Hot on the heals of that dumb-ass Japanese kid getting his head cut off in Iraq, more evidence in support of Einstein’s axiom that “only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity.” Courtesy the Korea Times:
A group of five Christian leaders returned home safely from a risky missionary excursion into Iraq Tuesday after receiving a strong warning from the government, according to the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry.
The clergymen, including two women, sneaked into Iraq on Thursday without permission from the government but were later found and persuaded to come back home by the South Korean Embassy there.
Fucking lunatics. But wait, it gets even dumber:
According to the Foreign Ministry, two of the five _ including a 50-year-old pastor identified only by the surname Kim _ had previously been taken captive by Iraqi insurgents in April. At that time, eight South Korean clergymen were held hostage by armed militiamen, though they were later set free.
That’s right. It wasn’t bad enough that these nutjobs had already been captured by insurgents once before after they snuck into the country — they were released after they either bought or massaged their way out — so they had to go back for more. Fuckin’ unbelievable.
The Foreign Ministry probably has better things to do with its time than to chase after people like this. And you know what? It would be better for everyone involved if we simply let these people get killed in Iraq — the Christian wackos get their one-way, all-expenses covered trip to Paradise, the Muslim wackos get more heads to cut off and Korea gets the chance to improve its gene pool.
UPDATE: Well, it appears the two the KT said had been previously captured in Iraq in April were NOT, in fact, captured in Iraq in April. They did go to Baghdad to meet up with the other seven, a meeting that failed to take place when their missionary buddies made an unscheduled pitstop in Fallujah. This makes them no less insane, however, as the Chosun Ilbo explains:
Pastor Kim said at a meeting with reporters they had gone to Iraq with the determination of not returning home again, and they would continue their missionary work through martyrdom, hinting that they would try to enter Iraq again.
Hey, fine with me, as long as I don’t have to see you on videotape begging President Roh to pull Korean troops out of Iraq when martyrdom finally calls, which will be sooner rather than later if the description of their stunt is to be believed:
The group arrived in Amman, Jordan, in the afternoon of Oct. 28 and rented a car with a driver at US$500. They headed for Mosul via Baghdad overland. The Christian group passed through dangerous situations like a battle between U.S forces and Iraqi insurgents and arrived in Mosul in the afternoon of Oct. 29. They were rejected by Iraqi Christians, who urged the group to return home immediately if they didn’t want to kill either themselves or Iraqi Christians. Iraqi Christians warned the group that Iraqi terrorist groups already had information about their visit to Iraq.
With the warning, the Korean Christian group arrived in Baghdad by their rented car at 5:00 p.m. on Oct. 29. Three local hotels refused to let the Korean group stay, saying if they accepted Korean guests, Iraqi militiamen would blow up the hotels and terrorists would come to behead Korean visitors. The Korean Christian group barely lodged in the fourth hotel identified as A.
The Korean government discovered the Christian group had entered Iraq right before the group arrived in Baghdad.
The Korean embassy in Jordan directly contacted the taxi driver who took the Christian group to Baghdad and gave the Korean embassy in Iraq information about the group and their hotel. Korean embassy officials, and 30 Korean and Iraqi soldiers visited the hotel at around midnight and persuaded the group to move to the embassy. Pastor Kim said he had been later informed that foreigners were often kidnapped in the neighborhood of their hotel and a reward of US$250,000 was offered for one Korean. Without the embassy?????s swift action, they would not have survived the night, said Kim. Pastor Kim and his colleagues left Iraq for Jordan on Oct. 30 and arrived in Korea on Tuesday.
Let not these nutjobs be faulted, however, for either a lack of patriotism or insensitivity to the needs of medical science:
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Korean Christian group wore necklaces inscribed with their name and a phrase in Arabic asking that their bodies be used for experiments if they were killed. One pastor of the group was wearing red clothes and a hat with a Korean national flag attached.
You know, on second thought, perhaps these were the safest foreigners in Iraq. I mean, riding around in a rent-a-car through a war zone wearing Korean flags and clothes that basically say “shoot me” is so fucking insane that even al-Zarqawi must have been spooked. “Best not fuck with them. They be some real crazy mofos.”
Pastor Kim told a Chosun Ilbo reporter that Korean embassy officials had not even slept to protect his group and prepared a plane for them. Although as a Korean, he was proud of the officials’ efforts, he would continue the missionary work through martyrdom.
Well, amigo, with that attitude, I’d say you’re on the express train to the Kingdom of Heaven. All I can hope is that the Korean Embassy in Baghdad is well-stocked with Pepto-Bismol.
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15 Comments
They are so selfish and blinded that they’ll get captured then show big tears on camera to help them. The Korean government should go ahead and just outright ban trips into Iraq. It should also give out a strong public warning that if you go in, don’t expect Korea to do anything (Korea will not weaken the country for the sake of those who were warned). It was your choice, you have to get yourself out.
And have you read this yet? We’re in a religeous and cultural war. Bin Laden’s objective: wipe out all non-Muslim peoples off the face of the earth.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/F.....2Aa04.html
Marmot you have outdone yourself with that last paragraph! Maybe you conservative types aren’t all that bad after all.
