I just refreshed my memory on the Buchanan rescue. The administration didn't react when she was kidnapped. They took action 93 days later after they came to believe that her health had deteriorated to the point that her life was in danger. To me that's not an unreasonable way to approach something like this.

Dee Snyder can fuck right off. His daughter isn't in any danger, she's not been kidnapped for ransom and she's not in a war zone. She's been inconvenienced by the decision of a sovereign nation to close their border during an emergency. Shy's "spiritual retreat" just got a bit more meaningful, I'd say. Be patient, grasshopper. It will all get sorted out.

Unless someone is in this situation in service of their country, they can find their own way out right now.
We don't have the luxury of accommodating these pampered little twits and I'll be disappointed if we did that in this case.

Reminds me of when Lisa Ling's sister got kidnapped by NK on their border with China. Bill Clinton did the rescue for Obama. But, if as the Norks claimed, she really was a spy, I think we should have gone to get her out. If she was an adventure seeker, eff her.

Best part is, this is barely known. A bit of publicity helps to justify budgets but, POTUS and his office didn't do any chest-beating/PR spinning/high-lighting. Nice and quiet.

quote:

cooperation from the governments of Peru and Honduras.

Interesting, as those two countries are 1800-miles apart, separated by several jungles and mountain ranges.

More info but not a lot of details.

https://www.independent.co.uk/...avirus-a9417806.html

Trump hints at dramatic rescue of American woman held and tortured abroad

Describing unnamed woman’s experience, president said ‘whatever the maximum word is other than death, that happened’

Andrew Naughtie @andrewnaughtie
4 hours ago

At a press briefing on the coronavirus epidemic, Donald Trump described in oblique terms a military operation that rescued an unidentified American woman from an unnamed country where she was being treated “horribly”.

Mr Trump first recounted how the US was “working very hard, long” with the Peruvian and Honduran governments to bring home Americans who have “gotten caught up”. He then alluded to the hitherto unknown rescue mission, apparently overseen by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley.

“We have a couple of other locations that we’ll report to you on. We were able to get a young woman released from a certain area who was being horribly accosted, horribly treated, and we spoke to General Milley, General Milley took care of it.


“We went in, and we got her out. And we’ll report further on that one. But it’s – that was rough stuff.

“I want to thank General Milley, I want to thank all of the people that were involved and the people that went in to get her. I want to thank you very much.”

The “area” to which Mr Trump was referring has not yet been specified, and nor have the nature and timing of the operation. It is also unclear when the woman was captured, and whether her detention had any connection with the coronavirus pandemic.

Other Americans too are unable to leave various countries that have implemented travel restrictions to slow the pandemic’s spread. Among them are many students studying abroad, thought to number well into the thousands.

Asked for more details on the mysterious rescue operation later in the briefing, Mr Trump declined to provide them. “We’re really under the feeling that we should keep it somewhat private until – she’s already been freed.”

The president also showered praise on Milley, whom he credited with leading the operation. “I have to tell you, General Milley and his people were unbelievable. They were not playing games. General Milley does not play games. He’s a very interesting guy.

“They got her out, they got her out of a certain country where she was seriously abused, accosted, and whatever the maximum word is other than death, that happened.

“But we got her out, and she’s okay, and she’s back with her parents.

Mr Trump has a longstanding affection for generals going back at least to his 2016 campaign. Speaking in 2019, he described a meeting at the Pentagon where he met “lots of generals. They were like from a movie. Better-looking than Tom Cruise, and stronger.”

He appointed General Jim Mattis as his first secretary of defence, General John Kelly as his second chief of staff, and the now-disgraced General Mike Flynn as his National Security Adviser, to be succeeded by General H.R. McMaster. All four men have now left his administration.

Anyone want to bet her parents are very wealthy/politically connected/Hollywood connected?

TMK, most US citizens are on their own.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Anyone want to bet her parents are very wealthy/politically connected/Hollywood connected?

TMK, most US citizens are on their own.

Don't think the Seals organized a mission to get Dee Snyders kid help navigating the airport and out of Peru. It was noted that if you are a single US citizen, you need to get home on your own.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Anyone want to bet her parents are very wealthy/politically connected/Hollywood connected?

