Jimmy Carter believes all kinds of things. He believes that the 1949 Armistice Lines became permanent borders, even though they never did -- because the Arabs kept refusing the Israeli offer to make them so. And he appeared to know the truth back in 1974, but has forgotten it in the intervening years.
He believes that Resolution 242 is to be read to mean withdrawal from "all the territories" won in the Six-Day War, when it not only says no such thing, but Lord Caradon and others carefully crafted the document so that it would deliberately NOT mean that. And the statements of both Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the U.N., and of Michael Stewart, the-then British Foreign Minister, make clear that Resolution 242 did not mean what the Arabs, who failed in their attempts to change the wording and the interpretation at the U.N. itself, then went off and insisted without any justification that it did mean -- the meaning which Jimmy Carter, Arab stooge, now blithely gives it.
It was Jimmy Carter who wrote speeches for Yasir Arafat, so that he could make a better impression (see Douglas Brinkley's biography of Carter). It was Jimmy Carter who hectored and bullied the Israelis incessantly at Camp David, and caused them to finally sign that terrible (from the point of view of Israel) agreement. By that agreement, in three tranches over a very short period, the entire Sinai, with its oil and critical airfields and infrastructure all put in by the Israelis, was handed over to Egypt.
And in return nothing tangible at all was given -- mere promises to discourage hostility toward Israel and to encourage a "peaceful" attitude. The antisemitism of Egyptian television and its press, that is so reminiscent of Der Stuermer in its depiction of Jews lying in wait to snatch a child in order to use his blood for some ritual, has not exactly been an example of what the Israelis had in mind, and what, under the Camp David Accords, was the only thing that they had a right to expect. Even that was denied them.
Shall we go into Carter's credulous acceptance of the "Palestinian people"? What about Carter knowing -- the documents have now been released, and it is clear that the American government knew all along, but was hiding it in order to protect Arafat -- that Arafat himself signed the order for the seizure and killing of two American diplomats in Khartoum by Black September? How could Carter, knowing that, proceed not merely to protect Arafat by not making this information public, but increase his efforts to help Arafat improve his image and polish his sinister message?
And finally, what does Carter know -- what -- about Islam and the doctrine of Jihad? Do you have the feeling he's been studying up on that? Has he been reading the Qur'an and Hadith and Sira, figuring out why it is that the size of Israel does not make a whit of long-term difference to the Arabs and Muslims? Does he know that they differ only on the time it will take to achieve their ultimate and unswerving goal, whether they are like Fatah and support the Slow Jihad and lying or fudging about their objectives, or are like Hamas and support the Fast Jihad and telling the truth about their objectives?
He's a guide to nothing. And an obvious antisemite. Not only in his indifference and cruelty toward Israel, demonstrated on so many occasions. No, that antisemitism is also demonstrated in the sympathy he gave to a self-serving letter from the daughter of a Nazi concentration camp guard and murderer, who had been found out and was in the process of being expelled. Carter found the daughter's letter convincing, and wrote that it was worthy of sympathetic consideration, and then had it sent on to the O.I.S. How often, by the way, does any President ever read any of the mail sent to him? And of the few letters that he actually reads, how often does he feel compelled to write a handwritten note urging that the letter's contents be favorably considered? And how often does that letter's contents, about a Nazi murderer who is being expelled by the Office of Special Investigations after a thorough and meticulous study, become the object of such remarkable presidential solicitude?
There's a lot to say about Carter. He was, in both domestic and foreign policy, our worst president. Under Carter Iran was lost, and Khomeini replaced the Shah. Under Carter, nothing was done, save that witless fireside chat, which proceeded without any attempt to educate the public about the need to get off oil. Under Carter, so many things went wrong that even Gerald Ford, so mediocre himself, later described Carter as a "disaster."
But one did not know, or few did, that he was morally so vicious, morally so unacceptable.
And now everyone knows, or should, and not merely the few who took his measure thirty years ago, and did not like what they saw.
There's a lot to say about Carter. He was, in both domestic and foreign policy, our worst president.
