I was flying into Iran and into Turkey during this entire time with PanAm.
The hostage crisis was manipulated in order that Reagan would be elected.
Carter’s presidency was hijacked by the same group that staged the Coup in Iran to get the Shah back. We are a naive society.
Carter made many inroads for humane events. I also accompanied him on his trip to sign a peace agreement with Sadat and Begin. We spent days traveling between Cairo and TelAviv waiting for the three leaders to decide where best to sign .
All of the issues coming to the surface for “histories sake” as usual are way way past due.
Environmentally, Carter was way ahead of the country. He tried to get solar energy lassoed. Reagan took all of his accomplishments and denigrated them. Reagan was the typical “MAGA” puppet!
Jimmy Carter was a terrible and weak president who failed at everything. The economy was weak, there was an energy crisis, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and the Khomeini fanatics took over Iran. It was Carter’s fault the hostages were taken in the first place. That’s the real reason why Carter lost a crushing defeat in the 1980 election.
Ronald Reagan was a much stronger president. Iranian terrorists knew their game was up when he won the White House.
I suggest you re-read this. Khomeini capitulated to Reagan and released the hostages NOT because Reagan was stronger but because he promise a SWEETER and hideously corrupt deal--which means he was a WEAKER president willing to do evil to get ahead. Reagan shoveled middle class money to the rich as fast as he could. Between Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, their years in power set back Western culture and human rights worldwide, caused both cultures to LURCH to the right, with the result that people who actually work for a living have been getting slaughtered ever since. And, in fact, NEITHER president was responsible for the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9. It set in motion early in the 20th century by reforms made by Reza Shah that enraged the mullahs, many having to do with the liberalization of women's rights, and by the excesses and brutalities of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavia, who reigned from 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979, and the Empress Farah who bathed in milk while the masses starved. The last straw was that the CIA and British Petroleum deposed the duly elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh because he wanted nationalize Iran's oil, taking it back from U.S., British and French companies who were pumping it out of the ground as fast as they could and paying the Iranians, whom they called "Sand Niggers", practically nothing for it, further impoverishing the country. So it was not REMOTELY Carter's fault that the hostages were seized. That whole mess was the legacy of Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon, with Nixon being the worst of the lot in terms of relations with Iran. It was Nixon's long run-up of supporting Pahlavi as he became more and more vicious, torturing tens of thousands of Iranians, and the people rightfully placed blame on Nixon for enabling Pahlavi's cruelty while American multinationals, including Ross Perot's EDS, for practically taking over the country. Carter inherited this problem—and a big part of that problem was Sevener Shi’ism, the mullahs of which had been pissed off for 60 years. Also, Carter didn't engineer the energy crisis. It got dumped on him by OPEC and the OIC, who engineered it to weaken Western powers (not just us) by trashing our economies. The run-up on that one is long, too. ... Carter, it's now realized by most fair assessors, inherited an almost perfect storm of INTERNATIONAL problems, and he did such a good job with Iran that the Ayatollah was DYING to make a deal. That is when John Connally sacheted in with Reagan's deal to steal an election from Jimmy Carter BY EXTENDING THE SUFFERING OF THE HOSTAGES FOR MONTHS SO REAGAN COULD DEFEAT HIM. No sale on this one. … Also, there’s a phenomenon here everybody needs to look at. Americans think of themselves as all-power. We are, in a sense, the Children of the Empire. We have for a century believed ourselves to be the hottest ticket on the planet. We believe that if it goes right, we did good. If something goes wrong, we blame our president. This is an extremely convenient way to think because it keeps us from being afraid. If something wrong — and it means we screwed up — we can change ourselves and fix the problem. But if we don’t cause everything — good and bad — it means others out there have power, too, and that their internal madnesses of the countries we deal with can’t annoy us, but not threaten our capacity to keep our own ship afloat. Now on a SUPERFICIAL LEVEL we do get that. We engage in diplomacy to a degree just because we DO get that. But we are still prone to the syndrome in which the Children of the Empire think IF WE CAN’T SOLVE IT, SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH SOME PRESIDENT OR CONGRESS. This is not always true. Sometimes it is, like Biden’s influence in the Levant right now, but it is NOT ALWAYS TRUE. … The hardest thing to get is that other people—like OPEC, for example—can play a game we can’t control. Or one more country can get the bomb and alter the balance of power immensely. Or we can have a pandemic. Or Campi Flegrei in Italy can explode and kill a million people and destroy air quality in Europe for a year, crashing 1/3 of Europe’s economies and affecting everybody else’s. Carter did a damned good job given what he got saddled with. … P.S. The same thing happened to Obama, who inherited the worst economy in 2008 since the Crash of 1929. Referencing Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” Obama said he felt as if he’d won the prize but it had been picked apart by sharks. The same thing happened to Carter. And to others. And it will happen again. We as Americans are not the center of the universe. We are afloat together with all the others on a strange and dangerous sea.
