North Korea, you should obey the fucking local laws, and especially keep your hands away from their commie propaganda posters.

Post: #137

Interesting interview with a Fox News medical expert on what he thinks caused the death

Post: #138

It's worth noting his roommate on the North Korean trip, an Englishman in his forties, does not believe Warmbier stole anything.

Quote:“When we got to Pyongyang, we were the two single guys, so it seemed logical for us to be put in the same room,” Gratton said. “So basically from the time we got to Pyongyang to the time I left him, we were together.”

Warmbier stood out in the group because he was so young, Gratton said. The two bonded that first night over a couple of beers.

“I got to know Otto really, really well,” he said. “He was such a mature lad for his age.”

[...]

Gratton said that in the four days they spent together, Warmbier never said anything about a banner and that he saw zero evidence that Warmbier was planning any such act — quite the opposite. The first Gratton heard of the alleged attempted theft was when it was mentioned in news reports weeks later. Gratton and Warmbier weren’t together 24 hours each day, but they traveled together during the day and hung out each night.

“I’ve got nothing from my experiences with him that would suggest he would do something like that,” he said. “At no stage did I ever think he was anything but a very, very polite kid.”

So:

1. American
2. Single, on a group tour but otherwise traveling alone with no family/spouse, friends, coworkers, etc.
3. Youngest guy in the group
4. Mild-mannered, polite, and compliant

When you're surrounded by a pack of wolves like NK, that's a lot of targets painted on yourself. (The only way it could have been worse was "5. Female").

Another interesting tidbit from Gratton that makes me frown:

Quote:Gratton has stayed in contact intermittently with Warmbier’s parents over the past year-and-a-half. He said he was “stunned” nobody from the U.S. government or the tour group ever tried to contact him to ask him if he had any information about what happened.

Baffling, if true. I'm no private eye, but come on, when I think of the first people I'd hit up for answers on what happened...

Anyway: he was very unwise to agree to this trip, but prolonged torture, the loss of his own identity through brain damage, and ultimately being flown back to the U.S. just to die on a hospital bed in front of his parents - yeah, when I think of people whose lives should meet ends that horrible, I don't think of globetrotting kids who succumb to their dumb urges to see dangerous places. Warmbier put his family through hell and put his government in a terrible position by doing this, but he didn't run over pedestrians, shoot up a nightclub, or molest children. What happened to him isn't unpredictable, but it is undeserved.

It's a shame that circumstances likely won't permit any real justice for his death. Given the current geopolitical climate, I don't know what action a crime like this really allows for. His family may have to be content just to have him home to bury. And that's cold comfort, but at least he died (or his body died) surrounded by his family on American soil, not alone in some desolate shithole prison a world away from home.

Post: #139

I doubt this kid tried to steal anything. DPRK is famous for detaining people for BS charges. What makes this case any different? Everything that comes out of the North Korean government is a lie.

Post: #140

I'm not sure why, but this particular incident upsets me more than normal. Perhaps because like many others here, I do things which are somewhat more risky than staying at home in nice safe Canada. Hell, even going to the Philippines they have occasional kidnappings and murder of westerners. Though not in NK, I've done foolish things at least on par with stealing a poster (if he even did that), so perhaps it's a "there but for the grace of god goes me" moment....

(06-19-2017 05:22 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  I don't get the outpouring of sympathy for this idiot.

I don't understand the borderline glee a couple people are displaying here at this kid's vegitiblication and subsequent death. People laughing at torture induced Alzheimers at the ripe old age of 22.

A friend of a friend was mowed down by a drunk driver jogging late at night a few years back in Canada. Guess that teaches her for being out late at night? Obviously that's when the majority of drunk drivers will be out. Everyone knows that. Clearly her own fault/no sympathy/guess she learned a harsh but deserved lesson?

While these things happen, the vast majority of people come back from NK safe. Gambling with your life, but likely like a 10,000:1 shot. Do you also laugh at some poor schmuck who catches AIDS fucking a random girl? Or does your sympathy actually extend to the realm of activities that you actually partake in that have high, but also highly unlikely stakes?

Post: #141

(06-19-2017 07:51 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  I'm going to be following this story...

I'm going to talk to some doctors I know and ask their opinion on what could have caused the massive brain tissue loss in this case. I don't think blunt force trauma does that. His captors may have experimented on him with bacteriological weapons, nerve agents, psychotropic drugs...we just don't know.

