DB: When Iran Took Americans Hostage, Bernie Backed Iran's Defenders

[getagrip_already]

https://news.yahoo.com/iran-took-americans-hostage-bernie-100052053.html - reposted from daily beast

Bernie Sanders, a top competitor in the Democratic primaries, has attacked Joe Biden for bringing “just a lot of baggage” into the race. But if past views are a major consideration, consider the baggage that Sanders drags into the campaign.

Go back over 40 years, to the start of Iran’s long conflict with the United States. On April 1, 1979, the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had returned to Iran from exile to assume command of the revolt, became Supreme Leader in December of that year. His rise was accelerated by the seizure on Nov. 4 of 52 American diplomats and citizens, and citizens of other countries, at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The hostage crisis became the means by which the Ayatollah crushed political opponents in Iran. Dealing with the hostage taking became the overwhelming political crisis for President Jimmy Carter. It lasted 444 days.

Virtually all Americans—Democrats, Republicans and independents—united in support of the hostages and the international call for their freedom. One prominent political figure on the 2020 stage, then almost completely unknown, stood apart by joining a Marxist-Leninist party that not only pledged support for the Iranian theocracy, but also justified the hostage taking by insisting the hostages were all likely CIA agents. Who was that person? It was Bernie Sanders.

Sanders would like the public to believe, as an AP story put it, that “democratic socialism [is] the economic philosophy that has guided his political career.” But that has not always been the case. In 1977, he left the tiny left-wing Liberty Union Party of Vermont that he’d co-founded, and in 1980 instead aligned himself with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the self-proclaimed Trotskyist revolutionary party, became its presidential elector in Vermont, and campaigned for its candidates and platform that defended the Iranian hostage seizure.

[Tiggeroshii]

1. At that point, was it really so far fetched? It might have been the only major incident that didn't

completely involve the CIA (IE assassinating Mossedegh, overthrowing the democratic government and installing the Shah, etc). If nothing else, his being president demonstrates good will with Iran where that is in a chronic deficit.

[getagrip_already]

2. defending the seizing of an embassy and taking hostages?

Yes, that was far fetched and a wretched position. It also ushered in ronald reagan.

[TwilightZone]

4. So, you're OK with taking hostages as long as they're CIA agents?

That's an interesting position.

If you wonder why some of us have a hard time taking Sanders (and some of his supporters) seriously, it's generally because of assertions like this one.

[ExciteBike66]

8. Is there really anything strange about that position?

I mean, assuming they were covert agents, the Iranian government certainly had the right to detain them, no? I mean, wouldn't we detain Iranian secret agents in our country?

I'm not arguing they were CIA, but your question assumed they were.

[TwilightZone]

11. Defending the storming of an embassy and taking hostages

is an indefensible position, regardless of the target. "What if he'd been right" is irrelevant, because a) he was flat-out wrong, and b) it's not a justifiable position even if he'd been right.

The lengths people will go to support their candidates are a bit mind-boggling.

[ExciteBike66]

12. But that was not your question, which pertained to CIA agents.

"What if he'd been right" is irrelevant"

Yes, but once again it was your own question that assumed the fact they were CIA. If they were CIA, and indeed were covert CIA agents, then detaining them is certainly something we would expect Iran to do.


b) it's not a justifiable position even if he'd been right.

What exactly would America have done if they suspected 52 Iranian covert agents were in our country? Wouldn't we detain them (answer: yes we would).

[getagrip_already]

24. Not by storming an embassy...

Here, even under trump we wouldnt do that. An embassy is sovereign territory.

It would take court orders and congressional approval.

And we would like just expell them.

[squirecam]

16. Don't you know

That Bernie can do no wrong?

[Tiggeroshii]

23. Is astonishing how void of historical context this conversation is

We overthrew their democratically elected leader and entire government before any of this crap happened. This problem did not start with the Iranianian revolution. It started with us overthrew mossadegh and installing a dictator.

[TwilightZone]

25. So, that makes it OK?

And it makes it OK that Sanders' stance was based on false information, insisting that the targets were CIA agents?

The ads write themselves. All the GOP will have to do is state that Sanders was in a communist sect that justified Iranian hostage-taking with the false claim that they were all CIA agents.

How do you propose we counter that? It's not even false.

[Tiggeroshii]

26. No. But looking at it through a historical lens creates far better understanding

Than ignoring the context. If you chastise Iran for hostages, you gotta have the same anger for the united states as well. And given the situation, and the historical context, the CIAs involvement was absolutely not a far fetched idea, as that has been our tendency in the country since 1953.

[Kahuna7]

52. That's all they would need. Check mate. They don't even need to bring up

all the rest of the material suggesting he had an affinity for socialists and communists dictators.

