So, it's possible I've missed references to this on other blogs and brought up in news stories. I just haven't had the time lately to keep up with everything.
I was once again on my noon - get me out of the house - routine. Since I work at home, I try very hard to get out of the house for at least one hour every day, generally around lunch time. This means I get in the car and drive out to do various small errands - leading to me listening to talk radio for a short period of time daily. (I can't listen and work at the same time, so I only hear it at lunch time).
Today Tom Sullivan was sitting in for Rush Limbaugh and he brought up a point I hadn't considered before. The tape that was sent to Al Jezeera with Kim Sun-Il pleading for his life... why was Mr. Sun-Il pleading in English? A small point I grant you, but since he is
-South Korean
-under a great deal of stress
AND
-was supposedly sending a message to his own government/people of Korea
then why isn't he making his plea in Korean? That would seem to make a great deal more sense to me.
The supposed purpose of these monsters capturing and killing him, is to intimidate the Korean people and make them pull out of Iraq. If that is truly the intention, then shouldn't his message be in a language that all the people of Korea understand? Now granted many many Koreans speak English very well, but it isn't their native tongue and a plea in a foreign tongue doesn't carry the same impact - there's that translation thing...
The other point was the fact that although Al Jezeera apparently has a tape of his murder, they are not releasing it. I wonder why? They were MORE than happy to release the tapes and spew the vileness all over the world when it was Daniel Pearl, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson... Did they suddenly become enlightened? I hardly think so. It makes me wonder what's in that tape they don't want the world to see.
I heard Tom Sullivan bring up these points also. I had heard that Kim Sun Il was a serving as a translator but I do not know what languages he was fluent in (obviously his native language and equally obvious by demonstration, English.) but if his captors had been addressing him in English, it would be natural for him to respond to them in English. And if his captors did not know Korean, they might have demanded he plead in English so they could make sure he was saying what they wanted him to say (and not "I'm in the third house on the left off the main drag held in the basement" however you would say that in Korean). That said, I'll be honest, I'm speculating since I did not see the videos.
The second point of Al Jazeera not airing the tape could be just that since Kim was not an American, it does not suit their purpose to air it.
Still, you and Tom are correct, it is an interesting set of questions.
Posted by: Mark | June 23, 2004 at 04:33 PM
Mark, you make a good point about his captors possibly not understanding Korean and thus making him speak in English. I have no idea what their resources may be, possibly there are very few Arabs who speak Korean - and none that are terrorists. It's a reasonable explanation in any case.
I just think - how effective would Paul Johnson's message have been here at home, if they had made him deliver it in Arabic?
Posted by: Teresa | June 23, 2004 at 05:18 PM
I would think it's fairly obvious. He wanted someone to save his life, so he spoke the language of the people who could help him.
Now if he would've spoke French, I'd have been shocked.
Posted by: Harvey | June 24, 2004 at 12:08 PM
LOL - French... Think they'd listen? - maybe if some oil revenue was part of the deal...
Actually I was just kinda thinking aloud in this post. Wasting time while the back of my mind was pondering a work problem. If I'd waited to post it, as I should have, I probably wouldn't have posted at all. *G*
Posted by: Teresa | June 24, 2004 at 01:02 PM
It's actually a good question and worthy of consideration, because it IS odd on its face. I'm glad you brought it up.
Then again, I love pretty much everything you write, so I'm biased.
Unless I was CBS, in which case I'd be impartial and objective :-/
Posted by: Harvey | June 25, 2004 at 09:08 AM