Why is it stupid that Christians will die for God? Thats their business isnt it? The Japanese tourist was certainly being a reckless fool, but I would hazard a guess that the Korean missionaries are more aware and accepting of the possibility that they will be killed. I admire them for their faith if that is the case. Don’t compare the Christian’s willingess to submit to unjust execution to a suicide bomber - one gives up his own life freely while the other does the same with the intention to kill innocent civilians in a final act of hatred. Very different things.
Or if you want to leave religion out of this and be somewhat more secular, I would point to Socrates drinking poison on the command of the elders after the city (Athens) voted to put him to death. Furthermore if you read the Crito, you will see that Socrates was given the opportunity to escape prison but willingly chose to lay down his life for his beliefs. How admirable and virtuous. How praiseworthy and courageous. Very different from a reckless tourist tempting fate in a dangerous country or a suicide bomber murdering children at a pizza parlor.
There is a distinction to be made that you gloss over in comparing murderers to martyrs.
He is not saying that christians are stupid to die for god (that goes without saying) but that as soon as they are captured, they will be put on tv begging the Korean government to free them by removing troops. Then the government has to say “no”, they get their heads chopped off and the video is posted to the internet, and the government has to block all sites carrying it so that the morbid SoKos don’t spend all night watching it repeatedly and missing days of work.
Don’t go to dangerous places and expect help fro mthe government, whatever kind of nutcase you are.
It’s one thing if you’re going to die for your Christian faith. Then die willingly. But YOU KNOW WHAT’s going to happen as soon as they get captured. Big crocodile tears, “please pull the troops out or they’re going to kill us in 48 hours” type of thing. Then there will be another round of riots and protests against “wreckless actions of the government endangering the lives of the innocent people” type of thing. It’s all fuckin predictable because it has happened all the same before. Well I got news for you. Korea doesn’t need anymore of this crap. Just stay home, there’s plenty of people who needs to be saved in Korea.
Kimbob: the link you post to is not a transcript of Osama’s words, but an editorial by Spengler on what *he* would say if *he* were OBL. See here for commentary and an actual transcript of OBL’s entire speech.
Secondly, I would hope that if and when these folks do become kidnapped and are paraded before video cameras they will have the strength of character to not do as you suggest, and that if they do, the ROK media will pour cold water over any demonstrations by pointing out that this is apparently how at least some of them wanted to die.
Justin Martyr: well said. I just don’t think that Pastor Kim and his flock were going about things in the right way.
Marmot: I think you didn’t need to be quite so strident with this post here. Also, I agree with the Iraqi Christians that they ought to leave before getting themselves or somebody else killed. Rather than call them nutjobs or f’ing lunatics, I suggest that perhaps some or all of them are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said and Johnny Cash sang, ’so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.’
Well, I think we can all agree that insanity does not equate to stupidity.
You guys might wanna read yesterday’s NYT article. (registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11.....aries.html
Is that you in the Bundaegi challenge?
Funny post, man. But shouldn’t it be Jungrohwan (????¡œ?™?) — which I once took with me on a high school field trip and all the American kids started passing it around and smelling it and calling it “balls of shit” — than Pepto Bismol?
I agree that if they were sincere they should not ask for gov’t intervention on camera or make any political statement for the terrorists. However, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” said Tertullian. I think it is wholly commendable for them to go to ANY dangerous country, help people at the risk of their own lives, and submit to unjustice. Even pre-Christian Socrates proposed that submission to injustice was the best policy. It is absolutely fully moral to do this.
100,000 people per year are martryed for their Christianity (www.persecution.com) its not just a handful of “nutjobs” in Iraq. Many meet this end in North Korea. According to the Washington Post (yes that notable Evangelical newsletter):
“Lee Soon Ok, 55, spent seven years in a political prison camp in North Korea. She was not a Christian, but saw how Christians were treated. The torture, and the worst ways of execution, were most harsh on the Christians,” she said. “They didn’t give them clothes. They were considered animals. And in the factories, they killed them by pouring molten steel on them.” …… But Lee, who saw persecution firsthand in prison, disagrees. “I witnessed them being asked to choose God or Kim Il Sung, and they were told they would be released if they chose Kim Il Sung,” she said. “I saw them choose God.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....Found=true
Choosing God or Justice (as in the case of Socrates) is not the act of a “lunatic.”
Give me a break, Justin.
If you don’t see how travelling to a warzone half-way across the globe to risk getting killed (and putting your gov’t in a difficult situation in the process) just so you can tell the locals their metaphysics aren’t quite right (I’m sorry, I meant bring the ignorant the Word of God) might be the act of someone who isn’t playing with a full deck, well, here’s the homepage of Pastor Kim’s group:
World Mission Revival Crusade
Kinda like the name — I’m sure the Crusade part goes down really well in Baghdad.
It’s in Korean, so on the off chance you can’t read it, fell free to shoot them an email at sesunbu@com.ne.kr. I’m sure they’re looking for all the believers they can who are willing to stick their neck out — quite literally, in this case — to tell Iraqis their religion is wrong.
That ain’t crazy, mind you. That’s simply choosing God.
Onward Christian soldiers…
great, just fuckin’ great. don’t the iraqis have enough problems without more foreign zealots parachuting into their war zone? this is sure to grab some headlines and get some zealots and locals killed, not much more than that though. now, although i’ve lived in korea for years i still can’t grasp why koreans are so attracted to extreme beliefs and actions.
Off with their heads.
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