Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Who is Mitch Koss?

Throughout the ordeal following the capture of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, I have been equally critical of their un-captured colleague, "cameraman" Mitch Koss. 

So little was heard from him, even after he made it to the US, and I suspected it's because what he knew about the case would have been very incriminating. Things like, I don't know, that they were not captured while staring longingly at North Korea from the Chinese side of the Tumen River. Now that we know Laura Ling and Euna Lee willingly and knowingly crossed into North Korea, I'd say that my speculation is correct, even if it's not the only reason for Koss's silence.

Anyway, I recently found an interesting piece by Robin Roh of Epicanthus that goes into the whole question of who Koss is and why he isn't talking. Some of it is rather eye-opening, especially if it's true:
Okay, boys and girls, let’s take the wayback machine to Aug. 24, 2003, so we can read an Op-Ed piece Mr. Koss penned for the L.A. Times.

Reading like an intelligence agency think tank position paper, Koss’ cocksure essay was titled: Refugees Could Undo Kim. In it he opines that news coverage of refugees fleeing North Korea for safe haven in China combined with congressional legislation granting them political asylum in the U.S. would trigger the downfall of Kim Jong-il.

Koss saw this mano-a-mano relationship between American government and American journalism as “a nonmilitary weapon for regime change.”
The article cited is here, though it reads less wild-eyed than the blog post suggests. 

2 comments:

  1. Screwed up the second link: you just self-link twice and don't link the blog you're talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I fixed it, adding the link to the article which was the main point of this post in the first place!

    ReplyDelete

Share your thoughts, but please be kind and respectful. My mom reads this blog.