Dispatches from the War Fronts
By State Department Correspondent Varian Fry with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva
WASHINGTON, DC. - Hundreds of thousands of Americans remain trapped in Middle East war zones such as the Gulf States and Israel unable to return home. In response to their plight, the State Department has – warned them to get the hell out of Dodge, but provided no useful assistance to rescue them:
How did we get here, and those hapless souls get marooned there?
As usual, the answer boils down to one word: Republicans.
To understand why, we have to do what Republicans hate: learn some history.
One might think that we would all agree that the State Department, charged with protecting Americans overseas, would do something to help.
But that kind of thinking is just an example of what Republicans have told us for over 40 years is a fallacy.
St. Ronald of Bitburg was venerated for incessantly proclaiming
As terrifying as “Good luck, buddy, you're on your own?”
The lie that government can't, won't, and shouldn't help Americans who need such help was regarded by generations of Republicans as a foundational pearl of wisdom. E.J. Dionne wrote years ago that contempt for government and what it does has animated Republicans ever since.
Then we get to January 20, 2025, when, to the amazement of future generations of historians, if there are any, Americans entrusted their government to a corrupt demented insurrectionist.
In turn, that depraved drug-addled lout turned over management of the government to an equally depraved and crazy drug-addled Nazi-saluting plutocrat.
Remember what happened next?
Ketamine Leon turned loose his untrained unschooled incels across the government, destroying entire agencies, like USAID, in violation of law, and decimating staff in many of them, including – the State Department, which has lost at least 20% of its career staff.
They were replaced by unqualified, inept, and compromised real-estate finaglers, with predictable results, according to Columbia Professor Elizabeth Saunders:
The carnage at the State Department, leaving aside USAID and the hundreds of thousands who died due to the illegal cut off of USAID assistance, was terrible. At least 1,300 civil and foreign service employees were chucked out. Another 1,700 experienced professionals, seeing Ketamine Leon's fork coming for their jugular veins, took the DOGE buyout offer.
The layoffs included 100 employees in Consular Affairs, the office charged with serving Americans overseas, 84 in Administration, and 89 in the staff Secretariat, which mobilizes, staffs, and manages crisis response.
So when the Mad King let loose the dogs of war, trapping at least 500,000 Americans in the sights of Iranian missiles and drones, the consequences, according to Popular Information, were as expected:
Due to the intensity of combat in the Middle East, other countries not directly involved in the conflict quickly began evacuating their citizens from the region. The Italian government has facilitated the evacuation of 2,500 Italians on commercial flights. The Czech Republic sent multiple flights to evacuate people stranded in the area. Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Greece, had organized flights scheduled for Wednesday, Reuters reported.
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| “It says, ‘You're on your own!’ ” |
Americans in the area are in danger of being targeted, but the State Department did not advise citizens to leave the region before the strikes began.
Before the 2003 Iraq War, in contrast, the State Department advised citizens to prepare to evacuate weeks in advance and ordered a final evacuation days before fighting began.
This year, Americans in 14 countries were not advised to evacuate until three days after the Trump administration began major combat operations in Iran. By that time, much of the region’s airspace and most airports had closed.
According to the BBC, between “500,000 and one million US nationals are estimated to be living in the Middle East.”
The State Department told Americans to use “available commercial transportation“ to evacuate. On Tuesday, when Americans called a phone number publicized by the State Department, they received an automated message: “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation. At this time, there are currently no United States evacuation points.”...
An American businessman who has been stranded in the UAE told NOTUS that when he reached a live operator, he was told to sign up online for State Department security alerts but was not offered any other help. Several news outlets spoke to stranded Americans who described feeling “trapped” and “helpless.”...
Meanwhile, U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East announced that they were shutting down or unable to help stranded Americans. On Tuesday, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem posted on X that it was not able “at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.” The embassy noted that Americans in Israel may be able to take ground transportation to Egypt and depart from Cairo’s airport, where flights have not been interrupted. However, the embassy’s post said that “the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety” if Americans took this option.
Similarly, the U.S. embassy in Qatar told Americans they “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuation” and should “take advantage of commercial transportation options.” Other U.S. embassies, including those in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon, told Americans they could not offer assistance. Some also closed and cancelled appointments....
When asked on Tuesday why there was no evacuation plan for Americans in the area, President Trump argued that it was “because it happened all very quickly,” adding, “I thought we were going to have a situation where we were gonna be attacked.”
....Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) called on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “promptly appear before Congress and explain to the American people how they so poorly planned for the protection and evacuation of Americans.” When asked by Roll Call about the lack of Marines trained in evacuations in the armada around Iran, Republican Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “We may be asking about that soon.”
Take your time, Roger. No rush.
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| State Department Ops Center, post-DOGE |
Of course the Mad King's mouthpieces denied that the insane DOGE-inspired cuts crippled the rescue effort, claiming that no overseas positions have been cut. But the organization of a mass evacuation happens in the Operations Center in Main State, where teams of experienced professionals, who've been through the drill before, coordinate across the government the procurement, dispatch, and protection of evacuation flights, as well as sending individual implementation plans to each post.
That didn't happen, in part because those people are gone and in part because the Mad King's insane decision-making process, which basically involves him watching Fox News and then deciding it's time to stage a spectacle of cruelty and destruction, short-circuits the former institutions like the National Security Council, who are there to make sure that obvious sequelae of war, like taking care of half a million Americans in harm's way, are considered and addressed.
By gutting the NSC and putting the same thirsty coat-holder who serves as Secretary of State in charge of it, the Mad King has ensured that effective planning and governance cannot occur.
St. Ronald of Bitburg, who reveled in his destruction of America's air traffic control system on his watch, would have been so proud now that Republicans have instituted a government whose functionaries can proudly state, “I'm from the government and I'm here to shag my staff on taxpayer-funded airplanes.”
