This day in History - November 4, 1979 - Iranian Revolutionary Guards storm the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran.
File photo: One of the American hostages is surrounded by some of his captors at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Former captives have identified the second man from the right as Iran’s future President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.This was the opening shot of the current war of Islamic Fundamentalists on America; thirty years ago today.
Student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. Days later, Iran's provincial leader resigned, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's fundamentalist revolutionaries, took full control of the country--and the fate of the hostages.
Here's how it worked: a bunch of enraged university students stormed the US Embassy, took the place down. Ayatollah looks over there and says, "YOU DID W-H-A-A-A-A-T? HOLY SHIT! ARE YOU FRIKKIN' CRAZY ? ? ? NOW THE U.S. IS GOING TO GO HOG-WILD ON US ! ! !"
Two days later, NOTHING HAPPENS . . .
This man balked . . .
Two weeks after the storming of the embassy, the Ayatollah began to release all non-U.S. captives, and all female and minority Americans, citing these groups as among the people oppressed by the United States government. The remaining 52 captives were left at the mercy of the Ayatollah for the next 14 months.
President Jimmy Carter was unable to diplomatically resolve the crisis, and on April 24, 1980, he ordered a disastrous rescue mission in which eight U.S. military personnel were killed and no hostages rescued.
It was the absolute low point of American prestige and honor around the world in the post-Vietnam era. I still remember feelings of confusion, how I hung my head in shame.
Three months later, the former shah died of cancer in Egypt, but the crisis continued. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Soon after, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations finally began between the United States and Iran.
You can say whatever you want about the man - Ronald Reagan got a LOT of respect from the Bad Guys.
On January 20, 1981--the day of Reagan's inauguration--the United States freed almost $3 billion in frozen Iranian assets and promised $5 billion more in financial aid. Minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the hostages flew out of Iran on an Algerian airliner, ending their 444-day ordeal. The next day, Jimmy Carter flew to West Germany to greet them on their way home.
The wall of the former US Embassy in Tehran, now referred to as the "US Den of Espionage."
I guarantee that if - three days after our Embassy had been taken down - Jimmy Carter had flown the 82D over there and dropped them onto DZ Tehran, we wouldn't be putting up with ten percent of the bullshit we're having to deal with right now in the Sand Pile.
18 Americans Kidnapped, 1982 - 1991 Lebanon,
CIA Bureau Chief William Francis Buckley and Marine Colonel William Higgins were both kidnapped and murdered - a group called the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth claimed responsibility, but the real suspects are the Hezbollah guerillas.
Truck Bombing of U.S. Embassy, Beirut Lebanon, April 18, 1983 - 63 killed; Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Marine Barracks bombing, Beirut Lebanon, October 1983 - 299 Americans killed. A French paratrooper base was blown up minutes later, 58 French soldiers killed. A terrorist group called the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
December 4, 1984, American diplomat Charles Hegna murdered during a 1984 terrorist hijacking of a Kuwaiti Airlines flight by Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah.
TWA Flight 847 hijacking June 14, 1985 - one American murdered - US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem - by Lebanese Shia Islamists (Hezbollah).
Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking, October 7, 1985 - wheelchair-bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer murdered by Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorists who then threw his body overboard.
TWA Flight 840 Bombed, April 02, 1986, Athens, Greece - four people were killed, nine others were wounded. A terrorist group called Ezzedine Kassam Unit of the Arab Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility
La Belle Disco bombing, West Berlin, April 5, 1986 - two US servicemen and one Turkish woman killed. The operation was determined to be conducted by Libyan intelligence officers.
Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, Lockerbie Scotland, December 21, 1988 - Libyan intelligence officers allegedly involved with the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine - 243 passengers and 16 crew members killed, 11 citizens of Lockerbie Scotland also killed. They were heading home for the holidays.
CIA Employees in Langley, VA are Shot, January 25, 1993
Langley, Virginia
A Pakistani man, Mir Aimal Kasi, who lived in Virginia drove up to the CIA building in Langley, Virginia and shot two CIA agents. He was angry because he believed that the United States were mistreating Muslims who lived in the Middle East.
World Trade Center in New York Bombed, February 26, 1993 New York - Six people were killed and more than 1,000 are injured in this terrorist attack. A group of Muslim terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives and driven into the World Trade Center's underground parking garage.
U.S. Military Complex bombed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 13, 1995
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Seven people killed; Three terrorist groups: Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God claim responsibility for the bombing of this military center.
US military quarters Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia bombed - 19 American soldiers killed, 500 more people were wounded. The Movement for Islamic Change claimed responsibility for the bombing.
U.S. Embassies bombed August 07, 1998 simultaneously Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - more than 5,000 people were injured and 224 were killed when the buildings that they were working in collapsed during the explosions.
USS Cole Bombed at dock in Aden Yemen October 12 2000 - 17 U.S. Navy seamen killed when the explosion blew a 20 by 40 foot hole in the side of the ship.
Then of course there's the big one . . . September 11, 2001 New York City, Washington, DC, Shanksville Pennsylvania - World Trade Center is Destroyed and the Pentagon is Attacked - in total 2,993 people, including the hijackers, died in the attacks.
We are under attack. Perhaps a better name for what we've got is 'The One Hundred Years War' . . .
. . . STORMBRINGER SENDS
A slight (and not particularly reliable in other respects) acquaintance in Russia claimed he knows a spetsnats soldier who became a secret Hero of the Soviet Union for causing the failure of that mission. He gave convincing details (at least to a civilian like me), but of course it could be complete bullshit.
ReplyDelete1. One helicopter failed and the team was packed into the remaining aircraft
2. This necessitated a refuelling stop and a cache was dropped in the desert in advance.
3. A Soviet team detected the drop and was positioned near the fuel dump when the helicopters came in.
4. They couldn't resist the temptation to take out so much US hardware for the price of one RPG to the dump.
5. In line with standard procedure, his medal was delayed so that US intelligence would not connect it to what had "earned" it.
Make any sense to you? Or is it, as I hope, a low level guy bigging up his role with a tall tale?
I hold all what he said to be true, and have seen this developing since the early Sixties. Some would say that the West is asleep, except Israel, of course.
ReplyDeleteIt is worse than sleep; Europe and America have gorging and spending or otherwise consuming and indebting themselves into oblivion. We have been thinking very short-range, and have been too absorbed with toys and sports to bother having children.
The consequences are being felt increasingly.
That Muslims have a much higher birth rate than the rest of us means that they will compress the West into tighter and tighter confines, especially in Europe.
Our national economies are in jeopardy, and once the U.S. dollar goes nova and hyperinflation consumes it and us, the West will descend into chaos.
The process may take another 30 or 40 years, but the time will come when again, the hordes will be at the gates of Vienna. These gates will held open by the Muslim majorities in the major European cities.
In gestures of appeasement, the West will let Israel succumb as is the ongoing case with Taiwan. South Korea will be left with little more than a promise of help; U.S. troops will be brought home and disbanded.
At the end, America (and Canada) will be facing an Islamic empire armed with the nuclear weapons and military technology that resides in France and the U.K.
There is little to do about it. These events are but consequences of things that have already happened.
Capt Bill