The Laura Ling and Euna Lee story no one really talks about

You’ve undoubtedly read all about (a) the horrible ordeal suffered by American reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the hands of the North Koreans and (b) how they were “rescued” by Bill Clinton, the daring former president.

For anyone who gave the details of this story the slightest thought, the veracity of (a) is called into question by obvious PR spin surrounding (b).

Here’s a perspective you’ve probably never seen, as reported by the UK Daily Mail:

But who are these two fresh-faced women? What were they doing in North Korea, undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and repressed places in the world, and how on earth did they get themselves into what a friend jauntily described on one website as ‘a bit of a disastrous pickle’?

… they were hopelessly ill-prepared for their ‘mission’ to the Chinese-Korean border, that they were working for a minor television organisation run by a former ambulance-chasing lawyer…

…

Laura, 32, describes herself as a ‘Chinese American’, but a friend said: ‘She was brought up as a true Valley girl [an upper middle-class girl]. She’s about as Chinese as the cuisine at Chin Chin [a popular Californian-Chinese restaurant chain].’

Laura is said to be the duo’s ‘driving force’. Euna, 36, who had little journalism experience and counted making a yoga video as a career highlight, was her devoted lackey, who reportedly held the video camera as Laura ‘danced around’ on the North Korean side of the border.

For Euna, who was born in South Korea but moved to California when she was a university student, it was her first overseas assignment. The trip was Laura’s second ‘dangerous’ foreign job for Current, a Left-wing cable television network based in San Francisco that rather grandly aspires to ‘democratise’ the news.

…

The two women were sent to China in March to do a report about North Korean refugees pouring over the border. A source familiar with Current said: ‘It was the sort of bleeding-hearts liberal story that would play well to their target market. But then Laura decided to take it a step further.’

…..

‘Laura is sweet but not very street-smart,’ said (a long-time Democratic Party insider). ‘She was sent to China to make a routine programme about refugees crossing the border from North Korea but, according to Kim Jong Il’s people, she was walking across the border and leaping about.

‘The official North Korean report said Euna was holding the camera. Of course, there was speculation they were working for the CIA. Forget that. This has been a farce. It couldn’t be more embarrassing for Obama and the agency. No one hired these girls. No one in Washington had ever heard about them until they were captured by the North Koreans.

‘From everything I have heard about Laura, she is a Valley girl who wanted to play in the big league. I think she did this as a stunt to compete with her sister. Lisa Ling works with people like Oprah. Laura earns peanuts at a network no one has heard of. This was her big chance.’

On March 17, Laura and Euna were arrested by North Korean soldiers after they ignored orders to stop filming. Then they vanished into the maw of the most isolated nation on Earth.

……

In fact, their ‘ordeal’ appears to have been far from tough. According to Professor Han Park, an American academic who was visiting North Korea at the time, they were housed in a guest villa designed for foreign visitors outside the capital of Pyongyang.

Professor Park said that Korean officials laughed at any suggestion that the women were receiving harsh treatment. ‘We are not Guantanamo,’ he was told.

….

Indeed, (Ling’s) worst complaint was that her rice tasted like ‘rocks’.

The Clinton confidant said: ‘The women were a prize. Most people in North Korea would be lucky to be treated the way those girls were.’

Call us cold-hearted, but after reading the Daily Mail piece in full, we have a lot less sympathy for Ling and Lee.

They caused their own problem by crossing the border illegally and “leaping about” for the camera. They were held for 140 days in the relative luxury of a guest villa normally reserved for foreign visitors. And they received treatment that would have made them the envy of the average North Korean.

Fact is, contestants on Survivor endure greater hardships than those faced by the American reporters. But like the winners of Survivor, Ling and Lee are already lining up book and TV deals that will pay them millions.

Only in America. And North Korea.

Source: Daily Mail