That's a rather cynical view isn't it?

It was Honduras, but this too lacks details.

https://www.military.com/daily...ive-military-op.html

SecDef Offers Sparse Details on American Woman Recovered in Secretive Military Op

23 Mar 2020
Military.com | By Richard Sisk
The U.S. military conducted an operation to bring home an American woman who had been the victim of a violent crime in Honduras, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday.

Esper was deliberately vague on the details, but said, "We had a young lady, a young American, who was the victim of a violent crime in Honduras, I believe. She has been returned to the United States."

He did not say when or how the woman was brought out safely from Honduras, which has closed its borders during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"Out of respect for her and her family, for her privacy, we'll just leave it at that," Esper added at a Pentagon briefing.

He noted that the military last Friday flew home an American women's tackle football team, which had been in Honduras for a competition that was canceled because of the coronavirus threat.

U.S. Southern Command said in a Twitter post that two Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft returned the football team to Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, but it was unclear whether the crime victim was on one of those flights.

Esper spoke a day after President Donald Trump at a White House news conference said the woman had been "horribly treated" and appeared to indicate that a dramatic rescue may have been involved in her return to the U.S.

"We were able to get a young woman released from a certain area who was being horribly accosted, horribly treated," the president added.

Trump said that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley "took care of it. We went in and we got her out, but that was rough stuff." He thanked Milley "and all the people involved and people who went in to get her," but did not say whether the woman had been held hostage.

Following the late Sunday White House news conference, Pentagon officials and Milley's office declined comment and referred questions to the White House.

The return of the woman and the football team underline the plight of thousands of American tourists and students who have been stranded overseas by the closing of borders by the U.S. and other countries hit by the outbreak.

Some of the stranded citizens have posted Facebook pages such as "Americans Stuck in Peru" and "American Citizens Stranded In Guatemala."

On Sunday, the State Department said that two flights had been chartered to bring Americans out of Guatemala and could possibly arrive Monday.


-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

quote:

He noted that the military last Friday flew home an American women's tackle football team, which had been in Honduras for a competition that was canceled because of the coronavirus threat.

U.S. Southern Command said in a Twitter post that two Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft returned the football team to Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, but it was unclear whether the crime victim was on one of those flights.

As I understand it, there are a bunch of US-citizen scuba divers stuck in Roatan (Honduras). They even tried to charter a plane for 100 of them at significant cost and that fell through. I will stipulate Roatan is not really the same as Honduras in a political stability sense.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
Now how many other Presidents would have had the stones to go to those lengths to get one American back home safe?

Not the last resident of The White House.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Anyone want to bet her parents are very wealthy/politically connected/Hollywood connected?

That's a rather cynical view isn't it?

Grew up near the border. Under W and Obama, at least if it involved kidnappings by the cartels, you were definitely on your own.

Hell, they both made it harder to get people back.

No idea what its like under Trump, now. I can't remember if the last kidnapping I heard about was under the tail end of Obama, or the early part of Trump. (And those folks were fairly well-off, but not "nationally connected well-off.")

Until we start killing the hell out of the cartels, like we did the terrorists - and rooting out all the corruption in DC, it will stay an issue.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:

As I understand it, there are a bunch of US-citizen scuba divers stuck in Roatan (Honduras). They even tried to charter a plane for 100 of them at significant cost and that fell through. I will stipulate Roatan is not really the same as Honduras in a political stability sense.

https://www.politico.com/news/...cans-honduras-145224

How a private security firm helped 144 stranded North Americans leave Honduras on a jet

With the coronavirus shutting down borders, some turned to former intelligence officers to get home.

By SAM MINTZ

03/23/2020 07:27 PM EDT

On Sunday morning, a group of former military and intelligence officers were staged at a small airport on a Honduran island, loading up a plane that would whisk Americans back home amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.

It wasn't a clandestine CIA operation, but it was a real life, movie-scene-worthy moment for 144 Americans and Canadians who were stranded on the island Roatan, desperate to get home during an out-of-control global pandemic.

The lengths to which this small group stuck in a Central American country went to get home — going so far as to hire a private security firm — is just one storyline among thousands spread across the globe, as travelers overwhelmed airports and the State Department tried to repatriate Americans, while others have ended up stuck in foreign countries.


