If you open up a can of worms, someone else might open up a can of whoopass:
By contrast, the Obama ad’s brief rebuke of Romney is at least factual and accurate: Not only did he say what the ad quotes, but he also said that he wouldn’t go into Pakistan to get bin Laden, which is what the mission required. Had the president followed Romney’s policy recommendation, bin Laden would almost certainly still be at large.
“Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” scoffed Romney in response. But he shouldn’t be so quick to denigrate the former Democratic president, who entered the Navy during World War II and then served as a submarine officer until his honorable discharge in 1953. Somebody may compare Carter’s service with Romney’s own military record, which doesn’t exist — and remind voters that he avoided the Vietnam draft with a pampered stint as a Mormon missionary, in France.
I’d like to add something to this, just because I find it irritating. Mitt Romney decided to pick on Jimmy Carter in this instance as an example of someone who was weak on national security. This is wrong for at least three reasons. First, when Carter was faced with the Iranian Hostage Crisis, he authorized a rescue mission. That rescue mission was known as Operation Eagle Claw. It failed because of a sandstorm in Iran, and insufficient redundancy in the planning. It was wisely called off when too few helicopters remained operational to assure success. If Carter deserves any criticism beyond being a victim of bad luck, it’s that he didn’t personally intervene in the planning to assure there were more helicopters. But this is exactly what Obama did, and it may have been crucial to the success of the mission to get bin-Laden.
Second, Jimmy Carter’s signature achievement in office was the Camp David Accords, which allowed Egypt and Israel to make a peace that has lasted to this day, and which formally brought Egypt out of the Soviet orbit and into our own. If that is weakness in foreign policy, then I guess making peace is weak and screwing the Soviets was weak.
Third, rather than criticize Carter for timidity in foreign policy, he should more rightly be critiqued for recklessness. Here is a segment of a 1998 interview with Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski that discusses the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
President Carter intentionally goaded the Soviets into invading Afghanistan and armed and trained and grew the numbers of the Islamic fundamentalists that turned on us and attacked us repeatedly leading up to the devastating 9/11 attacks. When Moscow invaded Afghanistan, Carter boycotted the Russian Olympics and cut off grain supplies. In reaction, the Soviets boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.
Carter was unsuccessful in securing the release of the Iranian hostages, but that wasn’t entirely his fault. And, in any case, it has little bearing on Carter’s successes and failures in foreign policy.
who served honorably and with distinction in the nuclear submarine service, for 10 years, which is 10 years longer than Romney or his 5 strong, strapping, chicken hawk sons have served.
It is also important to keep in mind that at the time of Operation Eagle Claw, the military had nothing close to the Special Ops capability of today.
In fact, the analysis of the failure of Eagle Claw led directly to decisions to create the weapons, training, tactics and capabilities of today’s SEALS and other services special ops.
The planning for Eagle Claw did not have nearly the options and experience available today. It was much closer to conventional forces (in terms of equipment and tactics) using the best talent available.
Overall, I am sad Carter has become the reflexive punching bag for the Right. History has shown he was correct about a lot of stuff but the Right just doesn’t want to talk about the problems Carter was facing that we are still facing today.
James Fallows wrote a wonderful defense of Carter, and my favorite part of his bitchslap of Willard in the entire piece:
KAPOW!!!
At least Palin has kin who have served.
I was quoting this but unfortunately did not do so correctly or coherently. I apologize for my incorrect quote, and for my failure to attribute my comment to Mr. Fallows, one of my personal favorites in the journalism universe.
You’re wasting your pixels here, Boo. Romney is speaking in wingnut shorthand. In that shorthand, “Jimmy Carter” equals “worstest, most anti-American president of all time!”
Whether the facts conform to an objective reading of history is purely left to fortune.
I never waste pixels. Only brain cells.
“Jimmy Carter” equals “worstest, most anti-American president of all time, who was defeated by the bestest, most American president of all time!“
Rmoney is trying to claim Reagan’s mantle. Trashing Carter is incidental.
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Bad luck is about the worst of arguments one can make. It’s one of the worst planning af any military operation and was one of many bad decisions the Carter administration made on the Iran issue. The Camp David accords is hardly a success as it led to the assassination of Sadat and empowered the miltants in the Muslim Brotherhood with al-Zawahri in a leadership role. The US role in Afgfhanistan created further turmoil in the AfPak area and terror which is a scourge in the world today. A biblical truth: Live by the sword, die by the sword. Pakistan and the Islamic bomb was approved by the CIA during all US administrations since Nixon. US foreign policy is scandulous even today and very opportunistic. It’s costing US lives and a great multiple of lives in far-away countries.
BTW The operation was led by the Delta Forces, created in 1977. Plus it was already a number of years past the Black September plane hijacking and the Israeli Entebbe Raid.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
For a look at Pres. Carter’s economic numbers compared to St. Raygun, see this fine link —
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/02/reagan-was-no-hero-but-he-played-one-in.html
I read that Brzinski interview with a renewed amount of respect. He was not a lunatic like so many on the right.