Carter Admits to Being Weak, Bowing to International Terrorism

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, because President Reagan completely U-turned Carters policies of appeasement and drew the Soviets into an arms race they could not win.

To be fair, a lot of people on the right thought Reagan's meeting with Gorbachev and discussions to reduce nuclear arms (among other things) was appeasement as well.

[Straybow]

Yeah, the same guy who said he saw nothing but love in the eyes of Idi Amin.

[dannubis]

"and got the Russians to invade Afghanistan "


Yes, because President Reagan completely U-turned Carters policies of appeasement and drew the Soviets into an arms race they could not win.

I seriously doubt Reagan realized that his front end and back end were connected, let alone that he could stage a geopolitical event 10 years out.

He was your typical right wing cowboy: showing off he had a bigger gun. The fact that the other side was even more idiotic than him and busted themselves trying to polish their gun isn't much of an accomplishment neither.

Carter OTOH was a smart man. Too smart for the majority of the USians or so it seems.

[SpencerH]

To be fair, a lot of people on the right thought Reagan's meeting with Gorbachev and discussions to reduce nuclear arms (among other things) was appeasement as well.

While I cant recall anyone in particular, I'm sure there were those who opposed the meetings with Garbachev. No one thought it was appeasement though.

[SpencerH]

I seriously doubt Reagan realized that his front end and back end were connected, let alone that he could stage a geopolitical event 10 years out.

He was your typical right wing cowboy: showing off he had a bigger gun. The fact that the other side was even more idiotic than him and busted themselves trying to polish their gun isn't much of an accomplishment neither.

Carter OTOH was a smart man. Too smart for the majority of the USians or so it seems.

Perhaps you should try reading the other posts first before spewing your inane commentary.

[Imran Siddiqui]

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/17/magazine/the-right-against-reagan.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

(back in 1988)

After Reagan's signing the INF treaty, and after what conservatives view as his public embrace of the Soviet leader, the disenchantment of right-wingers is at a peak. They feel jilted by their prince and compelled to fight him to try to stem the tide of history.

Some conservatives worry that Reagan has been beguiled by Gorbachev, to the detriment of American interests. As Senator James A. McClure of Idaho warns, ''We've had leaders who got into a personal relationship and have gotten soft - I'm thinking of Roosevelt and Stalin.''

The treaty is the immediate target, but the larger object is to frustrate Reagan's push for broader accommodation with Gorbachev - specifically, the President's drive to sign a strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) at a Moscow summit next summer.

''We're going beyond this treaty to have a battle on the whole East-West relationship,'' asserts Richard Viguerie, a right-wing publicity man and fund-raiser. ''Fighting this battle will have the effect of fighting the next treaty, the loans and credits that Gorbachev wants, the whole detente apparatus that Reagan has signed on to.''

Already, right-wing groups - using sophisticated techniques deployed so successfully by the left-liberal coalition in its battle against the confirmation of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court - have mounted a strong campaign against the INF treaty. They have mailed out close to 300,000 letters opposing it. They have circulated 5,000 cassette recordings of Gen. Bernard Rogers, former Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, attacking it. And finally, they are preparing to run newspaper ads this month savaging Reagan as a new Neville Chamberlain, signing an accord with Hitler and gullibly predicting ''peace for our time.''

Even before Reagan signed the treaty with Gorbachev on Dec. 8, right-wing strategists were organizing. One week before the signing, the core of ''the outside network'' -some two dozen conservative leaders heading mass organizations that claim a total of 1 million to 2 million members - held a strategy dinner at the Ramada Inn in suburban Tysons Corner, Va.

The table talk, recalled one participant, was full of frustration, and focused on the question of ''what to do about summit fever, what to do about Reagan's relationship with Gorbachev - the idea being that Reagan was appeasing liberals in Congress, appeasing the Communists, caving in on taxes, putting moderates like Frank Carlucci at Defense, and cutting deals with the evil empire.''

A sharp split developed over strategy. Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, and Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail specialist, wanted the conservative movement to break openly with Reagan. Others agreed to fight his policies but argued that it was bad politics to attack the President personally, urging their colleagues to ''Remember N.C.P.A.C.,'' the National Conservative Political Action Committee. After the Soviet Union shot down a Korean airliner in 1983, the committee's chairman at the time, John T. (Terry) Dolan, had attacked President Reagan for not being tougher with Moscow. ''It boomeranged,'' said one conservative leader. ''Some people wrote that they'd never give N.C.P.A.C. another dime'' because of Dolan's criticisms.

At the Ramada Inn dinner, the leaders decided to set up a new coalition, the Anti-Appeasement Alliance, which would fight the trend exemplified by the INF treaty but would not attack the President personally. However, in a television interview two days later, Reagan infuriated old allies by declaring that foes of the INF treaty believed war with Moscow was inevitable; and he seemed to excuse Gorbachev's occupation of Afghanistan by saying that the Soviet leader had inherited the policy.

The next day, Phillips charged that Reagan was ''fronting as a useful idiot for Soviet propaganda.'' In the Senate, several longtime Reagan supporters voiced outrage at Reagan. Boomed Malcolm Wallop: ''Almost as offensive as his calling us warmongers was his apology for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.''

