Possibly people are missing the fact that his wife is Lebanese things don't work quite the same there :-)

I used to work for a Lebanese company in London and all the Lebanese directors had very nice cars but the special ones with stepped on engines and body Armor.

They also manged to get a kidnap victim back just like that at the Hight of the civil war I suspect money changed hands but also "we know where you live where your parents live" might have played a part.

What kind of company did you work for?

> passed the Jeff Bezos test.

In modern day parlance this is known as "Ride or Die."

People saying they want a "partner in crime" on dating apps is a cliché for a reason ;-)

it is a very american thing... perhaps some kind of romanticization from the the Bonnie and Clyde era

Also the culture has a huge amount of influence from mass incarceration of citizens, and tons of media portraying police, lawyers, courts, crime, etc.

"down ass bitch" is another one I've heard

Could you explain what the Jeff Bezos test mean? I am trying to understand your sentence "The whole escape was likely coordinated by Ghosn's wife who it seems passed the Jeff Bezos test."

Here's the original interview [1]. He was trying to explain that he was looking for a wife that was resourceful. But since explaining what he meant by 'resourceful' was difficult he gave the example that his ideal wife should be able to get him out of prison in another country.

[1] https://www.wired.com/1999/03/bezos-3/

This was a neat piece, wow, especially considering it was published more than 20 years ago. Quite prescient when the author writes:

“If Jeff Bezos's vision comes true, here's how you'll shop in 2020:

The vast bulk of store-bought goods - food staples, paper products, cleaning supplies, and the like - you will order electronically. Some physical storefronts will survive, but they'll have to offer at least one of two things: entertainment value or immediate convenience.”

Prior to COVID-19, 86% of retail in 2020 was still brick and mortar.

Don't underestimate the power of immediate convenience.

And for that matter, there are a number of people who effectively live paycheck to paycheck - "If I buy it online, it wont show up until next week, so I'll wait until I need it and buy it locally" (I understand how credit works, but many people dont, or dont have credit for some other reason). Additionally, there are a sizeable number of people who cant, or wont buy anything online.

mission accomplished!

Anyone know your typical steps for this process? I guess your first step is to contact your embassy, then look for a local lawyer, then what comes next?

Well, in this case, it involved hiring mercenaries, arranging an elaborate heist involving traditional Lebanese musicians and bribing airport workers in at least three different countries. I think the ability to improvise is crucial.

Presumably this means "hiring one specialist in this area".

I think the more charitable view might be:

Willing and able to apply pressure on both private and public sector officials in different countries, and if that fails, willing to take extra-legal steps as long as that's what's required.

Even if that boils down to hiring one specialist to coordinate and do that, you'll have to sign off on various steps of the process, and make the decision if/when to pursue certain avenues, even if it's with recommendations from others.

For all we know, she might be a "specialist in this area".

That's the point of the test... There is no one guaranteed path. Each situation will be different in a thousand different ways. It requires someone very "resourceful" to be able to navigate and handle all of the unknowns.

Yeah of course, I'm just interested hearing potential paths.

At that level you are going to start with agencies that have an existing K&R team, potentially from your insurance underwriter (because if you are the sort of person who needs to consider or plan for this threat then you also have insurance for it.) The steps past that point are beyond me but probably involve both political contacts as well as consultants/contractors with specialized skills -- I would expect that one of your various law firms is probably going to be your primary interface.

Knowing people who know people and bribing all the way down the chain I guess.

If it's a developing country, then bribery.

It's still bribery in a developed country, there just might be some effort made for plausible deniability. It's partly why kids are told "networking" is so important in developed countries. Because when they grow up, it's a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" world.

I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of corruption—skimming money, creating unnecessary "jobs" for friends, family, or co-conspirators, kickbacks, that kind of thing—in the US, it's just that most of it doesn't reach the "retail" level, if you will, and mostly occurs within and between bureaucracies both public and private, without directly affecting ordinary people outside those organizations. So it might be quite difficult and rare to bribe a person to do something for you, or to have a bribe solicited, but fairly common to interact with organizations that have tons of internal corruption going on that's hard to see from the outside.

In short I think we have a lot of corruption, we just don't let the poor or low-status participate.

I think you just don't see it.

I'm thinking of the guy working at the garbage dump who lets you drop off commercial trash if you slip him $20; the small business owner firing his office manager to he can hire his wife instead; the guys on 3rd shift at the industrial paint shop getting their friend's cars painted for $50, etc.

