BLOG POST
by Felicity Blaze Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
10.11.13
Los Angeles, CA
10.11.13
Muslim Brotherhood
http://moderntokyotimes.com/2011/02/25/america-and-the-brotherhood/
* Special thanks to "Google Images", "wikipedia.com", "dailymail.co.uk",
"The Washington Post" and "The Daily Beast - News Week"
"The Washington Post" and "The Daily Beast - News Week"
DEMOCRATS AND TERRORISM
This week we're back with a brand new article. Because of the complexity for this subject it has taken us longer than expected to complete as we spent many hours of research to document the subject at hand. Since much of the information documents the history of the Middle East dating back to the establishment of Israel as a State and member of the United Nations we are taking a very broad look at the New and changing Middle East, the Middle East of today!
Over the past few weeks we all have seen how badly the Federal Government has mismanaged the nations budget and have forced a shut down in Washington until both political parties can come to an agreement on how to proceed since the Government is broke and in debt to the tune of over a $Trillion Dollars$. We feel the Democrats must take responsibility for this disaster since it is the Democrats who have presided over most of the spending which has caused this collapse and shut down in Washington. In a sense they are trying to blackmail us into borrowing more to fund their wasteful form of Government!
As we are writing this article we begin to get the feeling that the Democrats as a political party are loosing step with the times. The Democratic Party of today has no real vision for the countries future and are content to do the countries business in the antiquated fashion of the 1930's or 40's. Bigger Government, more bureaus and more and more of everything no matter what the cost. Is there a better way? There must be.
When we explore the Presidency’s of the last three Democrat’s in the White House a curious pattern begins to emerge and become all too clear. It’s as though a graph could be plotted drawing a clear and distinctive lack of accomplishments in the office for the Secretary of State under the Presidency’s of Carter, Clinton and Obama. Or could it be that under the Republican Presidencies’ of Reagan, Bush ’42 and Bush ’44 the White house enjoyed a highly successful era of foreign relations leadership and accomplishments in the Middle East? This article will attempt to reveal the failure and weak commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East by these three Democratic Presidents.
As the civil war in Syria exploded with the use of Chemical
Weapons upon its own people we again see the failed efforts of the United
States and the United Nations to mediate a peaceful settlement in this conflict. These regional conflicts in the Middle East all
stem from the war for Israeli independence in 1947 as Islamic forces seek once
again to confront Israel in a military conflict. Wikipedia.com has recorded this event as
follows:
wikipedia.com
The
Jewish Agency,
which was the recognized representative of the Jewish community, accepted the
plan, but the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine
rejected it. On 1 December 1947, the
Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and Arab bands began
attacking Jewish targets. The Jews were
initially on the defensive as civil war broke out, but
gradually moved onto the offensive. The
Palestinian Arab economy collapsed and 250,000 Palestinian-Arabs fled or were
expelled.
On
14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David
Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the
establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel,
to be known as the State of Israel". The only reference in the text of the
Declaration to the borders of the new state is the use of the term, Eretz-Israel.
Avraham Adan
raising the Ink Flag
marking the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
The
following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and
Iraq—entered what had been British Mandate Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; Saudi Arabia sent a military contingent to
operate under Egyptian command; Yemen declared war but did not take military
action. In a cablegram
of the same day from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the
UN Secretary-General, the Arab states gave a justification for this
"intervention". After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary
borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan
annexed what became known as the West Bank
and East
Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations estimated that more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled during the conflict from
what would become Israel.
Israel
was admitted as a member of the United Nations
by majority vote on 11 May 1949. In the
early years of the state, the Labor Zionist
movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics. These years were marked by an influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab lands, many
of whom faced persecution and expulsion from their original countries. Consequently, the population of Israel rose
from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958. During this period, food, clothes and
furniture had to be rationed in what became known as the Austerity Period. Between 1948–1970,
approximately 1,151,029 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel. Some arrived as refugees with no possessions
and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot;
by 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to
sign a reparations
agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews
angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the
Holocaust.
wikipedia.com
The key information to be learned from this historical text
is (1) the inability of Arab forces to achieve a military victory against Israel
resulting in a cease fire in 1948 and (2) The official recognition of the
boarders for the Israeli State and it’s admission into the United Nations. Since this time the United States along with
the United Nations has been committed to the preservation of Israel.
