So what did he die of? His physical examination showed no evidence of trauma with all organs functioning normally other than his brain.

What a shame. What a damn shame.

O.k., I'm all for personal responsibility, facing the consequences of our actions and all of that, but there are limits to everything. This is an extraordinary situation, wherein the poor kid could never be expected to understand the peril in which his dumb prank placed him. It was so far beyond reasonable, so far beyond any sane man's imagination, that I do not feel he should have been held to that level of responsibility.

If this had happened anywhere else, I'd be saying "yeah, let the smart ass cool his heels in jail for a month or two - maybe he will learn something". This, however, was orders of magnitude beyond that. And that is where I believe that citizenship should have its privileges - the United States government should look after us if we get ourselves into this sort of a situation. If we fall prey to a madman, or fall prey to horribly unjust laws and punishments, then I think it is our collective responsibility to cover one another. Our instrument for doing that is our Federal Government.

I think we need to send a message to the rotund little bastard. Not through our military, but through further economic sanctions. Let China know it's time to choose - join the "First World" economy and trade with the big players, or continue to molly coddle this Swiss cheese binging, Bud Lite swilling fat-tard. Tighten the noose until he cannot breathe.

The only reason why the Trump administration got him back is because he was already close to dying.

If he was still somewhat healthy, I truly believe NK would have held onto him even longer.

Korea has a lot of people who can easily turn to crime if the NK regime were to fall. Way worse than Egypt or Iraq because they have a military and technological mindset. I sort of wonder if most of the bluster, testing nukes, etc might be a ploy to keep their own people under control.

The history of Korea is one of constant upheaval and revolution. They are almost ungovernable, and in a way it is remarkable that the current regime has lasted as long as it has, and somehow unified the south at the same time.

Exactly this. NK didn't realized that he was no use or no fun if he was in a coma. They may have even thought "crap, we don't want him to die here." so they sent him back. It had NOTHING to do with Trump or Obama.

^ +1

At least he is home.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

I disagree completely. This was a Darwin Award winner, nothing more. Traveling to a different country you are expected to research and understand the culture and laws of the land. And respect them. Travel to North Korea and better spend a few months knowing everything you can about the most bizarre, insane, brutal dictatorship known today, one that just happens to hate the U.S. Better be on your absolute best behavior every second you are there.

This guy walked into a cage with a honey badger wearing a suit made out of flank steaks.

What could go wrong?

speculation,

communists are known to use chemicals as part of interrogation. his brain was probably cooked by too much sodium pentothol.

a little victim blaming here. he should have known better than to wear the short skirt. but that in no way absolves the rapist.

So, do we REALLY know if this poor kid did 'anything' wrong? Obviously we can't believe ANYTHING spewing out of NK. Personally I can't fathom why we've, or most other nations, have left this punk dictator alive this long. Hoping he meets up with one of his pet dogs real soon. One things for sure, Otto paid one helluva price, and my prayers and thoughts go out to his grieving family. :(

They do have video of him taking a poster off a wall in a hotel. Should he be dead because of it? Of course not but should he have known it was a possibility if he did? Absolutely

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I heard the he was recorded stealing some poster off a wall...or some such.

I don't think anyone is saying what he did was a good idea. Nobody in their right mind should be going to NK. But he really didn't deserve what he got. I'd say he deserved it if he got a year and was smacked around a bit. But this is pretty sick.

Thank you.

So the Norks grabbed a U.S. Citizen, perhaps at random, made a big spectacle of it then rendered his brain into a useless goo.

My thinking is the poor kid was already doped up in those video leaks as if they chemically suppressed everything but his emotions.

This was a new kind of torture.

How is it that Kim Jong-un has not been assassinated by his own people or some world power?

^^^

My question, too.

That video hardly proves that Otto is the one stealing the poster. In my opinion, the body movements of that person seem much, much older. More like someone 40+ years of age.

I am somewhat adventurous, but there's no way I would consider visiting North Korea. Perhaps the DMZ on the South Korea side would be cool, but that's as close as I would get.

Not saying the kid had it coming, but it was a very risky visit. He had to be aware of the potential consequences. It would be interesting to know how many Americans the Chinese tour company that took him there actually bring in to the country. A few? Hundreds?

I'll bet the online Yelp reviews for the North Korea tour via China are in the dump anyway. We got downtown L.A. right?

This time it was Otto. Next time: somebody else.

Being a stoopid westerner, no matter how stoopid, does not diminish the barbarity. Best let Kim isolate himself even more. At some point, he'll be stubbed out like a cigarette butt and with just about as much fanfare.

Otto's case is sad. But what is the plan to manage a crap ton of unruly Norks after you ice the fatboty?

My God, what kind of a sick, heartless soul could possibly feel this way? What a pathetic POS. To so callously, so flippantly brush off such incredibly cruel treatment of an innocent young man while blaming him for not knowing any better takes a special kind of cretan. Holy crap are you ever a scumbag... wow... just shaking my head...

Kim'll get popped by someone next to him. There will be no unruly Norks.