Corruption like this is all around. It just doesn't rise to the level of anyone not directly affected being concerned about it.

That sort of stuff is the borderline corruption that's the grease that keeps things working. Then there is stuff like promoting the do nothing nephew of one of the board members over someone competent.

Pretty sure all you need are high-level State Department contacts, not necessarily "a very particular set of skills", so to speak.

> all you need are high-level State Department contacts

That's a terrible strategy for getting out of the clutch's of a foreign country's law enforcement. Let alone an ally's.

Why? Who do you think negotiates things like prisoner exchanges?

You don't negotiate. That leaves fate to someone else whose interests most likely don't align with your own. You make your own luck.

State Departments are powerful, but politically complicated and slow. Cash in the right hands goes a long way in many places, and is much quicker - valuable when time isn't your ally.

It's not as simple as you suggest. Hearing someone is imprisoned, or kidnapped, is probably one of the last things that a local consulate or embassy wants to deal with. Unless there is broader geopolitical concern, there is little reason to think that these folks will do much beyond the minimum to keep you alive. There is a good chance that the local diplomatics aren't too sympathetic either because know what you should have known about the country before you got yourself into trouble.

If they think there is some injustice, then it depends on how much it'll play out in the media. The government posture at home will also play a part. You could see the Trump administration playing hardball in a lot of scenarios to demonstrate how tough they are, but then they undermine the general ability of the State Department to operate, so lower visibility problems struggle for attention and resources. The Obama administration provided more resources, but probably wasn't as hawkish.

What is this "honk honk"? I've seen it lots of places. Might just be baader meinhoff, but I first encountered it in Chicago where aggressive drivers are constantly honking but its commonplace practice to give two loud honks on your car horn coming out of alleyways letting pedestrians know you don't intend to stop and slowly approach but instead are barrel assing out of the alley and don't give a shit if you kill someone.

I asked and it appears to be a Chicago tradition like dibs. Since then I see it online usually accompanying controversial opinions, but I noticed a trend. Its usually also in connection with politically controversial opinions and insider information regarding politically motivated actions taken by government, military, black ops, or other groups where operation security is a concern.

Does it have some kind of special meaning or is it just random and I'm seeing connections where none exist?

"honk honk" is an alt-right meme. It refers to clown world or the fact that current politics, the zeitgeist or how the world works is clownish.

I have only ever seen "honk honk" used when referring to issues involving Islam, racial minorities or the treatment of women.

Your first paragraph is correct, but your second doesn't match the usage in the OP.

> This meme, like many others, has been effectively used to show that small communities online can trick mainstream media into reporting the idea that benign things (milk, the OK hand sign) are actually a secret racial symbol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/bbyhxz/what_i...

Google search suggests it has "4chan racist troll" origins, but I'm hoping the origin for this poster was more innocuous.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/clown-pepe-honk-honk-clown-wo...

It's weird how you ignored the first sentence of your link:

>Even after a failed U.S. Special Forces hostage rescue mission in Syria

So the state department literally sent in special forces to try to rescue her...

While there's hardly a shortage of things to criticize the State Department for, it's hard to argue that making exceptions to the "don't give money to ISIS" policy for ransoms is a good idea. That just encourages more kidnappings.

On the one hand, sure. On the other, if you're kidnapped for ransom by foreign terrorists or guerrillas (or even just hardened criminals without a political agenda) and no money or consideration at all is allowed to change hands, your odds of survival just went from "not ideal, but OK" to "terrible". Telling people they can't do that is basically telling them their loved one's already dead unless the murderous kidnappers respond well to "pretty please" and agree to take on the risk of a process to return the prisoner without even a token reward.

that contradiction was my point. the US govt already covertly gave ISIS over a billion dollars--the splashiest way to provide Material Support of ISIS. meanwhile, giving ISIS $100,000 in ransom for a hostage is just too much.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/worl...

if you doubt my claim that CIA gave ISIS over a billion dollars, that link proves it--they admit it themselves.

honk honk is a meme that means "irony." as in the noise of a clown's nose being squeezed while someone tells you something that is clearly self-contradictory and requires you to ignore the evidence you see in front of you.

i don't know what these quick-to-politicize-speech downvoters mean when they unpack a rather innocuous meme. memes are the Lingua Franca of the Internet. it doesnt matter where they originated, or who may have used them because after they are recycled a billion times all over forums, they lose whatever original meaning they had and become common slang.

i don't care about being down voted and i don't care about pleasing tattletale censor Karen's.

