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(Tehran, December '79 - amping up the noise machine)

With the situation regarding the American hostages in Iran at a standstill, now it was the UN's turn to get involved. An emergency session of the Security Council was called On December 2nd, with a universal condemnation of the situation in Iran.

Donald McHenry (U.S. Ambassador to the UN): “Governments, of course retain the right to require that foreign diplomatic personnel leave their soil. But every standard of International behavior, whether established by practice, by ethics, by treaty or by common humanity supports the principle that the personnel of a diplomatic mission and diplomatic property are inviolate. Even in the darkest moments of relations between countries, the security and well-being of diplomatic personnel has been respected.”

Iran however, decided its Ambassador would skip the session - so basically it turned into a sermon to the choir. It's interesting the Soviet Union stayed reasonably mum about the goings on, preferring the old "we don't dabble in others affairs" line of reasoning. Of course, nobody knew the Russians were going to be sending troops into Afghanistan two weeks later.

But that's another story.

And 1979 just kept rolling along.

From Paul Hinrichs at The Aristocrats:

Hey! - Let's all stick corncobs up our butts and march around the White House, stiff-legged, butt stuck way up in the air, white as can be, with signs that say "9/13 - yo' mama!" and "Where is Reagan's Death Certificate?" We'll call ourselves the "cornholers" and we're gonna take back America from the Russians who crossed the Bering Straits while Palin was out signing books.

Open thread below... And happy birthday to our Video Cafe maven, Heather!

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(Gen. Zia - Tea and Kleenex - there's a message here)

When this interview was conducted on May 18, 1980, Afghanistan was under Soviet occupation a little over six months. There was also the matter of fifty American hostages in Tehran and the U.S. elections heating up. Zia headed up a military coup that overthrew the legitimate elected government of Ali Bhutto and after staging a rather dubious trial, executed him, much to the shock and horror of the rest of the world. Zia would later die in a helicopter crash, also of dubious circumstances.

I think it would be fair to say that the instability of the region has a long history and having Atomic weapons capabilities makes the stomach turn just a bit faster as a result.

General Zia managed to conduct a one-on-one with Walter Cronkite and offered a few insights that, in hindsight may seem prophetic.

Gen. Zia: “What I am trying to say is, The United States Of America must see the true priorities in this region. If this region has any strategic significance in the minds of the United States citizens, if this region has any significance to the ultimate interests of the United States of America and the free world, then I am afraid the question of hostages should not be viewed on the emotional plain. I very strongly recommend, Mister Cronkite, that we should view the situation in a much bigger perspective. It is a global problem in my opinion. The lives of fifty American nationals is as dear and as valuable to me as it is to any United States citizen. But I say there are much greater things at stake at the present moment, and we should take out the emotional aspects of an election year or of the human aspects of this, this cannot be ignored, I must agree. But I think there are much greater stakes involved in this issue than only the lives of fifty nationals.”

So in retrospect, listening to this interview now and knowing our current situation with Afghanistan and our relationship with Pakistan, it would seem the current problems with the Taliban in the region have been more or less a work-in-progress the last 25 or so years.

Nothing is ever as it seems and nothing ever happens instantly.