Why did Jimmy Carter fail to rescue hostages?

Question

I guess when you crash 2 helicopters it doesn't work out very well

Answer 1

Poor guy

Answer 2

It was poor preperation as well as bad luck; visibility was reduced due to a dust storm and caused a helicopter to crash into a C-130.



In general the military was not in great condition in the latter 70s, a situation not corrected until Reagan's presidency.

Answer 3

There's only so much he could do. It's not like he could just walk in, free them, and walk out. There had to be negotiations, and special ops unit sent in, which, itself, likely would have been thrown in as new hostages, things like that had to happen. If only it were just as easy as the snap of a finger.

Answer 4

He was a complete waste as a president. I don't remember him doing 1 thing right in 4 years. It's always a tossup whether he or Obama is the worst president ever. Carter was 100% incompetent & all Obama did was pad his own personal bank account and set a presidential record for taking numerous vacations, so you could flip a coin on which one was worse.

Answer 5

It would not have been politically correct to do so.

Answer 6

Jimmy Carter is an idiot.

He said that: a powerful china is good for America.

Answer 7

Real life is not like a Dolf Lungrend movie.

Answer 8

Weak

Answer 9

Weak like Obama

Answer 10

Shutdown cost $11 billion.

Answer 11

You have answered your own question. Reagan just got lucky.

Answer 12

Israel within 24 hours had a brilliant plan to get our people. Israeli commandos would have done the rescue mission with no American troops. Carter turned them down. Israel could have pulled it off.

Answer 13

I met another parent at a Cub Scout first meeting more than a few years ago now. If you don't know Cub Scouts have been taken voer by parents of civil servants, so its almost their club., Teachers, cops, firefighters adn if you're not you wo0nt fit in so may as well not join.

So, I'm talking to this other parent and he mentions he was in the military. I say Oh wow, where did you serve. And he answers, well mostly here in the US but aslo Iran. So, I'm thinking maybe he meant to say Irag, but no he was one of the guys on the helicopters ready to go in and get teh hostages out.

Even more remarkable, he probably didnt know,. but he was living around the corner from one of the hostages at the time. Same little development, a friend of mine.

Answer 14

he didnt - the military did



Once that happened the cat was out of the bag so the iranians just moved them



(is the US 100% full of stupid people?

carter didnt "plan" the rescue, he didnt tell them how to do it

so how was it his fault the military ****** up the whole thing?)

Answer 15

Because he was not a helicopter pilot.

Answer 16

Inadequate contingency back up planning went South with the event of a dust storm.

Answer 17

Not Jimmies fault the special forces were not Trained By Jimmy he was no flying the two helicopters hat crashed

Answer 18

His strategy to stay at the White House and try to work out a fair agreement just didn't work.

Iran saw Reagan as a much stronger President and agreed to release the hostages after he was sworn-in- mostly to embarrass Carter.

Answer 19

Until Obama's election, Carter was the most incompetent President the country had.

Answer 20

Jimmy Carter tried to rescue the hostages, but the steps he took did not work.



He tried the diplomatic options, but Iran's leaders, especially the Ayatollah Khomeini, refused to listen to the West or to organizations such as the UN, which were seen to be western.



The rescue mission failed because it was too complex and relied too much on luck. Also, he did not authorize enough helicopters to be used. The reason the mission was aborted was because there were not enough helicopters to continue.



He also made too big a deal out of it, such as refusing to leave the White House until the hostages were freed and not lighting the National Christmas Tree. That played right into Iran's hands and gave them all kinds of power over the United States.



The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, half an hour after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as president. But they probably would have been released sooner if Carter had downplayed the situation in public and said to Iran 'We're not talking until you release our hostages.'

Answer 21

He was not a good president, he lacked the political skills

Answer 22

Maybe weak like be obama

Answer 23

He was a weak president.

Answer 24

Jimmy Carter didn't crash the helicopters any more than Obama went with Seal Team Six and killed Bin Laden.

Answer 25

Because he was in on the taking of the hostages and wasn't going to get the credit if the rescue mission succeeded so he aborted it after shooting down the chopper. He made a deal with Iran to release the hostages the day before the election in 1980 in order for him to win but Iran backed out of the deal when Carter didn't pay them the full amount he promised.

Answer 26

the CIA wanted the hostages released when Reagan got the presidency to make Reagan look good

Answer 27

There's something 'fishy' about the whole Iran hostage affair. It was once said that it was a USA 'Republican party' put up job so that Carter, a Democrat, wouldn't get a second term of office. It was also rumoured that the collision of the two helicopters was not an accident, but was engineered by high officials in the USAF who were Republican supporters. One thing is documented: The hostages were released on January 20th 1981. The day President Reagan was inaugurated!

Answer 28

Jimmy Carter was not the pilot, and the Pentagon itself was nervous about the rescue operation. It would have been better if the State dept. hostages had never been taken, but that was a double failure of the intelligence community and of the State Dept. itself not evacuating staff in a dangerous time.

Rabid Republicans love to blame Carter for everything, but what they always overlook is that he was a far more decent man than any Republican of the period.

Answer 29

The job was too risky and would have been an absolute disaster and even worse than the aborted mission.

Answer 30

Jimmy Carter was incompetent. 17 percent inflation. Gas lines. Iran hostage crisis.

He was a southern weasel too. He pretended to be a humble man, but in real life he was bossy and arrogant. Not a nice man. He was like the male version of what Bill Clinton's wife is.

Answer 31

I mean, are you going to blame Carter for the military crashing both the rescue helicopter and the backup? It's not something he could control. (BTW he was trying to rescue them while everyone's hero Reagan was illegally negotiating with the kidnappers to KEEP the hostages). No one talks about that little incident of treason.