Who could help but be buoyed by the sight of TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee arriving safely at an airport in Burbank after nearly five months of North Korean captivity?
The women, who work for former Veep Al Gore’s cable network Current TV, faced a bleak future: Captured after reportedly straying across the border from China while filming a story, they were sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor for entering the country illegally.
Behind-the-scenes diplomacy effected a “special pardon” from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il — but freedom came at a price.
Indeed, though Washington will deny it, this was a hostage ransom — starting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plea for “amnesty,” which carried a basic admission of wrongdoing.
“It speaks well of our country that when two American citizens are in harm’s way, that so many people will just put things aside and [ensure] a happy ending,” said Gore yesterday.
Indeed.
But why should Washington have been put in such a position to begin with?
What were Gore & Co. thinking when they sent these two women to one of the most dangerous places on earth?
Such conduct has consequences — and in this case, they go far beyond the simple risk to two people whose arrest was as predictable as the morning sunrise.
The result: America’s foreign policy regarding an unstable, highly belligerent emerging nuclear power was needlessly complicated, and both the region and the world are more dangerous because of it.
What was the point?