Octopus Overlords

Some in the administration are hoping to avoid scenes reminiscent of the evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021. The crush of thousands pleading to leave the city as the Taliban took control became a defining image of America’s withdrawal.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 10:53 pm “Oaken Sonnet”

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 11:14 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 10:53 pm “Oaken Sonnet”

Dude. Don't make me google shit. We have someone here who gets paid (I assume) to do that.

A few months ago, I sat at a friend’s kitchen counter drinking whiskey and sharing deployment stories. He asked me if there was one I’d never told anyone. I realized it had been a year since the Niger mission that left four American service members dead and sparked questions about the United States’ role in the region. So I told him about Oaken Sonnet, a similarly botched mission that took place in 2013, and about why it still haunts me.

The week before Christmas in 2013, I was one of two intelligence officers who took the initial report of an attack on American forces in South Sudan that the American public has not heard enough about. If it had — and if the American military had studied the mistakes made in the mission’s planning and learned from them — the loss of those four soldiers in Niger in 2017 might have been avoided.

KHARTOUM, April 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. military evacuated American diplomats and their families from Sudan, the country's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said early on Sunday as fighting between rival commanders that has killed hundreds of civilians continued.

The operation, involving six aircraft, was carried out in coordination with the RSF, it said.

Separately, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters the U.S. military had successfully evacuated U.S. embassy personnel. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 10:49 pm

That equivalence is a stretch, and I'm unaware of any long-term US interests there...