This is in slightly bad taste, considering his violent death, but when I read this previous BBC News article, I thought that the comments made by Kim Sun-il, the South Korean hostage kidnapped in Iraq, were a bit strange.
In the video released by the militants, Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old translator working for a company that supplies the US army, screams: "Korean soldiers, please get out of here. I don't want to die. My life is important."
Now, I have never been kidnapped, and I assume Kim was not at his calmest and most rational. Nor do I find anything wrong with his supposition that his life is important (it was, especially to him). But stating that importance in combination with asking the South Korean forces to leave Iraq, he is suggesting that the importance of his life is enough that his government should change their policy in order to save him. Kim worked as a translator for a company working with the US Army; therefore, coming to Iraq was his decision, not his government's. The requests of him and
his family for the armed forces to pull out of Iraq is irresponsible and weak.