This is a great use of Bill Clinton!

Sending him to Pyongyang makes great sense, and it looks as though he’s succeeding in springing the two off-track Korean-American infiltrators.

31 thoughts on “This is a great use of Bill Clinton!”

  1. This is shows the wisdom of communications between humans.
    Bill Clinton which I have personal respect for him, prove to those who keep singing hard-liners and war warmongering even those “Axis of Evil” they are not “Evils” as they label them. they are also human full of humanity and should be open to them and solve our world problems.
    That said we still have a state that closes all the windows of human felling and keep pressing and occupied and killing innocent people for defending tier right and their life on their own land. This state is ISRAEL.

  2. Bill Clinton acted wisely and effectively in this case in order to save two young American women.
    Too bad he does not have the same regard for Iraqi lives, bearing in mind that he presided over eight years of murderous – some say genocidal – sanctions and repeated deadly bombings of Iraq.
    Some things simply cannot be forgiven or forgotten, no matter what.

  3. Shirin, this is one of the most touching comment I had come across .
    I am short of words, although thorned with emotions.

  4. “This is a great use of Bill Clinton”, you say?
    Like it was a great use of the crook Jan van Riebeeck to send him to the Cape?
    Bill Clinton is universally known as one of the biggest liars in the world.
    It is an old tradition that you are falling into, of thinking that the best thing to do with a rogue is to send him off to deal with the natives in some far-flung corner.
    It’s embarrassing. Really embarrassing.

  5. Yes Dominic! It is pathetic. In the first place these ladies pursued fame and glory by taking risks, and it moral hazard to use taxpayers dollars and ex-Presidents to rescue them. Now they have the glory of the little ordeal, the books, the movies, why? A poor hiker in Yosemite gets charged if he takes risks that require his rescue, and these ladies are off the hook.
    Second, this in no diplomatic win, it is a tie at best. The South Koreans, a lowly country that cannot feed its own people spit us in the face by sentencing US citizens to ridiculous sentences, and we call it a victory when they help us clan the spit from our face… Sad.
    Finally, how come all these journo travelers being detained everywhere except Helena? Not fair.

  6. Bill Clinton went to North Korea as a person, not as an idealogue. He went quietly, not seeking publicity, not seeking accolades. The U.S. journalists have been pardoned, and hopefully, he has opened a crack to begin a dialog with the North Koreans, for the benefit of the U.S., N. Korea and the world. Kudos to Clinton!

  8. I do share the same vision with Shirin, ” Bill Clinton acted wisely and effectively in this case in order to save two young American women.
    Too bad he does not have the same regard for Iraqi lives, bearing in mind that he presided over eight years of murderous – some say genocidal – sanctions and repeated deadly bombings of Iraq.
    Some things simply cannot be forgiven or forgotten, no matter what”. His eforts as I see, are very selective. Anyway, I feel very happy for them being back at home and I am really impressed by the image of how she was holding her daughter in ther arrival terminal.
    say to President Bill Clinton you cannot be selective if you do not discriminate and when you descriminate you can hate and you cannot be wise.
    Hafid

  9. So, Dominic, in your ideology-driven world it is preferable to let two young girls pay for a mistake in judgment by spending fifteen years at hard labor in North Korea than to send a rogue and a liar (aka a politician) to convince Kim Jung Il to release them and let them go home?

  10. Bill Clinton is universally known as one of the biggest liars in the world.
    His lie did it caused the death of 1,000,000.
    His lie did not made 30,000 widows
    His Lie did not made 5,000,000 orphans
    His Lie did brought the most corrupted bunch of international fraudest and bankers to thieves a country and stripes the wealth from 20,000,000 have devastating life for 30 years.
    Finally he admitting and apologised for wrong doing, in anyway it was privets matter and not more the problem with the Monika she just S* lady she offer herself for this job.

  11. Salah, you know that Bill Clinton has oceans of Iraqi blood on his hands after eight years of starving and bombing.

  12. Bill Clinton and Al Gore did their best to liberate Iraq from the Tyrant and his Baath henchman without invading the country.
    He and Gore did liberate the muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo and the people of Serbia now live in a democracy, as do the people of Iraq. They no longer live under murderous, tyrannical regimes.
    Unlike the people of Iran, as we now realise.
    Interesting to see that the North Koreans welcomed Clinton to their country. Shows a glimmer of respect for the United States and for the man.

  14. oceans of Iraqi blood
    What say about Gorge W. Bush the senior and the Son?
    How many Oceans of bloods these two fanatics they did and doing in Iraq with those who were behind them from Dr. Death, the Nut of Abu Graib Torture Chamber and his foolish the looting “leave them feel the freedom” or those Death Squad Generals Steel and his co. or Bremer with his 9 Billions robbery…
    Shirin do you need me to carry on to of the endless list…… to see the Oceans of bloods they done?

