Escape from Yemen “harrowing”

McClatchy reports that hundreds of Americans have escaped the violence in Yemen to the relative safety of Djibouti and the US embassy there.

Calling the flight from Yemen “a tough experience” for many of the evacuees, the U.S. envoy, Tom Kelly, said hundreds of Americans have arrived in Djibouti in recent days aboard foreign ships and aircraft after journeys that for some included hundreds of miles of dangerous land travel from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, to the ports of Hodeidah and Aden.

The article says that US forces have left the country and that the Obama Administration has no intention to rescue these American citizens who have waited until the last minute to make their escape;

The Obama administration so far has declined to organize a rescue mission for the estimated 3,000 to 4,000 U.S. citizens in Yemen. U.S. officials have said they believe it is too dangerous for U.S. military assets to enter Yemeni waters and air space. They’ve also suggested that organizing Americans to meet at a single departure point would put them at risk of attack from al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula or other terrorist groups seeking American hostages.

That, however, has left Americans largely on their own to find a way out of the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sanaa has been closed for months, and the last American troops in the country were evacuated last month, a few days before the Saudi bombing campaign began.

In a message posted on its website, the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa advises that an Indian naval vessel will be leaving Hodeidah for Djibouti and that it had been informed that Americans would be welcomed. But the embassy also noted that “unfortunately, we don’t have information on who to contact to board this ship.”

I don’t blame the White House, actually. It’s not the responsibility of the government to rescue people from their own bad judgement and ill-considered choices. If I was worried about my safety or the safety of my family, I would have left the country months ago. It’s not that I believe that they were asking for it, but they certainly didn’t consider that leaving the country before now would be the best choice. Putting more Americans in danger to save them those Americans from themselves is not a good answer.

Having said that, the State Department, that still has responsibility for Americans abroad, should be doing more to put those Americans in contact with folks who can move them out of the way. This is the age of quickly disseminated information and if the State Department could do that for trouble spots around the world in the 70s and 80s, they certainly should be able to do that now in the age of Twitter and email. And the State Department can do all of that from the safety of their offices in Foggy Bottom.

Category: Terror War