U.S. officials say that Pvt. Travis King is in American custody. The American soldier crossed into North Korea two months ago.
    • DoctorTYVM@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, they are not known for just letting go of someone for no reason. This guy must have been dusty balls useless

      • jimbolauski@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        1 year ago

        He probably gave them all the info he had on his first day. After that he wasn’t valuable as an intel asset. The only other thing he offered was a bargaining chip which NK found out was not much of one. At that point it was just easier for NK to cut their losses and turn him over to the US.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    311·
    1 year ago

    I have a feeling he’s going to wish he was back in NK very soon, if he doesn’t already. No matter the consequences he was running from to begin with, the consequences for causing an international incident and trying to defect to a hostile country are guaranteed to be worse.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Leavenworth is probably better than North Korea, but it’s definitely close. He’ll at least be fed in Leavenworth.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    18·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    That announcement surprised some observers who had expected the North to drag out his detention in the hopes of squeezing concessions from Washington at a time of high tensions between the rivals.

    Though King’s expulsion resolves a still-mysterious episode, it almost certainly does not end his troubles or ensure the sort of celebratory homecoming that has accompanied the releases of other detained Americans.

    At the time he crossed the border, King was supposed to be heading to Fort Bliss, Texas, following his release from prison in South Korea on an assault conviction.

    It said that he confessed to illegally entering the North because he harbored “ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination” within the U.S. Army and was “disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society.”

    The few Americans who crossed into North Korea in the past include soldiers, missionaries, human rights advocates or those simply curious about one of the world’s most cloistered societies.

    In the end, the North apparently concluded that King simply wasn’t worth keeping, possibly because of the cost of providing him food and accommodation and assigning him guards and translators when he was never to be a meaningful source of U.S. military intelligence, said Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.

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