• medena said on Jun 06, 2008....

  i think you are right

• pickersplock said on Jun 06, 2008....

  Not many people remember that whole fiasco, unfortunately.

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 06, 2008....

  That may have been a crossroads where we could have changed things, but it's no where near the root.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  
  Eisenhower is the Bogeyman here not Carter. How shameless can you get there bruno?
  
  The idea of overthrowing Mosaddeq was conceived by the British who asked U.S. President Harry S. Truman for assistance but he refused. The British raised the idea again to Dwight D. Eisenhower who became president in 1953. The new administration agreed to participate in overthrowing the elected government of Iran.
  
  The 1953 Iranian coup d'état saw the overthrow of the democratically-elected administration of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet from power by British and American intelligence operatives working together with Iranian agents and elements of the Iranian army. Bribing Iranian officials, news media and others with British and American funds, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), organized the covert operation aiding retired Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi and Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri. The project to overthrow Iran's government was codenamed Operation Ajax.
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  
  The CIA and the Afganastan/Russian conflict created Bin Laden.
  
  By the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, receptive to assistance from the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, China, and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. The US viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an integral Cold War struggle, and the CIA provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces through the Pakistani secret services, in a program called Operation Cyclone.
  
  A similar movement occurred in the Muslim world, bringing contingents of so-called Afghan Arabs, foreign fighters recruited from the Muslim world to wage jihad against the nonbelieving communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda.
  
  After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the mujahideen. In 1981, following the election of United States President Ronald Reagan, aid for the mujahideen through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.
  
  The United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia became major financial contributors, the United States donating "$600 million in aid per year, with a matching amount coming from the Gulf states."
  
  Once the Soviets withdrew American interests in Afghanistan also halted. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country and instead the US handed over the interests of the country to its allies: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
  
  The 1989 to 1992 phase of the civil war in Afghanistan began after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan to fend for itself against the Mujahideen. After several years of fighting, the government fell in 1992.
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  Operation Cyclone is where Carter's Roll is played.
  
  On July 3, 1979, U.S. President Carter signed a presidential finding authorizing funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and installation of a more pro-Soviet president, Babrak Karmal, Carter announced, "The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is the greatest threat to peace since the Second World War". Democratic Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and Central Intelligence Agency officer Gust Avrakotos were responsible for funding of the program and the massive arming of Afghanistan's mujahideen.
  
  The U.S. government has been criticized for allowing Pakistan to channel a disproportionate amount of its funding to controversial Afghan resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar... Hekmatyar was said to be friendly with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, who was running an operation for assisting "Afghan Arab" volunteers fighting in Afghanistan, called Maktab al-Khadamat.
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Jun 06, 2008....

  Uh I admited that that was quite possibly a cross roads where we could have changed the course of history.  Do want me to claim that Islam had never been a problem before that?  Or claim that there part of the world has been truly stable at really any time but speficcally anytime after they were set free/cut off from the West by the end of colonialism.
   
  It's clear that it didn't START with Carter, but you make a strong case that had cards been played properly it could have ENDED with carter.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  SR you are quite irrelevant to any discussion because you seem never to prove anything. The history of the grievances of the Arab world starts with Eisenhower and continues through to that dunce we have in the White House today. It could have ended almost anywhere on that time-line. One of the latest right-wing targets is Carter so that is where you and bruno begin but not where the history begins or ends.

• lfbno7 said on Jun 06, 2008....

  The Iranian hatred of America wasn't at a boil until Carter's screwup. They had a grudge, but it wasn't red hot. It wasn't a nation full of people screaming and rallying against America. A lot of time had passed since the Eisenhower-era machinations, which I briefly referred to in the original post as a prior cause of animosity.
  
  Iran wasn't about to launch a campaign of hatred regarding an event so long ago. It took Carter to inflame the situation. Had Carter simply recognized the new regime as a fellow nation worthy of respect, rather than make one of the biggest mistakes of the century by continuing to side with the Shah, I believe that Osama would not have happened. The Carter-Khomeini hostility ushered in an era of hatred that spiked with Osama.
  
