It would appear that we may have a traitor on our hands.
More accurately, the North Koreans may have a traitor on their hands.
Reports broke on Tuesday that an American soldier dressed in civilian clothing had crossed over to North Korea and was now in their custody.
Traitor or Lost?
One of the big stories of the day was the apprehension of Private 2nd Class Travis King by the North Koreans.
King has crossed the Military Demarcation Line without authorization that separates North and South Korea.
At the time, he was with a tour group, then walked away from, seemingly purposely crossing over to the North Korean side.
Now, this is where it gets interesting.
King has just finished up a two-month stint in a South Korean detention facility for getting into a fight with some locals.
While being held, he told people that he did not want to return to America.
A U.S. Forces Korea spokesperson said King “willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
“We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA (Korean People’s Army) counterparts to resolve this incident.”
Now, everyone is going nuts to get King back…
I say the complete opposite… if he purposely crossed over and made it clear that he did not want to come back to America, let him suffer the consequences of his actions.
There is simply no way I would allow King to serve as leverage for the North Koreans in any negotiations we are having right now.
Dan Hoffman, a former CIA station chief, stated, “There are a lot of unanswered questions and I can tell you our U.S. military right now is mounting a full investigation.
“I’m sure they are talking to anyone at that demilitarized zone who might have witnessed the soldier crossing over into North Korean territory. That is one of the most heavily surveilled geographic areas on the planet.
“Now North Korea has another piece of leverage that they can use against us and we know from the past that they have used U.S. persons as pawns to gain traction and negotiations with the United States.”
Again, if King willfully crossed that border, I don’t understand why we have to give up whatever North Korea demands or go through any effort to get King back.
My opinion, this seems like he wanted to do this, and now he has to live with it.
Sadly, from the language I am seeing thus far, everyone is trying to make this kid out like some kind of hero when the actual reporting regarding the incident, thus far, paints him as a defector/traitor.
Source: The Hill
