21st Century Executions

During my ninth period class, Social Service Board, my peer made a current event presentation on a very disturbing news article. He shared with us an article reporting on the public execution of 80+ people in North Korea. In cities such as Wonsan and Chongjin, people were put to death for minor offenses such as owning a bible and watching South Korean movies while about 10,000 people were forced to watch. The scariest part of this whole endeavor was that my friend who shared the article said it was a very difficult article to find. It made no headlines, and many major news networks such as CNN did not report anything about it. How could such a major story not be ALL over the news? If the execution took place in New York, it would be the headline of every newspaper all over the world.

 I believe the article was so under-reported because if the U.S news released this story and claimed it to be an act of terrorism against North Korea's own people, there would be a huge push by the people to send troops to help these poor civilians. The last thing America needs is to instigate another war after just ending the longest war in American history. On the other hand, if injustice is present in our world, shouldn't the rest of the world, as fellow human beings, do everything possible to ensure justice?

This argument becomes the never-ending argument: Is the U.S the world's police? Since the U.S spends more money on it's military than the rest of the world does combined, should we be the second line of defense for every country? (Mr. Bolos's presentation) How can we sit back while horrible things like this happen to innocent people? These are all questions to think about while reading these horrific executions to inevitably come in the future.