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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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 Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 3:46 am Post subject: JIMMY CARTER CAUSED IT ALL |
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Just a thought.
If Carter had not let the Shah of Iran, a staunch US ally, be toppled, Saddam Hussein would never have grown hair on his chest and we wouldn't be where we are now.
Fanatic religious zeolots in charge of Iran.
War in Iraq.
Whadda ya think?
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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waltjones
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 392
Location: 'bout 40 miles north of Seattle
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 8:20 pm Post subject: Carter |
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Carter was the start of the Democrats becoming a militarily ineffectual party of appeasers. I wish Zell Miller would run! Semper Fi!
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Walt Jones (USMC, '65 - '69) It says much about the person who defends a man with no honor. |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, why don't we just blame Ronnie Reagan as his Adminitration decided to really throw their support behind the Mujahadeen. And as some of you might remember, bin Laden was a Mujahadeen Commander. One of our allies against the Soviet Union!
Plus, we had no trouble under Reagan giving weapons to Saddam when he was fighting the Iranians. At least try to get some of the history straight! |
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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| ROTC DAD wrote: | Oh, why don't we just blame Ronnie Reagan as his Adminitration decided to really throw their support behind the Mujahadeen. And as some of you might remember, bin Laden was a Mujahadeen Commander. One of our allies against the Soviet Union!
Plus, we had no trouble under Reagan giving weapons to Saddam when he was fighting the Iranians. At least try to get some of the history straight! |
OK
Who were the Mujahadeen fighting just then?
And we would not have been supporting Iraq against Iran if Carter had not allowed the Shah to be deposed.
Just kinda thinking out loud.
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 9:50 pm Post subject: Re: JIMMY CARTER CAUSED IT ALL |
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| carpro wrote: | Just a thought.
If Carter had not let the Shah of Iran, a staunch US ally, be toppled, Saddam Hussein would never have grown hair on his chest and we wouldn't be where we are now.
Fanatic religious zeolots in charge of Iran.
War in Iraq.
Whadda ya think? |
How exactly was he supposed to prevent it? History is full of Governments being overthrown by their people. Is there some way we can decide which is god or not and take action to create the outcome we want. |
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carpro
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Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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I believe he urged the shah not to clamp down on the dissent in the interest of human rights.
The shah, being a loyal ally, did what Carter suggested. Radicals took Americans hostage and the rest is history.
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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mikest
PO2
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 377
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting. I'll take your word on that, but I don't think it would have mattered in the long run.
In case you can't tell, I'm always conflicted by our alliances in situations like this, Iraq and Afghanistan. There is the fact that we support the enemies of our bigger enemies, but it seems to bite us in the ass just about every time. I have a hard time faulting the intial logic of it but hate the outcome in many cases. |
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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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| mikest wrote: | Interesting. I'll take your word on that, but I don't think it would have mattered in the long run.
In case you can't tell, I'm always conflicted by our alliances in situations like this, Iraq and Afghanistan. There is the fact that we support the enemies of our bigger enemies, but it seems to bite us in the ass just about every time. I have a hard time faulting the intial logic of it but hate the outcome in many cases. |
It bites us in the ass a lot, but what else are we to do.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan without provacation and claimed they were invited. If we send troops, you have a direct conflict with the Soviets, which could get larger. So we support the Mujahadeen.
Yes , we know what that led to now, but the alternative was to just let the Soviets have Afghanistan. Their history was one of never relinquishing control of a country once they took it over.
The question was, who might be next?
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I believe he urged the shah not to clamp down on the dissent in the interest of human rights. The shah, being a loyal ally, did what Carter suggested. Radicals took Americans hostage and the rest is history. |
Sounds partly true. But we repeatedly learn and then forget that when we side with tin-hat dictators, we end up creating new enemies and find events ultimately spiraling out of control. By the time Carter was in office, the Shah's secret police, disappearances, torture chambers and self-interest were apparent to most Iranians, enough of whom were already laying plans for revolt.