The United States has always been a mediator in Middle
Eastern tensions between Israel and The State of Palestine brokering many peace
deals and resolving other difficulties in the Middle East until the 1970’s When
the Islamic Revolution in Iran deposed the Shah and the creation of an Islamic
State under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 during the
Presidency of Jimmy Carter. This is
where our story really begins.
CARTER
CARTER
December
2,1978 a "total of six to nine million" anti-shah demonstrators
marched throughout Iran. According to one historian, "even discounting for
exaggeration, these figures may represent the largest protest event in
history.“ Wikipedia.com
 | ||||
| President Carter 1977 - 1981 |
 |
| Cyrus Vance Secretary of State |
With the fall of Mohammad Rezā
Shāh Pahlavī other problems formed for the Carter Administration. American hostages were taken by the Khomeini forces. A rescue
attempt was made by US Army forces which hugely failed and spelled the end of
Jimmy Carter's Presidency. The following Administration under President
Ronald Reagan secured the release of these hostages but the rip in US Middle
East foreign relations was irreversible.
Fear: American hostages sit in a corridor, blindfolded so they cannot see the faces of their kidnappers at the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran -1979. A total of 52 Americans were held for 444 days. (Dailymail.co.uk)
Fear: American hostages sit in a corridor, blindfolded so they cannot see the faces of their kidnappers at the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran -1979. A total of 52 Americans were held for 444 days. (Dailymail.co.uk)
Overview
of the wreckage at the Desert One base in Iran. US
Hostage rescue attempt ordered by President Carter code named “Eagle Claw” and carried out
as the “Desert One” mission failed with disastrous results in 1980. (Wikipedia.com)
CLINTON
 |
| President Clinton 1993 - 2001 |
 |
| Madeline Albright Secretary of State |
Under the Presidency of Bill Clinton a new round of Islamic advances became successful not only in the Middle East but world wide and the age of the Islamic Jihadist or Terrorist was now in full swing. The Clinton strategy was simple. He ignored problems to go unchecked and grow!
Some Historians believe that with the fall of the old Soviet Union under President Reagan that a vacuum was created in world power and that this vacuum was filled by an accelerated Islamic Revolution across the Middle East and world wide.
We once again turn to our friends at wikipedia .com for further history on the Clinton Administration:
wikipedia.com
Bill Clinton
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton
(born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President
of the United States from 1993 to
2001.
Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president from the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described
as a New
Democrat. Many of his
policies have been attributed to a centrist Third
Way philosophy of
governance. Before becoming president he was the Governor
of Arkansas, serving two
non-consecutive terms from 1979 to 1981 and from 1983 to 1992. He was also the
state's Attorney General from 1977 to 1979.
Military and
foreign events
Many military events
occurred during Clinton's presidency. The Battle
of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During the operation, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled
grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This
resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73
others, and one was taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Some
of the American bodies were dragged through the streets – a spectacle
broadcast on television news programs. In response, U.S. forces were withdrawn
from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the
ground. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft attacked Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on U.N. safe zones and to
pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia
in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United
States government from the presidency of Bill Clinton until bin Laden's death
in 2011. It was asserted by Mansoor Ijaz that in 1996 while the Clinton
Administration had begun pursuit of the policy, the Sudanese government
allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the
United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations
in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas, and that U.S. authorities allegedly
rejected each offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on
American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. However, the 9/11 Commission found that although "former
Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to the United
States", "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the
Sudanese claim." In 1998, two years after the warning,
the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill
bin Laden that failed.
In response to the 1998 Al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and
hundreds of Africans, Clinton ordered cruise missile
strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese
Pharmaceutical company suspected of
assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin
Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Clinton was subsequently criticized
when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (originally alleged to
be a chemical warfare plant) had been destroyed.
To stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by anti-guerilla military units in the former Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation
Allied Force. General Wesley Clark was Supreme
Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw
the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution
1244, the bombing
campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN
administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region.
NATO announced that its forces had
suffered zero combat deaths, and two deaths from an Apache
helicopter crash. Opinions in the popular press
criticized pre-war genocide statements by the Clinton administration as greatly
exaggerated. A U.N. Court ruled genocide did not
take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including
murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments". The term "ethnic cleansing"
was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just
ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there
is no difference. Slobodan
Milošević, the President
of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of
about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes
against humanity."
In Clinton's 1998
State of the Union Address, he warned
Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons:
Together we
must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and
organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the
better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing
for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors
have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal
than was destroyed during the entire gulf war. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop
them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this
chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You
cannot defy the will of the world", and when I say to him, "You have
used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the
capacity to use them again.
To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of
power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted
a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated
it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military
forces. The administration then launched a
four-day bombing campaign named Operation
Desert Fox, lasting from
December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that
"So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his
people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy
to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while
working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its
people and with its neighbors."American and British aircraft in the
Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78
times in 2000.
Clinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a U.S. President since the end of the Vietnam War. Clinton remained popular with the
public throughout his two terms as President, ending his presidential career
with a 65 percent approval rating, the highest end-of-term approval rating
of any President since Dwight
D. Eisenhower. Further, the Clinton administration
signed over 270 trade liberalization pacts with other countries during its
tenure. On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed
into law the U.S.–China
Relations Act of 2000, which granted
permanent
normal trade relations (PNTR) trade
status to People's Republic of China. The president asserted that free trade
would gradually open China to democratic reform. Clinton also oversaw a boom of the
U.S. economy.
Under Clinton, the United States had a projected federal budget
surplus for the first
time since 1969.
After initial successes such as the Oslo accords of the early 1990s, Clinton attempted
to address the Arab–Israeli
conflict. Clinton
brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David. Following the peace talk failures,
Clinton stated Arafat "missed the opportunity" to facilitate a
"just and lasting peace." In his autobiography, Clinton blames Arafat for the collapse of the summit. The situation broke down completely
with the start of the Second Intifada.
wikipedia.com
Upon examination of this article we quickly notice what was termed as the "third way philosophy of government" Clinton was credited with. During his Presidency we notice many military events but curiously, we also see the absence of action on other events which would come back to demand his attention.
The Beirut Barracks Bombings (October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon) occurred during the Lebanese Civil War when two truck bombs struck separate buildings
housing United States and French military forces—members of
the Multinational
Force (MNF) in Lebanon—killing
299 American and French servicemen. An obscure group calling itself 'Islamic Jihad' claimed responsibility for the
bombings.
Suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team - BLT 1/8), the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Vietnam War'sTet Offensive, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II. Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast. Thirteen later died of their injuries, and they are numbered among the total number who died. (Wikipedia.com) (Photo: http://abriefhistory.org/?p=2503)
The USS Cole bombing was a suicide attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyerUSS Cole (DDG-67) on 12 October 2000, while it
was harbored and being refueled in the Yemen port ofAden.
Seventeen American sailors were killed, and 39 were injured. This event was the deadliest
attack against a United States Naval vessel since 1987.
The terrorist organization al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. A U.S. judge has held Sudanliable for the attack, while another has released over $13 million in Sudanese frozen assets to the relatives of those killed. The American Navy has reconsidered their rules of engagement in response to this attack. (Wikipedia.com)
President Clinton's light handed approach in dealing with terrorist attacks on US installations and the USS Cole did not detour Islamic forces who were already in the New York area preparing and planning for the "9/11" attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. US Intelligence was aware of Osama bin Laden's organizations during this period. Because of poor judgement by the Clinton Administration delays in security and detection of and for terrorist activities within the boarders of the US were not put in place until 9/11 under the Bush administration. The early warning signs were all around President Clinton and yet he still did not act!
