And if anyone expects that his enemies are going to cease their incessant screaming and foaming at the mouth over it, they are quite naive.
ABC's Nightline, which is usually a liberal lint-picking exercise, did a much better job of putting the new hostage-taking campaign into perspective, explaining carefully how local expressions of concern, sympathy, and support become toys in the hands of the hostage-holders as they attempt to manipulate governments and outcomes.
Meanwhile, the local ABC affiliate rushed to the airport for an ambush interview of returning Kellogg, Brown and Root employees. (The old M.W. Kellogg engineering company got bought several years ago during the continuing collapse and "consolidation" of the oil service industry.) One employee was quoted during the interview as saying that KBR employees were told that they couldn't so much as pick up a weapon in self-defense while they were in Iraq; it was a firing offense. I'm not surprised the Texans came home; they recognize an unreasonable proposition when they see one. The New Yorkers are presumably still there, glowing with inward Hillaryness and Chuckiness as they resolutely refuse to defend themselves.
The author of the thread article appears not to be aware of the depth and power of the plan President Carter put in motion during the Desert One fiasco. That was a totally weather-imposed operational failure, aggravated by Washington's (Carter's) insistence on micromanagement: people couldn't do anything until the satellite was up, e.g., so that Carter could remain in close contact with the field commanders. Charlie Beckwith was made to drag a 100-yard-long chain of impediments into the field, and that and the bad weather killed his op.
The operation was written up from knowledgable sources about 10 years ago in Soldier of Fortune. It involved a sneaky-pete infiltration of the embassy, quick knockdown of the "student" thugs, and then massive air cover for the extraction: Spooky, F-111's, carrier air, everybody was to get involved. The embassy was to be destroyed after removal of the hostages, and Spectre gunships and "Daisy Cutters" were to be used to suppress the "students" and Pasdaran responding to the area when the alarm went up. The operation, if carried through with, would have caused absolutely massive casualties among the Iranian partisans.
SOF's principal source was a junior Air Force intelligence officer who was familiar with the op-order. He said he was glad the plan failed in the desert, because in his opinion it would likely have failed in the city with significant American casualties and a casus belli.
Which wouldn't faze me now, but this was barely five years after the fall of Saigon, when the Senate was still stiff with people like Birch Bayh, Gaylord Nelson, and Frank Church. The country and the Congress were at their flaccid, bellyfeeling worst, and only doubtfully capable of standing up for a strong and very bloody operation like Beckwith's was supposed to be.