This looks like a message. This was a clear message from Pyongyang: don't push us too far. Just like Kim Jong Un sent a message when he murdered his half-brother with sarin. He actually wants the world to know he's capable of atrocities.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see the US try to cover up the details. Why? If the public knew that this kid was out-and-out murdered, they might demand some response. And the sad truth is that, as long as Kim Jong Un and his pathetic country is hiding behind Beijing's skirts, there is little we can really do. Maybe there are more ways we can put the screws to Pyongyang, but it's not easy when the Chinese protect and coddle him. No matter how bad Pyongyang acts, the Chinese are not going to want the regime deposed.

.

When you are talking to the doctors, or whoever, and doing your research, take a look at the video:





Is that even him stealing the poster? Has anyone anywhere done any forensic video analysis and matched heights and body types with my that? I know drone videos can be analyzed to determine how tall people are. May US govt agencies can do it. Hell there probably an iPhone app.

I can't tell a damn thing from that video or who the hell is in it. Did he even steal it to begin with? Did they just drug and beat that corny confession out of him north Korea style?

This makes me angry.

Aloha!

Post: #142

Here's a story for you guys.

I was on Cheju-do (Cheju Island) off the coast of South Korea when Kim Il Sung died.
This was in July 1994. I had just gotten off active duty a few months earlier and was a civilian. I was spending a few weeks traveling all over Korea. I had taken a miserable boat from Pusan to Cheju City and was doing some fishing.

Koreans in the countryside, outside of Seoul, are very different from the people in Seoul. They are very hospitable and curious about foreigners; at least it was like that back in the 1990s. Maybe it's different now...I don't know.

Anyway, an old guy I was fishing with (I just met him on the waterfront) invited me to his and his wife's house for something to eat. Country people are like that; there are still a lot of good people in the world. In those days my Korean was decent enough to do basic communication.

At his home, the television was on. The news came on with a report that Kim Il Sung had just died. My host didn't know any English. Nothing at all. This guy was in his 70s or so. The fishing had been good and we were in a good mood.

But he did know two words. He looked at the television, and his face darkened considerably. His eyes narrowed and his mouth hissed as he drew in his breath.

He extended his middle finger and said, "Kim Il Sung...fuck you." These were the only two English words he knew. Then he got up and went into the kitchen. I left soon after this.

.

Post: #143

(06-19-2017 07:18 PM)Tokyo Joe Wrote:  

(06-19-2017 05:22 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  I don't get the outpouring of sympathy for this idiot.

^^^ That's because you're a pathetic piece of shit.--

(06-19-2017 05:07 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(06-19-2017 03:59 PM)Vicious Wrote:  And now Warmbier had passed. RIP.
North Korea has killed an American citizen.

Good. Fuck him. I'm about to bust out my tiny violin. If you don't wanna get imprisoned by a hostile foreign government, don't go to said nation. It's really quite simple. Stay the fuck in Cincinnati.

TJ's spot on. That's a real cunt of a thing for you to say. Can you honestly say you've never done something dumb while young and/or adventurous, with the same 0.1% odds, that could of seriously hurt or killed you?

Post: #144

^^^RI: Well said.

Regarding all the keyboard-warrior losers like TM shit-posting about this, Fisto once laid down the righteous truth --

(03-17-2016 12:36 AM)Fisto Wrote:  As always I'm shocked at some of the things you faggots say when something horrible happens to another human being.

You motherfuckers try to act so hard "I have no sympathy, guys a dumbass". blah blah blah.

That kid's life is fucking OVER.

Every last one of you have done something much worse, been caught, and nothing happened.

"Oh well he should have respected the rules of the country".

Are you dumbfucks really taking the word of the Korean gov't as the Gospel?

Idiots.

edit - This is you guys' shitty way of virtue signaling

Post: #145

(06-19-2017 09:24 PM)eskimobobseal Wrote:  I doubt this kid tried to steal anything. DPRK is famous for detaining people for BS charges. What makes this case any different? Everything that comes out of the North Korean government is a lie.

It's a tough case to judge. The guy doesn't look or seem like he would have done it. At the same time there is zero incentive for North Korea to make it up. What would they have to gain from it except unnecessary diplomatic strain or even military intervention? And if they really wanted to make it up, why him among all the tourists that go to NK? Why come up with such a laughable crime? Why not claim he tried to assassinate someone or tried to gather military intel or something more reasonable that would support their conspiracy theories about the evil West? And if they really wanted to kill him to "send a message" why in such an awkward way that makes them look more incompetent than fearsome?

