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Michael Ramirez Cartoon: Left Behind…Again
Michael says, “The Biden administration closed the embassy and evacuated U.S. diplomatic personnel, leaving 16,000 Americans still trapped in Sudan.” Now, a second American is dead. What’s next?
Shame on Biden and his entire incompetent administration. Also, shame on the woke Generals who have allowed and supported this fool to corrupt our armed forces.
Good grief. A civil war breaks out in Sudan, and a couple of Americans are killed, and somehow this is the President’s fault?
Gee, maybe you shouldn’t be in Sudan. Duh. If you go, you take your chances.
Obviously, our diplomatic folks ought to make reasonable efforts to help Americans get out when trouble occurs, but it’s never going to be perfect, and it can make sense to evacuate diplomatic personnel in dangerous situations.
Finally, we’re supposed to be upset about two Americans being killed? How many do you think were killed this weekend in Chicago?
Dude. If I recall, you’re the guy who called the Afghan pullout a success.
Maybe . . . recalibrate?
As bad as things are here, they could be much worse..
Melissa thanks for forwarding these every day.
Hey, the government flack has “extended our deepest condolences.” Isn’t that enough?
But, but, who will save the trannies????
Look on the bright side, Biden is reducing the size of the federal budget one embassy at a time every year.
Can Joe Brandon count on your vote in 2024?
Jerry can be perverse at times, but I doubt he will vote for Biden.
I’m not so sure, seeing the trajectory he is on. He blames World War II on the West, blames the U.S. for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Georgia, justifies Biden’s abandonment of Americans, allies, and military equipment in Afghanistan. That portends full-leftist ticket to me.
You can find a lot of isolationists on the right these days. Some of them are even authoritarian.
And Biden checks his watch, again.
It is not the isolationism that alarms me. It is the blaming of the U.S. for the world’s troubles. That is supposed to be a leftist thing.
Free-floating contempt for the US has been a virtue-signal for many on the right for a while. It’s only a matter of time before the most severe and true conservatives embrace the 1619 project.
I agree with your latter point. I don’t know Jerry’s thoughts on everything else but is he wrong here on Sudan? Did any of you care about Sudan until this moment? It seems like Afganistan and this are two completely different things.
It used to be the one thing we could count on Europeans for was they could go to a former colony, occupy the airport and evacuate the civilians.
Whatever happened to that?
It’s only a matter of time before we evacuate Botswana.
Free Botswana!
Anybody who has been paying attention and has any sense has known to either stay out of Sudan or at least have a plan to self-extract within 24 hours. Relying on the navel-gazers in the State Department or the pronoun collectors in the Defense Department would be contraindicated.
Nope, not going to support Biden. He’s even worse, on most issues, but he did the right thing in Afghanistan.
I’m actually the conservative traditionalist, generally returning to the minimalist foreign policy of our Founders. It’s the rest of you who are all gung-ho on the Liberal Internationalist project launched, mostly, by Woodrow Wilson.
The Reticulator’s summary of my views on WWII are overly simplistic. I blame the expansion of WWII on the West, and especially the British, though the French went along initially, and then we did so. There’s no doubt that Germany — and Russia — launched a localized war in Poland in 1939, but I see no reason for that war to have expanded so terribly.
Likewise, the Japanese were certainly responsible for their invasion of China, but it was our embargo that drove them to desperation and the attack on Pearl Harbor. So I think that our policy was foolish, from the standpoint of what I view as our proper interests. It was successful on FDR’s terms, I think, as my impression is that he wanted to create reasons to draw the reluctant American people into war, principally with Germany.
On Afghanistan, if you’re going to pull out, and thank the Lord that we did, then there’s going to be something of a mess. We withdrew thousands of people with a loss of less than 20, as I recall, which is pretty good. Your rhetoric about Afghan allies is precisely the sort of sentimental nonsense that draws us into, and keeps us in, one foolish local war after another. As to the civilian Americans, if you go to a place like Afghanistan or Sudan, you’re taking your chances.
No, I don’t think so, James. This is a strawman argument. I don’t have contempt for the US, and I completely oppose the 1619 project.
