I think that’s the real issue here. Every time an American is detained, the State Department has some responsibility to try and get that American back. It’s a drain on dwindling resources.
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According to Wikipedia there is 90k prisoners, 0.37% of the country in NK. In america we have 7 million or 2.8% of the adult population in the system. One of these countries has some serious corruption issues with the justice system.
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Hehe the irony.
It’s ok, they still got guns. If the government gets too oppressive they can shoot their way through to NK (it’s somewhere next to North Carolina, right?).
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Nah, the US just tends to keep its prisoners alive.
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“Don’t worry, comrade, we will help you resist your oppressive government.” (aside) “The microphone is switched on, isn’t it, Carlos?”
If I read the article correctly, there is nothing that stops NK from letting Americans in, and the State Dept does not say that US citizens will be prosecuted for anything if they go and return.
But by making it clear that US passports are not valid for the trip, the State Dept is saying “If they detain you, tough shit. It’s not our problem.” to the travelers, and their families and friends.
Which I think is fine.
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A quick search found that about 4,400 die each year in US prisons.
And then there is the case of the Guantanamo prisoners who committed suicide whereupon the military declared this as an act of “asymmetrical warfare against us”.
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If we agree that the US does shitty things, then is it acceptable to say that North fucking Korea is a bad place?
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The State Dept website more or less says this already and recommends working with the Swedish embassy if problems arise.
There is no U.S. embassy or consulate in North Korea. In the case of a detention, arrest, or death of a U.S. citizen in North Korea, the United States can provide only limited consular services through our Protecting Power, the Embassy of Sweden.
This new ban all seems like a fat load of nothing to me.
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Not as far as I know. From what I can tell, the process for an American to vacation in NK is:
Set up with one of the travel agencies approved to bring tourists to North Korea.
Obtain the proper visas to visit China (some agencies take care of this for you)
Fly to Beijing.
Change planes.
Fly to Pyongyang.
Take your vacation.
Ride a train back to Beijing, or at least to the Chinese border (there’s a law which says that Americans can’t leave the country by plane)
Fly home.
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During these challenging time, we all have to.
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This is a token effort that will be cheerfully ignored by the regime being banned and the people who travel there.
For example, Isreal used to (still does?) turn away people who have visited some Arab states. Most states like tourist dollars, and typically they will offer to include a slip of paper in your passport and do all their official stamping business there. In some places a friendly, no-thank-you to the passport stamper is all it takes to walk through without incrimination.
It sounds tough, but does little. I suppose if someone gets in trouble in DPRK, the State department can now tell them to fuck off, instead of being embarassed by their complete lack of leverage over the Koreans. In this sense, it is the perfect Republican policy: it achieves nothing, but diminished the unpleasant possibility of accountability for outcomes. How do you say, “Let them eat cake” in Russian?
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I don’t think the ban applies to aliens.
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That and a list of other reasons in 4 point type as long as my arm.
Seeing this as a prelude to military action ignores all history and knowledgable analysis of the situation.
You may well have that backward.
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Hey, that’s pretty cool. After the fall of the soviet union, I thought we’d never hear of travel bans ever again.
Not only don’t they have oil, they have mountains, forests, and a huge army that has been ready to repel nasty Yank and South Korean invaders for the last 60 years. The US military are well aware that North Korea, while probably conquerable in the end if absolutely necessary, is unlikely to be an Iraq-type pushover and therefore so far they have wisely declined to actually go to war against it. This is something that even Trump ought to understand because bullies never pick on anyone remotely their size.
That doesn’t matter, as it isn’t NK we are worried about, it’s China. China wouldn’t stand for a full assault of Western troops that close to their boarders today.
If NK gets too out of control China is going to have to put them down like Old Yeller.
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I strongly suspect that if (when?) push comes to shove, the DPRK Military will prove spectacularly inept at modern, high intensity warfare. Mere size has been largely irrelevant since about 1914, and has only become more irrelevant since then. Recall that prior to 1991 there were any number of wise talking heads who expounded at length about how fearsome the sixth largest army in the world would prove to be once the shooting started. 100 hours later the fourth largest army in the world had become the fifth largest army in Iraq, and the Wise Men™ all suddenly had to find new talking points.
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I think (hope?) you are right about that. I think the question isn’t whether ROK/US/Japan can win, but how much damage DPRK can do before it loses. They can drop a whole lot of artillery on Seoul before ROK/US/Japan has air superiority sufficient to get rid of it all. Helicopters, A-10s, etc., can deal with a lot of that and quickly, but not as easily if there are NORK airplanes in the air.
The other big variable, as I understand it, is their fuel supply. DPRK is dependent entirely on the sufferance of the PRC and if PRC is supporting Pyongyang, I don’t think a war happens at all. Of course, I think that if PRC decided that Kim, et al., need to go, then there’s probably not a war either.
Pure ex rectum here, but I think the most likely torch to war is an attempted coup against Kim in which Kim defends himself by lighting off a war against the South to try to rally the bulk of the Army and country behind him.
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