One of the rescued Americans, Annie Perlick, a neonatal ICU nurse from Boston on vacation for a scuba trip, discovered she was about to be stranded when Honduras shut down its borders on March 15. Perlick tried the U.S. embassy and reached out to the senators from her home state with no luck. She purchased commercial airline tickets for later this week, as she watched flights being canceled left and right.

"It was an overwhelming sense of confusion, skepticism, misinformation, fear and frustration," Perlick told POLITICO.

Then she heard about Global Guardian, a private security firm, which had begun to arrange a flight out of Roatan for several clients — including an entertainment company and law firm.

Ultimately, Global Guardian, based in McLean, Va., ferried 144 people out of the country on a McDonnell-Douglas MD-80, a model that used to be in heavy rotation for airlines. But not before its CEO Dale Buckner, a 24-year Army special forces veteran, found himself giving instructions for how many pets passengers could bring on an airplane.

"There will be no alcohol. It'll be soft drinks only," Buckner told the passengers.

Buckner said his firm typically works with corporate clients and "high net worth" families, and has evacuated roughly 2,000 of people — some by by air and some over land — from those categories over the last few weeks.

When the company heard about others that were desperate to get home, Buckner made a few tweaks to its business model. Working with the Honduran government, U.S. embassy and FAA, they figured out how to take a disparate group of stranded people and essentially operate like an airline, except that all of its people on the ground were former military, law enforcement or intelligence types, as Buckner put it.

It worked, after Buckner arranged conference calls with skeptical passengers. Now, he says, they're looking to repeat it with more flights in Honduras and elsewhere.

"I've never seen the world shut down at this scale, where airspace and borders are closed," Buckner said in an interview. "This is unique, a black swan. So of course we, being in this business, are going to really ramp up."

Global Guardian charged $1,324 per passenger — somewhat more than typical airfare for a one-way commercial flight from Honduras to the U.S., but less than the State Department is charging for its ongoing repatriation flights from Morocco. Buckner said they created a "financial waterfall" price model where the more seats they filled on the plane, the less each individual passenger would have to pay.

Buckner acknowledged that the pandemic offers a chance to make money for companies like his, saying it should be "a very profitable event for us. We're in the emergency response business," he said. "But we're not ripping people off. We're not gouging people."

The State Department has been taking on evacuations largely on a case-by-case basis, working to arrange charter flights out of different countries including Guatemala, Morocco and Peru where it’s been difficult or impossible for citizens to buy commercial tickets back home. The military has been involved in the efforts as well and has brought home Americans using its aircraft, according to several reports.

A senior State Department official told reporters Monday that the U.S. government has bought home more than 5,000 citizens from 17 countries, but that there are around 13,500 more asking for help.

In some cases, Americans have chosen to take matters into their own hands by, for example, crossing over the border from Guatemala into southern Mexico to get onto airline flights still flying.

quote:

Originally posted by AZSigs:

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
Now how many other Presidents would have had the stones to go to those lengths to get one American back home safe?

Not the last resident of The White House.

What are you talking about? BHO spent hundreds of millions to get a POS US Citizen back from the Middle East.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:

quote:

He noted that the military last Friday flew home an American women's tackle football team, which had been in Honduras for a competition that was canceled because of the coronavirus threat.

U.S. Southern Command said in a Twitter post that two Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft returned the football team to Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, but it was unclear whether the crime victim was on one of those flights.

As I understand it, there are a bunch of US-citizen scuba divers stuck in Roatan (Honduras). They even tried to charter a plane for 100 of them at significant cost and that fell through. I will stipulate Roatan is not really the same as Honduras in a political stability sense.

Roatan while still, Honduras is a world away from mainland Honduras.

This is from a diver stuck at Coco View Dive Resort.

quote:

We are here now, our one week having turned into two as Delta has abandoned us. There is a reason divers repeatedly return to CCV. CCV has been exemplary in their handling of this crisis and in maintaining the level of service and professionalism that is their hallmark. What has served as our reality for the past 10 days has been amazing. Thank you CCV management and staff.

SAD ?