Outrage is fine, but I have yet to hear specifically what the US govt was expected to do, to get the young man back. Impose unilateral economic sanctions? Already doing. Pressure China to impose heavy sanctions? They won't, for their own reasons. Impose heavy sanctions on China to force them to impose heavy sanctions on North Korea? Gonna be hard to explain to millions of now-unemployed Americans that you threw the economy into the toilet to get back one person. Missile strike on North Korea? Sorry about the millions of South Koreans and thousands of U.S. troops who then end up dead. Assassinate the fat one? Not easy, plus bummer for all those millions of dead South Koreans and U.S. troops.

Sorry, if you are an American and you go to North Korea, you are putting yourself beyond any protection of the US government. Might as well go on holiday to ISIS territory and then complain that the US government isn't stopping your beheading.

China doesn't appear to be too enrolled.

lol!

Thanks for confirming Jeff was spot on in his assessment of you.

indoctrination
absolute control
regular purges of those who drum to a different beat.
fear
fear
repression

They had some time to perfect things.

It's just a realistic assessment of what happened.

I see tons of outrage but not at us or by us.

Guy went into a bad neighborhood. What's the mayor supposed to do? Wreck entire city blocks, disrupt everything, make more enemies and spend allot of money?

Otto's legacy will be an appreciation for Liberty and Due Process.

Absolutely. Little Fat Bastard is exactly that, and a sumbeyotch, but in that country, he's god. So this is a lot less like blaming a chick in a short skirt at a dance club who got roofied and more like blaming a kid that strapped on 50# of raw meat and climbed 2 walls to get into the lion's habitat at a zoo. Or if you want to stick with your analogy, it's like a hottie getting drunk, getting slutted up in her tiniest club attire and then running into a prison specifically housing sexual offenders that have rioted so there is no prison staff. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can actually blame her in that case.

North Korea is NOT a place to go unless you are prepared to die at worst. This is not Motion going to South Africa or Honduras or Lebanon or Jordan or Israel on one of his vacations. This is North Korea where there are NO CIVIL RIGHTS other than the right to potentially be prosecuted, possibly for no reason other than some made up sheit, and killed if for no other reason than they are a bunch of nut jobs that HATE THE US.

This guy has killed his own trusted advisors, military guys and family in insane ways just because it gave him a chubby.

They only folks that should go to N Korea are paid spies that know that they may die in the service of their country. Anyone else that goes and comes back is just lucky.

Because he kills anyone that he wants to, including family and anyone else that his whim dictates. To kill him, you'd probably have to be really close to him, and even then, if you are currently close to him, and then kill him, you'll almost certainly be killed by whoever is left unless you work out a big conspiracy ahead of time. So you haven't gained yourself anything. To work out the big conspiracy ahead of time is risking death. I assume this is a lot like E Germany with the Stasi with everyone watching everyone else and ready to turn anyone else in.

I think the problem is folks judge the NK culture, legal system and ruler applying their own standards and experiences as U.S. citizens.

Their normal is not the same as our normal. They are very far apart.

Exactly.

But yet our last administration was able to get back a transgender traitor by the release of known terrorists. Perhaps if Otto had been transgender (or of the correct political identity group) he would have been home in record time.

I find it hard to believe there was nothing that could be done......

While I feel very sorry for the parents losing their son, I also think they have to bare some of the responsibility. They didn't teach him to make wise decisions. As a parent I ask myself what type of parent would let their offspring even consider going to NK, let alone actually go there. I would not expect our government to do anything to get him back when they've already told him he shouldn't be going in the first place.

then you're unrealistic.

Going to NK is not any less foolish than vacationing in Iraq or Syria.

I hear Raqqa is really nice for white, Christian Americans this time of year. Especially head strong women that think they should be able to dress however they like.

I don't wonder around south central Los Angeles for the exact same reasons.

Anybody that has raised kids in this era will realize that, no matter how well you raise them or what you teach them, kids under 25 lack the common sense and judgement of older adults. We adults think we do a good job but the kids are also raised by their peers and they don't see the world in the same way we do (and did, at their age) and you'd be a fool to think you were their greatest influence.

So, blame the kid for being there in the first place, if you want. You are all twice or three times his age and should, and do, know better.

Having said that, I doubt just about every aspect of the story of his imprisonment. I think he was taken as a political pawn and it's pretty likely that nothing in the NK narrative has the slightest ring of truth. The video shows nothing. If you study it for very long, you'll note that the figure doesn't have the shape of Otto, doesn't dress like Otto and doesn't act like Otto. That person puts what looks like a portrait of Kim Idiot #2 on the floor rather reverently, like a good Korean would do. The hallway is rather well lit for NK at night. The video is conveniently fuzzy, made more so in the close-up version.

Then you get to his confession. That makes no sense, which means the NK goons wrote it for him. It describes a plot no westerner would concoct, because we don't think like they do in NK.

Then, consider the statements of his older, male roommate for the trip who says that this is out of character for the Otto he spent almost a week with and, oh by the way, he doesn't recall noticing Otto missing during the night.

Various other videos show what looks like, to my eyes at least, a drugged Otto being hauled around, fingerprinted, etc. Then, there are the intelligence reports that indicate that he was treated differently than most western prisoners... the bull**** story from NK about what happened to him... etc.

We may eventually learn the real story, or we may not, but I think he was hand-picked to be a pawn by NK and his only crime was being in the wrong place. And I can tell you that I will not put any blame on his shoulders for that. He paid a high price and I'm not going to add to that with stupid, judgemental comments. I hope something good comes of his sacrifice.

JR