North Korea Putting US Journalists On Trial

The North Korean government will put American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee on trial starting June 4. The charges? Well, that's where it gets curious.

The North Koreans didn't actually say what they're being charged with.

The brief dispatch in Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency did not say what charges they face and gave no other details. State media previously said Ling and Lee stand accused of illegal entry and unspecified "hostile" acts - charges that could carry up to 10 years in prison.

North Korea's detention of the two Americans comes at a time of mounting tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, and there are concerns Pyongyang could use the women as bargaining chips as it seeks to position itself for talks with the Obama administration.

The announcement of the June trial date for Ling and Lee also comes on the heels of the release in Iran this week of an American journalist originally sentenced to eight years for spying. Roxana Saberi's sentence was reduced to a two-year suspended term. She was freed Monday after four months in jail and international calls for the release of all three U.S. journalists.

This is a joke. The North Koreans are clearly testing the Obama Administration to see what the Administration will proffer as penance to secure the release of these two journalists.

In Saberi's case, it may have been the US including Iran at a conference on the situation in Afghanistan. North Korea may seek something similar, but the charges are just as bogus.

The Administration is not up to the task and the enemies of the US are probing to see just how much they can get away with. Arresting and detaining Americans is just the start, and it's only going to get a whole lot more dangerous for America going forward.