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Comment by SomeAmerican | Hacker News Reader

The author dedicates a full section to a possible attempt at suicide. However, he doesn't even try to correlate that with the physical examinations.

How does one go braindead in a suicide attempt while locked up, without leaving physical evidence of other injuries?

Certainly, none of the other suicide attempts the author listed would qualify.

Later in the article: "Upon learning that this article did not support claims that Otto was beaten, and included the theory that he may have attempted suicide—a possibility that the family, through their lawyer, dismissed categorically—the Warmbiers withdrew a statement that they had previously provided."

The "theory" that he attempted suicide is definitely on shakier ground than the "theories" his injuries were intentionally inflicted on him by the North Koreans.

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I think the implication that he tried to hang or strangle himself is pretty clear; it's consistent with his injury (symmetric brain damage consistent with oxygen starvation, no other external signs of injury).

It is certainly possible that, rather than hanging or strangling himself, he was strangled by someone in the DPRK. The DPRK hasn't done that to any other US prisoner, but it's the DPRK, so who knows?

The problem is that the narrative in the media doesn't have that uncertainty. Rather, it's reported (somewhat widely, though less so after the coroner's report) that there was evidence of physical abuse: scars on his legs, "rearranged" lower teeth, etc.

It is worth adding that the article doesn't say Warmbier tried to kill himself; it just adds that to the stack of plausible causes. It is indeed a very plausible cause.

How can a person hang themselves without leaving bruises? Without ligature marks?

Is he some kind of ninja?

The incident occurred a full year before he was released to the US.

And the North Korean doctors missed the injuries _hours_ after he hung himself? The guards hid the noose?

The doctors would only miss the injuries if they were being told to miss the injuries.

The full year of time to heal only helps the North Koreans cover up injuries they want concealed.

I think we're talking past each other. I'm not claiming that the DPRK is telling the truth.

There's a point where the hairsplitting becomes a little unseemly, maybe, even with the most pigheaded interlocutors? The guy is dead, there's a recording of him abjectly begging for mercy. Nobody does that other than under duress even when it turns out the duress was probably not physical and was misrepresented as such.

I don't know what to say to this. The DPRK is evil almost beyond comprehension. If Warmbier harmed himself, surely he did so under the most intense psychological stress you could imagine him being under. He was imprisoned for tampering with a poster. Surely we can all agree that was a terrible human rights abuse. Nobody is (or should be) trying to immunize the DPRK here. Certainly I don't intend to put any of the responsibility for this tragedy on Otto Warmbier; what he did is something I might have done myself were I there at his age!

My point is, as it was downthread, that there's a special recent history to reports of abuses by enemies of the US. If the prevailing narrative about Warmbier's treatment by the DPRK is false, and is exploited by the administration as casus belli, that's not hairsplitting.

Like I said earlier: whatever the US accused the Iraqi Baathist regime of doing, their actual abuses were similarly awful. But in the question of how the US relates to other countries, the distinction matters.

Candidly, I think the debate about US/DPRK relations is (on HN) less important than the debate about what it means to report on these stories and to challenge a popular narrative. If I've been triggered to respond by anything in this thread, it's the subtext (in many comments here) that the reporting in this GQ piece is slapdash or done in bad faith.

Nobody is (or should be) trying to immunize the DPRK here.

I didn't say that, if it sounded like I did, sorry!

is exploited by the administration as casus belli

That's a different argument with a higher bar - you can't meet it debating the state of Otto Warmbier's teeth.

it's the subtext (in many comments here) that the reporting in this GQ piece is slapdash or done in bad faith.

For what little it's worth, that gets my goat every single time as well.

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