27 Years Ago Today

Iranian "students" stormed the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran. For the next 444 days, the inept handling of the situation kept Americans in captivity. We have been paying for that inept response ever since. Thanks, Jimmy.

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  By mokus, Saturday, 4 November , 2006 @ 2:23 pm

  Yeah, thanks to Jimmy Carter we now have Islamofascism, 9/11, and the War on Terror to deal with because he was too stupid and too cowardly to protect American citizens taken hostage in our Embassy in Iran.

  The silly peanut farmer sat on his self-satisfied rear end and let our people be held hostage, let our country be made a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, and let himself be revealed for a bumbling, pathetic, fool of a screechy, preachy, milquetoast.

  And, 27 years later he still hasn’t learned a thing. He’s still running around the world sucking up to dictators and undermining the national security of the nation.

  That man should be horsewhipped and consigned to the darkest reaches of hades, along with a good many others of like mind.

  I remember those days all too well, the days, weeks, and months that went by with Jimmy Carter running his mouth, but without the courage to confront the pipsqueaks in Tehran. The situation could have been handled within 72 hours, but Carter’s procrastinations let it drag on for 444 days.

  So, yes, I’m bitter because of Carter’s incompetence the hostages weren’t released until the very hour Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President.

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  By Ollie, Saturday, 4 November , 2006 @ 2:36 pm

  Yes, Jimmy blew it. But even worse was the traitorous complicity of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and their minions who conspired with the Iranians to keep the American hostages captive until after the election. They traded American dignity and the release of Iranian frozen assets and the freedom of imprisoned Americans for an advantage in the 1980 election. There is a special place in hell for them!

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  By crosspatch, Saturday, 4 November , 2006 @ 3:51 pm

  Ollie, that is total nonsense. I don’t believe those people COULD have conspired with the Iranians to do that if they had even wanted to. And secondly, doing so didn’t change the elections. Had those hostages been released the week before the elections, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Jimmy Carter’s approval rating was in the toilet. People were upset at how he handled the abandoning of Iran and Nicaragua and in both cases, thugs filled the vacuum he created.

  Rather than working to establish democratic institutions in those countries and gradually withdraw support for the regimes, he simply ran away.

  People didn’t vote Carter out of office simply because the hostages were held until after the election, they voted him out of office because he was spineless, naive, and simple-minded.

  His policies led also to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which happened before Reagan was in office, and a Soviet buildup of weapons and “advisors” in Central America. The hostage issue was a tiny porion of the big picture. Oh, and you should also mention his absolute failure in economic policy that lead to the worst economy the US has seen since the Great Depression and hasn’t seen since.

  Carter was the worst president ever.

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  By Ollie, Saturday, 4 November , 2006 @ 11:42 pm

  Crosspatch, you seem to think that I said that Carter was a good president. As I said, Jimmy blew it. And while an “October surprise” release of hostages may not have swung the 1980 election to Carter, the Reagan camp did not want to risk it. Carter may have been ineffective, but unlike Reagan-Bush, he did not engage in treason. Perhaps if Reagan’s political advisors had your astute understanding of the mood of the contemporary American electorate, the freedom of the American hostages in Iran would not have been withheld until Reagan could welcome them home at the White House.

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  By mokus, Sunday, 5 November , 2006 @ 3:44 pm

  Sure Ollie, according to you, the guy who let the hostages sit and rot for over 14 months would surely have arranged for their release, if only the guy who brought them home would have been content to let them stay in captivity.

  Brilliant!

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  By Ollie, Monday, 6 November , 2006 @ 7:09 pm

  Mokus, listen carefully: The guy who brought them home had earlier negotiated that they stay in captivity until his predecessor left office. Reagan obstructed the earlier release of those American hostages.

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