You can argue that North Korea is just "evil" and that there is no logic to anything they do of course but I don't believe in that. You can't maintain your position as the world's most untouchable supervillain nation for 60 years by being completely clueless.

Post: #146

It probably started as a lowly Nork trying to get promoted. What better way than to bust someone defacing government property? After that it was off to the races.

Post: #147

(06-19-2017 08:25 PM)Canopus Wrote:  It's worth noting his roommate on the North Korean trip, an Englishman in his forties, does not believe Warmbier stole anything.

Quote:“When we got to Pyongyang, we were the two single guys, so it seemed logical for us to be put in the same room,” Gratton said. “So basically from the time we got to Pyongyang to the time I left him, we were together.”

Warmbier stood out in the group because he was so young, Gratton said. The two bonded that first night over a couple of beers.

“I got to know Otto really, really well,” he said. “He was such a mature lad for his age.”

[...]

Gratton said that in the four days they spent together, Warmbier never said anything about a banner and that he saw zero evidence that Warmbier was planning any such act — quite the opposite. The first Gratton heard of the alleged attempted theft was when it was mentioned in news reports weeks later. Gratton and Warmbier weren’t together 24 hours each day, but they traveled together during the day and hung out each night.

“I’ve got nothing from my experiences with him that would suggest he would do something like that,” he said. “At no stage did I ever think he was anything but a very, very polite kid.”

So:

1. American
2. Single, on a group tour but otherwise traveling alone with no family/spouse, friends, coworkers, etc.
3. Youngest guy in the group
4. Mild-mannered, polite, and compliant

When you're surrounded by a pack of wolves like NK, that's a lot of targets painted on yourself. (The only way it could have been worse was "5. Female").

Another interesting tidbit from Gratton that makes me frown:

Quote:Gratton has stayed in contact intermittently with Warmbier’s parents over the past year-and-a-half. He said he was “stunned” nobody from the U.S. government or the tour group ever tried to contact him to ask him if he had any information about what happened.

Baffling, if true. I'm no private eye, but come on, when I think of the first people I'd hit up for answers on what happened...

This story about the roommate (and no one from the US gov questioning him) makes perfect sense if you follow the theory that Otto was actually a spy that got arrested for spying.



...

Post: #148

A 21yo spy from an affluent family sent into THE most repressive and controlled state in the world. A prison state no western country has managed to reliably penetrate for the last 70 years?

Post: #149

Wouldn't a 'Western Spy' actually be a South Korean working for the US in order to blend in, rather than a nerdy white student making himself known to the NK authorities?

He didn't bust into the country on a dinghy in the dead of the night James Bond style, he booked the trip through a legit Chinese firm. Therefore he deserves protection and respect from the NK government as a tourist they are happy to have there. If they don't want any white tourists then say 'No'. Allowing him in and then doing God-knows-what to the poor lad until he's effectively dead is extremely provocative. I can only guess that this is a message from the regime to Trump: "Look what we can do, and you can't do anything about it!"

As for the "LOL, dumbass!" comments, I'll just say the same thing I say say every time: this is not 4Chan. If we all suffered the worst possible consequences for our choices when young and invincible there wouldn't even be a forum.

Post: #150

(06-19-2017 08:12 PM)fokker Wrote:  RIP Otto.

Don't go to a country like North Korea, where the fucking local laws can be changed arbitrarily, and especially keep your hands away from their commie propaganda posters.

Fixed that for you.

We'll never know what he did. Frankly if one's loony enough to book a trip to the DPRK, he may have been loony enough to take an unofficial souvenir?

On the other hand it's a requirement tourist to be escorted by guides everywhere I'm not sure how he would've found time to steal anything.

Fuck man, the poster could've been peeling off the hotel wall, thanks to shitty Soviet-era adhesive tape, and he pressed it back on. They see a young, White, American touching the poster and bam!, it's "stealing" and courts, as a show of Korean might, dole out a punishment that would make Hammurabi blush.

I still don't feel sympathy/pity/remorse for a situation he put himself in(going to NK the first place). He made his bed and he had to lie in it(as a vegetable before he croaked).