There is some legitimacy to criticisms against the Shah's repressive tactics. But surely the Shah was better than the Ayatollah that followed him, right? While it is true that none of the American presidents are directly culpable for Khomeini's revolution, I still think Republican foreign policy since Reagan has been appropriately hostile to Iran's regime. I just don't see any reason to think Carter could have secured their release, even without the GOP's interference.
But I understand your different perspective, and I enjoy these kind of discussions nonetheless.
The Ayatollah Khomeini was trying to make a deal with Carter with John Connally snaked in prevented it. And there isn't "some legitimacy to the Shah's repressive tactics." He ran a secret police that would have been the envy of the Stasi and a torture apparatus that would have been the envy of Pol Pot.
When I first read Barnes's statement, I knew he was telling the truth. Reagan and his henchmen stole the election from Jimmy Carter, one of the finest human beings who has ever served as President of our nation, and put our country into a downward spiral which allowed the horrors of the Orange Sadist to occur. I will always blame Reagan for the beginning of the destruction of the United States -- starting with Citizens United, and continuing with his despicable "trickle down" lies. [Is there a way that I can share this on my FB page? Thank you!]
Wow! For the most part I do not doubt that this might have happened, but it seems to be such an isolated incident and in order to rely on the one single testimony there really needs to be further confirmation for this anecdote to truly become part of the historical record.
I have heard on the grapevine that there's a serious investigation going on about this now, so we may hear more. But people who know this guy personally and for decades say there is no straighter arrow in government and that if he says it, they believe him. I'll go with that the moment as I think it's worse NOT to report what one credible man says. If somebody wants to try to take this down, I'm willing to listen. But I've seen NO big push back from anybody in the GOP. They seem to hope it will just fade. I hope it doesn't. I watched the Iranian regime FOUNDERING ON ROCKS while this siege went on, and I believe they desperately wanted a way out. The world backed away from Khomeini, and he almost los the whole regime over this.
I am certainly not contending against this revelation, and in fact strongly encourage you to bring it forward into the national discussion about how Republican leadership so easily and readily is prepared to cheat, lie, and manipulate any and all factors in order to assert their most unwelcome agendas.
I am glad you posted this as it truly is an important matter that needs to be made public.
I was flying into Iran and into Turkey during this entire time with PanAm.
The hostage crisis was manipulated in order that Reagan would be elected.
Carter’s presidency was hijacked by the same group that staged the Coup in Iran to get the Shah back. We are a naive society.
Carter made many inroads for humane events. I also accompanied him on his trip to sign a peace agreement with Sadat and Begin. We spent days traveling between Cairo and TelAviv waiting for the three leaders to decide where best to sign .
All of the issues coming to the surface for “histories sake” as usual are way way past due.
Environmentally, Carter was way ahead of the country. He tried to get solar energy lassoed. Reagan took all of his accomplishments and denigrated them. Reagan was the typical “MAGA” puppet!
Jimmy Carter was a terrible and weak president who failed at everything. The economy was weak, there was an energy crisis, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and the Khomeini fanatics took over Iran. It was Carter’s fault the hostages were taken in the first place. That’s the real reason why Carter lost a crushing defeat in the 1980 election.
Ronald Reagan was a much stronger president. Iranian terrorists knew their game was up when he won the White House.
