North Korea envoy Kim Hyok Chol and 4 others executed over failed Trump-Kim summit

They killed him at the airport?! Like, they couldn’t shuffle him off to some blacksite or go out into the wilderness and make him dig his own grave first?

12 Likes

North Korea has a track record executing people at airports. At least this time it was one of their own airports versus the last time this happened.

17 Likes

If your goal is to send a message to woodland creatures, then dragging the victim out to the middle of nowhere and making him dig his own grave is a good strategy. For purposes of general propaganda, an airport execution is more probably more effective.

20 Likes

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that one.

1 Like

Imagine the clout that this gives him now. In future foreign negotiations and meetings. “You know, the last time I had to walk out of a business meeting empty-handed, people got killed.You might want to keep that in mind as we talk.” OMG! And he ain’t gonna underplay it either.

12 Likes

https://twitter.com/chadocl/status/1134231104670425088

The Chsoun Ilbo has a track record of reporting the executions of North Koreans who later turn out to be alive. For instance, in 2013 it reported the execution of singer Hyon Song Wol, who was appointed to the Central Committee in 2017.

25 Likes

Trump’s tweet of admiration for this “strong move” by Kim in 3…2…1…

16 Likes

None of them tend to be particular effective when it comes to, you know, making their states successful. But it’s amazing what you can get away with, when you can just kill people left and right…

7 Likes

Should Bolton and Pompeo worry?

9 Likes

Reminder:

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/10/asia/north-korea-army-chief-ri-yong-gil-alive/index.html

32 Likes

No one wants a promotion there.

6 Likes

Ubstacking is pretty fucking difficult. You monster.

17 Likes

Well, Stalin managed pretty well for a person who had hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen executed, sent millions to gulags, and had his every person of power trembling waiting for when their denunciation would come.

The USSR was far mightier in 1953 than it was in 1933 (although hard to imagine how, given the madness he put the country through.)

A biography of Stalin is fascinating reading. He wasn’t a drooling psychopath. He was simply a mercurial murderer. Often standing up to him got his admiration… until it didn’t, and you were arrested and executed. Sometimes failing to meet quotas got you shot. Sometimes being too successful made him suspicious and you died under mysterious circumstances. He hated sycophants, but failure to be sufficiently sycophantic would eventually get you killed.

Nobody was safe, and many of those in his inner circle that weren’t killed by him ended up dying of stress-related diseases. (Not to cry for them, they got where they were by being willing to kill thousands in the hope that it might happen be what Stalin wanted.)

13 Likes

Oh please, please, please let Donnie try and make a joke about it! And please, please, please let it be fake!

1 Like

Pompeo: hyuck hyuck

5 Likes

From the Guardian (my italics) -

“Shin Hye-yong, who interpreted for Kim at the Hanoi summit, was reportedly detained at a political prison camp for undermining Kim’s authority by making a critical interpreting mistake, the newspaper said.”

If this is correct, fucking hell. Trump’s English is barely intelligible at the best of times to native speakers.

8 Likes

So if that’s not a drooling psychopath, just what kind of psychopath is it?

Asking for a friend.

7 Likes

Adios boys, better luck next time…

1 Like

Honestly, if it weren’t for the risk of precedent-setting; I’d be OK with Trump having broad discretionary power to execute his immediate underlings. The ones he has selected have done a very, very, good job of deserving it.

5 Likes

Yeah, but the underlings come after he’s done killing the enemies of the people.