[tishaLA]

56. "Sanders' stance was based on false information"

And probably Soviet disinformation, at that.

[Docreed2003]

33. Lmmfao..."historical context"

A). The general public is so well known for their understanding of historical context

B). Your statement might carry more weight if it was historically accurate. The CIA overthrew Mossadegh, yes, but it didn't assasinate him. Mossadegh died in house arrest years after the CIA coup.

[Tiggeroshii]

35. I meant overthrew and attempted to assassinate him

It sounds like you are saying that because the public is not well read on this, we should not have a president who is. That's ridiculous.

[Docreed2003]

38. That's not what I'm saying

I'm saying the public won't have any sympathy for Sanders position on the taking of American diplomats as hostages. If you think they will, perhaps you have more faith than I do in the populace. I'd wager that most Americans have no idea about the CIA coup that installed the shah in the first place.

[Tiggeroshii]

39. I doubt sanders will have sympathy for his statement on taking hostages.

Either. He is likely to admit he was wrong about it if this comes up, but honestly explain the context in a way that is badly needed in a leader. But I also think you'll be surprised how many people will actually care about this in the General Election.

[dware]

57. So, if I'm reading you right,

2 wrongs make a right?

[George II]

14. No, they had NO right to detain them. They were inside the US Embassy. Why do you think...

...the first thing Assange did was head to Ecuador's Embassy?

Any AMERICAN who justified that in 1979 had a different agenda.

[Tiggeroshii]

18. Just like we had no right to assassinate their democratic leader and

Overthrow their democracy, -but that doesnt change the fact it happened and it doesnt prevent people from looking at the situation through that lens.

[Tiggeroshii]

17. No.

But understanding historical context is far different from condoning bad behavior.

[Demsrule86]

6. Generally, I think really old stuff like this doesn't hurt a candidate...but this I am not sure.

That was a bad time in America.

[TwilightZone]

7. It's a pre-packaged ad for the GOP.

Enough people remember it that all the GOP would have to do is show pictures of the blindfolded hostages along with the party's stance and note Sanders' involvement in said party.

[Demsrule86]

19. They probably have a video with him saying the hostages CIA...

[TwilightZone]

22. I used to somewhat discount the talk about GOP oppo research on Sanders.

I figured that we'd seen a lot of it. The rape fantasy stuff, the honeymoon in Moscow, etc. I knew it could cause trouble, but I thought most of it was out there and would grow a bit stale before it would be used in a GE. Plus, it was decades ago and so on.

I'm starting to think I was being a bit optimistic.

[George II]

13. Yes it was far fetched. A whole embassy staff of CIA agents? All 52 were CIA agents? That siege...

....got Ronald Reagan elected.

[Tiggeroshii]

15. Isnt that literally how bay of pigs happened?

As far as using CIA operatives?

[Demsrule86]

20. You will never win that argument...sure there were CIA operatives in there...but not all and no

matter what you can't tolerate hostage taking. This will leave a mark.

[Tiggeroshii]

21. We overthrew their democracy.

We tried to kill their democratic leader. A few hostages is nothing compared to that obvious fact, and putting the words in a historical context changes the argument entirely.

[TwilightZone]

28. Good luck selling "we had it coming" to the voters.

Right, Bernie justified Iran storming our embassy by falsely claiming that the targets were CIA agents, but it's ok that he was wrong because we had it coming.

That sounds like a brilliant strategy.


obviously.

[Tiggeroshii]

30. Let's give honesty a shot

And put the "we are the US and can do no harm" shtick off for a sec and see how it goes. Left wing right wing, we all know it's BS anyways

[TwilightZone]

36. Honesty would be acknowledging that Sanders was wrong.

Not making a bunch of excuses trying to justify why he was kinda right, even though he was completely wrong.

[Tiggeroshii]

37. No. Honesty would be admitting we are wrong about our foreign policy.

And putting somebody in charge who wont make excuses for US behavior like overthrowing democracies and putting hits out on foreign leaders. He was right about the the context of the situation even if he was wrong about the specifics, and the fact is these people were suspected of being CIA agents and there was a lot of reason for Iran and others to suspect it, given the history.

[OilemFirchen]

48. My newest slogan for the Sanders campaign, riffing off of Senator Warren:

"I have an excuse for that."

[karynnj]

41. We overthrew their democracy in 1953 -- this was 1979

There were people who argued we should not have allowed the Shah into the US - where he was in the hospital. No one anywhere on the mainstream of the political spectrum argued that Iran was in the right when they took those in the embassy as hostage.

