The Wages of Appeasement: How Jimmy Carter and academic multiculturalists helped bring us Sept. 11.

Opinion Journal ^ | 5/10/2004 | John Fund

[Utah Girl]

Imagine a different Nov. 4, 1979, in Tehran. Shortly after Iranian terrorists storm the American Embassy and take some 90 American hostages, President Carter announces that Islamic fundamentalism is not a legitimate response to the excess of the shah but a new and dangerous fascism that threatens all that liberal society holds dear. And then he issues an ultimatum to Tehran's leaders: Release the captives or face a devastating military response.

When that demand is not met, instead of freezing Iran's assets, stopping the importation of its oil, or seeking support at the U.N., Mr. Carter orders an immediate blockade of the country, followed by promises to bomb, first, all of its major military assets, and then its main government buildings and residences of its ruling mullocracy. The Ayatollah Khomeini might well have called his bluff; we may well have tragically lost the hostages (151 fewer American lives than the Iranian-backed Hezbollah would take four years later in a single day in Lebanon). And there might well have been the sort of chaos in Tehran that we now witness in Baghdad. But we would have seen it all in 1979--and not in 2001, after almost a quarter-century of continuous Middle East terrorism, culminating in the mass murder of 3,000 Americans and the leveling of the World Trade Center.

The 20th century should have taught the citizens of liberal democracies the catastrophic consequences of placating tyrants. British and French restraint over the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the absorption of the Czech Sudetenland, and the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia did not win gratitude but rather Hitler's contempt for their weakness. Fifty million dead, the Holocaust and the near destruction of European civilization were the wages of "appeasement"--a term that early-1930s liberals proudly embraced as far more enlightened than the old idea of "deterrence" and "military readiness."

< snip>

In contrast, George W. Bush, impervious to such self-deception, has, in a mere 2 1/2 years, reversed the perilous course of a quarter-century. Since Sept. 11, he has removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, begun to challenge the Middle East through support for consensual government, isolated Yasser Arafat, pressured the Europeans on everything from anti-Semitism to their largesse to Hamas, removed American troops from Saudi Arabia, shut down fascistic Islamic "charities," scattered al Qaeda, turned Pakistan from a de facto foe to a scrutinized neutral, rounded up terrorists in the United States, pressured Libya, Iran and Pakistan to come clean on clandestine nuclear cheating, so far avoided another Sept. 11--and promises that he is not nearly done yet. If the Spanish example presages further terrorist attacks on European democracies at election time, at least Mr. Bush has made it clear that America--alone if need be--will neither appease nor ignore such killers but in fact finish the terrible war that they started.

As Jimmy Carter also proved in November 1979, one man really can make a difference.

[Maynerd]

Ahh, Jimmy's legacy lives on. Reagan slayed Carter's inflation and the Sandinistas. But Islamic terrorism continued to thrive. Jimmy Neville Chamberlin Carter deserves great shame for fecklessly allowing Iran to desintigrate from loyal modernizing/westernizing ally to fascist enemy.

[Euro-American Scum]

Reagan slayed Carter's inflation and the Sandinistas.

I think one reason Carter has been such a leftist loon over the years is that he never got over removing Ronald Reagan's boot from his arse.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[opinionator]

Roll the tape backward from the USS Cole in 2000, through the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the Khobar Towers in 1996, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the destruction of the American Embassy and annex in Beirut in 1983, the mass murder of 241 U.S. Marine peacekeepers asleep in their Lebanese barracks that same year, and assorted kidnappings and gruesome murders of American citizens and diplomats (including TWA Flight 800, Pan Am 103, William R. Higgins, Leon Klinghoffer, Robert Dean Stethem and CIA operative William Francis Buckley), until we arrive at the Iranian hostage-taking of November 1979: That debacle is where we first saw the strange brew of Islamic fascism, autocracy and Middle East state terrorism--and failed to grasp its menace, condemn it and go to war against it.

Hello!

[thatsmrfoster2u]

Something is strange here. The same article is on the 'City Journal' website with Victor Davis Hanson as the author.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Great thread title. Unfortunately, the problem runs deeper than Jimmy Carter. People in the West have been programmed not to respect their own civilization by liberal secular humanists. People who can't stand the sight of trees and Nativity scenes at Christmas.

[Cincinna]

This is a remarkable article.long but well worth the time.

It hits all the right notes and starts to place 9-11 in historical perpective. It shows how the actions of one man, Jimmy Carter,worst American President bar none, set in place a chain reaction that brought us to the war in Iraq.
It also shows how one man, George W. Bush understands the historical reality he and the American people are faced with and acts accordingly.

One person can make a difference. That is why this election is so important.

[boris]

At the time, my proposal was to place one (1) B-52 armed with a nuclear weapon on a lazy circle over Tehran. U.S. to Iran: "The plane has X hours of fuel. The pilot has been ordered to deliver his weapon if he is about to run out of fuel. Release our hostages, or watch the birdie."

Naturally, such threats must actually be carried out to be effective.

--Boris

[mtntop3]

This article, by Victor Davis Hanson the military historian and author, is profound. Readers may want to bookmark it. Thank you for posting it, Utah Girl.

[Guenevere]

Thanks for posting this Utah Girl....

I have long been ashamed & distrustful of Carter....

..what he did to us all those years ago....

...he has damaged our country & its security beyond belief!

He will answer to God..(as we all will)...

..he is a Bill Clinton on many levels...they read from the same playbook!

Thank goodness for Reagan!

[TomB]

About 3 weeks ago I had a US Congressman (Dem) in my office. He has been a patient for years and our families have been close for even longer. When he is in, we of course discuss politics, and, also of course, I usually get the boilerplate "Meet the Press" non-answers.

However, this time, discussing the troubles with the fundamentalist islamists, I got him to admit that the whole problem essentially began with Carter withdrawing support from the Shah. I said to him that all the people the Savak was making disappear were the same people we are fighting now. If we had left the Shah take care of business, things might be a lot different now. He reluctantly agreed.

For him to say that is about as damning for Carter as you can get.

[zook]

bump bump bump

[Jimmy Valentine]

"Ahh, Jimmy's legacy lives on"

If good old Jimbo had sent some CIA people to Paris to "push a button" on Khomeini and his five top people, there is every reason to believe that none of the subsequent problems would have happened.

Regards,

[Valin]

Consider yourself pinged.

[aculeus]

Big bump!

[Tolik]

This is actually Victor Davis Hanson article. It was posted before under a bit different title, but VDH stuff is worth repeating.

Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP  

[please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles]

If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse

His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

His blog: http://victorhanson.com/index.html     BIO: http://victorhanson.com/Author/index.html

Yes, he is listened by the Bush Administration; they like him maybe as much as we do: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085464/posts?page=6#6

[Tolik]

Carter was the best US President the Soviet Union could wish for.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[metesky]

Carter: a small man with delusions of adequacy.