Laura Ling and Euna Lee

UPDATE, August 5, 2009: N. Korea Releases U.S. Journalists
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Nearly one month ago, the Iranians freed imprisoned journalist Roxana Saberi. At first, she was arrested for working in Iran without press credentials. Eventually, she was charged and convicted of spying.

Thankfully, that hostage crisis was resolved; but now we have another "Axis of Evil" nation hostage crisis. This time North Korea is holding Americans captive.

From the New York Times:

North Korea on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontational stance toward the United States.

The Central Court, the highest court of North Korea, held the trial of the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have been held since they were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called the charges “baseless.”

The United States government had demanded that the North forgo the legal proceedings and release the two women.

The sentencing came amid rising tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. Earlier Monday, North Korea threatened to retaliate with “extreme” measures if the United Nations punished it for its nuclear test last month, and Washington warned that it might try to put the North back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that could subject the impoverished state to more financial sanctions.

“Our response would be to consider sanctions against us as a declaration of war and answer it with extreme hard-line measures,” the North Korea’s state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary.

...Analysts said they were a pawn in a rapidly deteriorating confrontation between the United States and North Korea — a potential bargaining chip for the Pyongyang regime and a handicap for Washington in its efforts to pressure the government over its recent missile and nuclear tests.

North Korea is a mess.

Obama can't place blame solely on the Bush administration for that. He can blame Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton, too.

Responsibility for the present threat posed by North Korea dates back well before Bush took office. An August 1, 1994 editorial in National Review provides some reality as opposed to the usual Dem spin.

Obviously, it's not as if no one saw the potential for North Korea to be a serious threat to U.S. security and world stability.

Obama can thank the Clinton administration and the disastrous Albright for the failures that have led to years and years of mounting tensions.

A nuclear North Korea is part of the "proud" Clinton/Albright legacy.

They rewarded North Korea for bad behavior. The result was not diminished hostilities.

So now what?

Ling and Lee are being held hostage. They're being used as pawns.

Maybe Obama should meet with North Korean leaders, without preconditions, just as he promised during his campaign.

QUESTION: "[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?"

OBAMA: "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration - is ridiculous."

Obama's "holding out the olive branch to the world" rhetoric hasn't really changed much of anything.

Of course, North Korea is testing Obama.

The world has been watching the various legs of his apology tours. Obviously, Obama talking down America doesn't make North Korea want to cooperate and reduce tensions with the U.S. and the global community. Weakness encourages North Korea to be more aggressive and the country is seizing that opportunity.

I think North Korea wants to find out just how weak Obama really is.

All of our enemies are interested in that information.



Meanwhile, Ling and Lee are looking at 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp.

That's no picnic. Or should I say that's no date night?