Not to be heartless

but if the guy being detained in North Korea for crossing the border is the "Christian activist" who just brazenly and publicly walked across the border of North Korea to draw attention to human rights abuses in that country, it might be in everyone's best interest to just let him stay there.

It's one thing when a couple of young kids get picked up near the border, with at least a plausible story of being unsure of which side they were on. But when a man brandishing a Bible goes walking directly into North Korea, intent on proving a point about how horrible North Korea's human rights are, one has to wonder what he expected. Never mind that North Korea is distinctly non-Christian (and even rather anti-Christian). Never mind that two other Americans had been arrested and sentenced this year, only to be saved by a personal visit by an ex-President.

I am second to none in my horror of the Kim regime and the suffering it has inflicted on its own people and the terror it has created in its neighbors. However, moves like this do nothing but harden the cruelty of the existing regime. If there is an easy and cheap way to bring the man home, I would love to spare him the sentence that North Korea is guaranteed to give him. However, I find it highly unlikely at this point.