Biden Administration Leaving Americans Behind in Sudan … Too
There was once a policy – official or unofficial – that the United States does not leave American citizens imperiled in foreign nations – whether as hostages of adversary governments or endangered by warfare.
That policy has been weakening over recent years by a lack of enforcement. It has never been disregarded more than by the Biden administration.
Both Russia and Iran are unlawfully holding American citizens. Biden made a highly publicized effort to secure the return of sports star Brittney Griner but left behind Paul Whelan – who has been held hostage for a lot longer. To get Griner back, Biden agreed to release Putin’s personal hit man and arms dealer, Viktor Bout.
With these kinds of exchanges, Biden is not solving the hostage issue. He is actually encouraging the taking of hostages in the future. Griner had been back home for less than a year before Putin grabbed Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich. Another bargaining chip?
Arguably the most egregious example of leaving Americans behind was Biden’s disastrous surrender in Afghanistan. After repeatedly assuring the nation and Americans in Afghanistan that no American would be left behind, Biden implemented a tuck-tail-and-run retreat that left hundreds of Americans stranded.
In addition, he left behind thousands of Afghans who worked with American forces – including those with special visas to come to the United States. They are currently being hunted down and murdered by the Taliban.
Now we have the situation in Sudan, where a civil war is endangering approximately 16,000 American citizens. The situation in Sudan is so bad and so dangerous that Biden closed the U.S. embassy and ordered the evacuation of all military and embassy personnel.
In an amazing and unprecedented refutation of the United States’ longstanding policy to secure the safety of Americans overseas, the Biden administration actually announced that the American government would do nothing to aid the evacuation of American citizens.
White House spokesman John Kirby – in an apparent attempt to justify inaction – claimed that most of the Americans in Sudan held duo citizenships. That is a racist and xenophobic comment – suggesting that the public should be less concerned as if they are not real citizens. Duo citizenship does make a person a half a citizen. Kirby should be reminded that those folks are as many American citizens as the rest of us.
Oh … he was.
In a recent CNN interview, Muna Daoud referenced Kirby’s comment and pointed out the error in his statement. In fact, she called it heartbreaking.
Daoud is a Sudanese American. She was able to get her parents out of the war zone – but not with any help from the United States. Even when her parents got to Saudi Arabia, they got no help from American authorities there. She said assistance came from the British and Dutch – that were also busy getting their citizens out of Sudan. Daoud said the American citizens were literally dying because of the absence of American help.
Biden made a bigger show of helping Ukrainian refugees from Putin’s dirty little war during his visit to Poland. And even then, the actual aid did not live up to Biden’s rhetoric.
The protection of American citizens – here AND abroad – is one of the primary constitutional duties of the President. Why Biden does not recognize and respond to that responsibility is open to conjecture. It can be said that it fits into what appears to be Biden’s overall weakness and inordinate fear of repercussions when it comes to exerting America’s strength. Or maybe he is just not paying attention.
It seems to fit with Biden’s open border policies that fail to protect American citizens from increased crime and a deadly drug crisis. President Theodore Roosevelt’s talk of “speaking softly and carrying a big stick.” Biden speaks boldly and brandishes a twig.
So. There ‘tis.
An interesting situation in Sudan. Looks like another black eye for the Biden administration. But I do not know much about dual citizenship. What I do know is that if you are a dual citizenship person you do not have to abide by the US Government’s dictates if you wish to stay. I agree with you that the US response does appear to be lacking, but by the same token, the Biden response now is the same as previous administrations to similar responses. I think the sad part of the Biden Administration response is that there were no plans to provide any kind of evacuations for potentially 5,000 of the 16,000 Americans still in Sudan that did express an interest in getting out. The others seem to want to stay in Sudan, and I wish them good luck!
.Apparently the number 16,000 is correct but Larry but in your anti-Biden zealous GOP rant, you failed to state few items of importance that would create balance:
1) Most of the estimated 16,000 Americans believed to be in Sudan right now are dual U.S.-Sudanese nationals and only a fraction of them (estimated to be less than 5,000) have expressed a desire to leave.Less than 5,000 actually expressed any kind of interest in leaving Sudan.
2) Also, the U.S. has warned Americans for several years, at least four years, not to travel to Sudan and told them that consular assistance at the embassy was extremely limited because we have no military assets there to provide help.
3) The Trump Administration never had any plans for evacuation of these dual citizens in Sudan either, so lets be fair and state this!
4) The situation in Afghanistan was different because the U.S. was ending a 20-year military presence in the country. It was trying to extricate the residual American presence there, much of which was directly tied to Washington’s role in propping up the Afghan government. No such situation existed or exists in Sudan.In contrast with the situation in Afghanistan, the U.S. was not involved militarily in the Sudan conflict and had no military presence on the ground apart from the small number of Marine guards at the Khartoum embassy.
5) The historic US response to these kinds of situations has been the practice in places like Yemen, Syria and Venezuela, where the U.S. suspended diplomatic operations and removed personnel because of turmoil, but did not evacuate private citizens. So Biden’s response his in line with the typical (albeit I think very sad) US response to past similar situations.
6) The U.S. did briefly shuttered the embassy in Kyiv (as you pointed out Ukraine) because of the Russia invasion, but there was no military evacuation for either diplomats or private citizens, and the embassy has since re-opened. I think if I remember correctly the diplomats and other citizens got on buses and went to Poland, and, the Russians allowed it by briefly making a pass for them to get there and not targeting them.
