The Pueblo Precedent
I arrive at this story a bit late, but it's a subject worth some discussion. Last week Republican Congressman Wayne Allard demanded that North Korea return the U.S.S. Pueblo to the United States. In exchange, he offered a 19th Century Korean battle flag. With constituents in Pueblo, Colorado, Allard believes it is time for this ship to be sent home.
Here's where embarrassment set in for me. The Pueblo? Rings a bell. What's North Korea doing with it? How'd they get it? Why have we let them keep it? A quick primer from the official U.S.S. Pueblo website only heightened my embarrassment. As an American, I should have known about this.
Here's a quick, over-simplified summary, after which I'll get to my point. In January, 1968, the Pueblo was performing electronic surveliance off the coast of North Korea. The Navy maintains that the Pueblo was in international waters, and was therefore doing nothing illegal. North Korea obviously says differently. The Pueblo was engaged by four North Korean ships, who told her to heave-to and prepare to be boarded. The North Koreans fired several machine gun bursts at the Pueblo, killing one crewman. The Pueblo was practically defenseless as her two .50 cal machine guns were under frozen tarps and there was no ammo on deck. Regardless, it was four ships to one, and the Pueblo had no choice but to surrender. The crewmen spent eleven months in captivity, where they were tortured and called spies. They were told to admit they were in North Korean territory and apologize. They were forced to write propaganda letters and appear in propaganda films. They crewmen did their best to undermine these techniques by slipping in gestures and colloquialisms that the Koreans did not understand (such as flipping the cameraman the bird).
My point is twofold. One is that from what I've been able to surmise, I'm not the only one who had no idea about this, and that's a shame. Point two is, hey, did any of the above sound at all familiar to anybody?
I'm shocked that in the news coverage of the British hostage crisis there was no mention of this very, very similar situation. True, there was a mention or two from blog commenters. But searching CNN, CBSnews, and ABCnews turns up no mention of this connection. The only articles refer to Allard's proposal and Bill Richardson's visit to North Korea on April 9th.
Nearly forty years ago, North Korea embarrassed the United States, parading prisoners about for the world to see, as the American president watched helplessly. Last month, Iran followed the North Korean playbook to a T. Why not mention it?
Here are some possible reasons:
Here's where embarrassment set in for me. The Pueblo? Rings a bell. What's North Korea doing with it? How'd they get it? Why have we let them keep it? A quick primer from the official U.S.S. Pueblo website only heightened my embarrassment. As an American, I should have known about this.
Here's a quick, over-simplified summary, after which I'll get to my point. In January, 1968, the Pueblo was performing electronic surveliance off the coast of North Korea. The Navy maintains that the Pueblo was in international waters, and was therefore doing nothing illegal. North Korea obviously says differently. The Pueblo was engaged by four North Korean ships, who told her to heave-to and prepare to be boarded. The North Koreans fired several machine gun bursts at the Pueblo, killing one crewman. The Pueblo was practically defenseless as her two .50 cal machine guns were under frozen tarps and there was no ammo on deck. Regardless, it was four ships to one, and the Pueblo had no choice but to surrender. The crewmen spent eleven months in captivity, where they were tortured and called spies. They were told to admit they were in North Korean territory and apologize. They were forced to write propaganda letters and appear in propaganda films. They crewmen did their best to undermine these techniques by slipping in gestures and colloquialisms that the Koreans did not understand (such as flipping the cameraman the bird).
My point is twofold. One is that from what I've been able to surmise, I'm not the only one who had no idea about this, and that's a shame. Point two is, hey, did any of the above sound at all familiar to anybody?
I'm shocked that in the news coverage of the British hostage crisis there was no mention of this very, very similar situation. True, there was a mention or two from blog commenters. But searching CNN, CBSnews, and ABCnews turns up no mention of this connection. The only articles refer to Allard's proposal and Bill Richardson's visit to North Korea on April 9th.
Nearly forty years ago, North Korea embarrassed the United States, parading prisoners about for the world to see, as the American president watched helplessly. Last month, Iran followed the North Korean playbook to a T. Why not mention it?
Here are some possible reasons:
- As a friend of mine who went to journalism school always tells me, reporters are lazy. They go after the low-hanging fruit and pick that clean before climbing any higher.
- Ignorance. It's not on everyone's radar as an "oh yeah" connection. But surely there are some people in those newsrooms who could have put two and two together and pointed the Ken and Barbies in the right direction.
- Agenda. The real reason, I'm afraid, is that the connection doesn't really suit anyone's agenda. The media has become agenda-focused. It's not about the story, it's about what the story will mean. For liberals, the story would only reinforce the idea that North Korea has been a rogue state for decades, and they are not about to talk about anything that actually links two "axis of evil" nations. On the conservative side, there were too many people jumping to conclusions about the British sailors' behavior, and making wild statements about how Americans would have acted so differently in the same situation. Conservatives weren't about to torpedo their own agendas, so to speak.
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