OBAMA
OBAMA
 |
| President Obama 2009 - |
 |
| Hillary Clinton Secretary of State 2009 - 2013 |
The Barack Obama Administration came into office severely criticizing the previous administration. The new President pledged to close the Army detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which was holding Islamic enemy combatants who were accused for being involved with the "9/11" attacks against the US and were awaiting trial by Military Tribunal. President Obama also pledged to have these prisoners stand trial in US Civil Court with all the privileges for US Citizens. These and many other pledges were made and were later discarded.
The new President's father and stepfather were both Islamic. President Obama claims Christianity as his religious faith but has not been formally associated with any Church since 2008 where he had attended the congregation of the Rev. Jeremiah Write since 1988. If the Presidents religious preference seems to be unclear that's because he chooses to shield his faith from public view. He makes no presentation of his religious preferences for ether Islamic or Christian.
During the Presidency of Obama in April of 2011 Osama bin Laden was finally killed in Pakistan by US Navy Seals having been a major target in the "war on terror from 2001 - 2011. With Hillary Clinton serving as his Secretary of State the Middle East has been continuous turmoil with civil wars in both Egypt and Syria. In the case of Syria the Russians have pledged to make an effort to remove Chemical weapons from Syria.
With the Presidents second term in office Senator John Kerry was appointed as his new Secretary of State replacing Clinton who did not wish to serve a second term in the office.
With the Middle East falling into Islamic Revolution from nation to nation Kerry's job will be to insure the safety of Israel with a new re alignment of nations in the "New Middle East" as he works with the United Nations towards this goal.
Clearly; Syria has been Kerry's first task in the "New Middle East". The Iranian Islamic Revolution of the 1970's has been the example for revolution and civil war in the Middle East in a world where Terrorism and civil war have gone hand in hand. This is the reality of today's world.
Since the Islamic state of Iran was established under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 The United States has placed economic sanctions on the country. The following article from "The Daily Beast - News Week" reports on a new round of talks between Iran and the United Nations and the US Secretary of State Kerry. Achieving a lasting peace in the new Middle East still remains to be seen.
This weird scene was not the most important moment, I suppose, in a day fraught with what seemed to be breakthroughs, but in its way it was the most emblematic. The United Nations General Assembly (or “Hell Week,” as some call it) suddenly has turned into a circus of diplomacy, a riot of expectations. A “fight for peace in the Middle East”? That’s what we’re watching right now.
During the Presidency of Obama in April of 2011 Osama bin Laden was finally killed in Pakistan by US Navy Seals having been a major target in the "war on terror from 2001 - 2011. With Hillary Clinton serving as his Secretary of State the Middle East has been continuous turmoil with civil wars in both Egypt and Syria. In the case of Syria the Russians have pledged to make an effort to remove Chemical weapons from Syria.
 |
| John Kerry Secretary of State 2013 - |
With the Middle East falling into Islamic Revolution from nation to nation Kerry's job will be to insure the safety of Israel with a new re alignment of nations in the "New Middle East" as he works with the United Nations towards this goal.
Clearly; Syria has been Kerry's first task in the "New Middle East". The Iranian Islamic Revolution of the 1970's has been the example for revolution and civil war in the Middle East in a world where Terrorism and civil war have gone hand in hand. This is the reality of today's world.
Since the Islamic state of Iran was established under Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 The United States has placed economic sanctions on the country. The following article from "The Daily Beast - News Week" reports on a new round of talks between Iran and the United Nations and the US Secretary of State Kerry. Achieving a lasting peace in the new Middle East still remains to be seen.
Suddenly,
Great Expectations
for Iran-U.S. Relations
by Christopher Dickey Sep 27, 2013 12:24 AM EDT
American diplomatic breakthroughs with Russia
and Iran mark a turning point in the Middle East. By Christopher Dickey.
What was the venerable Brillo-haired boxing promoter Don King
doing at a meeting between think-tankers and the president of Iran? We didn’t
know until the end.
