Presidency that encourages Islamic militancy, sinking further into an abyss of national poverty, loss of our position in the world as a power for freedom and democracy
Editor’s Note: This commentary was written prior to the third presidential debate.
Moments in history are markers from which we are expected to draw some lessons. Thus, October 23, 1983, twenty-nine years ago, was the date of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. It had been preceded by the bombing of our embassy there on April 18. A year later, our CIA station chief, William F. Buckley was kidnapped, dying after 15 months of torture by Islamic “militants.”
You can Google the lists of attacks on Americans, our embassies, hijackings of commercial air flights, housing abroad of U.S. military, and embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The USS Cole was bombed in the port of Aden, Yemen in 2000, killing 17 U.S. Navy sailors. Other lists are of Americans killed by various Muslim jihadists here in America.
A key date worth remembering is November 4, 1979 when Iranian Islamists seized our embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. Then-President Jimmy Carter offered such a weak response to an offense against our nation and international laws that he was voted out of office and replaced with Ronald Reagan. Until Barack Obama came along, he was known as the worst president the nation ever had.
Americans tend to think of attacks in terms of September 11, 2001, when commercial aircraft were flown into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon. A fourth was brought down by passengers in a Pennsylvania pasture. Nearly 3,000 Americans died.