  This isn't even Monday morning quarterbacking on my part. As soon as Carter invited the Shah into the U.S. for medical treatment I knew that Iran was going to flip. If I knew, why the hell didn't he? That action brought back our Eisenhower-era crap, reignited it, and the rest is history. More than any other American, Jimmy Carter caused our current problems with Muslims. He played his cards blindly and stupidly and he should have known better. He was an ass of a president, but then again, join the club, they all were. One incompetent after another. Now this jerk.
  
  I don't give a shit that Carter is a Democrat and Ike was a Republican. That's what you seem to be stuck on there, Bruno. Fuck the Democrats and fuck the Republicans.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  Jim Bath, Charles W. White, Salem Bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, Arbusto 78, Harken Energy, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and the Carlyle Group are all connected to the Bush Clan and not Carter.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  In 1979, Iranians revolted and the Shah was ousted for a second time. Ayatollah Khomeini became Iran's new leader and soon began issuing vicious rhetoric against the United States, describing the country as the "Great Satan".

  The American administration under President Jimmy Carter refused to give the Shah any further support and expressed no interest in attempting to return him to power. A significant embarrassment for Carter occurred when the Shah, as of that time suffering from cancer, requested entry into the United States for treatment. The American embassy in Tehran vigorously opposed the United States granting his request, as they were intent on stabilizing relations between the new interim revolutionary government of Iran and the United States.

• lfbno7 said on Jun 06, 2008....

  When the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, opened for business the morning of 22 October 1979, there was a cable waiting in the Central Intelligence Agency station from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The cable advised that President Carter had decided the previous day to admit the former Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, into the United States for life-saving medical treatment. From the perspective of the embassy staff, it was absolutely the worst thing that could happen, on two fronts: the decision would undo the progress, however slight, in improving United States-Iranian relations; and it would jeopardize the safety and security of all Americans in Iran. The embassy staff was utterly astonished, for not only had they warned Washington over the previous summer of the various dangers associated with such a decision, but some had even been told that by Washington seniors that the consequences of the shah’s admission to the United States were so obvious that no one would be "dumb enough" to allow it. Yet, with U.S.-Iranian relations still lacking real stability, and with an intense and growing distrust of the United States permeating the new Iranian "revolutionary" government, President Carter — unbelievably, from the embassy’s optic—had decided to allow the shah to enter the United States.
  
  Was there no place else he could go? Was the United States the only country in the world with adequate medical facilities to treat the shah? Was the shah’s illness truly life-threatening at that point? Why did the president not insist on a second impartial medical opinion based on a physical examination and testing, rather than relying solely on the judgment of a physician engaged by a private citizen with a specific political agenda? Why did President Carter — seemingly against his own judgment — agree to the admission of the shah to the United States? Why did Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, and John McCloy so strongly urge the shah’s admission? Why did these three, who had no responsibility for policymaking or policy execution, press for a decision which had such awful consequences for the nation attached to it, consequences which were clearly apparent to all? Finally, if it was essential that the shah be permitted entry into the United States, why have not the reasons been clearly stated publicly? These issues require explanation, for this decision, founded as it was on "advice that was both flawed and incomplete" – is one of the most controversial decisions of post-World War Two foreign policy.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 06, 2008....

  "...is one of the most controversial decisions of post-World War Two foreign policy"
  
  Hardly. Your playing the hysteric.
  
  Operation Ajax itself was more controversial. Bay of Pigs Invasion, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Iran-Contra, Nuremberg trials...

• theduke said on Jun 06, 2008....

  there is a direct correlation to those events, if you ask me.

• lfbno7 said on Jun 07, 2008....

  You always jump to name calling. BTW that wasn't my quote, it was off the internet. Always picking, always fighting, no dialogue, just attack attack attack. Parallel monologues. I'll show you what I mean by dialogue.
  
  I'm blaming Carter for being inept and leading to Osama Bin Laden. It's a fair case. Carter was a boob, still is, always will be, along with Bush and Reagan and all the rest. But here is a defense of Carter that holds water.
  