There’d been a surprise announcement: a major breakthrough in nuclear
negotiations with Iran over at the United Nations. A journalistic scrum
suddenly surrounded the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who’d delivered
that news. But King, the man who once brought us the “Thrilla in Manila”
and the “Rumble in the Jungle,” jostled past the reporters to tell Zarif, “I
want to promote ‘A Fight for Peace in the Middle East!’”This weird scene was not the most important moment, I suppose, in a day fraught with what seemed to be breakthroughs, but in its way it was the most emblematic. The United Nations General Assembly (or “Hell Week,” as some call it) suddenly has turned into a circus of diplomacy, a riot of expectations. A “fight for peace in the Middle East”? That’s what we’re watching right now.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L)
and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif
(R) attend a meeting of the five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council plus Germany about Iran's nuclear program on September 26,
2013 in New York City.
(Thomas Koehler/Getty Images)
First came news that the Security Council, frozen by Western
posturing and a Russian veto through two years of horrific war in Syria,
is about to sign off on a resolution requiring the Assad regime to
give up its arsenal of chemical weapons. The deal between Washington and
Moscow, hammered out a few days ago in Geneva, seems to be holding up in New
York. A senior State Department official called it “a breakthrough won through
hard-fought diplomacy.”
The resolution does not include the
specific threat of military action—yet. But it left open that
possibility if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fails to act in good faith
during the several stages of disarmament. A month ago, any such measures would
have seemed inconceivable. Indeed, a month ago Assad was refusing to admit he
had any chemical arsenal at all. But a month ago the horrific images of Syrian
children killed by sarin gas, innocents swaddled in their shrouds, forced
President Barack Obama to address the carnage. He threatened a punitive act of
war. Despite a dithering Congress and a disdainful American public, the
diplomatic doors opened. The Russians, of all people, came to Obama’s rescue
with the chemical-weapons disarmament gambit. The deal at the Security Council
on Thursday was a continuation of that process.
But the even bigger revelation of the day was the progress
made on a diplomatic agreement to end the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear
weapons. No, nothing is signed, sealed, or delivered. Far from it. But what had
appeared a shallow charm offensive by recently elected Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani suddenly looked like it had substance.
It’s normal for diplomats at such meetings to have these sorts
of conversations, Zarif told the meeting in the Hilton. But ‘we had more than a
chat.’
You’ll remember that both the Iranians and the Americans
had led the press to expect a big diplo-moment on Tuesday, when Obama and
Rouhani gave speeches before the General Assembly. They were both supposed to
attend the same luncheon and perhaps do something world-shaking after more than
30 years of Iranian-American hostility like, for instance, shaking hands. But
they didn’t. Rouhani was a no-show.
After that, Tehran and Washington buzzed with rumors that
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had jerked Rouhani’s chain. The two are not
exactly allies. In the very limited democratic process that exists inside
Iran’s theocratic regime, Rouhani had Khamenei’s approval to run for election,
but he wasn’t his pick to win. Now Rouhani kept repeating that he’d been
elected in a landslide on a platform of moderation and with a mission to end
the devastating economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations. The only way
to do that would be with a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in a way the
West could accept. And that was something it seemed Khamenei could not abide.
Yet on Thursday, Foreign Minister Zarif forged ahead at a
meeting with his counterparts from Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia, and
the United States. Secretary of State Kerry sat right next to Zarif at the
conference table. Both of them had big smiles on their faces. Then they went
off to talk one-on-one. (Zarif’s English is flawless.)
It’s normal for diplomats at such meetings to have these
sorts of conversations, Zarif told the meeting in the Hilton. But “we had more
than a chat.” Indeed. The meeting itself was unprecedented in the 34 years
since Iran’s revolution. And there was a lot to talk about. The United States
is concerned about Iran’s role in Syria supporting the Assad regime, and its
influence in Afghanistan, where it could create havoc as the United States is
trying to withdraw. But all the chatting seemed to go well.
The breakthrough conversations about nuclear disarmament
led to more relaxed interactions across the board. “I am optimistic,” Zarif
told the Hilton meeting. “Now we have to match our words with actions.”
Another high-level encounter is due to take place in Geneva in
mid-October. Don King probably won’t be there. Kerry and Zarif might. And the
fight for peace in the Middle East will go on.
