Well, life has been a whirlwind for me since I last posted and Nazh has been kidding me on when I'll get off the Hollywood-kick so here goes...
Ok - the question was raised last month (if I remember correctly) about Jimmy Carter. At the time I said he was the main reason why we have the problems in the Middle East (M.E.) we have today. Lets take a gander into why I believe that.
Lets look at the current trouble spots in the M.E. (the French call it the Levant). Lebanon... Gaza... West Bank ... Iraq ... Syria. If you look closely, what country has a hand in each one being as much trouble as they are? One guess... Please? One tiny guess... Ok give up??
The answer is
IRAN !!!
Yes, thats right ... I-R-A-N !!!
"Now Thai", you tell me, " Iran can't possibly be the puppeteer could it".
Yes... it can and it is.
Iran is providing materiel support (rockets, guns) and funding to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
As for Gaza, in the story below it reveals that Iran has ties with Hamas.
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20061227-082153-2822r
Note the last paragraph [emphasis mine];
Conversely, Iran is honing its retaliatory capabilities. Several hundred Hamas operatives recently left Gaza for Iran for special training by Revolutionary Guards, according to Israeli intelligence. Iran has also re-equipped Hezbollah in Lebanon with thousands of missiles and rockets to replace those fired at Israeli targets for 34 days last summer.
Same with the West Bank and Syria is in Iran's back pocket as everyone knows.
As for Iraq, Iran is providing funding and training for the groups fomenting the violence and continues to do so in an effort to fight a proxy war against us and sap our nation's will (think of what we did to the Soviets in Afghanistan in the Cold War )
"But Thai", you say, "Even if true, Iran is governed by a bunch of fanatical Shiite rulers who have always been against us."
To that I say...
NOT TRUE !!!
Iran was our ALLY for over 30 years before the revolution came in the late 70's. I'm going to let that sink in again and in case anyone missed it I'll say it again.
Iran
was
our
ALLY !!!
There was probably no bigger U.S. supporter in the Middle East than the Shah. And Jimmy Carter basically pissed on him when it counted and pissed away an extremely valuable ally and quite possibly doomed the rest of the Middle East in the process.
Remember that during the Cold War, we had Israel, Turkey and Iran as pro-Western M.E. countries that joined us as "listening posts" and bulwarks against the growing threat of the Soviet Empire.
The Shah was a loyal American friend and was trying to modernize his country. Was he entirely "clean" as a ruler? No. M.E. countries to this very day display an affinity for a "strongman" to run them. He was, in the words of, former Sec. of State, Alexander Haig more of an;
"essentially benevolent despot who was a good friend of the United States, an implacable enemy of the Left and an obstacle to the religious right."
Carter was offended that the Shah's governance didn't look exactly like America's so threatened to cut off aid to Iran unless the Shah went through with certain "reforms"., These reforms led to an impression that he was "weak". And in the M.E. you do not want to be perceived as the "weak horse". So what did militant religious leaders and students, who were offended by the Shah's push to modernize, do? They plotted a revolution.
Now this revolution erupted when the Shah came to the U.S. to visit and while he was here the revolution could've still been put down by the Shah's government. Carter told the Shah to basically "do nothing" and so he did just that. His reasoning was that the "American government has never let us down" and he had no reason to believe it would this time either.
The Shah made one crucial mistake... he trusted Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter did what he always did when confronted with evil... NOTHING !!!
He stated that this was a problem " for the Iranians to decide" and that it had nothing to do with the U.S. He basically believed that there was no difference in the way the Shah ran the country and the way this new rabble threatened to run it. Even though the revolution's sponsors quickly shouted that they would "export the revolution to the four reaches of the earth". We immediately "recognized" the new militant government in the most shameless display of appeasement in my lifetime.
What happened then? Anyone know??
That's right... we were rebuffed by the new revolutionaries as former "friends of the Shah".
In fact, quite alot of people in Iran were executed as former friends and government workers
Instead what happened was that the Ayatollah Komeini came to power and his son then took over our embassy. We then had the indignity of watching our soldiers and embassy personnel being paraded, blindfolded, in front of the TV cameras.
So what the Carter administration perceived as purely an "Iranian" matter, the rest of the world saw as a U.S. defeat (anyone see shades of this today in Iraq with Dems saying this is purely an Iraqi matter now and the Repubs saying that if we leave now we will be seen as defeated?).
Later the Ayatollah would expound that he had expected the U.S. to militarily come to the aid of the Shah and help the Iranian military and government tamp out the revolution. When that initial fear had passed and Carter blinked, the Ayatollah proclaim that "American can do nothing to us". That same thinking stayed with Iran's leadership and is still on display today.
Reagan said it best when he said this;
"Our government's decision to piously stand by while he [the Shah] was forced from office led to the establishment of a despotic regime in Tehran that was far more evil and far more tyrranical than the one it replaced. And as I was to learn through personal experience, it left a legacy of problems that would haunr our country for years to come"
I can go on and on about how this lead to Iraq declaring war on Iran and how the West supported Iraq in its war on Iran in the 80's, but that wouldn't leave more stories for next time would it?
