by Karl Denninger, Market Ticker:

I’m all for travel.

I’m all for adventure.

But there are third-world ****holes, never mind nations with zero respect for human rights, that are flatly unsafe to travel to. Some are unsafe for everyone. Some are unsafe for women (e.g. majority Muslim nations) traveling alone. Some are unsafe for particular religious or ethnic groups. Some are unsafe for certain nationalities and since your Passport bears your nationality prominently…..

Otto Warmbier violated rule #1 by taking such a trip — to North Korea. Then he did something even worse, apparently — he stole a political propaganda piece.

Look folks, even in non-third-world ****holes there is one way to get trounced and at best be seen as an “Ugly American” — inject yourself into the local political process. In many nations it’s actually illegal for you to do so. It should be illegal here too for someone who is not a citizen to do so, but heh, we seem to have this snowflake thing in that regard and what’s worse is that we think we can shove our particular bit of sensibility down other people’s throats.

This young man paid for that first with a hard labor sentence and ultimately his life.

I will note that at least as of now despite everyone and their brother claiming he was “probably” tortured there is zero physical evidence to support that, and torture usually leaves physical evidence of some sort. The doctors have looked for it too. But it’s not even slightly surprising, however, that if he had a medical issue in said third-world ****hole, after being arrested, that he wouldn’t get much of anything in the way of care.

Inhumane? Well, what part of third-world ****hole did you miss?

Look folks there are risks when it comes to international travel. It’s simply a fact that in a very large part of the world what we consider to be basic values regarding protection of human life don’t mean a damn thing. Those nations and people look at life as disposable and people are too. If you expect anything approaching a United States level of care and comfort in those parts of the world you’re at grave risk of ending up dead.

I hate reading stories like this one, but the fact remains that if you put yourself in a third-world situation like this that is known to be hostile, particularly to Americans, then you need to be prepared to accept the consequences — and especially to be on your best behavior so as to tilt the odds, such as you can, toward a safe exit from said territory.

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