Thursday, October 9, 2008

This is pretty good...

      Jimmy Carter became our 
> 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term
> governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut
> farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of
> the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy,
> leaving as a lieutenant.
>
>
>
> He came to power in the
> aftermath of the Vi etnam War and the resignation of
> President Nixon. The public wanted change and someone new,
> and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who
> promised better days. As good as his intentions were,
> however, the things he tried were not successful. In fact,
> he created far more serious problems than he ever solved.
>
>
>
> The centerpiece of
> Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did
> achieve one noble success-a peace treaty between Egypt
> 's Anwar Sadat and Israel 's Menachem Begin.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, that later led
> to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim
> radicals.
>
>
>
> Many people felt Carter was
> a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive
> and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex
> challenges of being president.
>
>
>
> He wrongly believed
> Americans had an 'inordinate fear of communism,' so
> he lifted travel bans to Cuba , North Vi etnam and Cambodia
> and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber
> production and gave away our strategically located Panama
> Canal
>
>
>
> His most damaging
> miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the
> Shah of Iran , a strong and longtime military ally. Carter
> objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of
> imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran
> 's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah
> Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.
>
>
>
> Having lost U.S. support,
> the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was
> declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were
> hired to eliminate opposition.
>
>
>
> The Ayatollah then
> introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine
> Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families
> whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis
> as possible by blowing themselves up in c rowded shopping
> areas.
>
>
>
> Next, the Ayatollah used
> Iran 's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new
> terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack
> Israel in 2006.
>
> In November 1979, Mahmoud
> Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in
> Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Not
> until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a
> rescue. But the mission, using just six Navy helicopters,
> was poorly executed. Three of the copters were disabled or
> lost in sandstorms. (Pilots weren't allowed to meet
> with weather forecasters because someone in authority
> worried about security.) Five airmen and three Marines lost
> their lives.
>
>
>
> So, due to overconfidence,
> inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a
> strong ally, Iran , that today aggressively threatens the
> U.S. , Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear
> weapons.
>
>
>
> But that's not all.
> After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader
> Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan .
> Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked. 'I
> can't believe the Russians lied to me,' he said.
>
>
>
> The invasion attracted a
> 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to
> recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet
> jihad. Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a
> terrorist organization that would declare war on America
> several times between 1996 and 1998 before attacking us on
> 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on
> Pearl Harbor
>
> On Carter's watch, the
> Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it
> took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South
> Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.
>
> In spite of this,
> Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below
> pre- Vi etnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships,
> 83% for attack submarine and 90% for helicopters.
>
>
>
> Years later, as a civilian,
> Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep
> that communist country from developing nuclear weapons. He
> also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State
> Madeleine Albright to go along with it. But the signed
> piece of paper proved worthless. The North Koreans deceived
> Carter and instead used our money, incentives and technical
> equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we
> face today.
>
>
>
> Thus did Carter unwittingly
> become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his
> well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions
> the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous
> security threats we face today: Iran , al-Qaida and North
> Korea
>
>
>
> On the domestic side,
> Carter gave us inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years;
> interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and a
> severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas
> stations nationwide.
>
>
>
> In 1977, Carter, along
> with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with
> noble intentions-the Community Reinvestment Act. Over
> strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet
> the credit needs of their entire communities.
>
>
>
> In 1995, President Clinton
> imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that
> coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income,
> poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible
> restrictions on expansion. ; These revisions allowed for
> securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages.
>
>
>
> By 1997, good loans were
> bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to
> institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the
> loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make
> more of these profitable subprime products.
>
> Under two young,
> well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans
> and mandates played a significant role in the current
> subprime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for
> the U.S. and international economies.
>
>
>
> Hardest-hit by the mortgage
> fore closures have been the citizens that Democrats always
> claim to help most-inner-city residents who fell victim to
> low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates,
> deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry
> salespeople.
>
>
>
> Now we're having to
> bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very
> agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In
> time, this should improve the situation. But the party of
> Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants
> to be trusted to take over and have the government run our
> entire system of health care!
>
>
>
> And everyone is blaming
> Bush for our current problems.



2 comments:

marky said...

Don't you know that it is so much easier to cast the blame?

How are you liking the new home?

Anonymous said...

This is why we need to pay attention to history, not what the current media says. Good post!