Yesterday’s failed attempt to rescue the Hostages in Algeria gave me a sense of deja vu…all over again.

To the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of some 300 to 500 “students” who called themselves “Imam’s Disciples,” laid siege to the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran, to capture and hold hostage 66 U.S. citizens and diplomats. Although women and African-Americans were released a short time later, 51 hostages remained imprisoned for 444 days with another individual released because of illness midway through the ordeal.

…President Jimmy Carter immediately imposed economic sanctions and applied diplomatic pressure to expedite negotiations for the release of the hostages. First, Carter cancelled oil imports from Iran, then he expelled a number of Iranians from the U.S., followed by freezing about $8 billion of Iranian assets in the U.S.

At first, the Iranian government denied responsibility for the incident, but its failure to take action against the hostage-takers belied the denial. The Carter administration could do little other at that point than be patient and persistent.

In February 1980, Iran issued a list of demands for the hostages’ release. They included the Shah’s return to Iran, a demand for an apology for American involvement in Iran, including the coup in 1953, and a promise to steer clear of Iranian affairs in the future. From the president’s perspective, those demands could not be met.

In late April, Carter decided upon an ultra-secret mission to rescue the hostages. The operation, dubbed “Eagle Claw,” seemed hastily thrown together by some, doomed to failure by others. Teheran was surrounded by 700 miles of desert on all sides; the city itself was crammed with four million people, and the embassy was huge and well guarded. It was to have been a two-night process requiring a minimum of six helicopters and a handful of C-130 cargo aircraft. To be on the safe side, eight copters were prepared for the mission.

Once inside Iranian borders and advancing under cloak of night to a predetermined staging area 50 miles outside Teheran in the Great Salt Desert, one “helo” had to turn back with operating problems. Another helo and then another succumbed to a swirling dust storm, known in that area as a “haboob.” The mission was aborted.

Upon attempting their retreat, a miscommunication gave one helo the okay to lift off. The storm slammed the helo into a C-130, causing a gigantic fireball, killing three in the chopper and five in the airplane.

The aftermath, as Iranians eventually found and mockingly paraded the wreckage on worldwide television, was total humiliation for the United States, and spurred an onslaught of investigations and congressional hearings. Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state who had objected to the plan, resigned in protest. Back to square one.

Yesterday…

An American worker at a natural gas complex in Algeria has been found dead, U.S. officials said Friday, as the U.S. sought to secure the release of Americans still being held by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists on the third day of a hostage standoff.

Frederick Buttaccio, a Texas resident, died of a heart attach during a raid by the Algerian military to end the standoff, Fox News confirms. The general manager of the complex, Mark Cobb, also of Texas, was able to escape with members of his Algerian staff and is safe.

A spokesman for the Buttaccio family in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, declined to comment.

“We can confirm the death of U.S. citizen Frederick Buttaccio in the hostage situation in Algeria,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “We express our deepest condolences to his family and friends. Out of respect for the family’s privacy, we have no further comment.”

It was not immediately clear whether Buttaccio was the only American killed in the hostage standoff.

U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Buttaccio’s remains were recovered Friday. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she spoke by telephone with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal to get an update on Americans and others in danger at the sprawling Ain Amenas refinery 800 miles south of Algiers. She said the “utmost care must be taken to preserve innocent life.”

Clinton talked to reporters after the Obama administration confirmed that Americans were still being held hostage, even as some U.S. citizens were being flown out of the country for recovery in Europe. The Algerian state news agency reported that 12 hostages had been killed since Wednesday’s start of an Algerian rescue operation, and world leaders steadily increased their criticism of the North African country’s handling of the attack.

Clinton, however, defended Algeria’s action. “Let’s not forget: This is an act of terror,” she told reporters in Washington. “The perpetrators are the terrorists. They are the ones who have assaulted this facility, have taken hostage Algerians and others from around the world as they were going about their daily business.”

 For years now, I’ve been telling you that Obama is Carter on steroids. 

He’s worse.

At least, President Carter failed in his rescue attempt while using our own Armed Forces.

Obama farmed it out, because he does not believe in American Exceptionalism.

How can he lead a country he has no respect for?

Until He Comes,

KJ

KJ Update: ALL THE HOSTAGES ARE DEAD.

Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert on Saturday in a “final assault” that ended a four-day-old hostage crisis, according to the state news agency and two foreign governments. At least 19 hostages and 29 Islamist militants have been killed.

The report, quoting a security source, didn’t say whether any hostages or militants remained alive, and it didn’t give the nationalities of the dead.

It said the army was forced to intervene after a fire broke out in the plant and said the militants killed the hostages. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify who killed the captives.

Dear God in Heaven, I wish we had an American President.