Late this afternoon my boss came to my desk and informed me that Otto Warmbier had died. She was quite upset by it all. I could see why. She has two teenaged daughters and I'm sure she could picture them in that situation.
Honestly, I hadn't paid all that much attention to Warmbier's plight especially with the recent spate of Islamist terrorist attacks (and, of course, last night's terrorist attack outside of London's Finsbury Park Mosque).
It's all too easy to overlook the evil of the North Korean regime. Despite the fact they have nuclear weapons, Kim Jong-un is often portrayed as a comic buffoon as demonstrated by his occasional association with former NBA star Dennis Rodman or his portrayal in the Seth Rogen/James Franco movie The Interview a couple of years back.
Then there's the fact that very few Americans and Westerners have set foot in North Korea by choice. In an online world, North Korea remains very much off the grid. We have never been treated to meaningful images of their labor camps or of their starving populace. Christopher Hitchens has written about North Korea likening it to George Orwell's 1984 and there have been a handful of dissidents such as Kang Chol-hwan (the author of Aquariums in Pyongang).
But this is different. Otto Warmbier may have died after returning to American soil, but make no mistake he was killed in North Korea. I suspect that my boss isn't the only parent who reacted to viscerally to Warmbier's death. It's a shame a young American had to die, but perhaps his death won't have been in vain if Americans truly recognize the evil nature of North Korean regime and with that recognition one day put an end to it.
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