"How about the mistake of 1976! Jimmy Carter is the American most responsible for the rise of Islamic Fascism. We cut and run in Iran, turned our backs on the Shah and look at the mess we have today." ~ jimfrommaine
Exactly.
Miami Herald
Opinion - Posted on Sat, Jul. 08, 2006
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/14992603.htm
Jimmy Carter damaged our nation's security
While visiting relatives in Davie over the holiday, I read Jimmy Carter's July 4 Other Views column, Our nation needs fewer secrets, about the Freedom Of Information Act.
The U.S. government is the most transparent on the planet -- by light years. Carter's accolades for some of the most oppressive regimes is pure wishful thinking and blind assertion.
As someone who spent a military career in service to my country for four years under his tenure, I am insulted and infuriated by his self-serving claims of his exploits on behalf of tin-horn governments. All the while he exposed military secrets and applied an ax to the U.S. military to further his pacifist fantasies.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are attributable to him. His failed policies encouraged the shah of Iran to flee into exile in the United States. This act put in place a radical, fundamentalist Islamist government that killed all those friendly to our country and loyal to the shah. In appreciation of Carter's ''good works'' these radical Islamists stormed the U.S. Embassy and held its personnel hostage for more than a year.
To further ensure his legacy, Carter -- in league with his director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stansfield Turner, and Sen. Frank Church, of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- decimated the CIA's human-intelligence capability, using the bogus rationale that we had technical means that made human presence obsolete.
In another act damaging to U.S. national security, Carter exposed the top-secret development of the Stealth cruise missile as rationale for terminating the B-1 bomber. Then he returned the Panama Canal to Panama so that the Chinese could take over management of this strategic canal.
The list goes on and on.
LEONARD GATO, Cape Coral