  15. bb, do you actually believe the drivel you put here, or do you just do it for fun?
    bb must be doing something right. shirin’s outbursts are getting more hostile and defensive. tsk tsk.
    shirin, maybe its time to reread Helena’s posting guidelines, hmmmm?

  16. Hi Shirin,
    I didn’t notice your post addressed to me. Of course, I am a politician. Maybe you didn’t know that. I don’t accept that politicians are rogues and liars and I think that people who say so are partly responsible for such phenomena as the Clintons.
    Your main fallacy is not that, however, but is the one that says that the male Clinton had to go to Korea before the people could be released. That is just a bogus construct that you have swallowed hook, line and sinker. Nobody else is obliged to do so.
    I hope you are just being naive, because if you are trying to force the Clintons on us with hostages and “moral” blackmail, then that is a more serious matter.
    The Clintons are an embarrassment to the human race. Why not let’s just agree on that and leave it.

  17. Dominic,
    OK, so, if sending Bill Clinton or some other American lying rogue (aka politician) to persuade Kim Jung Il to release the girls was unacceptable, what would have been an acceptable course of action to you?

  18. It’s not so much the way you are expropriating some sort of imaginary high moral ground, Shirin, that I object to.
    The problem is rather the fatuous idea that a fix-up between the USA government and the DPRK requires the ministrations of a buffoon like Clinton, or of any other public individual, for that matter.
    The deal is one thing, the ballyhoo another. If you are saying that without the ballyhoo there would have been no deal, you are only backing the abusive, bullying and unacceptable tactics of the USA.
    It is the USA that insists on these humiliations. I think it is high time that people like yourself demanded a higher standard, and stopped apologising for the condescensions and humiliations imposed upon us all by the USA in substitution for dignified diplomacy.

  19. Sending him to Pyongyang makes great sense… I can easily agree with that!
    The problem is… he’ll find his way back.
    Should at least have made him Ambassador to Pyongyang.

  20. Dominic, what would be a course of action acceptable to you to obtain the release of the two girls?

  21. Dominic’s position seems very clear to me: the role of Clinton in this matter is simply illusionary. The deal, obviously was cooked up in advance, overr the phone, by email or however and Bill Clinton was just there for the photo-op.
    Thus enabling those inclined to idiocy to ‘bill and coo’ amongst themselves as only American Liberals can.
    So let’s remind ourselves: Bill Clinton was a thoroughly unprincipled politician, devious, amoral and exceedingly stupid. He probably regarded Phil Gramm as a deep thinker, he certainly thought that there was something very clever about a political economy that Ruskin, the most innocent of men, and a coupon clipper, could see was intellectually bankrupt. And, in ethical terms, diabolical.

  23. Thanks, Bevin. That is indeed what I was trying to say.
    Try this, Shirin:
    I don’t mind that the two spies were sprung by US diplomats with God knows (and you, Shirin, certainly do not know) what kinds of quid pro quo.
    I don’t mind that the two spies were sprung because I am an abolitionist. I don’t like prisons. I don’t like anyone being in prison. I follow Angela Davis in this regard.
    I wish that, for example, the three-quarters of a million black prisoners in the USA were set free.
    I wish that the Cuban 5 were set free: innocent men who have been cruelly imprisoned in the USA for 12 years past.
    I can say a lot more about this if you really want it. But I’ve got my own rules. I don’t personally feel nice about this tactic of pretending you don’t understand something that is very clear. So if you do that, it does rather put me off.

  24. I suppose it may have escaped other JWN readers’ attention that the female Clinton is at the moment here in South Africa on the second leg of a bossy-boots tour that coincided in its beginning with the male Clinton’s embarrassing stunt in Pyongyang.
    This is a couple that one would do all in one’s power to prevent from being elected to the local Community-Police Forum or ward committee.
    I shall be staying away as much as possible from radio and TV today, so that I do not have to hear more of Mrs Clinton’s absurdities than are unavoidable.

  25. Salah,
    Where do you pull that nonsense about millions and sea of blood?
    Clinton did not invade Iraq, just enforced the no fly zone to protect the Kurds, your Kurds Salah, not here in Florida.
    Clinton presided over 8 glorious years in the US, and was a smart centrist president. Back at your ranch you were ruled for decades by a tyrant and murdered, your man Saddam, for whom you picked up arms Salah. You don’t like ours? Yours was much worse, shame on you and your leaders, and your coward populace incapable of shaking of such tyrants, if they were so good you would be still living in your home country.

  26. On what evidence do you call them spies, Dominic? do you have information that they were not exactly what they say they were, journalists for a liberal TV channel who were researching an article on human trafficking? Do you have evidence that they were spies? And for whom were they spying, and for what purpose?

