Jimmy Carter said America would not stand idly by while Nicaragua tried to set forth on a different path after they threw out Anastasio Somoza. FDR once called Somoza's father, "Our son of a bitch."

Carter told the Sandinistas they had to retain the National Guard, which had been Somoza's elite band of US-trained psychopathic killers. The Sandinistas said No. So Carter ordered the CIA to bring up the officers and torturers running the Argentinean death squads to train up a force of Nicaraguan exiles in Honduras, and launch them on terror missions across the border. They called them the Contras.

Carter was a busy man. Not just content with forming the Contras, he harkened to the pain of South Korea, where workers and peasants were demonstrating. His envoy, Richard Holbrooke advised the South Korean military to hit back hard, and they did, killing around 3,000, the most horrible massacre since the Korean war.

And yes, Carter started the covert CIA operation in Afghanistan, rallying the mujiddeen to fight the Soviets. Soon the CIA would bring Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to lend a Saudi presence and Saudi cash.