I have read several articles recently about how Americans have been stranded in the Middle East by Trump’s war. They often include statements by American citizens on how they were surprised by the war and left to their own devices for evacuating a war zone.

Words from the Surprise War

A piece in The Wall Street Journal included this note:

“Miguel Aldaco, a California native living in Qatar, tried to call the State Department hotline, but said they had no information about evacuation flights. Aldaco said on Tuesday he contacted the U.S. Embassy in Doha. He said he was encouraged to leave on a commercial flight even though airspace over much of the Persian Gulf had already closed. No evacuation flights were planned at that time, he was told.”

The Guardian quoted US army Maj Gen Randy Manner, who is stranded in Dubai: “It feels a little bit disheartening to feel abandoned by our own government.”

APNews talked to American Cory McKane, who relied on a WhatsApp group while escaping Dubai. “Everyone’s been sending each other resources because, quite frankly, the U.S. has not done a single thing in any capacity. That’s been really disappointing.”

A Simple Explanation for the Surprise War

Trump’s explanation for abandoning Americans in a war zone is simple, “It all happened very quickly.” Translation: We just did it. We didn’t think about problems like Americans being stuck with missiles flying overhead. The President sounds like it was as much a surprise to him as it was to the rest of us.

But he thinks only of himself. The rest of us are just annoying details.

So, while other countries like Britain, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic managed to evacuate their citizens from a Surprise War begun by another country, the USA didn’t plan ahead to keep its citizens safe from a conflict it started.

Warning to American citizens abroad: Your safety is no concern of the government. They will not warn you. They will not help you. The logistics and cost of evacuating are up to you. The only part missing is, “If you are caught or captured, the State Department will disavow any knowledge of your citizenship.”

Victims of Kakistocracy

The term for this incompetence is kakistocracy: “Government by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people.”

As if being stranded in a war zone isn’t bad enough, directions and explanations have contradicted one another, which is not surprising in a kakistocracy. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel said, “Israel’s ministry of tourism was also providing bus services just across the border in Egypt – and from there “flights could be available. The US embassy in Jerusalem, on the other hand, said on Tuesday that it was “not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel”. Hmmm.

Welcome to the kakistocracy.

DOGE and the Kakistocracy

Whether you voted for this or not is irrelevant. This is what we have.

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  Courtesy of NBC News

  DOGE decimated the ranks of the State Department, getting rid of experienced staffers who could be handling this with skill and efficiency.

• DOGE cut the State Department budget by almost half.
• The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, also holds two other jobs, any of which is a full-time, demanding position.
• Embassies in the area are in survival more. On Monday, the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was struck by two drones, which caused a small fire and minor damage to the building.

Whether you support this war or not is also irrelevant. No citizen of any nation, much less the most powerful country in the world, should be left to their own devices when encountering trouble abroad. That’s why we have embassies and ambassadors, foreign service officers and Marines.

The Kakistocracy’s Surprise War

We could chide travelers for going into a war zone – except that they didn’t. These people were just on vacation, conducting business, going to a conference, waiting for a connecting flight, etc. when the Surprise War happened.

Now they find themselves unwitting and unwilling foreign correspondents and war photographers.

Shame on America.

Shame on the State Department and the whole American kakistocracy.

Now do you understand why it’s important for the United States government to function effectively, smoothly, and with forethought? Now do you realize why it’s important to have qualified Cabinet secretaries with staffed-up departments?

Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone

As Joni Mitchell said, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” Well, our State Department’s effectiveness is gone. Up in smoke. Pfffft.

It shouldn’t have taken a Surprise War for us to realize the consequences, but it did. Now what do we do about it?

Courtesy of LinkedIn