  27. Changing the subject again, huh, Shirin?
    Were these two convicted spies friends of yours?
    Why don’t you tell us what you know first, before hounding other people?
    Why don’t you tell us why you have kept quiet about the Cuban 5 while they rotted in jail in the USA for twelve years (5 men who are innocent, by the way) but now get up in arms about the two spies who have been set free?
    Is this just a double standard, or do you have more?
    Face it, not everybody is a devotee of the Clintons, and one of the reasons why is that we who are not devotees of the Clintons tend not to appreciate chicanery, wherever we find it.

  28. Why don’t you answer my question, Dominic? On what basis do you call them spies?
    On what basis do you accuse me of keeping quiet about other injustices?

  29. Shirin, you are lagging behind, but I see that Alexander Cockburn has got the point, posted only a few minutes ago. Please go to http://www.counterpunch.org/ and read the whole thing. Please note Clinton’s role. Here is some of it. N.B. from here on it is Alexander Cockburn’s words, not mine.
    Remember when the two Chinese American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were first convicted earlier this year and given 12-year prison terms in one of North Korea’s labor camps? Working for a tv channel owned by former vice president Al Gore, the two had crossed North Korea’s border with China, intent on investigating the alleged trafficking of North Korean women as sex slaves in the People’s Republic.
    There were wall-to-wall headlines, screams on all the talk shows. Was there ever a failed state as barbaric as North Korea? Not only is this rogue nation endangering the security of the planet in its efforts to elbow its way into the exclusive club of nuclear powers, but now it had dispatched two Chinese-American journalists to camps notorious for their brutality and appalling conditions.
    It was always obvious that the harsh sentences faced by Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were tied up in the evolution of relations between North Korea and the new Obama government and this judgement has been vindicated by the speed with which they were sprung, once Bill Clinton paid a visit.
    So now let us let’s try and achieve some sense of balance on the charge of barbarism.
    Let’s suppose a country has endured half a century of continuous attack by assailants based in the United States, with nearly 4,000 dead and 2,000 wounded. Let’s further suppose that when this country, trying to expand its tourist industry, listens to widely broadcast plans by these assailants to sabotage these plans by attacking the tourists – which they duly do, killing one. Now let us suppose that this country sends investigators to infiltrate the assailants, and hands the results of their probe to the FBI and…
    I’m talking about the Cuban Five – courageous men who went to southern Florida, and penetrated the Cuban gusano gangs, specifically Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue.
    In 1998, after Fidel Castro dispatched Gabriel Garcia Marquez as an emissary to the Clinton White House, the United States sent an FBI team to Havana to discuss the attacks. Cuba handed over 64 files on 31 different terrorist acts and plans against the island in the decade of the ’90s.
    After this effort to enlist the U.S. government in stopping terrorist acts (abetted and maybe initiated by the U.S. government), Cuba expected the FBI to start arresting the terrorists. Nt for the first time, Fidel Castro gravely underestimated the good faith of the US government. The Cubans had underestimated President Bill Clinton’s and Al Gore’s over-riding desire to service the Cuban right in Florida. On September 12, 1998, the Bureau arrested the very investigators who had come to Miami to probe the activities of the Miami terrorists. Gerardo Hernandez received a double life sentence, and Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labañino received life sentences. The remaining two, Fernando Gonzalez and René Gonzalez, received 19 and 15 years respectively.
    It’s true that the Five weren’t sent to a labor camp akin to those in the North Korean gulag. Where they were sent was described in CounterPunch earlier this year by Hernandez who was interviewed by the filmmaker Saul Landau, who is making a documentary about the Cuban 5.
    Hernandez: They took us to the prison, the Center of Federal Detention in Miami and put us in “the hole.”
    SL: For how long?
    GH: 17 months.
    SL: Describe “the hole?”
    GH: It’s an area that every prison has, where they put prisoners for disciplinary or for protective purposes, if they can’t be with the rest of the population. In those first 6 months in “solitary confinement,” we had a shower inside the cell so you can bathe whenever you want. But you get everything in the cell wet when you take a shower. You’re in the cell 23 hours a day. And one hour a day of recreation where they take you to another place. In Miami, it was a bit bigger and with this grid through which you could see a little piece of the sky. You could tell if it was day or night, and a bit of fresh air would come through. The regimen was strict. They used to punish prisoners who commit a serious indiscipline. There we were 23, some times 24 hours a day, inside those 4 small walls, with nothing to do. It’s very difficult from a humane point of view. And many people couldn’t take it. You could see them start to lose their minds, start screaming.
    SL: Did you do something bad?
    GH: No, we were sent there from the beginning.

  30. I think what President Clinton did for the release of two young women it was a political act and not an humanitarian at all. For the first reason, to give a great reputation to his friend Algor’s channel because the two journalists belong to it.
    secondly,If he really has humanitarian feelings, he could just pay a short visit to the white house and then go to guantanamo to release the innocent prisoners.
    For this reason I may disagree with helena when she titled her article ” This is a great use of Bill Clinton!”.
    Hafid
    Haid

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