By Brett Bruen For Dailymail.Com
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Brett Bruen is a former US diplomat, who served on the frontlines of crises from Africa to the Middle East, and served as the Obama Administration’s Director of Global Engagement at the White House
President Joe Biden needs to send U.S. forces back to Sudan and save the Americans he left behind – and he needs to do it today.
Right now, Africa’s third-largest country is teetering on the edge of bloody chaos.
On Tuesday, new fighting tested a tenuous three-day truce, brokered by the U.S., between two heavily armed groups led by rival Sudanese generals.
Hundreds have been killed and there’s no telling if this latest cease-fire will hold.
Over the weekend, the U.S. military bravely evacuated our diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.
As a former diplomat, I feel an incredible sense of pride in our armed forces. Yet, I was horrified to learn that thousands of our fellow citizens didn’t make it out.
They were abandoned by their government, while much smaller nations, like Spain and Saudi Arabia, were able to get their civilians to safety.
It is a bitter irony that today, as Biden announces his bid to again represent some 330 million Americans as president, some 16,000 are stranded inside this troubled East African nation.
In lieu of rescue, Americans are behind advised to undertake a treacherous trek – on their own – across a 500-mile battlefield to Port Sudan.
It’s unrealistic, dangerous, and deeply irresponsible.
This is not the way United States behaved when I served overseas.
In 2004, I accompanied extraction teams during the civil war in the Ivory Coast. We took convoys into crowds of angry protestors to pull Americans and our Canadian counterparts to safety.
President Joe Biden needs to send U.S. forces back to Sudan and save the Americans he left behind – and he needs to do it today.
On Tuesday, new fighting tested a tenuous three-day truce, brokered by the U.S., between two heavily armed groups led by rival Sudanese generals. (Above) Sudanese army soldiers at the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, on April 20, 2023
I was on the Obama Administration’s National Security Council when civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013. From the White House Situation Room, we watched as U.S. Marines landed helicopters in the middle of a warzone.
President Obama similarly supported massive evacuation operations in Libya following the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
And in my early years as a Foreign Service Officer, there were famous rescues from Haiti, Lebanon, and Liberia.
We took risks – unlike today.
The abandonment of Americans in Sudan is part of a problematic pattern of the Biden White House.
In August 2021, the president rushed through a reckless retreat in Kabul, Afghanistan leaving hundreds of U.S. citizens vulnerable to a vengeful Taliban.
The President closed our embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine ahead of Russia’s invasion in 2022 and cut off any direct aid that could have been provided to Americans caught in that conflict too.
In both cases, Biden shuttered modern embassies that are specifically designed to withstand direct attacks.
So, why would we choose to precipitously retreat before a greater effort was made to save others?
The short answer is politics.
This was also true during the Trump Administration, which chose to carelessly abandon our embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, even as many of Americans desperately sought to escape the increasingly violent and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro.
Trump similarly closed our consulate in Basra, Iraq, despite the objections of our Consul General there at the time.
It is now clear that there is a far lower risk tolerance in Washington, D.C. following the deadly breaching of our consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.
In Sudan, Biden’s team did not even make a minimal effort to bring other Americans out with our diplomats.
I was horrified to learn that thousands of our fellow citizens didn’t make it out. They were abandoned by their government, while much smaller nations, like Spain and Saudi Arabia, were able to get their civilians to safety. (Above) Citizens of Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Germany evacuated from Sudan in Amman, Jordan on April 24, 2023
Over the weekend, the U.S. military bravely evacuated our diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Khartoum. (Above) Secretary of State Antony Blinken monitors the operation to evacuate the US embassy in Khartoum on April 22, 2023
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to suggest that Americans had no obligation to their fellow citizens, because the State Department warned people not to travel to Sudan.
‘It is not our standard procedure to evacuate American citizens living abroad,’ she said.
But that designation applies to many countries, and it has never meant that Americans are left to fend for themselves if danger develops.
If this is true, then we will see fewer people venturing into regions where humanitarian aid is needed the most.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was particularly infuriating. He spoke like someone who has never faced the life and death choices that one must confront in these places.
The U.S. ‘will go to great lengths to support and facilitate’ the departure of those still in-country, he said.
It was much the same message we heard as the last C-17 transport aircraft took off from Kabul International Airport. Biden and his team have too often relied on detached diplomacy to deal with difficult global crises.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (above) was particularly infuriating. He spoke like someone who has never faced the life and death choices that one must confront in these places.
From India to Mexico, Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, China to the latest leak of classified documents, their response is mostly hands off and accountability free.
But when it comes to our fellow citizens this simply cannot stand.
It is time for this administration to finally, firmly commit that they’ll never leave any Americans behind – ever again.
Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd
Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group