"The Daily Beast - News Week"
30 Years After the Iran Hostage Crisis, We're Still Fighting Reagan's War
As we close this article we are posting an article from "The Washington Post" written by Ted Koppel, formorly of "ABC News", which could sum up the United States involvement in the Middle East entitled "30 Years After the Iran Hostage Crises, We're Still Fighting Reagan's War" - the crises Jimmy Carter couldn't handle! We get the feeling the Democrats are unable to deal with foreign policy in the Middle East as well as the Federal Budget.
Join us next week when we will attempt an escape from reality traveling back into the past for a journey through the history of "American Steam Locomotives". It should be very educational and a lot of fun! This has been Felicity writing for the Noodleman Group.
Join us next week when we will attempt an escape from reality traveling back into the past for a journey through the history of "American Steam Locomotives". It should be very educational and a lot of fun! This has been Felicity writing for the Noodleman Group.
30 Years After the Iran Hostage Crisis, We're Still Fighting Reagan's War
"The Washington Post"
By Ted Koppel
Friday, January 21, 2011; 1:00 PM
On Jan. 20, 1981, 52 American diplomats, intelligence
officers and Marines were finally released after being held hostage for nearly
15 months at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Americans saw it as the end of a long
national nightmare. Iranians saw it as a successful phase in what the Pentagon
would come to call the Long War.
We were wrong; they were right.
On the face of it, the Iranians achieved what they wanted.
President Jimmy Carter had labored with key advisers through the last night of
his presidency, desperately trying to bring about the hostages' release before
Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president. The Iranians, though, were
determined to humiliate our 39th president and were not about to free the
captives on Carter's watch.
As the television networks began their Inauguration Day
coverage, the expected moment of release became the theme. TV screens were
split to accommodate parallel images from Washington and Tehran. Just outside
the Iranian capital, camera crews were taken to Mehrabad International Airport,
where the soon-to-be-former hostages would board their flight to freedom.
At ABC News, where I worked at the time, one of our camera
crews had been granted access to the Oval Office the previous night. We had
video of Carter, looking grim and exhausted in a cardigan, consulting with his
aides until, quite literally, it was time to dress for the inauguration of his
successor. Those images and live shots of desperate diplomacy, followed by the
stately run-up to the transfer of power in Washington, played on one side of
the screen. The preparations for departure from Mehrabad played on the other.
The Iranians stage-managed the drama down to the last
second. Precisely at noon, just as Reagan began to recite the oath of office,
the planeload of Americans was permitted to take off. The Iranians' message was
blunt and unambiguous: Carter and his administration had been punished for
America's sins against Iran, and Reagan was being offered a conciliatory
gesture in anticipation of improved behavior by Washington.
That was hardly the interpretation that the Reagan
administration put on the event. The new president portrayed the hostage
release as a long-overdue act by which the Iranians acknowledged the obvious:
There was a new sheriff in town. The feckless days of the Carter administration
were over, and the Iranian mullahs had bowed to the inevitable. Indeed, the administration
seemed to be saying that Iran's greatest concern was now the possibility of
U.S. retaliation for the humiliation of the preceding 444 days.
That last point probably was a part of Iran's strategic
calculus. Iran was not then, and is not now, any military match for the United
States. Without the American hostages in Tehran, Iran was plainly vulnerable to
U.S. power.
Further complicating its position, since September 1980,
Iran had been fighting a massive invasion by the Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein,
the beginnings of a bloody war that would last most of the decade. The United
States officially proclaimed neutrality - Henry Kissinger famously observed
that it was a shame both nations couldn't lose - but Washington considered Iran
the greater threat and covertly assisted Hussein.
Once the hostages were released, however, no reprisal came,
and the Iranian leadership offered no evidence of wanting to reconcile.
In their approach to the United States in the decade that
followed, the mullahs provided chilling evidence of how closely they had
studied the influence of the media and public opinion on U.S. foreign policy.
During the hostage crisis, they learned how obsessively engaged our news media
becomes when U.S. prisoners are taken. What Americans consider one of our
greatest national virtues - concern for the individual - the Iranians
recognized as a vulnerability.
