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Special Report
Jimmy Carter’s Dead Ambassador
Background music of appeasement gave both Obama and Carter murdered diplomats.
(Page 3 of 6)
Jimmy Carter, ready to depart the White House for Mexico at 8:00 in the morning, was furious.
The discussion was held: should the Mexican trip be canceled?
Through the diplomatic good graces of the British and Danish embassies, the Ayatollah Khomeini had agreed to help the Americans trapped in the American Embassy. At 6 A.M. Washington time came the word from Tehran. The forces loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini had, in the words of the Times, “promised to do all they could for the Americans.” The attack on the embassy magically ceased.
Jimmy Carter left for Mexico on schedule at eight that morning.
In the course of the next few days Ambassador Dubs’ body was flown home to the United States. He was given a hero’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery attended by Vice President Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
What to do about the mess in Afghanistan?
Jimmy Carter instructed his State Department to file a “strong protest” (in the words of the Times) with the Soviet-backed Afghan government. The Soviet Ambassador to the United States was summoned to the State Department. Where Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin was treated to his usual privilege of avoiding the front entrance of State and those pesky reporters in favor of being driven into the State Department’s underground garage. Where the Soviet Ambassador was, again as usual, escorted to the private elevator of the Secretary of State for his ride up into the building. Once inside, Carter’s State Department informed the Soviet Ambassador that they were making a “formal protest” to the Soviet government over the killing of Spike Dubs. The actions of the Soviets were “impossible to justify,” said State.
Thus admonished, Dobrynin took the Secretary’s private elevator back to the garage and departed.
The response from the Soviet government? The Soviet news agency Tass put out an indignant statement denying responsibility. The other Communists in this set piece, the Setami Milli, were eventually rewarded when the Soviet-backed government made a Setami Milli leader the Minister of Justice.
And when Jimmy Carter got to Mexico? He was promptly, humiliatingly and quite publicly reprimanded by President Portillo for his policies toward Mexico. Carter was so angry he was reported to have instructed aides that he never wanted to see Portillo again.
In short: February of 1979 proved to be a bad month for Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy. In fact, it proved fatal for Ambassador Spike Dubs.
But why?
AND WHAT DOES THE MURDER of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi in 2012 have to do with the murder of Ambassador Adolph “Spike” Dubs some 33 years earlier?
Indeed, no one is asking why it is that both Obama and Carter — not Reagan or the Bushes or Bill Clinton — wound up having an American enemy think it was safe to kill an American Ambassador.
There is a reason. And it certainly is appropriate to suggest that the reason has to do with the similarity in conducting foreign policy exemplified by both Presidents Carter and Obama.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (39) | Leave a comment
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John Navratil| 10.23.12 @ 6:31AM
The people who carried Obama to victory and largely who will vote for him, today, were not born when this occurred.
One hopes the lessons of the Obama Presidency will inform them in the future and that Santayana's maxim will again be shown true - at least for those who have lived through history.
I'm afraid this is not the last. The Progressives are like the monsters in a horror show - never quite dead. To paraphrase Coulter, every generation we forget what the Democrats did last time and elect them again.
Occam's Tool| 10.23.12 @ 1:10PM
And the solution is very simple: you kill one of our citizens in an illegitimate manner (not executing a properly tried murderer in say, Australia or Canada or Israel or Britain or France, etc.), we kill a thousand of your citizens. You kill one of our ambassadors, your capital is nuked off the map. Do that, and watch this crap stop.
Worked for the Romans.
John Navratil| 10.23.12 @ 1:38PM
Occam's Tool,
As is said of the criminal justice system, it's not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty, that deters. One the we have here in spades (hee, hee - slap me Momma) is uncertainty.
Jack London| 10.23.12 @ 2:25PM
Didn't work for the Nazis.
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 2:30PM
You have it wrong, Jackie boy. The Nazi's were the equivalent of today's Iran. The Nazi's screwed with us and we were Rome. Occam has it exactly right.
Skippy| 10.23.12 @ 2:46PM
Yo, Jacques,
It certainly did work for the Nazis.
It works every time it is tried.
In your response, please detail all the civilian uprisings in Nazi-held territory.
The successful ones and the crushed failures.
Short f*cking list, eh dipsh!t?
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 7:03PM
Skippy boy, from the time Germany invaded Poland until Hitler put a bullet in his brain was
5 1/2 years. Not exactly a Thousand Year Reich was it? So no, it didn't work for Hitler either, numbnuts. By the way, anytime you want to debate die Geschicte von Deutschland mit mir, let me know. In the meantime, put your head back up Obamarx's ass. I get the feeling you're most comfortable there.
