[Icelander]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Well, here's some options from this business insider article I found.

Thanks. This is great.

Originally Posted by TGLS

Brazil, Switzerland and France have all made a fuss about extradition in the past, but being branded a terrorist might be more of a big deal than merely being a murderer or tax evader.

Depending on how well the extraction is handled, any charges of terrorism might be refutable. What Col. Ortiz and his men will actually be guilty of is the exact same thing as Edward Snowden. Their prefered plan will not include any violence, they'll just be deserting from the US Army and taking with them classified material that includes evidence of senior DoD officials breaking the law and a subsequent cover-up.

Originally Posted by TGLS

Ecuador is currently protecting Assange, so they're plausible too.

Ecuador is one of the places I'd like to know more avout, to see if they are a good choice. Could they plausibly set up a research program to learn more about Project Jade Serenity if they have access to the test subjects? Could they protect them, both in terms of secrecy and security?

What are their relations with other countries like? Their stategic situation?

Originally Posted by TGLS

Iceland is plausible given they offered to protect Assange and Bobby Fischer, as well as that talk about Snowden last year.

Absolutely no chance. Talk is cheap, but we don't have any of the capabilities we'd need to get Col. Ortiz and his men here. Let alone protect them from extraordinary rendition or assassination. Not to mention that everyone would know their whereabouts and keeping pretty much anything to do with this out of the media would be impossible.

The only thing there is any tradition of secrecy about here are mistakes that bureaucrats make and that is a reflex shared by senior officials in all countries. There is no hope we'd be able to offer any aid to a group of ten to fifty people without politicians from all parties having to discuss it, which means the media would be reporting it even before a decision was reached.

Anything Ortiz told Icelandic Foreign Ministry officials (or whoever) to try to convince them of the reality of their unique status would probably be in the news shortly. Which, in turn, would probably bring attention from a lot of other powers. It's unlikely we would risk the allegiance with the US for something most of the politicians wouldn't believe in the first place and would not know what to do with even if they did.

Besides, any nation state could remove a group of people by force from Iceland without us being able to prevent it. Hell, many private companies or criminal organisations could probably do it, in case an aging billionaire or criminal oligarch decided that this sounded like something that could yield a new lease on life for them if they could have some biolab reverse engineer it.

Ortiz will realise that going public with the whole story might provide a measure of protection from US shenanigans, but will also expose them to threat of kidnapping by pretty much any group with the resources to consider setting up their own research project. That is, assuming that they go public with evidence that will convince a significant fraction of people.