Excellent interview and post. Those of us who lived through the disastrous Carter years remember well waking before dawn on our appointed day to line up for gasoline. He not only called for lowering thermostats to 65 but 55 degrees at night (which no one did, to my knowledge). But the "good man" rhetoric belies his moralizing and preening on human rights and many other issues (he banned hard liquor from the White House and turned off the air conditioning) without regard to reality. He was about managing our decline when we just wanted to Make America Great Again (a slogan first coined by Ronald Reagan).
Oh, to be back in High School and the Carter years. Ms. Pletka forgot that gasoline broke the $1.00 mark during our high school days for the first time here in Los Angeles. I can remember 35cents a gallon filling up my first car. First rate memory and insight.
1. '73 oil crisis was faked, a collusion between OPEC and senior execs at major US oil companies.
$1 per gallon was a "psychological price point" that people quickly learned to accept, but never would have otherwise because the price of a gallon of gas was approximately 1/3 of a dollar.
2. Anti-semitic refers to general bigotry against the people in the region of the Middle-East, and is not correct when specifically opposing policies or actions of Jews.
3. The war against Saddam Hussein in the early '90s was not to support Kuwait; their rich were partying in London while American military were at risk in the region. It was about American access to a large supply of relatively inexpensive oil.
The US military-industrial complex wanted another big payday, having controlled the conflict in Vietnam so that US could never win, as winning cuts off the income stream to the major defense contractors, a situation which Dr. Daniel Ellsberg exposed and then almost lost his liberty for being a patriot.
However, a retired and highly decorated Vietnam War colonel appeared on TV and insisted American lives could be saved by relying on a sustained air bombardment before sending in troops, and G H Bush was forced to do so.
Saddam was petrified of the capabilities of the NSA.
He refused to communicate with his military out in the field, fearing that the NSA would intercept his orders and inform General Schwarzkopf, so that Iraqi troops would be heading into a trap.
After many days of saturation bombing and no word from Hussein, the Iraqi army either surrendered or offered light resistance before surrendering. Probably, they assumed Saddam had been struck down.
Excellent interview and post. Those of us who lived through the disastrous Carter years remember well waking before dawn on our appointed day to line up for gasoline. He not only called for lowering thermostats to 65 but 55 degrees at night (which no one did, to my knowledge). But the "good man" rhetoric belies his moralizing and preening on human rights and many other issues (he banned hard liquor from the White House and turned off the air conditioning) without regard to reality. He was about managing our decline when we just wanted to Make America Great Again (a slogan first coined by Ronald Reagan).
Oh, to be back in High School and the Carter years. Ms. Pletka forgot that gasoline broke the $1.00 mark during our high school days for the first time here in Los Angeles. I can remember 35cents a gallon filling up my first car. First rate memory and insight.
An excellent book that merits a careful rereading as we honor President Carter. “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”.
https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026
An average rating of 4.7 on a 5 star scale from thousands of readers. $11.99 on Kindle.
Read it and make up your own minds.
A lot of history here that few of us know. One can speculate why. Thank you for publishing it.
1. '73 oil crisis was faked, a collusion between OPEC and senior execs at major US oil companies.
$1 per gallon was a "psychological price point" that people quickly learned to accept, but never would have otherwise because the price of a gallon of gas was approximately 1/3 of a dollar.
2. Anti-semitic refers to general bigotry against the people in the region of the Middle-East, and is not correct when specifically opposing policies or actions of Jews.
3. The war against Saddam Hussein in the early '90s was not to support Kuwait; their rich were partying in London while American military were at risk in the region. It was about American access to a large supply of relatively inexpensive oil.
The US military-industrial complex wanted another big payday, having controlled the conflict in Vietnam so that US could never win, as winning cuts off the income stream to the major defense contractors, a situation which Dr. Daniel Ellsberg exposed and then almost lost his liberty for being a patriot.
However, a retired and highly decorated Vietnam War colonel appeared on TV and insisted American lives could be saved by relying on a sustained air bombardment before sending in troops, and G H Bush was forced to do so.
Saddam was petrified of the capabilities of the NSA.
He refused to communicate with his military out in the field, fearing that the NSA would intercept his orders and inform General Schwarzkopf, so that Iraqi troops would be heading into a trap.
After many days of saturation bombing and no word from Hussein, the Iraqi army either surrendered or offered light resistance before surrendering. Probably, they assumed Saddam had been struck down.