Suffice to say... the Appeaser-in-Chief... Mr. Jimmy Carter... is quite possibly one of our worst presidents. We went from having a strong moderate ally in the M.E. to that country being a hostile, anti-American supporter of terrorism (in fact it is THE chief supporter of terrorism). All because Jimmy did nothing. Remember, appeasement isn't just a one-time thing. It doesn't just happen and then everyone forgets about it after you've gone from the world stage. It stays with people and causes more problems as it rolls on. Think of the harmless little snowball as it rolls down the mountain of snow. As it keeps rolling it gathers more mass and speed and eventually is a juggernaut too big to stop.
When all one had to do at the beginning was smash it with your boot.
Too bad that Carter's idea of a proper foreign policy response (the "boot") to an invasion of one country (Afghanistan) by another ( the Soviet Union) was to boycott the Olympics.
BTW- this is all for now and I'll have more on Jimmy in the coming weeks. I will be getting into how an ex-president should and should not act and how his "outreach" and "peace efforts" always seem to favor Arabic countries and why that is (think - financial reasons). And of course his lovely deal he worked out with the N. Koreans in the 90's so that they would give up nukes.
That sure worked out well.
Way to go Jimmy !!!
P.S. - my next post is on Global Warming and then the one after that will deal with a bit of Hollywood "goings-on" (sorry Nazh, I just can't resist).
{no problem, I get lonely on here by myself-LN}
Filed:
Jimmy Carter, Iran, Middle East, Shah, Thaiphoon
“So a pathetic fucked-up black stripper with a couple of kids gets hired by some all american white boys-all I have no doubt from “good families” - and somehow your gloating over whatever went down gets tied up by by you and your peanut gallery of whiteboy dimwits with Glenn Greenwald?”
The use of the racist term “White boy” twice in one paragraph? In a post accusing the proprietor of the site of racism?!? Wow. Got Irony? Don’t worry, though - what you lack in a sense of the absurd, you more than make up for in your lack of coherence.
Let’s look past your virulent racism to the predicate conditions in your …um … statement. Parsing your words, you seem to think that all this case revolves around is a mercantile exchange between individuals of different races. Why their race would matter to you I’ve no idea. Oh wait, I do: it’s because you’re a racist.
Moving on from that unhappy fact (I recommend Samuel Clemens to combat your peculiar instit- er, malady), and looking deeper at the case we find that it’s not *at all* about mercantilism – it’s about a rape charge that, according to the evidence in the public domain, is fraudulent - or, as you so pithily put it - “…whatever went down…”
Seeing how rape is a charge that, should it be well-founded, is fraught not only with steep criminal, but also steep social and moral penalties, it is only proper that the false accuser be subject to those same social and moral (and legal – but let’s not hold our breaths) penalties. If it comes out, as I believe it will, that she has played fast and loose with – among other things – the truth, then it will be only just that she be mocked and publicly scorned for her actions. And the truth is leaking out; hence the scorning is commencing.
Greenwald gets dragged into this because:
a. He’s guilty of multiple counts of public douchebaggery, and as such should be mocked whenever possible.
b. He’s the most perfect example of “un-credible-ness” in the known blogosphere, therefore he’s used as a superlative to compare to something so completely unbelievable you’d have to be a leftist to even *begin* to think it was true.
As an aside – it’s perfectly delicious how you drag in “…with a couple of kids…” as though this is some sort of marker in her favor.
Now, I’m all for reproductive freedom – everyone should be able to have kids. But the fact that she’s a prostitute and a drug addict who choose to have children at a young age should not ennoble her in anyone’s mind.
While we’re on the topic, the notion that many of her supporters have that this woman is somehow not responsible for her situation in life, or it’s the fault of some ephemeral force of society, is absurd (see: 88, Statement of the). She made the choices that led her to the failure to live a good and decent life. She keeps making the same choices and they (surprise!) keep leading her to the same failures. That’s not the “White Boys” fault.
”The boorishness, vulgarity and racism gets to be a bit much.”
Stop engaging in it, then.
”And then you still waste time with Jamil Hussein.”
Create your own blog, and then you can write about whatever you want, and you can even dictate the content. Meanwhile, if it’s such a “waste [of] time” to deal with the Jamil/AP story, why do you bother to read and/or comment on it? Why not simply read the headlines of the posts and say to yourself, “My goodness, that silly Patterico is yapping about that story again, I think I’ll go down to the corner store and pickup a case of 40’s with my welfare check.”
“I wish you had something more than your ego in mind when you posted here. You’re an expert, why not behave like one?”
Ah yes – you knew P’s state of mind when he posted did you? Can you also read my mind; can you tell what I’m thinking of you right this very moment?
”Why make the choice for narcissism.”
Because narcissism is the new black this year?
“You’re a big fish in your own pond.”
Patterico is the *only* fish in this pond. He pays the bills, he decides the topics of discussion. Here’s an idea: you could start your own blog and you could title it “Crackheads for Defending Spurious Rape Charges Against White Boys.” That’s just a suggestion, of course – I’m sure you could come up with something more elegant.
“This site could have been more.”
Yes, it could have: it could have had trolls that make at least a modicum of sense. Thanks for queering *that*.
”ban me if you want. It’s a serious question”
When will you learn that off-point, imbecilic postings do not an argument make?
It’s a serious question.
Comment by Abraxas — 1/12/2007 @ 1:50 pm