WaffenSS| 10.24.12 @ 9:51AM
Oh yes it did. The U.S. backed a successful plot to assassinate Hendrick Reinhart. The SS promptly wiped two towns off the map in Poland. We (the U.S.) didn't do that again. The Romans had a provence in Macedonia that would not pay taxes. The Romans salted the earth and to this day nothing grows there. Genghis Kahn had trouble in northern Afganistan so he put 1.5 million people to the sword. Yeah, it does work.
TLP| 10.23.12 @ 5:05PM
That's the Chicago Way.
Sean Connery - The Untouchables.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.23.12 @ 7:26AM
"The people who carried Obama to victory and largely who will vote for him, today, were not born when this occurred.
This is true, and that pool grows when one refers to Neville Chamberlain. While it is difficult to imagine what the world might look like today if Hitler had met the resistance of the "leaders of the freer nations" of the world earlier, we all know what failing to respond with anything but appeasement wrought.
Actually, we all don't know, as too many ignore history (as you point out). Unfortunately, we all are forced to experience it, whether we remember it or not.
Alan| 10.23.12 @ 8:20AM
Your absolutely right, everybody going to learn history whether they want to or not. You can learn it the easy way or you can learn it the hard way, but either way people ARE going to learn it.
It is truly breathtaking to exist in a population of people who are historically ignorant.
Von Mises Jr| 10.23.12 @ 8:28AM
I posit that the similarity is not simply weakness. It is an embrace of socialism and statism.
I think the totalitarianism of the USSR and the terrorism of Arafat gave Jimma Carta a thrill all the way up his leg.
Barry is the seed that has not fallen far from the tree. His plethora of Czars is replete with Mao enthusiast. He seems to connect with Chavez and appears to be a student of Putin. When visiting the Middle East, he practically threw his back out bowing to the Saudi King, and did the same with the Japanese leader perhaps since they used the terror of kamikaze attacks.
This is much more than simple weakness. This is a totalitarian love fest.
SUBVET| 10.23.12 @ 10:44AM
VM Jr. ......totalitarian love fest you say.
barry is a muslim and a socialist/commie, just like his brethren he wants the western way of life gone.
He will do what it takes to push that agenda.....anything !!!
Cobalt| 10.23.12 @ 8:35AM
Thirty three years after Ambassador Dubs was killed, in 1979, an 88 year-old Jimmy Carter is still going around the world making an ass of himself.
Thirty three years after Ambassador Stevens was killed, in 2045, will an 84 year-old Obama still be going around the world making an ass of himself?
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 9:00AM
Yes, Cobalt, he will. With rare exception, it seems that Socialist idealogues do not change stripes. Mistuh Jimma Cahta was, is, and will always be an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel shill for the Muslims. Mistuh Jimma Cahta was, is , and will always be a weak-kneed Kumbya kind of guy who truly believes America was, is, and will always be what's wrong with the world. Von is correct, the seed which is Obamarx hasn't fallen far from Mistuh Jimma Cahta's tree.
Pecos Pete| 10.23.12 @ 10:09AM
Jack, I could never understand how an officer in the US Navy could be named Jimmy Carter.
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 11:34AM
Who knows? Maybe he went by his given name, James (as in James Earl Carter, Jr.). By the way, your Ghost Riders in the Sky was pretty da**ed good, if I do say so myself.
Jacob McCandles| 10.23.12 @ 12:16PM
So why does a Christian peanut farmer Navy veteran from Georgia develop such an appreciation for Islam ESP. Vs Israel? Is it simply because Islamists favor totalitarianism or is there more to it? Maybe liberals, as Ann Coulter has said, just always side with what is against America.
Occam's Tool| 10.23.12 @ 1:13PM
Jacob:
allow me to quote a flagrant antisemite to answer the question, Roger Waters:
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/p.....08700.html ]
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil
Today
But if you ask for a rise
It's no surprise that they're
Giving none away
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The Saudis reward their friends well. Carter is a scumbag, peckerneck, redneck.
Pecos Pete| 10.23.12 @ 12:55PM
Gracias!
soljerblue| 10.23.12 @ 1:46PM
Let's hope we never get a United States Navy ship named after the little twerp. THAT would be a tragedy. They'd have to shanghai a crew for it.
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 2:28PM
Frankly, I think it would be great to resurrect some old ship from mothballs, rename the Barack Hussein Obamarx then use it for target practice off the coast of Iran.
SUBVET| 10.23.12 @ 10:47AM
Not if a caisson occurs...............
Jack London| 10.23.12 @ 9:10AM
I guess everyone here has forgotten the 241 American servicemen killed in the Beirut bombing in 1983 under Reagan, who was advised not to station people there.
I guess everyone here has forgotten all the Americans killed on 9/11 and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
None of these are nearly as grave a security lapse of course than anything done under Carter or Obama.
John Navratil| 10.23.12 @ 10:58AM
Jack London,
Sometime I have to do what I don't want to do and that's respond to your complete and TOTAL BULLSHIT!
