By the way the thing that I always tell people who think my trip was super dangerous is that I saw families, with kids, doing the exact same trip - on bicycles.

There is a blurry video of a figure taking a poster in a hallway in a building. It's impossible to tell if it's Otto in the video or even if the video was taken in the hotel that the incident allegedly took place.

Yeah, I'm with you on this point. But for some reason around here, it's verboten by some to even mention anything a victim could have done to reduce his risk.

It doesn't matter how many times you preface it with "Now this doesn't excuse the perp in any way..." or something like that. You're still a dirty victim blamer and you should be ashamed of yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...in_North_Korea

Here's the full list of US Citizens. Almost everyone on there except Warmbler is a Bible thumper, journalist, or humanitarian trying to subvert the NK govt.

The only other random one is a Korean War vet who was asking his handlers how to get in touch with people he used to fight against the NK govt with. Seems suboptimal.

The Bible guy deliberately left a bible on a toilet in a nightclub trying to spread Jesus to the heathens.

Nothing comes close to as trivial as taking a poster off a wall. Out of 800 or so Americans traveling to NK yearly - that's the full list.

I probably have similar odds of dying on the LA freeways as being detained in NK if I went there once. Still not going. Just saying.

I thought I read somewhere he came back from the nightclub and was drinking with the hotel staff - which is how he saw the poster. Then later he came back for it. He confessed to taking it off the wall - which of course doesn't mean anything. But there was also the hotel staff as witnesses that he was in the area earlier. Or something.

It seems weird for NK to pick one random American and make some phony video to frame him - but obviously not out of the realm of possibility.

I guess there’s a line between being adventurous and being irresponsibly reckless and being a drunk idiot in North Korea sort of crosses that line for me.

what i'm getting at is i'm not taking things off walls during my trip to PRK. but that's just me.

if someone were to take something off a wall in PRK today or pre-Warmbier i'd expect there life to change for the negative if caught. this is PRK we are talking about right?

I think it's more in how unevenly and vociferously the standard is applied.

If someone resists arrest and gets killed, the authority-worshippers come out of the woodwork to blame the victim.

If a woman dresses sluttily and gets groped, the MRAs come out of the woodwork to "not blaming the victim, buuuuuut...".

Meanwhile someone who lives in a suburb way out in the sticks and drives 30 miles each way to work hears about someone they know getting robbed in the city and thinks "Welp, that's what you get."

With Warmbler it seems like the people who are scared of their own shadow are coming out of the woodwork to say "See, this is why I never leave the house!"

But of course they do leave the house and probably do plenty of stuff that's just as risky when you multiply it over decades vs. a one time chance at getting detained in NK - in which you still have to get drunk and do something very dumb to actually get in trouble.

And literally Warmbler seems to be the only American ever detained that wasn't trying to spread Christianity or report on or subvert the NK govt.

Anyone who lives in a "gritty" urban neighborhood or drives an hour on the freeway every day, but is scared to go to NK probably isn't evaluating both sets of risks on equal footing.

Who knows? Maybe little things happen, someone gets detained for a few days and it never makes the news. All we know is every other thing on that list was a lot more serious and intentional.

I'm more arguing against the idea that his dumbest decision was to go to NK in the first place. His dumbest decision by a factor of roughly infinity was to get drunk and try to take the poster off the wall.

If your stance is "well I better not travel anywhere I get in trouble if I do something monumentally stupid, because I don't trust myself not to do anything monumentally stupid" then yeah - stay home for sure.

no man. just no.

Solid point.

thx for posting vid. forgot vid wasn't a clear vid. did Warmbier ever say he didn't take the poster off the wall?

( twitter | raw text )

( twitter | raw text )

LOL Trump weighs in and it's on topic.

TBF Otto is white. So I believe Trump has some modicum of empathy there.

Also Trump has finally learned how to reply to his own tweets. I believe this is a new development?

I don't see how North Koreans staging a video of a guy who was on his last legs when returned to the US is in the realm of weird when we got the Russians knocking off people with polonium. Obviously I don't know if the video is actually real or staged, but there's definite motive for staging it.

Trump and Otto were very close I know this is hard for Donald

i thought the vid was released at the very beginning of his imprisonment ... no?

He loves him. But he knew what he was signing up for.

Nah, that’s just a clue that a staffer is using his account.

Obama's watch, drink.

So out of 800 Americans traveling there a year - they just decided to frame this one kid for some reason? Sure it's possible but it seems a lot more likely that he actually did something.

He definitely was gone from the rest of the group for a couple hours. https://www.gq.com/story/otto-warmbi...age-true-story

But yeah other than that there doesn't seem to be any clarification outside of the obviously ludicrous "confession".

Still seems new.

Y'all acting like this is some mystery. Anyone who does something I wouldn't/don't want to do--rock climbing, BASE jumping, playing indoor soccer, eating red meat, wearing a MAGA hat or an 8645 shirt in public, going to a club, backpacking through other countries, experimenting with drug that I have not, is taking stupid risks regardless of the math on it. Anything I like to do is worth it cuz you gotta live your life, rite?