I'm not sure who you're replying to with the clown/meme thing? Might have the wrong comment.

Regardless, I'm sorry if people calling you a clown (?) offended you- that's not too productive and doesn't help anything. They shouldn't do that.

I wonder if MacKenzie Tuttle passed the test.

No. Saudi Prince MBS played her like a fiddle. She walked right into his plan of humiliating her husband. After all he has achieved, she should have overlooked his affair. Just like Hillary. If Jeff got arrested in a third world country on made up rape charges, she would have just accepted the charges and let him rot.

Dang. Uh, citations or something? This sounds interesting.

MBS got his phone hacked by sending him a video on WhatsApp. Bezos owns the newspaper for which Khashoggi worked. Remember him? He's the guy who MBS got murdered in Saudi embassy in Turkey. They tried to blackmail Bezos that his affair would be revealed. Instead of getting blackmailed he revealed it himself. McKenzie should not have let MBS win.

Interesting stuff, thanks for linking!

Reminds me about the parents who could get their stupid daughter out of ISIS territory in Syria.

Japan is a first world country.

If they’re willing to get him out of a third world country, surely they’d be willing to do the same from a first world country.

All the more impressive!

The Japanese criminal justice system is not up to first world standards.

"The litany of violations that commonly take place while the detainee is in daiyou kangoku would befit places such as China, Turkey, or the Israeli occupied West Bank. Detainees are subject to extremely long (e.g. over twelve hours) questioning sessions, designed to wear them down. Sleep deprivation is common, as is the deprivation of adequate food, and suspects are often made to stand in uncomfortable positions for hours on end. Intimidation is the order of the day, with techniques such as repeated screaming in the detainee’s ears, and, though rarer, beatings have also been known to take place."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-authoritarian...

Hello, have you met the US Criminal Justice System?

No, not that one.

I mean the system used for the poor and/or coloured and/or from a "shithole country." The one that cages children and has decided that prisoners do not need soap or disinfectant in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

The one that shoots first and asks questions later. The one that systemically plants evidence. The one that takes performs "parallel construction" to deceive the courts about the legality of its investigations. The one that had an entire building devoted to making interogatees "disappear."

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. If Japan is not up to "first-world standards," I have difficulty accepting that the US is up to first-world standards, whatever they may be.

I've lived in Japan and a country that has Japan-like criminal justice system. The US criminal justice system way better than Japan's one. In Japan, both the judges' and prosecutions' powers are too strong.

Not like in the US where you actually have to convince a grand jury to prosecute and petite jury to convict, in Japan a single prosecutor can determine whether to prosecute or not and a single judge can decide whether your guilty or not. No judicial democracy, pretty much like the witch hunt in medieval times. Because lawyers are filled with elitism and vainglory, prosecution's arguments are almost always considered true. This becomes a problem if the case is a political one, just like in this case.

Yes, you can whine about US justice system being shitty but at least it is democratic and fair if done by law. Japan's one isn't.

> Hello, have you met the US Criminal Justice System?

Curious why you felt the need to inject this "but America" argument into this thread?

The two men arrested aren't charged with any crimes in America. They will be dealing with the Japanese justice system once extradited. Fighting extradition from the US has nothing to do with "poor and/or coloured" people or whatever bizarre argument you're trying to make.

It’s the presumption that there is some uniform high standard for justice in the first world that I object to. Economic development and justice are not synonymous, and the US is an excellent example of the fact that a country can be considered first-world by definition, but not garner plaudits for its justice system.

I could also have raised some questions about Canada’s record for justice, especially with respect to our indigenous peoples. Our system may look good on paper, and be reasonable for most citizens, but Canadian justice is also distributed unevenly.

If someone says that Japan’s justice system is worthy of criticism on its own merits, I have no objection and have no reason to mention the US.

It is only the presumption that “first-world == justice” that prompts me to provide a counter-example. And I have just given another, so it is not just the US.

Recall that the first world is the United States and its allies, the second world is the USSR and its allies, and the third world is just all the rest. Then maybe look for better words to precisely convey your sentiments, instead of propping up your talk with old clichés ;)

The US justice system gets a lot of deserved flak for its failure to live up to its ideals, but it's a hell of a lot better than the police-accuse-you-confess-or-else standard pervasive in Japan. Some light reading on the topic:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/12/05/forced-to-confe...