I suggest you re-read this. Khomeini capitulated to Reagan and released the hostages NOT because Reagan was stronger but because he promise a SWEETER and hideously corrupt deal--which means he was a WEAKER president willing to do evil to get ahead. Reagan shoveled middle class money to the rich as fast as he could. Between Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, their years in power set back Western culture and human rights worldwide, caused both cultures to LURCH to the right, with the result that people who actually work for a living have been getting slaughtered ever since. And, in fact, NEITHER president was responsible for the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9. It set in motion early in the 20th century by reforms made by Reza Shah that enraged the mullahs, many having to do with the liberalization of women's rights, and by the excesses and brutalities of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavia, who reigned from 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979, and the Empress Farah who bathed in milk while the masses starved. The last straw was that the CIA and British Petroleum deposed the duly elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh because he wanted nationalize Iran's oil, taking it back from U.S., British and French companies who were pumping it out of the ground as fast as they could and paying the Iranians, whom they called "Sand Niggers", practically nothing for it, further impoverishing the country. So it was not REMOTELY Carter's fault that the hostages were seized. That whole mess was the legacy of Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon, with Nixon being the worst of the lot in terms of relations with Iran. It was Nixon's long run-up of supporting Pahlavi as he became more and more vicious, torturing tens of thousands of Iranians, and the people rightfully placed blame on Nixon for enabling Pahlavi's cruelty while American multinationals, including Ross Perot's EDS, for practically taking over the country. Carter inherited this problem—and a big part of that problem was Sevener Shi’ism, the mullahs of which had been pissed off for 60 years. Also, Carter didn't engineer the energy crisis. It got dumped on him by OPEC and the OIC, who engineered it to weaken Western powers (not just us) by trashing our economies. The run-up on that one is long, too. ... Carter, it's now realized by most fair assessors, inherited an almost perfect storm of INTERNATIONAL problems, and he did such a good job with Iran that the Ayatollah was DYING to make a deal. That is when John Connally sacheted in with Reagan's deal to steal an election from Jimmy Carter BY EXTENDING THE SUFFERING OF THE HOSTAGES FOR MONTHS SO REAGAN COULD DEFEAT HIM. No sale on this one. … Also, there’s a phenomenon here everybody needs to look at. Americans think of themselves as all-power. We are, in a sense, the Children of the Empire. We have for a century believed ourselves to be the hottest ticket on the planet. We believe that if it goes right, we did good. If something goes wrong, we blame our president. This is an extremely convenient way to think because it keeps us from being afraid. If something wrong — and it means we screwed up — we can change ourselves and fix the problem. But if we don’t cause everything — good and bad — it means others out there have power, too, and that their internal madnesses of the countries we deal with can’t annoy us, but not threaten our capacity to keep our own ship afloat. Now on a SUPERFICIAL LEVEL we do get that. We engage in diplomacy to a degree just because we DO get that. But we are still prone to the syndrome in which the Children of the Empire think IF WE CAN’T SOLVE IT, SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH SOME PRESIDENT OR CONGRESS. This is not always true. Sometimes it is, like Biden’s influence in the Levant right now, but it is NOT ALWAYS TRUE. … The hardest thing to get is that other people—like OPEC, for example—can play a game we can’t control. Or one more country can get the bomb and alter the balance of power immensely. Or we can have a pandemic. Or Campi Flegrei in Italy can explode and kill a million people and destroy air quality in Europe for a year, crashing 1/3 of Europe’s economies and affecting everybody else’s. Carter did a damned good job given what he got saddled with. … P.S. The same thing happened to Obama, who inherited the worst economy in 2008 since the Crash of 1929. Referencing Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” Obama said he felt as if he’d won the prize but it had been picked apart by sharks. The same thing happened to Carter. And to others. And it will happen again. We as Americans are not the center of the universe. We are afloat together with all the others on a strange and dangerous sea.
There is some legitimacy to criticisms against the Shah's repressive tactics. But surely the Shah was better than the Ayatollah that followed him, right? While it is true that none of the American presidents are directly culpable for Khomeini's revolution, I still think Republican foreign policy since Reagan has been appropriately hostile to Iran's regime. I just don't see any reason to think Carter could have secured their release, even without the GOP's interference.
But I understand your different perspective, and I enjoy these kind of discussions nonetheless.
The Ayatollah Khomeini was trying to make a deal with Carter with John Connally snaked in prevented it. And there isn't "some legitimacy to the Shah's repressive tactics." He ran a secret police that would have been the envy of the Stasi and a torture apparatus that would have been the envy of Pol Pot.
When I first read Barnes's statement, I knew he was telling the truth. Reagan and his henchmen stole the election from Jimmy Carter, one of the finest human beings who has ever served as President of our nation, and put our country into a downward spiral which allowed the horrors of the Orange Sadist to occur. I will always blame Reagan for the beginning of the destruction of the United States -- starting with Citizens United, and continuing with his despicable "trickle down" lies. [Is there a way that I can share this on my FB page? Thank you!]
Wow! For the most part I do not doubt that this might have happened, but it seems to be such an isolated incident and in order to rely on the one single testimony there really needs to be further confirmation for this anecdote to truly become part of the historical record.
I have heard on the grapevine that there's a serious investigation going on about this now, so we may hear more. But people who know this guy personally and for decades say there is no straighter arrow in government and that if he says it, they believe him. I'll go with that the moment as I think it's worse NOT to report what one credible man says. If somebody wants to try to take this down, I'm willing to listen. But I've seen NO big push back from anybody in the GOP. They seem to hope it will just fade. I hope it doesn't. I watched the Iranian regime FOUNDERING ON ROCKS while this siege went on, and I believe they desperately wanted a way out. The world backed away from Khomeini, and he almost los the whole regime over this.
I am certainly not contending against this revelation, and in fact strongly encourage you to bring it forward into the national discussion about how Republican leadership so easily and readily is prepared to cheat, lie, and manipulate any and all factors in order to assert their most unwelcome agendas.
I am glad you posted this as it truly is an important matter that needs to be made public.