[DinoDoc]

The Canadian government showed more courage than Carter did when it came to getting American hostages home.

I did enjoy this quote though: The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan, whose victory over Carter is largely attributed to the crisis.

As if his incompetent handling of the economy had nothing to do with it as well.

[dannubis]

Perhaps you should try reading the other posts first before spewing your inane commentary.

Talking about inane...

[Berzerker]

"and got the Russians to invade Afghanistan "

By that I suppose you mean that Carter's weakness was perceived by the Soviets as an opportune time to expand their empire toward their ultimate goal, a slave state on the Indian Ocean.

Not at all, the Russians went in because their puppet govt in Kabul was in trouble, Carter et al had secretly armed the resistance and it was the Russian proxy that was weak. That policy expanded after the Russians went in to suppress the rebels, and it was expanded under Reagan and eventually bled the Russians dry. Carter could have gotten us stuck in Iran and C America (etc etc etc) after Vietnam but he kept us out of numerous potential quagmires and drew the Russians into the disaster that broke their back. Pretty damn good results given the last ~20 years of morons running the country, they got us into the same trap Carter set up for the Russians, and now we're being bled in Afghanistan.

"10 years later the cold war was over"

Yes, because President Reagan completely U-turned Carters policies of appeasement and drew the Soviets into an arms race they could not win.

Carter was arming the Afghans long before Reagan, that was no u turn. And the Cold War ended with the Russian debacle in Afghanistan, that convinced average Russians of the futility of it all and they stood up and ended both wars.

[OzzyKP]

Saving 20,000 lives.

Carter.

[David Floyd]

[quote] he did try to free them, and it got other people killed. That was the bad move, not waiting 1 1/2 years. So, any reason? Lets ask the former hostages if they'd rather be dead along with a bunch of other people or free after 444 days. [quote]

Not the point. In a hostage situation, if you pay off the hostage takers and free the hostage, of course the hostage will be grateful. That doesn't mean you should pay ransom.

Similar thing here. Of course the hostages preferred the outcome, but Carter had no way of predicting what would happen. He had a responsibility to, primarily, ensure the national security and sovereignty of the United States, a responsibility he failed to discharge by allowing a foreign nation to hold American hostages for 444 days with no response other than "negotiations" and a bull****, half-cocked special forces raid. Hell, Ross Perot showed some balls, it's too bad he wasn't President at the time.

Ozzy, the lives of 20,000, 200,000, or even 2,000,000 Iranians were irrelevant here. If it took killing all of them, that's what we should have done. If it took using nuclear weapons, then, in consultation with the Soviets, we should have done so. Nuclear weapons likely wouldn't have been necessary, of course, but a large scale bombing campaign would have been just fine. We also could have overtly supported and supplied an earlier Iraqi invasion. We could have blockaded Iran, and we could have told them that if their response to our actions was to kill the hostages, then the kid gloves would come off. Hell, we could have just said that we were going to land a Marine battalion, march to Tehran, and any hint of organized resistance to the rescue mission would result in turning Iran into a wasteland.

And if we had done so, by the way, we wouldn't have to worry about them now.

Carter was responsible for a)the national security of the United States, and b)protecting the hostages. While he arguably protected the hostages, insofar as they survived, he certainly didn't discharge his duty to safeguard national security, something at which he failed abjectly throughout his Presidency.

[Berzerker]

what ransom? What did Carter pay for their release? Reagan was dealing arms to free hostages, are you thinking of that episode?

Ozzy, the lives of 20,000, 200,000, or even 2,000,000 Iranians were irrelevant here. If it took killing all of them, that's what we should have done.

Carter was responsible for a)the national security of the United States, and b)protecting the hostages. While he arguably protected the hostages, insofar as they survived, he certainly didn't discharge his duty to safeguard national security, something at which he failed abjectly throughout his Presidency.

our national security would not have been served by invading Iran and killing 1000s of people.

[BeBMan]

DF is a true foreign policy genius. In midst of the cold war consult with the USSR to make them do nothing while you mass nuke their immediate neighbour

[Straybow]

[Q=dannubis;5707724]Carter OTOH was a smart man. Too smart for the majority of the USians or so it seems.[/Q] Carter is an idiot who thinks, still to this day, that because he brokered a peace deal between two leaders who actually wanted peace, he has a "gift" for making peace with leaders who use him to placate the similarly weak-minded give-peace-a-chancers in the West while they continue their terrorism.

He's like Charlie Brown:
[Yasser in Oslo:] I'll hold the football, you kick it. [Pulls ball away]
[Carter:] Aaaaaaagggghhhh! [thud]

[Yasser in Madrid:] I'll hold the football, you kick it. [Pulls ball away]
[Carter:] Aaaaaaagggghhhh! [thud]

[Abbas:] I'll hold the football, you kick it. [Pulls ball away]
[Carter:] Aaaaaaagggghhhh! [thud]

[Kim Jong-Il:] Ooooh, this never gets old! Can I be next? Hey Carter, I'll hold the football, you kick it...

[dannubis]

Your list gives your agenda away...