"It is impossible to know the true figure, but when 99.8% of prosecutions end in a guilty verdict, it is clear that the scales of justice are out of balance."

https://www.economist.com/asia/2015/12/03/silent-screams ("Why you might prefer a Bangkok jail to one in Chiba")

"Past inmates describe draconian rules. Eye contact with prison wardens is often forbidden or, when allowed, has to be accompanied by a smiling demeanour. Some compulsory prison work can be mind-numbing—folding pieces of paper into eight and unfolding them, for instance. Talk is banned for much of the day. Reading is only sometimes allowed.

Toshio Oriyama is a former restaurant owner who spent 22 years behind bars for a murder he insists he did not commit. “You weren’t free to do anything except breathe the air,” he says; even to stand up required a guard’s permission. Mr Oriyama had to sit cross-legged much of the time, in some pain; and “when we took a bath, the bums of all my inmates were dark like bedsores” from sitting in the same position all the time."

For the future, you may want to cite this link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/thirty-two...

It's not about Jeffrey Epstein, but 32 interesting deaths in US prisons. The one about guards burning a man to death with hot water was... unique.

Japan's correctional system is considered safer than many others but it certainly has it problems.

Generally they are more like strict military prisons with highly strict and specific rules and regimentation. Punishment for violating rules may include loss of privileges and often having to maintain stress positions (aka torture) for hours across multiple days.

Reform is underway but as like as everywhere else it is making slow progress.

https://www.prison-insider.com/countryprofile/prisonsinjapan...

>I have difficulty accepting that the US is up to first-world standards, whatever they may be.

This wasn't a thread about the US justice system, the only person making it so and making claims about what it is/it isn't is you. Just because something is shitty doesn't excuse other things for being shitty as well.

Under no circumstances am I claiming that Japan has an acceptable justice system, or that it is no worse than the US. I do claim that using “the first world” as a standard of justice is a flawed argument.

I think we can argue that Japan’s justice system is flawed, without introducing the claim that the first world has a worthy standard of justice.

If we do, I think it’s fair game to point out that the first-world has problems of its own, and give an example. In another reply, I also take Canada to task.

I am not claiming that because I consider argument-by-comparison-to-first-world-justice flawed, therefore the argument that Japan has unacceptably poor justice is flawed.

The remainder of the argument seems persuasive to me.

I meant first [world] standards in the sense of the elements I listed: due process, right to an attorney, presumption of innocence, right to bail, independent judiciary, and such. Not all first world countries excel at all of them, but Japan does not really have any of them.

Immigration is a different animal than criminal justice for various historical or policy reasons. Like many countries, Japan has its problems there too even with minuscule numbers of illegal immigrants as compared to the US or EU.

I certainly accept that every other first-world country claims to have these to one degree or another, and that for most of my lifetime, considered exceptions to these practices to be aberrations.

To the degree that we are talking about aspirations, I accept your suggestion.

No system is perfect.

Re illegal immigration in Japan:

"Many of the [Japan's] detention practices—including indefinite detention, lack of transparency regarding detention at ports of entry, and the detention of asylum seekers—have been repeatedly criticized by the international community as well as national civil society."

https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/asia-pacifi...

"Japanese TV program turns migrant raids and deportations into entertainment" https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-10-26/japanese-tv-program-t...

The US criminal justice system is certainly not up to snuff for a first-world country either.

Thanks for the nice "whataboutism" example. Bonus points for obviously being smart enough to get the point, but missing it on purpose just to do the whataboutism routine.

Not whataboutism, although I credit it may look that way if you tilt your head and squint.

If someone says, “Trump is a criminal,’ and I say, “Yes, but what about her emails,” that’s the canonical whataboutism. I’m trying to justify Mr. Trump’s wrongdoings and/or deflect from discussing them.

Now consider is someone says, “Mr. Trump is not up to the Ethical standard of US Presidents,’ and I reply, “What about Richard Nixon?”

That has the same words, but a different semantic meaning. I am not saying, “Mr. Trump is fine, because Nixon.’ Nor am I trying to have a long discussion about Nixon that deflects from a discussion about Trump. I’m saying, “Check your presumption that US Presidents have some kind of ethical standard, and here is a counterexample.”

Ah our favorite third world countries, like China, Japan, and Israel.

With a 99% conviction rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

Edit: So I guess extraditing them would basically guarantee conviction.