Reagan may on may not have had advisors suggesting that be pull the Marines out. However, it's complete crap to draw an equivalence between the Marines who had been part of a multi-national force and subject to small arms and mortar fire and ultimately with the game-changing truck bomb which had not been seen before in this theater and represented a completely new tactical plan for the muslims, and the Banghazi consulate which had been attacked and bombed in the last several months.
Show me where Reagan had additional security requested, let alone denied. Show me an attack which foreshadowed this one. You cannot!
Typical adolescent bullshit, "Reagan did it too!" Try to play with some facts and a cogent argument please.
Tom Kyba| 10.23.12 @ 11:14AM
That's because when you are a liberal, any analogy you can make up is considered a "gotcha" moment. Unless the analogy is insulting to libs, then of course it's unfair.
Jack London| 10.23.12 @ 12:08PM
John,
I'm not trying to make it a contest. Just that I don't think a Republican administration is likely to have a better record on security, if that's your contention, especially after 9/11.
As for 'Banghazi' - sadly that's what it turned into. And note this story:
"The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
Occam's Tool| 10.23.12 @ 1:17PM
See my note below. If your comment is that we did not respond forcefully enough to the Barracks bombing, I agree with you. It was a lapse in the otherwise excellent "Peace through Strength" policy. My comment on what should have been done is below.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.23.12 @ 11:47AM
As today is the 29th anniversary of the barracks truck bomb in Beirut that killed 241 of my Marine colleagues in 1983, I was prepared to be angered and offended by your politicization of their deaths. Then I read your concluding sentence a second time.
"None of these are nearly as grave a security lapse of course than anything done under Carter or Obama."
I certainly have not forgotten all of those Americans who have taken the oath to support and defend our Constitution, and have died while carrying out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, particularly those who joined up in response to the act of war against our civilian population (as well as our military) that took place on 091101, and I remain eternally grateful.
But on your second point, I guess if you're willing to conclude that allowing sovereign US territory to be overrun and US diplomats killed or held hostage without responding, or trying to place the blame on a video is as reprehensible as I do, I won't argue against you.
Occam's Tool| 10.23.12 @ 1:15PM
Jack:
You are absolutely right. Following the attack on our Marines, Beirut should have been nuked with the PLO leadership in it. Reagan missed a chance to make a statement. It was his biggest mistake. Had he done that, he would have not only won the Cold War, he would have delayed the rise of the Caliphate by establishing the appropriate precedent.
Jack London| 10.23.12 @ 2:13PM
"Beirut should have been nuked with the PLO leadership in it. '
Yes, I can see that would have been a great move.
Skippy| 10.23.12 @ 2:51PM
Sarcasm is not your long suit.
gene| 10.23.12 @ 10:07AM
People will keep repeating history for as long as we still have a history. What is important is a free independent media to keep REMINDING people about truth.
"..One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World ......." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 11:36AM
Well, if a free INDEPENDENT media is what we need, I guess we're f**ked.
Who Knows?| 10.23.12 @ 11:49AM
Cue the hippie, Neil Young---singing his plaintive:
“Oh, the damage done.”
People make choices. Choices have consequences.
Voters chose Carter. Carter, like all presidents, receives information---reports of the consequences of choices made by other people---processes it, listens to advice of his counselors, and chooses what to have other people do. Consequences follow.
Ergo, in 2012, we can simply say, with deadly pith, that Obama is a consequential president.
Voters chose him, or is it Him, and the consequences have been nihilistic, and predictable by those of us who knew who he was---the consequent result of a brainwashing by communists.
What a way for Americans to express their “free” choices!
Repeat after me---there are three aspects to ANY reality:
Begin = create = Yahweh = Brahman
Continue = sustain = Jesus = Vishnu
End = destroy = Satan = Shiva.
Obama is a destroyer. Apparently, in 2008, American voters wanted to experience destruction, and they chose “wisely”.
Time for a different choosing!
KennesawJack| 10.23.12 @ 11:54AM
In his mind it's "Him".
RJ| 10.23.12 @ 3:15PM
Jimmy Carter was a failed President, but even on his worst day, Jimmy was better than Obama. Jimmy was naive and condescending, while Obama's views are that of a third world colonialist, who sees oppression by the Western world, particularly the United States.
Obama simply does not share our values of individual freedom, free enterprise, equality under the law, and consent of the governed. His mission is to fundamentally change America into a collective dictatorship.
Nicky1| 10.23.12 @ 8:39PM
Sad to say lads but there is a sub named after Jimmy. I think it has a flexible hull as befits a limp d
*** like Carter
Abu Nudnik| 10.25.12 @ 10:27AM
"we want to move away from the politics of fear " -Janet Neopalitano
Who doesn't understand this means "we're terrified and we'll do anything that's asked of us within reason" and that line, reasonableness, keeps moving.