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97 Reasons Democrats Are Weak On Defense And Can't Be Trusted To Govern In Wartime

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Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another.

Jimmy Carter, elected during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and (1) believing Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, (2) lifted U.S. citizens' travel bans to Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and (3) pardoned draft evaders.

President Carter (4) also stopped B-1 bomber production, (5) gave away our strategically located Panama Canal and (6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy.

That led Carter, a Democrat, (7) to make a monumental miscalculation and withdraw U.S. support for our long-standing Mideast military ally, the Shah of Iran. (8) Carter simply didn't like the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies.

The Soviets, (9) with close military ties to Iraq, a 1,500-mile border with Iran and eyes on Afghanistan, aggressively tried to encircle, infiltrate, subvert and overthrow Iran's government for its oil deposits and warm-water ports several times after Russian troops attempted to stay there at the end of WWII. These were all communist threats to Iran that Carter never understood.

Carter (10) thought Ayatollah Khomeini, a Muslim exile in Paris, would make a fairer Iranian leader than the Shah because he was a religious man. (11) With U.S. support withdrawn, the Shah was overthrown, and (12) the ayatollah returned and promptly proclaimed Iran an Islamic nation. (13) Executions followed. Palestinian hit men were hired to secretly eliminate the opposition so the religious mullahs couldn't be blamed.

Iran's ayatollah (14) then introduces the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization and paid $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to attack and kill as many Israeli citizens as possible by blowing themselves up. This inhumane menace has grown unchallenged.

The ayatollah (15) next created and financed with Iran's oil wealth Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that later bombed our barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and sailors. With Iran's encouragement this summer, (16) Hezbollah attacked Israel and started a war that damaged Lebanon and (17) diverted the world's attention from Iran's nuclear bomb program.

In November 1979, Iranians, including (18) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, their current puppet president who was elected in an unfree, rigged election in which opponents were intimidated into not running, (19) stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 U.S. personnel hostage for 444 days.

Carter, after nearly six months, (20) belatedly attempted a poorly executed rescue with only six Navy helicopters (three were lost or disabled in sandstorms) and Air Force planes with Delta Force commandos. The mission was aborted, but foul-ups on the ground resulted in a loss of eight aircraft, five airman and three Marines. The bungled plan was never put down on paper for the Joint Chiefs to evaluate. There were practice sessions, but no full dress rehearsal, and pilots weren't allowed to meet with their weather forecasters because someone in authority worried about security.

America (21) can thank the well-meaning but naive and inexperienced Democrat, Jimmy Carter, for a foreign policy that lost a strong military ally, Iran, and (22) put the U.S. at odds with a gangster regime that was determined to build nuclear bombs to wipe Israel off the map and threaten the U.S. and other nations. Iran also has a working relationship with al-Qaida, which also wants nukes. Care to connect the dots?

Shortly after a meeting at which Carter kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev on each cheek, (23) the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Carter the appeaser was shocked. "I can't believe the Russians lied to me," he said.

During the Carter Democrat period, (24) communism was on a rampage worldwide. In an unrestrained country-capturing spree, communists took over (25) Ethiopia, (26) South Yemen ( (27) located at the mouth of the Red Sea where they could block Mideast oil shipments and access to the Suez Canal), (28) Afghanistan, (29) Angola, (30) Cambodia, (31) Mozambique, (32) Grenada and ( 33) Nicaragua.

Compared to the pre-Vietnam War defense budget in 1964, Carter requested in fiscal 1982's defense budget (34) a 45% reduction in fighter aircraft, (35) a 75% reduction in ships, (36) an 83% reduction in attack submarines and (37) a 90% reduction in helicopters.

The Soviets for years (38) consistently spent 15% of their GDP on defense; (39) in 1980 we spent under 5%. As a percentage of our government's spending, defense was lower than before Pearl Harbor. No wonder a Republican, Ronald Reagan, had to vastly increase defense spending to help us win the 45-year-old Cold War and relegate the USSR to the ash heap of history