'She's awesome': How U.S. veterans helped Venezuela's Machado escape -- NPR

[erronis]

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5642538/machados-escape-from-venezuela
Carrie Kahn

Nobel peace laureate María Corina Machado greets supporters from a balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, in the early hours of Dec 11, 2025.
ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — It's an extraordinary achievement to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But for this year's laureate, even getting to the ceremony was a feat of its own.

María Corina Machado spent more than a year in hiding after her opposition movement defeated Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in last year's election by a wide margin, according to voting records validated by international observers. Maduro refused to leave office and ordered a massive crackdown on the opposition.

Getting Machado out of Venezuela and safely to Oslo required an operation worthy of a thriller. At the center of that mission was U.S. Special Forces Veteran Bryan Stern, the bearded, broad-shouldered founder of Grey Bull Rescue Foundation. Stern and his team of U.S. military veterans have pulled off hundreds of extractions around the world. But this one, he says, was different.

"She's the second most popular person in the Western Hemisphere after Maduro," he said." Because of that signature, that's what made this operation very hard."

. . .

Stern admits he was a bit star struck by Machado. He'd followed her fight for democratic change for years. He'd always assumed Venezuela's "Iron Lady" got her nickname from her political steeliness. But after that night, he says it's something more.

"She's gnarly," he said, laughing. "Pretty awesome."

[Deuxcents]

1. A thriller if there ever was one. Did not know we had vets involved..

[duckworth969]

2. Machado is NOT what seems, right-winger bent on War

Ironic, peace prize to a war monger.

“As President Donald Trump issued new threats of a possible ground invasion in Venezuela, protesters gathered outside the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on Tuesday to protest the awarding of the prestigious peace prize to right-wing opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whom they described as an ally to US regime change efforts.

/snip/

But the protesters who gathered outside the previous day argue that Machado—who dedicated her acceptance of the award in part to Trump and has reportedly worked behind the scenes to pressure Washingtonto ramp up military and financial pressure on Venezuela—is not a beacon of democracy, but a tool of imperialist control.“

https://www.commondreams.org/news/machado-protest-oslo

[harumph]

3. I don't know much about her, but that was my immediate impression of what is really going on.

I suspect it's out with the old (objectively corrupt) but not a Washington puppet - and in with the new (soon to be corrupt) and avowed Washington puppet.

[duckworth969]

4. Agreed