cnn.
washingtonexaminer.
President Donald Trump's decision not to hold North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un responsible for Otto Warmbier's death was "reprehensible," former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum said Thursday.
"This is the conundrum of Donald Trump for many of us who like his policies and don't like a lot of the things he does and says," Santorum said of the decision to CNN's John Berman on "New Day."
"But, this is reprehensible, what he just did. He gave cover, as you said, to a leader who knew very well what was going on with Otto Warmbier," Santorum, who is a CNN political commentator, said. "And again, I don't understand why the President does this. I am disappointed, to say the least, that he did it."
The ‘America first’ president just gave Kim Jong Un cover for the murder of an American student
It’s amazing how far people can get with President Trump so long as they dangle in front of him the promise of prestige.
You can be a murderous third-world dictator and oversee the slow execution of an American citizen, and the president will defend you for it before the entire world just so long as he believes doing so will get him closer to boosting his own personal and professional capital.
This isn’t hyperbole either. The president did exactly this Thursday during a joint press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump actually defended the potbellied tyrant king’s claim that he was in the dark in 2016 when his regime imprisoned and tortured a University of Virginia student from Ohio.
Otto Warmbier, who was beaten into a coma by North Korean prison guards during his 17-month imprisonment, died shortly after arriving back in the U.S. in June 2017.
"He felt badly about it. He felt very badly," Trump saidThursday after his second summit with Kim, adding they discussed Warmbier’s death privately. "He tells me that he didn't know about it and I will take him at his word."
The president added that it wouldn’t have been in Kim’s interest for Warmbier to be irreparably harmed, saying, "I don't think that the top leadership knew about it. I don't believe that [Kim] would have allowed that to happen."
Pres. Trump is trying to avoid the death of millions of Koreans, and of American soldiers, and of others around the world who might suffer if it becomes necessary to neutralize North Korea.
ReplyDeleteOtto Warbier was treated the same as pretty much any North Korean would be treated for a similar conviction, if info available on the web is to be believed as to how the North Korean prison system works.
Was Otto Warbier guilty of taking a poster? It seems that he was. He stole. According to the Noahide Laws, that is a capital crime.
Did North Korea give him justice? No. Was he executed? No. It seems he was severely mistreated, which lead to his death.
There was really no way to bring up Warbier without indicting the whole system that North Korea has for enforcing the primacy of the State. For example, in North Korea, if someone commits certain crimes against the State, apparently their extended family is imprisoned along with the perpetrator -- like parents, grandparents, etc.
To start kvetching about human rights would not have been productive in terms of the immediate concern to defuse the possibility of a nuclear war.
Warbier was probably not innocent, as noted above. Had he been, I would think the President should mention him.