America is still technically at war with the DPRK (granted it is a long cold, not a hot war), an American citizen going to the DPRK especially with their prior history of detaining US citizens should ring alarm bells.
A US citizen then going to the DPRK and committing crime(s)
It is not hidden knowledge what the DPRK does to its own citizens, being a US citizen committing crimes within the borders of the DPRK is screaming out to be made an example of for propaganda purposes and political leverage.
As for retaliation what could really be done? DPRK is already sanctioned to the hilt, people would have to be insane to start any military adventure off the back of this - start a war for a Darwin Award Nominee who did something that was comparable in the intelligence stakes as playing with traffic.
Sad and unfortunate it happened; god knows what the poor sod endured. Watch his YouTube "confessions" in court, it is totally scripted by a non English speaker and he just memorized it verbatim - you can only imagine what they did to get that confession out of him and after all of that "Here you go buddy - 15 years hard labour" and ultimately repatriated a vegetable on the verge of death.
A very shitty situation, the outcome I would think is not surprising to most; hopefully he has found peace as will his loved ones.
I do wonder what would have happened if he had waved some dollars at them I bet they would have let him have his pick of the posters; though I can't help but think even if he did buy them they would still have arrested him for something.
Dropping canned Sunshine since December 2006
January, IRON's Member of the Month is obvious. With our two top Military guys out for the Holidays, we had a monumental problem. IRON needed not only a leader to step up and lead our highly motivated Military, but one to also lead our sides coalition. We needed someone who the rest of the world respected and had the experience to plan and execute a winning battle strategy. While the opportunity to lead the coalition did not emerge, he took the job knowing that he may very well be the Master Military Coordinator of the Coalition. IRON's Military was in good hands. Also while the war wound down he took over the Awards Dept issuing some long over due awards. I present to you the protector of puppies, taker of Welsh virginity, the son of IRON, Bill N Ted.