I have some contempt for the Neocons and the Liberal Internationalists, with their utopian vision of remaking the entire world in our image. It’s a deeply Leftist project, mainly launched by Woodrow Wilson, though Teddy Roosevelt started down the same road. For some reason, most of you think of it as conservative. I used to think like that. It’s the opposite of conservative, at least in the American sense.
In the world historic sense, I suppose, it’s typical for a powerful country to conquer an empire. So our neo-imperialist project is “conservative” in some sense, preserving the legacy of Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, and Caesar.
I don’t particularly oppose empire building, in theory. My objection is more realist and practical, as I think that the costs of such projects typically exceeds their benefits. Modern war became very expensive, and since the end of slavery, the most valuable booty is out of reach.
I am somewhat, um, miffed at the people who I think misled me in this regard. The most influential were Churchill, Buckley, Reagan, and probably Condoleezza Rice. I was young, didn’t understand enough about history, and didn’t adequately think things through. This allowed me to be drawn into warmongering American triumphalism.
Well, Sudan was never a colony of ours, was it?
Most military airlift is provided by Uncle Sugar.
Good grief! Have you any self-awareness?!
183 people killed in an attack that could have been prevented. Thousands left behind. (Just like in Sudan.) Not a “success” at all.
The whole debacle was to the shame of our nation.
Well, according to CNN, one of the most liberal news networks, the American withdrawal has been an abomination for its own citizens stranded in Sudan. Quote:
“I am incredibly shocked and disgusted by the American lackluster response to the health and safety of their citizens,” said Muna Daoud, whose parents were traveling to get out of Sudan via Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia.
Another quote:
“To be honest with you, the State Department was useless, utterly useless throughout this entire period,” said Imad, who asked CNN to withhold his last name, and whose parents were traveling from Khartoum to Egypt. “We expected the Department to provide some kind of guidance, but the guidance was the template, just shelter in place, no critical information being provided,” he said.
Or this:
“Those who spoke to CNN also pushed back on the argument made by US officials that they had warned Americans not to be in Sudan.”
I know it is still early, and I know not to trust news reports coming during a chaotic situation, but if CNN dares to air this stuff, it probably is much worse than expected and is turning out to be the same debacle of American government incompetence as in Afghanistan.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/26/politics/americans-sudan-us-government/index.html
Yes.
Look, I used to think like most of you. I lacked self-awareness then, so I find that you lack it now.
We were all young and foolish once. So in my youthful foolishness, I was a libertarian neocon. I outgrew it, eventually.
It was hard, because I used to get very, very angry at people who made opposing arguments. The same exact way that many of you get angry at me. Been there, folks. I understand you. You probably don’t understand me.
It mostly arises out of the false, idolatrous religion of We Won The War, which I think has led to a great many problems. It even contributed mightily to family breakdown, as women were sent to work to support the war effort, which led to a change in traditional sex and family roles.
Where do you get the figure of 183, Drew? The article that you link mentions 13. Not 183, 13. This is the figure that I remembered, but I used “less than 20” in case there were a few others that I didn’t remember.
As far as I know, none of our military or government personnel were left behind in Afghanistan. There were foolish American civilians who were in Afghanistan in the middle of a civil war, and some of them were stuck. Ditto for Sudan now, it appears.
I’d support reasonable diplomatic measures to help them get out, but it’s mostly on them. They went to such places. They took their chances.
I’m not going to blame our government for failing to bail out Americans who take foolish risks in such circumstances. Particularly where we have no good options. What would you do? Send in the military?
Great, then we end up stuck in another tar pit.
From an incentive standpoint, it’s a good thing to leave such risk-takers to their own devices. The rest of us shouldn’t have to risk war because someone wants to go to some backward, dangerous country.
What is it with Arizona lawyers? As Ronald Reagan was known to quip about liberals – they know so much that just isn’t so:
Pride goeth before a fall.
This is a new one for me. Our modern problems have arisen because we have won some war?!? (presumably World War II? A lot of people on Ricochet claim that we haven’t won a war since then, though I don’t know if you’re in that camp)