7) The US is working to establish a process that would enable people to move overland to a place where they can more easily exit the country, in all likelihood Port Sudan. The US officials believe that the best and safest way to evacuate is over land to the coast. (personally I am not sure what they are supposed to do once they get to the coast since the US is not sending any ships there like other countries are doing.)
8) The U.S. has developed other options, such as opening a temporary consulate in Port Sudan, beefing up its consulate in Jeddah to assist Americans as they arrive, or using a nearby airfield that other European countries have used to fly citizens out. (It does kind of make me wonder why some airforce C-5’s and C-130’s can’t use the same airport like other countries have done.)
So in the end Larry, even after balance is created, I agree with you that our response should have been stronger. But I disagree with spinning and deleting facts which make our response seem different than in previous like situation. Our response has been typical of like situations in the past.
The real debate (and what should be the substance of your article if you were more interested in informing all readers than bashing Biden) should be over what appears to be our default government policy of lais·sez-faire where we just let things evolve with no interference to help our citizens, OR, should we actually have a policy and tell other nations that if you mistreat our citizens we will come in and rescue them by what ever means it takes, including military force and killing their soldiers. And then there is still the issue of do the tax payers want to spend our country’s wealth and risk killing the lives of our brave young soldiers who do not wish to be helped in the first place. And then where is the balance point.
Buy you did a good spin job Larry, I hope you do not mind that I presented a few inconvenient truths to your spin. I still love you! :>)
Sorry, I forgot to mention my source which appears to be your source, For those interested, read about at *https://apnews.com/article/sudan-evacuation-us-fighting-6614d4b4fccf6aa25ac000b0353dd743*
Tom … the problem with you self-proclaimed “inconvenience truths” is that you offer spin — and a bit of disinformation. I hate to have to keep defending Trump administration, but when people state spun information, I feel that truth needs to be told. During the Trump administrations there was not yet an emergency evacuation from Sudan. That was launched by Biden when he closed the embassy. Up until recently, people were advised to leave the country but it as not an emergency and they had all the means to safely leave Sudan. The change came in the past year with the intensification of the conflict. Also your figures of those wanting to leave is not well established. And what little aid is being provided to escapees, it has been little and late. Finally, you and Frank often site news reports as authoritative. That makes you the person spinning from the media spin. The failure to get Americans out of Sudan is on Biden … period. And it has been tragic failure for many. No distraction or spin changes those facts.
Just blaming the media does not prove that anything is wrong. It is a feckless argument without any solid foundation. It would be the same as Tom just saying, well, Larry said it, and he has made some mistakes, so therefore discount it
You do have some great, fully supported arguments , however, your blame of the media is just you throwing red meat to MSM-hating dogs. It is not a credible argument, and never will be.
LOL There you go again Larry, ahhh yes, spin by omission! I love it! You are the master!
It actually was a critical situation during the Trump years. And all I said was that he did not have any plan in place either. If you know of a source that says he had a plan, please disclose this source for all of us to read! 1 point for Tom, Larry 0.
My figures may not be well established according to you, but at least I did cite a reference to establish them. Your figures ARE NOT ESTABLISHED AT ALL!!! Except where my referenced news article confirms the 16,000. According to the US government, “We messaged every U.S. citizen in Sudan who communicated with us during the crisis and provided specific instructions about joining this convoy to those who were interested in departing via the land route.” See at *https://www.state.gov/evacuation-efforts-of-u-s-citizens-from-sudan/* 1 Point for Tom, Larry 0
AND THEN THERE IS THIS from the US Government, “In a multinational effort, the U.S. Government, in concert with allies and partners, has facilitated the departure of over 1,000 U.S. citizens from Sudan since the start of the violence. This effort has included intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance overwatch, close coordination with partner nations on flights and convoys, and a sustained diplomatic and messaging effort to approximately 5,000 U.S. citizens who have sought our guidance. Read this at *https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-may-1-2023/* Another 1 point for Tom, Larry 0.
So my case is rock solid based on government releases that flowed into my AP News source reference, you spun by omission Larry!!! And you spun without referencing sources for any of your supposed facts! And you spun by omission.
And again Larry you spin by omission when you say, ” The failure to get Americans out of Sudan is on Biden … period. And it has been tragic failure for many. No distraction or spin changes those facts.” Trump in October 20th of 2020 took Sudan off of the state terrorism watch list which you do not mention.
Again, I made many points of facts that are in government documents that are also contained in the AP News report. You avoid talking about most of them.
And the points I was making was:
1) True conservatives tell the whole truth, not half of it and use spin by omission. That is not conservative.
2) You did not need to spin by omission, I agreed with you that our US response was weak. But, it has been historically weak. Actually Obama’s response was much stronger to Syria when they harmed American citizens.
3) You missed a great article point for later, “Why is our American policy so weak on harming Americans”? There is your real story. “Why can’t we have a government as firm and responsive as the Germans, Dutch, British?” There is a real story that can display good conservative values with no spin attached.
4) What is this obsession you have with Frank? Why do you always feel the need to pull him into your rants even when he has not been mentioned nor responded to the blog yet? I would recommend some CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) for you but the GOP and wealthy insurance companies they support have drastically cut those benefits! :>) But I still love you and your PBP blogs!
Ah, ittthe sweetest form of flattery tis Larry’s obsession with the fictional Frank.
Darn!!! I am jealous!!!! So. There ‘tis. :>)