Rather than arguing that, I would be trying to verify if this is even true. It is possible that that party took that position, the question is whether Sanders himself ever publicly said anything on that. I would bet that this is a case of the Socialist workers party supported A, therefore Sanders did.

If he actually did say that, it is a real problem. Sanders was not a high school or college student then, he was an adult.

[OilemFirchen]

32. That's not even FIGURATIVELY how Bay of Pigs "happened".

"But understanding historical context is" blah blah.

[Tiggeroshii]

40. Do tell

The CIA embedded an operative early on who was in charge of networking and organizing from within.

Crozier cultivated students as informants and agents, even as radical student movements gathered strength in opposition to brutal dictator and U.S. ally Fulgencio Batista. Havana law school graduate Fidel Castro stirred up trouble, too, quickly becoming Batista’s biggest nemesis.

Let's go back to "literal," why dont we?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/2425360001

[OilemFirchen]

42. Did we attempt to invade Iran?

You're being literally silly.

[Tiggeroshii]

43. That wasnt the question

The question was whether it was ridiculous to use only cia agents in an operation. Clearly it wasnt, because we did. We orchestrated a coup in Iran and likely kept our cia active there as is our tendency. The hostages were not cia but it wasn't crazy to suspect they could be.

[OilemFirchen]

45. We didn't have an embassy in Cuba at the time.

There's literally no equivalence between mercenaries and an embassy. You're welcome to take Iranian propaganda at face value, but it would be more comforting to think that Sanders was not that naive.

[Tiggeroshii]

46. Yeah no you're right.

It was not "literally" or figuratively exactly how that occurred, although the CIA was very active in both countries around the same time, literally installing operatives throughout different parts of the country, and it is naive to think that Iran would not be suspicious of folks for that reason, nor have reason to be suspicious.

[OilemFirchen]

47. It would be naive to believe that was their motivation.

I don't believe the Iranians even made such a claim at the time. It was, after all, demonstrators who seized the compound, with Khomeini only later using the siege to thump his chest.

Of note: AFAIK none of the hostages were intel - which is kinda surprising because intel is embedded in every embassy around the world, even by the "good" guys.

[Kahuna7]

50. That a very traumatic time for America and Americans...

Every night the news led with the number of days since the hostages had been taken. I don't give a damn if you agree with the Iranians cause or whatever, innocent Americans suffered. If this would ever be exposed nationally, Bernie would lose the senior votes overwhelmingly because we lived that trauma.

[Thekaspervote]

3. Nothing justifies his stance of hostage taking!! Terrible

Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2020, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)

[George II]

5. I read that yesterday but was hesitant to post it here. Thanks for doing so.

[The Valley Below]

10. Same here.

One of a litany of dIsQuAlIfYiNg stances by Bernard Sanders.

Not suitable.

[Cha]

9. KR!

[melman]

27. Ronald Radosh

adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute (right-wing think tank)





note that the book they try to pass off as "a History of the Democratic Party" is actually called...


Divided They Fell: The Demise of the Democratic Party 1964-1996






Nice source.

[TexasTowelie]

29. K&R! nt

[Skya Rhen]

31. And Bernie had the nerve to say that Biden had a lot of baggage that would follow him in the GE...

[Kahuna7]

51. There would be no way around this. nt

[Turbineguy]

34. Pretty much anything the CIA did

was in response to the Russian desire to export the Bolshevik revolution.

In case anybody wonders who's idea it was to interfere with other people's elections.

If you forget that, than everything the U.S. did was unprovoked and evil.

And like many revolutions, the Iranians wish to make everybody happier by exporting theirs.

Of course Bernie Sanders did not go so far as selling the Iranian revolutionaries weapons.

[SidDithers]

44. No no no. He's a DEMOCRATIC Socialist...nt

Sid

[NYMinute]

49. This must be repeated from the OP

Virtually all Americans—Democrats, Republicans and independents—united in support of the hostages and the international call for their freedom. One prominent political figure on the 2020 stage, then almost completely unknown, stood apart by joining a Marxist-Leninist party that not only pledged support for the Iranian theocracy, but also justified the hostage taking by insisting the hostages were all likely CIA agents. Who was that person? It was Bernie Sanders.

[janterry]

53. The difference is Sanders tells the truth about his past votes

Biden? Read the convoluted mess he makes when talking about his past votes (especially the Iraq war).

I trust Bernie

[getagrip_already]

54. did he tell the truth about his conversation with liz?

I trust liz.

[janterry]

55. I think he is willing to talk about it

and I think that conversation probably had some truth to it - on both sides (Warren and Sanders).

It's clear that he supports women and supports women in government.

In sharp contrast, the mess that Biden says about his Iraq vote.

I most certainly don't believe Biden at all.