To two journalists Bill Clinton is trying to free in North Korea, add three idealistic young people "arrested" by Iran for crossing their border with Iraq for apparently no other reason than being American.
“They are definitely Americans," a security official in Iran’s western Kurdistan region tells Arabic TV. "They were detained four days ago. We don’t know whether they are tourists or not. We are questioning them.”
It's becoming standard procedure for repressive regimes to try to distract attention from their own political turmoil by taking as hostage US citizens whose presence in their precincts involves humanitarian or scholarly work rather than sightseeing.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, still awaiting confirmation that Iran was holding the three, has expressed the usual "concern," adding, "“We want this matter brought to a resolution as soon as possible, and we call on the Iranian government to help us determine the whereabouts of the three missing Americans and return them as quickly as possible.”
In this new case, two of the hostages have been identified as a student couple, studying Arabic in Syria and also serving as freelance journalists, writing recent articles about the Middle East. The third had been working in a Pennsylvania "sustainable living research center" until eight months ago.
In the "Death to America" era, it's becoming more and more dangerous for our best and brightest young people to follow their idealistic impulses to the world's hot spots. Is the only alternative intellectual isolationism?
Showing posts with label Bill Clinton North Korea trip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Clinton North Korea trip. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Bill Clinton Back to the Future
Off-the-books diplomacy, recalling Bill Richardson's career as an unofficial negotiator with Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic in the Clinton era, is back with the former President himself in North Korea to arrange release of two imprisoned American journalists, employees of a media unit headed by former VP Al Gore.
Bill Clinton's gig is complicated by his wife's status as Secretary of State, giving new meaning to the expression "private channels."
All hands in the White House and State Department are maintaining official silence about the trip, obviously intended to break the stalemate over the Administration's need to act on the imprisonment while stopping short of destroying the possibility of future negotiations with North Korea over nuclear weapons.
Raising the stakes in rewarding blackmail by rogue states is a problematical development. Freeing the two women is a commendable objective but, in the light of North Korea's history of political blackmail, a dubious step that will only continue the cycle of American impotence in dealing with that regime.
Richardson himself, then a Congressman nominated to be UN Ambassador, went to Pyongyang in 1996 to gain the freedom of a young American man, so disturbed that he committed suicide soon after returning home.
The North Koreans, whose foreign policy seems oriented around getting attention on the world stage, will no doubt accept Bill Clinton's trip as the price of freeing prisoners who serve no other purpose for them, but the precedent is unnerving.
Keeping Bill Clinton offstage during his wife's State Department tenure would clearly be a plus for the Obama Administration. Given Al Gore's personal involvement in the current case, wouldn't a former Vice-President's humbling have been a high enough price to pay?
Bill Clinton's gig is complicated by his wife's status as Secretary of State, giving new meaning to the expression "private channels."
All hands in the White House and State Department are maintaining official silence about the trip, obviously intended to break the stalemate over the Administration's need to act on the imprisonment while stopping short of destroying the possibility of future negotiations with North Korea over nuclear weapons.
Raising the stakes in rewarding blackmail by rogue states is a problematical development. Freeing the two women is a commendable objective but, in the light of North Korea's history of political blackmail, a dubious step that will only continue the cycle of American impotence in dealing with that regime.
Richardson himself, then a Congressman nominated to be UN Ambassador, went to Pyongyang in 1996 to gain the freedom of a young American man, so disturbed that he committed suicide soon after returning home.
The North Koreans, whose foreign policy seems oriented around getting attention on the world stage, will no doubt accept Bill Clinton's trip as the price of freeing prisoners who serve no other purpose for them, but the precedent is unnerving.
Keeping Bill Clinton offstage during his wife's State Department tenure would clearly be a plus for the Obama Administration. Given Al Gore's personal involvement in the current case, wouldn't a former Vice-President's humbling have been a high enough price to pay?
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