Amazing how the left is always ready to support America's enemies and the supporters of our enemies.
Carter caves to Russians in Afghanistan and the Muslims in Iran. Clinton's legacy is 9/11 because of his refusal to take bin Laden from the Sudan. Not to mention his pandering to the Chinese and NKoreans. Kerry, already having sold out to North Vietnamese, now wants to do the same with the French and the Muslims... Bruce http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull%26c id=1098851590035 Oct. 27, 2004 21:01 | Updated Oct. 28, 2004 6:53 How 'Death to America' was born By AMIR TAHERI When Americans go to the polls next Tuesday they would do well to remember two events that have altered their lives forever. The first was the raid on the United States' embassy in Teheran, and the seizure of American hostages on November 4, 1979. The second was the September 11, 2001 attacks against New York and Washington. The embassy seizure showed that Americans were no longer safe outside their homeland and that even diplomatic immunity would not protect them. The 9/11 attacks showed that the Americans were no longer safe even in their own homeland, and that no amount of military clout could protect them against enemies that recognize no bounds. In a sense the 1979 attack on the US embassy in Teheran could be regarded as the opening scene of a drama that reached its catharsis on September 11, 2001. Here is why. The 1979 embassy attack came at a time that the administration of president Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Teheran. When the Islamic revolution started in Iran, the Carter administration saw it as the confirmation of its assumption that only Islamists had enough popular support to provide an alternative to both the existing despotic regimes and the pro-Soviet leftist movements. The Carter administration went out of its way to court the new regime in Teheran. A ban imposed on the sale of arms and materiel to Iran, imposed in 1978, was lifted, and a US presidential finding, signed by President Eisenhower in 1954, was dusted up to reaffirm Washington's commitment to defending Iran against Soviet or other threats. Just weeks after the mullahs' regime was formed, national security advisor Zbigniew Bzerzinski traveled to Morocco to meet Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah Khomeini's first prime minister. At the meeting, Bzrezinski invited the new Iranian regime to enter into a strategic partnership with the United States. The embassy raid came two days after the Bzrezinski-Bazargan meeting in Morocco and, by all accounts, took Khomeini by surprise. It is now clear that leftist groups opposed to rapprochement with the US had inspired the raid. Khomeini saw the incident as a leftist ploy to undermine his authority and was concerned about the possibility of the US taking military action against his still fragile regime. According to his late son Ahmad, who had been asked to coordinate with the embassy-raiders, the ayatollah feared "thunder and lightening" from Washington. What came, instead, was a series of bland statements by Carter and his aides pleading for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds. Carter's envoy to the UN, Andrew Young, described Khomeini as "a Twentieth Century saint," and begged the ayatollah to show "compassion." Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini. Written in longhand, it was an appeal from "one believer to a man of God." Carter's syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini. As days passed, with the American diplomats paraded in front of television cameras blindfolded and threatened with execution, it became increasingly clear that there would be no "thunder and lightning" from Washington. By the end of the first week of the drama, that was to last for 444 days and ended the day Ronald Reagan entered the White House, Khomeini's view of the United States had changed. Ahmad Khomeini's memoirs echo the surprise that his father, the ayatollah, showed, as the Carter administration behaved "like a headless chicken." What especially surprised Khomeini was that Cater and his aides, notably secretary of state Cyrus Vance, rather than condemning the seizure and the treatment of the hostages as a barbarous act, appeared apologetic for unspecified mistakes supposedly committed by the US and asked for forgiveness and magnanimity. (Continued from page 1 of 2) Matters became worse when a military mission sent by Carter to rescue the hostages ended in tragedy in the Iranian desert. The A-Team dispatched by Carter fled under the cover of night, leaving behind the charred bodies of eight of their comrades. The Carter administration was plunged into internal feuds as Vance resigned in protest against the attempt to rescue the hostages. It was then that Khomeini coined his notorious phrase "America cannot do a damn thing." He ordered that the slogan "Death to America" be inscribed in all official buildings and vehicles. The star-spangled banner was to be painted at the entrance of airports, railway stations, ministries, factories, schools, hotels and bazaars so that the faithful could trample it under feet every day. The slogan "America cannot do a damn thing" became the basis of strategies worked out by Islamist terrorists, including those that, for doctrinal or political reasons, opposed Khomeini. That slogan was tested and proved right for two decades. Between November 4, 1979 and September 11, 2001 a total of 671 American hostages were seized and held as hostages for varying lengths of time in several Muslim countries. Almost a thousand Americans were killed, including 241 Marines who were blown up while asleep in Beirut in 1983. For 22 years the United States, under presidents from both parties, behaved in exactly the way that Khomeini had predicted. It took countless successive blows, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, without decisive retaliation. That attitude invited, indeed encouraged, more attacks. The 9/11 tragedy was the inevitable denouement of the November 4 attack on the US embassy in Teheran. The writer, an Iranian author and journalist, is editor of the Paris-based Politique Internationale. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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