Oh, I absolutely did NOT like Bush 43's policies one little bit. But permanent damage?
In my humble opinion it was definately James Earl Carter. That was a man that was so in over his head that he looked not only to the world like an inept imbecile, but at the end of his term this country KNEW they had sent a man wholly unqualified to be President to the Oval Office.
1. The Iranian/Islamofacist Situation - Jimmy wanted to be everyone's friend (sound like someone you know?) and when the Ayatollah started that little mess, he stood by and watched while the American embassy was stormed and hostages were held for 444 days. If Jimmy had acted and acted DECISIVELY at the beginning of the situation, it is likely that we would not have the major headache of Islamic terrorists now. Imagine an Iran that holds democratic elections? But I was in the military when that happened. After two years of this putz, we didn't even have ammunition and about half of our vehicles did not run for lack of spare parts. Even if Jimmy had wanted, I'm not sure he could have cobbled together a force to go there and do something. Let's remember that Diego Garcia and the pre-positioned ships were NOT available (that didn't happen until Reagan). Jimmy was closing overseas bases as fast as possible up to that point, the remaining open base closest to Iran being in Turkey. Additionally, about half the airlift, bomber and combat aircraft that would have gotten us there and protected us enroute, was grounded because lack of spare parts as well. This is very possibly one of the most incredible mistakes made by a President in the last 150 years.
2. Nicaragua - We know now (due to the Soviet Union collapsing) that our friends the Soviets had been fermenting trouble in Central and South America for 20 years PRIOR to Jimmy's fiasco. They formed and armed rebel guerillas all over Central and South America, who were NOT effective until Jimmy pulled advisors out because we are not supposed to interferring in other peoples business. The Sandinistas and other rebels (refer to the FARC in Columbia) were a direct result of this wanting to be friends with everyone and refusing to take a stand against what was happening. The direct result? Reagan was forced to invade Grenada as the Cubans were building a military air strip there. You can also trace the invasion of Panama directly to Jimmy's inability to directly and firmly deal with the KGB sticking there finger in this festering shit hole.
3. Afghanistan - By God Jimmy didn't let us go to the Olympics did he? After sitting on his thumbs and allowing the Russians to invade (read the information from the Kremlin, they invaded because they KNEW Carter had no stomach to oppose them in any form) the only way to effectively combat the Russians was by arming the Majahudeen (SP?). Osama bin Laden was one of those that we armed. That worked out great for us, didn't it.
I could go on and on about this ignorant individuals blunders. But you get the picture here. We are just now wrapping up TWO WARS that is a direct result of this man's bent to destroy the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies. Our dealings with Iran are just now heating up and you have Jimmy to thank for them. This man will go down in history as one of the FIVE WORST PRESIDENTS that this country has ever had. Thank God one of the FIVE BEST PRESIDENTS in this countries history came right after him.
What a bunch of revisionist crap!
"he stood by and watched while the American embassy was stormed and hostages were held for 444 days."
I'm pretty sure the storming of the embassy happened too quickly for any president to have stood by and watched.
Tell me - what do you think would have been the response of the American people, and the Republican Party, had President Carter sent in troops, and 100, or 200, or 300, or all of the hostages were killed? Were their lives expendable? Did their lives have no value?
Since reading comprehension is apparently NOT a strong suit of yours, you will notice that in the rest of my information, I referred to Carter's systematic dismantling of the Department of Defense (prior to the embassy seizure) and the inability of units to respond to a situation such as the embassy take over, even if he wanted them to respond. The lack of any bases close to the incident for the purpose of staging, the lack of military air lift capability, and the command wide lack of basic parts and equipment, all played a MAJOR role in Carter's inability to respond adequately. Because of this, he was religated to simply respond with economic and politcal sanctions to a situation which should have been responded to IMMEDIATELY militarily.
I realize that this may be too difficult for a knee-jerk political hack, but go back and read about unit readiness during the period of 1976 to 1980. Look more specifically for unit preparedness for the 5th and 6th fleets AND units such as the 82nd Airborne AND the 101st Airborne. Read the Department of Defense information, not some political white-washed propaganda. Additionally, there are about five books that are very good on the hostage situation, the reasons for it, the intelligence that Carter ignored, and why the US was unable to respond other than to cry 'foul' at the UN. The best one I found was written by the CIA's Iranian expert at the time.
Additionally, you will recall that when Carter finally agreed to let Colonel Beckworth and his operators attempt a hostage rescue, one of the major problems was that the helicopters that they were forced to use were old and unprepared for use in the desert. Sand clogged the air intake filters, causing some of them to have to return. When they finally figured out that they didn't have enough helicopters to proceed, they had the conflaguration in the desert. As always, because of liberals setting their sites on the military and making drastic cuts, Americans died.
One of the first acts of Ronald Reagan was to reconstitute the military sealift command. Prepositioned ships with equipment, parts and ammunition were stationed at Diego Garcia. Negotiations with the sheiks at Bahrain began, in an attempt to secure a base in the area.
You know, you can disagree all you like... if you have the facts to back up your position. You do understand what facts are? Oh, obviously not...