This is some extremely interesting news coming out of a US court this week:

A federal judge has awarded more than $65 million to several men of the USS Pueblo, who were captured and tortured by North Korea back in the 1960s.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued the judgment against North Korea on Tuesday.

North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit accusing it of kidnapping, imprisonment and torture.

The USS Pueblo was seized off North Korea while it was on an intelligence-gathering mission on Jan. 23, 1968. North Korea says the ship was inside its coastal zone. U.S. Navy records say it was in international waters.

The men on the ship were held and sometimes tortured for 11 months.

North Korea displays the USS Pueblo on the Taedong River in the capital, Pyongyang. [Associated Press]

You can read my prior posting on the USS Pueblo here for more information about the incident.

This is a large settlement but I don’t think they have much of a chance at seeing any money considering North Korea probably has little to no money to confiscate.  It is too bad this ruling didn’t come a year ago when the US government was busy laundering $25 million in counterfeit US dollars to North Korea for ultimately nothing in return.  I have to wonder if this legal ruling would prevent the US State Department from handing over millions of dollars to Kim Jong-il in extortion payments as they have done before in the past?  The impact of this ruling on US-DPRK talks could be interesting.

The crew of the USS Pueblo recently had a gathering to remember the incident after 40 years:

McClintock is proud of his service as a 24-year-old communications technician and the bonds he made with his crew mates, but that pride is tinged with bitterness.

“We were treated as heroes when we got back, but what the Navy, the institution of the Navy really wanted, in my opinion, is the Pueblo to have sunk,” McClintock said at his Jericho home. “When we came back, the Navy now has to look at itself and they don’t like to look at themselves.”

On Wednesday, 40 of the 69 surviving crew members will gather in neighboring Essex for a four-day reunion featuring exhibits and speeches by experts on U.S.-Korean relations.

McClintock, the host for the reunion, isn’t the only one who is disillusioned.

“I think the crew has always wanted someone in the Navy to stand up and say ‘Hey, you guys did a great job in a poorly conceived mission without any backup,”‘ said Skip Schumacher, 65, of St. Louis, a lieutenant junior grade on the ship. [Fox News]

For good reason these crew members are not happy with the treatment they have received following their release from North Korea.  Though it is unlikely they will see any money, hopefully winning this lawsuit helps to heal the scars of what happened to them just a little because in my mind the crew of the USS Pueblo are heroes that have never received the due recognition they deserve.