Jimmy Carter: Don’t Ever Let American Hostages Be Held For 444 Days In A Foreign Country
America’s 39th President talks about his biggest failure:
Former President Jimmy Carter says his biggest failure during his term in the White House was that he didn’t get to spend another four years there.
“I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected,” he said in an interview with Big Think, referring to the 1980 presidential election.
Carter, 86, said the loss taught him “not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them.”
Gee, do you think?
Well, they came home. As America’s longest running land wars continue, perhaps some new perspective.
Indeed, letting American sovereign soil being occupied and its diplomats held hostage for a mere year — as they were on Election Day 1980 — proved precarious. The extra few weeks were just insult to injury.
Well it wasn’t just that he left Americans in enemy hands for over a year while he went on self imposed home arrest. It was also the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, giving the impression the American military had been broken by the Vietnam, and Carter’s micromanagement of that operation. But it all was on top of years of president droopy dog and his belief that America was over.
The hostages were a symbol of Carter’s view of a failed America. Reagan came in and actually gave hope for change.
The hostages were a symbol of America’s fondness for overthrowing democratically elected leaders we didn’t like and installing dictators who would torture and murder their citizens while allowing US corporations to make billions. Reagan came in and happily continued that policy, supporing the murder of uncounted numbers of innocent civilians in Central and South America. But he said “Yay America!” a lot, so that made people feel good here, and that’s all that counts.
So the real lesson here is, get hostages out by any means necessary — even if that means selling military arms to their captors and using the proceeds to fund terrorist organizations….
I guess I need to be harsher in my lesson.
Get live hostages back after a year (plus): failure
Meet body bags at airports for years: success