  Carter was guilty of having a friend and sticking by him as much as he dared. Carter was not guilty of interfering with a democratically elected government in Iran. That occurred during the I Like Ike administration, and even though Ike may have had little or nothing to do with it, one must assume that he could have done something about it. The buck stops here, and all that.
  
  America has a history of placing its own big business interests above the concerns of people in other countries (or for that matter the people of our own country). This selfishness, this greed, causes a lot of trouble worldwide. This is the single biggest fault of American foreign policy, and Carter was not guilty of it in this instance. He was just guilty of writing a check he couldn't cash, sticking by his buddy and then watching repercussions develop that he couldn't handle. Ineptness is not as great a sin as callous greed.
  
  There's your defense of Carter.

• hotaka said on Jun 07, 2008....

  I was just an elementary student at the time but it seems that once Anti-Americanism got going in the Arab world the French were off the hook. They had been fighting with the Arabs for decades. Now they are almost friends. (comments based on my very little historical knowledge of the subject)

• sheltercrow said on Jun 07, 2008....

  "blaming Carter for being inept and leading to Osama Bin Laden" is simply absurd. Our current President and his father are personally close to the Bin Laden clan. Carter cannot claim to have financial ties to that clan as the Bush family does.
  
  "Always picking, always fighting, no dialog, just attack attack attack" an excuse because I refuse to accept your claims?
  
  That Carter showed his Christian based humanity does not indicate "having a friend."
  
  "Ike may have had little or nothing to do with it" is absurd as Ike gave the go ahead for the covert CIA operation that has created the repercussions that reverberate to this day. Carter in no way could reverse or undo what Ike had set in motion. All he could do was react to events not of his creation.
  
  "America has a history of placing its own big business interests above the concerns of people" is too revisionist. Big business has a history of placing it's concerns above the American people is more to the point.
  
  Carter inherited a situation from his predecessors and acted accordingly, nothing more.
  

• medena said on Jun 08, 2008....

  It definitely picked up momentum with Carter's actions, according to what I learned in school. am too young to know personally.

• sheltercrow said on Jun 08, 2008....

  "It definitely picked up momentum with Carter's actions" is absurd.
  
  It picked up when Carter was in office for the simple reason that his presidency coincided with the Iranian second revolution that threw the U.S./CIA imposed puppet, the shah, out permanently. The Iranians didn't come to hate the U.S. because of Carter. The Iranians hate the U.S. because the U.S. imposed a dictator on them.
  
  "Anti-Americanism"? "Anti-Americanism" is a xenophobic nationalistic sentiment. 

• sheltercrow said on Jun 08, 2008....

  It just keeps getting weirder every day.
  
  Carole Vann/Juan Gasparini/Human Rights Tribune - The news that the US has completely withdrawn from the Human Rights Council spread like wildfire Friday afternoon (June 6) through the corridors of the Palais des Nations in Geneva. There was general consternation amongst diplomats and NGOS. Reached by phone, the American mission in Geneva neither confirmed nor denied the report. Although unofficial, the news comes at a time of long opposition by the Bush administration to the reforms which created the Human Rights Council in June 2006. Washington announced from the beginning that the US would not be an active member but its observer status would mean that it could intervene during the sessions. To date even this has rarely happened.

• lfbno7 said on Jun 10, 2008....

  Everything is absurd except this bag of wind Sheltercrow. He or she knows everything. Sheltercrow will take all your comments and repeat them and then throw a tomato at them and say the comment has been answered. Great.

• lfbno7 said on Jun 10, 2008....

  Loves Jimmy Carter. Ignores the fuckups. Whitewashes Carter. Carter and Jesus, separated at birth. Oh no, Carter didn't screw up Iran at all. No, he did great. Just damn super. Wish we could do the same with every other country in the world. Have them all hate our damn guts. Have them all imprison every American they can get their hands on. Carter was perfect though. Great leader. Wise man. Stick with a winner. You're safe with Jimmy C. Nothing to worry about, nothing bad will ever happen with big Jim in charge. It's all somebody else's fault. Leadership? What's that? Just make your moves, watch everything go to shit in reaction to them, and then shrug your shoulders and say you were perfect and who the hell knows why everything went to hell. Nothing proves how great you are like catastrophe.

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