"If only Carter had allowed the Shah to continue with the totalitarian practices?" Is that what you're saying?
I say if we hadn't overthrown the Shah's democratic predecessor and if we'd held ourselves to our own rhetoric about supporting freedom and democracy, the ayatollahs probably wouldn't be in power.
Our loyal allies in the third world do what the US tells them? Is that also what you're saying? When we ask them to respect human rights, they listen to those who butter their bread? I'll accept that but I also believe this seldom happens. We might play lip service to human rights, but rarely have we been firm in our demands that friendly dictators actually follow through.
Funny Carpo, you work so hard at denying the prevalence of human rights abuses in Vietnam, but sound like you see them as an important and useful practice in winning.
Do you think that if only more abuses had occurred in Vietnam, we might have won? By this logic, the problem wasn't that vets were wrongly accused of being human rights abusers, but rather that they were too constrained by human rights considerations to be effective?
Would we have won Vietnam if we'd just discarded the Geneva and Hague conventions, Carpo? |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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carpro,
I'm trying to keep my posts here to a minimum because I've found that with the exception of a few people on this site, reasonable debate appears to be beyond their comprehension.
But I do have to tell you that blaming Carter was a pretty mean and shiftless trick. The whole point of my rejoinder was that you can always assign blame to whichever administration you want if you look for only specific facts.
The Mujahadeen were fighting the Soviet Union. The Mujahadeen were made up of groups which later became the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Northern Alliance, and if I remember correctly, the Southern Alliance (which didn't last very long). We had no trouble giving them weapons when we believed those weapons would only be used against the Soviets and that these groups would act only in our interest and with no interests of their own.
Essentially, we ignored what they were telling us because two of these groups made it perfectly clear early on that they did not want any infidels dictating to them.
As for Saddam and Iran. If you go back, Iran did have a duly elected government which we helped overthrow, so when Carter withdrew US support for the Shah, certain Iranian groups used the opportunity to rebel. It says something about the Shah's hold on Iran that he could not maintain control without full US support. The facade looked nice, but the foundation had decayed.
So when we wanted to beat up on Iran, we found someone who we thought we could control (how many times are we going to do this before we learn anything) and supplied him with the arms necessary to invade Iran. Remember, Saddam invaded Iran before he ever invaded Kuwait. He was always an opportunist and saw the Iranian revolution as sufficiently weakening the central authority so that he could Invade and grab hold of some of the oil-fields, thereby expanding Iraq and gaining wealth. And, again, we missed what his actions were telling us.
What we ended up doing by aiding Saddam was uniting Iranians behind their repressive government. To paraphrase Ghandi, "I would rather be ruled by a home-grown tyrant than a benevolent occupier."
And given our track record so far, we seem to have missed all the signs in Iraq as well. |
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hist/student
Lieutenant
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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unabashed comprehensive retraction
Last edited by hist/student on Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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hist/student,
I'm sure you may be right about that as to what he was called. I remember someone having written that he was a Mujahadeen Commander. I don't think this detracts from what I wrote. |
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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: | | Quote: | | I believe he urged the shah not to clamp down on the dissent in the interest of human rights. The shah, being a loyal ally, did what Carter suggested. Radicals took Americans hostage and the rest is history. |
Sounds partly true. But we repeatedly learn and then forget that when we side with tin-hat dictators, we end up creating new enemies and find events ultimately spiraling out of control. By the time Carter was in office, the Shah's secret police, disappearances, torture chambers and self-interest were apparent to most Iranians, enough of whom were already laying plans for revolt.
"If only Carter had allowed the Shah to continue with the totalitarian practices?" Is that what you're saying?
I say if we hadn't overthrown the Shah's democratic predecessor and if we'd held ourselves to our own rhetoric about supporting freedom and democracy, the ayatollahs probably wouldn't be in power.
