Hacker News Reader

Comment by amazon_not | Hacker News Reader

Movies perhaps?

yes, movies like Tears of the sun. considering the number of US citizens, they are all over planet and it's a rather unreasonable expectation.

generally US citizenship meant much more in the past than it means now since there are more interesting places to live (albeit in long term US might still prove as best spot... or not).

When the most recent war broke out in Yemen, the Indian govt managed to evacuate its citizens from Yemen using their navy and if you take into account the size of the Indian diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula including Yemen, it wasn't an easy feat and I can't imagine that the USG wouldn't be capable of carrying out a similar evacuation plan or doing what it could to get their citizens out of harm's way abroad.

I highly doubt there are many Indians in Yemen. It's a poor country and doesn't have many migrant labourers like the UAE or Bahrain do.

Also the Americans I knew seemed to expect helicopters to come pick them up and all that. Saying to your citizens they need to get out and we've got a navy ship in port that you can get on if you want isn't really evacuating your citizens.

A simple search would lead you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raahat_(India)

So people went to a port or airport. It's not really a rescue as much as just having a few more planes picking people up than usual.

Air India also played a major role in the 1990 evacuations from Kuwait. Considered to be the largest civilian evacuation, airlifting 170,000 Indians stranded in Kuwait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_airlift_of_Indians_from_K...

Helicopters would come pick them up from the airport or embassy if it was necessary. The violence in Yemen started relatively far from the population centers where most expats are/were and progressed relatively slowly. They had plenty of time to get out of the country via normal transportation options. If outright combined arms conflict had suddenly erupted in the city, you can bet the various developed militaries of the world would have provided protection for their citizens to leave.

Also, a naval vessel absolutely qualifies as evacuating your citizens.

You can bet that if outright combined arms conflict had suddenly erupted in the city various developed militaries of the world would have provided protection for their citizens to leave. That's visibly demonstrated by every civil war. Give me an example of a developed military that's gone into an armed conflict to rescue citizens. The closest I can think of is the rescuing of hostages. That's not quite the same thing though and very rare.

> That's visibly demonstrated by every civil war.

No it's not. Especially so with the civil wars in the Arab world, they didn't spring up virtually overnight and almost across the board started well away from the capital cities where most expats and embassies/consulates are.

> Give me an example of a developed military that's gone into an armed conflict to rescue citizens. The closest I can think of is the rescuing of hostages. That's not quite the same thing though and very rare.

There are a variety of examples of this by practically every developed country. In the last two decades it's been relatively common in Africa and the Middle East. The US in particular has a number of such cases which can be found in this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...

Hostage rescues are very rare, I agree. That's an extreme measure.

The US government, by contrast, didn't really help out any US citizens in Yemen.

Do you think the government is going to come and forcibly remove them from the country if they don't want to leave? The state department has warned people against going to the country for over a decade, and likewise has issued advisories to all of the expats living there the entire time they're there. Anyone with any sense got out of the country a while ago. The vast majority of those left are foolhardy individuals who didn't think it would get as bad as it is.

Capable? Maybe. Willing to exert itself on behalf of US citizens in danger? Nope.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/01/american-civili...

The US evacuated government staff and contractors, but abandoned anyone else.

They weren't "abandoned". They were told very earnestly to leave, but they wanted to stay and work on mostly oil fields and continue to make admittedly large sums of money. In general the state department has been warning people about traveling to Yemen for over a decade, and likewise has been issuing travel advisories and other updates to the people living there. Far from "abandoned".

It would be said if poor Indians foot the bill for bringing back well off Indians who left for better life abroad.

Indians in ME are across the economic spectrum, and mostly blue collar but there are also white collar. Yemen is very close to India. Your smug comments demonstrate your ignorance than anything else.

It almost sounds like the insurance business. You're lured by the flashy ads. You sign the contract. Shit happens. The insurance company tries to weasel out if they can away with it. New insurers happily ignore the stories.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com