Quote Originally Posted by andruejaysin
Nonsense. The crashed because they collided. Even with our ridiculous military budget and 30 years of technical advances when two helicopters collide, they still crash. Funny how we aren't told that the shah was a dictator as brutal as saddam hussien, isn't it? Or that the people of iran overthrough him in the fifties, only to have him returned to power by a cia backed coup. Which was ran from the the US embassy, that's why the embassy was attacked in 79. Had an elected US president been overthrown by a pro-iranian dictator funded by the iranians, from their embassy, would you have been among those storming that embassy the next time we managed to get rid of that dictator?
Personally, I think that Iran and similar countries should be avoided by the U.S. altogether - but that isn't a popular opinion among the people that drive big SUV's and other gas-guzzlers.

Although the Shah was a dictator, he was nowhere near as bad as Ayatollah Khomeini, the religous fundamentalist who took his place in 1978.

In 1979, a student group that called themselves Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam stormed the U.S. embassy and took 66 hostages for 444 days, which Carter was unable, or unwilling, to resolve. It was the major reason for his loss of the election against Reagan in 1980.

If the people of Iran insist on living in the Dark Ages, then that's their business. We tried, and failed, to bring them into modern times.