Maybe. I dont live in the US so I am not competent or inform to judge who is the worst american president ever. But my modest opinion is still inclined toward Clinton. Carter lost Iran, but Clinton lost non nuclear Pakistan. Under Carter noone ever heard anything about guy called Bin Laden, but under Clinton the very same guy transform himself succesfuly from camel sheperd, to jihadist monster. Under Carter average Russians look at america as model of democracy, under Clinton as model of hypocracy. And on and on. I dont know. Maybe there should be a contest between these two.
Peanut brain must be palestinian by proxy. Perhaps he should move to Gaza and wear an outfit like Arafatpig used to wear-he might enjoy the climate among his brothers in his fianl years. Let him build some mosques while he's at it-there are never enough of those!
"There's a lot to say about Carter. He was, in both domestic and foreign policy, our worst president. Under Carter Iran was lost, and Khomeini replaced the Shah. Under Carter, nothing was done, save that witless fireside chat, which proceeded without any attempt to educate the public about the need to get off oil."
Was that the speech in which he declared the "Moral Equivalent Of War!" ( M.E.O.W.)
Carter was a genuine disaster - Panama canal, Iran, Cuban boat people. Out maneuvered and made a fool of by every world leader he faced with one exception. Thank our lucky stars he only had one term.
I used to think that ex-President Carter was simply the lucky fool who benefited from the sins of Nixon and his subsequent pardon by ex-President Gerald Ford. It would seem that Carter simply stood in the right spot back then and the nation rewarded him with a chance. Well, he never measured up, but Carter used to get a pass from me. I thought him simply to be an embodiment of Alfred E. Newman and a simplistic, well-intentioned naivete.
We all make mistakes I suppose.
At least Dhimmi-Jimmy kept his lust in his heart, unlike Billy-goat Clinton.
A Plague:
Because we have a multi-party system and, at times, minority governments, there's a saying to the effect that governments are not voted in so much as they are voted out.
And yes, and svemirko take note too, all heads of state are to some extent lucky or unlucky because of timing and events that are not under their control. Carter's image as a peacemaker was built on the happy coincidenced that Sadat had decided years earlier to move away from being a Soviet client state and recognized all the benefits of signing a treaty with Israel. If Bin Laden didn't ascend to global notoriety until after the Soviets were driven from Afghanistan with more than a little external support than OBL cares to acknowledge from the dread west (as opposed to Allah), again, it was a matter of opportunity and timing and not because of anything Carter did or didn't do.
OBL is a creature that would have taken the imagination of an Ian Fleming to conjure up -- an immensely wealthy and mentally ill religous fanatic with the ultimate meglomaniac dream of re-establishing the Caliphate, who starts out by helping to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan to wanting to establish Somalia as the next Sharia state because conditions there were ripe, to returning to the tribal regions of the Afghan/Pakistani border after being bombed by Clinton, only to offer up his resources as Global Terror Inc. to Saddam who wanted his revenge for Gulf War I and was clever enough to know that if he sent his own pilots out to hijack planes and fly them into buildings, he would be bombed out of existence on the spot.
“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please—you can never have both."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Never trust a smiling submariner.
waterdragon52 said
What did Saddam have to do with the 9/11 attacks? Of course he was pleased with the results, as were many, many Muslims throughout the world. If looking for Muslim leaders who may have contributed to the 9/11 attacks, I would look towards Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Hugh said
I'm with you on the assasination of the two American diplomats, on the misguided pressure on Israel at Camp David, on the blatant antisemitism, on building up a "new and improved" Arafat, on the complete lack of knowledge about Islam and jihad. But the worst President? Worse than Warren (corrupt Teapot Dome scandal, possible KKK member, isolationist before WWI, many extramarital affairs) Harding? Or James (Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas, secession of 7 states leading to the Civil War) Buchanan? There's some pretty stiff competition for the title of "worst President". Does Carter's "malaise" really rise to that level, of standing by as the country disintigrates into Civil War?
And the overthrow of the Shah by Khomeini, how is that the responsibility of the President of the U.S., as opposed to the people of Iran? The "vast majority of moderates" in Iran were the ones swarming in the streets to celebrate the return of beloved "animal-sex-is-okay-as-long-as-you-kill-the-animal-and-cook-it-and-serve-it-to-a-neighboring-clan" Khomeini. We infidels are not responsible for everything that takes place in dar-al-Islam.
weaselCarter just on cnn with blitzer..calling the israelis racists..
