(I made this one a few years ago...)
Posted on 07/24/2015 5:37:14 AM PDT by SJackson
“My last year in office was the most stressful and unpleasant of my life,” writes Jimmy Carter in his new memoir A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. America’s 39th president hasn’t forgotten the root cause of the problem. “From November 4, 1979 American hostages were held captive by Iranian militants, supported by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his government.” For those who missed the Carter Era (1976-1980) there’s a bit more to it.
“This crisis was of overriding importance to me,” writes Carter, who does not explain that Iran held 52 American hostages for 444 days. He mentions not a single American hostage by name. The Iranian invasion of the U.S. embassy and the taking of the hostages was the clearest act of war against the United States since Pearl Harbor. So what was the response from America’s commander-in-chief?
“I sent a warning to the Ayatollah during the first month that I would close all access to Iran by the outside world if a hostage was harmed,” writes Carter, without explaining how he could do that. The USSR, then still in business, was one of many nations that did not follow instructions from the President of the United States. And even if he could close all access, Carter does not explain how that would resolve the crisis.
The Ayatollah, Carter explains, “took my warning seriously and was careful with the well-being of the Americans,” releasing one quickly “when his arm seemed to become paralyzed.” So even in a hostage situation, the Ayatollah Khomeini was someone Jimmy Carter could do business with. Carter says he told the Ayatollah he would “attack militarily if one was killed” but nothing came of that.
“Our goal was to free the hostages through diplomacy but we needed to be prepared for other alternatives.” After the hostages had been in captivity for two months, Carter planned a rescue mission with special forces and seven long-range helicopters. “The rescue team would then fly into Tehran at night, overwhelm the captors with as little violence as possible using night-vision equipment.” The hostages and rescuers “would helicopter to a nearby airport, where a large passenger plane would land and bring them to safety.” Everyone on Carter’s national security team agreed to the plan.
“Everything went as planned,” Carter writes, except that one helicopter returned to the carrier, another went down in a sandstorm, and another “ran into the C-130, damaging them both and killing eight crewmen.” Carter called it off and the hostages remained in captivity, a further humiliation to all Americans. The failed rescue, the former president writes, “had terrible political consequences for me,” with challenges from Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, whom the sanctimonious Carter trashes throughout the book.
“Since I had refrained from exerting military force to punish the Iranians,” Carter writes, “the failure to secure the freedom of the hostages made me vulnerable to their allegations that I was an ineffective leader.” Actually, Kennedy and Reagan were both right. Carter was an ineffective leader, and American voters, many Democrats among them, thought so too.
Ronald Reagan crushed Carter in the 1980 elections and on January 20, 1981, the first day of Reagan’s presidency, the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian regime released the 52 American hostages. Carter remains baffled, writing, “I have never known what caused the Ayatollah to delay granting their freedom until I was out of office.” For most readers, it won’t be a mystery. The Ayatollah Khomeini sized up Jimmy Carter as weak and unwilling to use military force. On the other hand, the Ayatollah remained uncertain what Ronald Reagan would do, so the Ayatollah turned the Americans loose on Reagan’s first day.
Readers of A Full Life might jump ahead to 2015. The Iranian regime is essentially unchanged, an imperialist Islamic theocracy still chanting “death to America,” “death to Israel,” still sponsoring terrorism, and still holding three, possibly four, Americans hostage. Like Carter in 1979, Barack Obama, heading into the home stretch of his presidency. And like Carter, he regards the Iranian regime as one he can deal with.
Obama has just negotiated a nuclear deal that will give the Ayatollahs everything they want, especially the lifting of sanctions. Even if the Iranian regime does not develop a nuclear weapon, that will enable them to buy one from Russia or some other nation. So what started as farce under Carter in 1979 could easily repeat as tragedy, big time, before Obama leaves office.
Meanwhile, Carter credits Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika for ending the Cold War. Reagan had nothing to do with it. The former president’s observations on Cuba are also of interest.
“Many Cuban families are deprived of good income, certain foods, cell phones, access to the internet, and basic freedoms,” Carter explains, “but they have access to good education and health care and live in a tropical environment where the soil is productive and many houses are surrounded by fruit trees.”
This, from the second worst President we’ve ever had! Well, at least he’s not number one anymore.
As little violence as possible.
What a bunch of politically correct horse-sh!t.
“Many Cuban families are deprived of good income, certain foods, cell phones, access to the internet, and basic freedoms,” Carter explains, “but they have access to good education and health care and live in a tropical environment where the soil is productive and many houses are surrounded by fruit trees.”
No fool like an old fool.
Mr Billingsley has my sympathy for having to read the senile musings of Carter.
Who was it who said of Jimmuh ‘he tried to invade Iran with four C-130s and eight helos’?
I can save everyone the trouble. Jimmy Carter did not learn a F***ing thing from presiding over the worst US Blunder till Obama got here.
Carter was a fool then, and is still a fool now. A million people have been killed because of Jimmy Carter. (Iran/Iraq War which wouldn't have happened had Idiot Carter done the right thing and backed the Shah of Iran.)
That's a shame.
I was kinda hoping each year got worse.
Meanwhile, Carter credits Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika for ending the Cold War. Reagan had nothing to do with it.
?Typical liberal. No matter what the reality, claim the opposite.
Ronald Reagan crushed Carter in the 1980 elections
What a glorious night that was. (sigggghhhhhhhh....)
Carter was never able to understand that his personal feelings about things changed nothing. He felt that if he agonized enough over an issue it would alter reality to fit what he wanted.
This came to a head with his “malaise” speech. The malaise was within him, not in society as a whole, and his attributing his feeling to our nation was the final straw for most people, fed up with his sanctimonious, weakling, half-hearted attitude towards his job.
Actually, Carter was never able to think other than what the broad & abstract U.S. foreign policy was at the time: “Democracy”. Carter was never able to put that policy in context and think about the consequences of its application outside the U.S. - worse even, he wasn’t able to manage it when it didn’t work.
From worst to second worst.
Poor Jimmy can’t seem to be the best at *anything*.
Bye Jimmy, and *no* we don’t miss you.
There is only one lessoned to be learned by Cater’s undermining of the Shah. Islam is incompatible with democracy or a republican form over government, so support the friendly Islamic leaders leaders when you can.
“The rescue team would then fly into Tehran at night, overwhelm the captors with as little violence as possible using night-vision equipment.”
I think I see his problem, it should have been
“with as much violence as possible”.
(I made this one a few years ago...)
Jimmy Carter: A Life of Bull.
The hostage crisis should have been ended from the beginning by the United States stating that if in 7 days the hostages weren't released, we would be coming with a full scale military assault. Only because this man had no fortitude, were the hostages there for so long.
If Carter had any judgment at all, we would not have the problem we have today in Iran. Keep in mind that it was Carter, the democrats, and Ted Kennedy who prevented the Shah of Iran from getting health coverage for his cancer here in this country. They disallowed him from coming. Think the Ayatollah didn't catch on to that?
Now we have this dingbat in the White House making parallel decisions with regard to Iran. Let me guess how this negotiated deal will go.
Charlie Beckwith, the commander of Delta Force in charge of the mission, says he informed Carter’s point man, Warren Christopher, that in the rescue effort, “Anyone who is holding a hostage, we intend to shoot him, and shoot him right between the eyes. We intend to shoot him twice.” Christopher was stunned, according to Beckwith. “Would you consider shooting them in the leg, or in the ankle or the shoulder?”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227300/how-solve-pirate-problem-jonah-goldberg
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