Our loyal allies in the third world do what the US tells them? Is that also what you're saying? When we ask them to respect human rights, they listen to those who butter their bread? I'll accept that but I also believe this seldom happens. We might play lip service to human rights, but rarely have we been firm in our demands that friendly dictators actually follow through.
Funny Carpo, you work so hard at denying the prevalence of human rights abuses in Vietnam, but sound like you see them as an important and useful practice in winning.
Do you think that if only more abuses had occurred in Vietnam, we might have won? By this logic, the problem wasn't that vets were wrongly accused of being human rights abusers, but rather that they were too constrained by human rights considerations to be effective?
Would we have won Vietnam if we'd just discarded the Geneva and Hague conventions, Carpo? |
LOL!
Sparky, you dipwad. If I was guppy fishin', I woulda done reeled you in and threw you back to grow some more.
I never said any of those things. You need to go back and read the whole thread over again. This time, put all thoughts of what your grand rhetorical response might be, and actually read the content.
Posing a question or throwing out a theory hardly says what you got out of it. You don't really have a clue what I think about any of it.
I invite your opinion and response without your dull wit trying to make something out of nothing.
_________________
"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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carpro
Admin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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| ROTC DAD wrote: | carpro,
I'm trying to keep my posts here to a minimum because I've found that with the exception of a few people on this site, reasonable debate appears to be beyond their comprehension.
But I do have to tell you that blaming Carter was a pretty mean and shiftless trick. The whole point of my rejoinder was that you can always assign blame to whichever administration you want if you look for only specific facts.
The Mujahadeen were fighting the Soviet Union. The Mujahadeen were made up of groups which later became the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Northern Alliance, and if I remember correctly, the Southern Alliance (which didn't last very long). We had no trouble giving them weapons when we
believed those weapons would only be used against the Soviets and that these groups would act only in our interest and with no interests of their own.
Essentially, we ignored what they were telling us because two of these groups made it perfectly clear early on that they did not want any infidels dictating to them.
As for Saddam and Iran. If you go back, Iran did have a duly elected government which we helped overthrow, so when Carter withdrew US support for the Shah, certain Iranian groups used the opportunity to rebel. It says something about the Shah's hold on Iran that he could not maintain control without full US support. The facade looked nice, but the foundation had decayed.
So when we wanted to beat up on Iran, we found someone who we thought we could control (how many times are we going to do this before we learn anything) and supplied him with the arms necessary to invade Iran. Remember, Saddam invaded Iran before he ever invaded Kuwait. He was always an opportunist and saw the Iranian revolution as sufficiently weakening the central authority so that he could Invade and grab hold of some of the oil-fields, thereby expanding Iraq and gaining wealth. And, again, we missed what his actions were telling us.
What we ended up doing by aiding Saddam was uniting Iranians behind their repressive government. To paraphrase Ghandi, "I would rather be ruled by a home-grown tyrant than a benevolent occupier."
And given our track record so far, we seem to have missed all the signs in Iraq as well. |
ROTC
Since you didn't try to put any words in my mouth like ol' Sparkmeister, I agree with about 90 % of what you wrote.
Being mean and shiftless is not my style. Shifty? Maybe. Mean? My kids think so but my dog loves me.
_________________
"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service." |
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:58 pm Post subject: Re: JIMMY CARTER CAUSED IT ALL |
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| carpro wrote: | Just a thought.
If Carter had not let the Shah of Iran, a staunch US ally, be toppled, Saddam Hussein would never have grown hair on his chest and we wouldn't be where we are now.
Fanatic religious zeolots in charge of Iran.
War in Iraq.
Whadda ya think? |
Excerpt from "The Fruits of Appeasement"
Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_the_fruits.html
Imagine a different November 4, 1979, in Teheran. Shortly after Iranian terrorists storm the American embassy and take some 90 American hostages, President Jimmy 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 Teheran’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 UN, 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 may 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 may well have been the sort of chaos in Teheran 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 rest of Professor Hanson's article is well worth reading. |
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