We in the American news media have a tendency to obsess over
one crisis at a time, often to the exclusion of other important issues. Indeed,
I can hardly overlook my own role in this. The title that ABC News gave to its
nightly coverage seemed hyperbolic at first, but it proved frighteningly
prescient: "America Held Hostage." The story held America's interest
so tightly and for so long that our specials on ABC eventually morphed into a
regular program - "Nightline."
Iran watched and learned. They realized that the fixations
of the American media could lead to shifts in U.S. policy. They observed how
the hostage crisis cost Carter a second term, and they would soon learn that
what influenced one administration could be applied to another.
On Oct. 23, 1983, a truck loaded with explosives was driven
into a barracks building in Beirut housing U.S. Marines, who were there as part
of an international peacekeeping force. The driver died in the suicide attack,
as did 241 American military personnel. Eventually, the bomber was identified
as a member of an organization called Hezbollah, which was believed to have
been funded and trained by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
By the time even that much was established, Reagan had
ordered all U.S. military personnel in Lebanon evacuated to ships of the 6th
Fleet, off the coast. A brief time later, those ships received fresh orders and
sailed off. There had been no great public support for engagement in Lebanon in
the first place, so there was little reaction to the abrupt departure. (The
U.S. invasion of Grenada, occurring at the same time, consumed much of the
public's attention.)
Iran saw how a devastating attack could force America out of
Lebanon, with little outcry back home and no retaliation for the bombing. And
just as hostages had proved useful to Iran during the Carter administration,
they would be used again to manipulate the Reagan White House. Dozens of
Americans and Europeans were kidnapped in Lebanon and held hostage during the
early and mid-1980s. Again, Hezbollah was believed responsible, and Iranian
patronage was more firmly established.
In relatively short order, these tactics would draw the
Reagan administration into one of the more bizarre covert negotiations in
recent history. Among those kidnapped in Beirut was the CIA's station chief,
William Francis Buckley. He was held and tortured for 15 months, and at one
point he was reportedly taken to Iran. He died in captivity. Reagan's distress
over Buckley's ordeal in particular, and over the fate of other American
captives, was a factor behind the Iran-contra affair.
Far from punishing the Iranians, Washington arranged for
Israel to sell weapons to Iran. The Israeli stockpiles would be secretly
replenished by the United States, which was legally prohibited from selling
directly to Iran. In return, Iran would free some hostages. Finally, Iran's
payment for the weapons would be used to buy arms for anti-communist forces in
Nicaragua, thereby circumventing a congressional ban on sales to the contras
there. That was the icing on the cake.
It was a fiasco. Reagan, whose staunch opposition to
communism around the world would lead to the collapse of the Soviet empire,
found his administration embroiled in negotiations with the sponsors of
Hezbollah. The scheme clearly circumvented U.S. law, and had others in the
administration not taken the fall, it could have led to Reagan's impeachment.
What Iran learned in those years - and we're still absorbing
the consequences of those lessons today - is that kidnapping and terrorism are
useful weapons against the United States. Ultimately, Reagan's broad-shouldered
bravado was no more effective in dealing with Tehran than Carter's
mild-mannered diplomacy.
We've still not found our way. Instead of taking military
action against Iran, the United States has twice invaded Iran's bitterest
enemy, Iraq. And what Iran couldn't do for itself, George W. Bush did for it:
Saddam Hussein is gone, and Tehran's influence in the Persian Gulf is greatly
enhanced.
There was every reason to celebrate the release of those 52
Americans on Jan. 20, 1981. But what Iran learned then and has applied in the
decades since has been costly for the United States. Here we are, 30 years
after what we thought was the conclusion of a crisis, still wondering if the
end will ever be in sight.
Ted Koppel, who was
managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" from 1980 to 2005, is a
contributing analyst for "BBC World News America."
Koppel's recent essays for
Outlook include Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news and "Nine
years after 9/11, let's stop playing into bin Laden's hands.
"The Washington Post"
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