"And the overthrow of the Shah by Khomeini, how is that the responsibility of the President of the U.S., as opposed to the people of Iran?"
-- from a posting above
Of course Carter did not cause the anti-Shah riots in Iran organized by both the Iranian left and by the forces of Khomeini, nor did he and Gary Sick (that special adviser on Iran whose career has been, for American and other Infidel interests, one continuous disaster), and Zbigniew Brzezinski (with his penchant for dropping the word "strategic" in front of every other noun) make that alliance of that Iranian left with Khomeini possible. But they did nothing to support the Shah, a weak leader, at a time when he could still be saved by prudent action.
Why didn't they? Why hadn't Gary Sick, for exsample, read what Khomeini had clearly set down? Bernard Lewis had read it. But perhaps Gary Sick, though an "expert on Iran," simply doesn't read Farsi. I suspect he doesn't read it, and didn't know a thing about Khomeini otherwisee, and for that matter, neither he, nor Brzezinski, nor Carter then, or in the quarter-century since, has learned a thing about Islam, and without that knowledge, they could, like Carter, write a gushing note to Khomeini as "a fellow man of faith." (Carter's words, Carter's missive).
It would have been possible to rescue the Shah. His fall was not inevitable. And while there is plenty of blame to go around -- what was the French government doing giving asylum to Khomeini in Neauphle-le-chateau, after he had been kicked out of Iraq? What did it think it was doing when it allowed Khomeini to make tapes that were then copied and distributed throughout Iran? What way is that for the French to treat the French-speaking elite of Teheran, with its lycees and Paris as its qibla?
But the main military ally, of Iran was, and had been since the early 1950s, when the British lost their pre-eminence, the United States. It had nurtured Iran in the ill-fated CENTO alliance. It had supplied the Shah's army with weaponry, his navy with ships, his air force with planes. And now Carter simply waited, paralyzed, completely uncomrepehending of what was going on. And he still does not realize, this utter fool, what he ahs done. Do you think for one minute he connects what he did not do with the resistible rise of Khomeini and the ruin of Iran, the destruction or expulsion of most of its thinking class?
For that matter do you think Carter regrets writing speeches for Yassir Arafat to make him look good? Do you think he has ever given a thought to his self-appointed trip to North Korea, where he brought back -- remember? -- words of peace, of peace in our time, from the Glorious Leader Kim Chong-Il?
What has Carter ever done right? What?
Hugh asked
Well, he did try to implement the decimal system here in the U.S. He was a major supporter of energy conservation. And he may be a rabid antisemite, but he's a rabid antisemite with a winsome smile and a threadbare sweater.
Regarding Islam, and sending "Welcome Home!" notes to Khomeini, and all the rest, he got nothing right. He got it wrong, but my point is that he is still not responsible for what the Iranians did. No infidel is responsible for what the Iranians did.
Suppose Carter had continued to supply the Shah with weaponry and ships and planes. Those weapons would very likely have ended up a few years later in the hands of the jihadists when he died. Henchmen are mortal too, and with his demise Iran was never going to break out in paroxysms of tolerance and democracy, no matter what Carter (or any other infidel) did. Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Atatürk proved that a strong enough henchman can delay the emergence of Islamism, but it's always just a delay.
The strategy of propping up a nominally secular henchman will only lead to a policy of confusion and failure, as we are persuaded to provide more weapons and money, and to overlook more excesses, in order to avoid "something worse". Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Abbas, and General Musharraf are all examples. Maybe we could have kept Shah Pahlavi on the rogue's list, but to what end? Did we really need another schemer playing both sides just to stay in power?
Gadzooks!
I think I've just developed an allergy to peanuts!
Jimmy Carter ................what a puke.
The problem here, both now and then is.....have the American people been so reduced in mind that they elect people of that ilk as their leaders.
Have all the wars of the past century so reduced the amount of brave an honest men that we are now being lead to the slaughter by foolish "girlie men".
You may doubt it, from your heated and air conditioned cubicle's, but the law of the jungle still rules the world.
The strong and the brave will always rule, no matter what side they are on. No matter what political philosophy they represent.
When we elect leaders who exhibit weakness to the world, it is like a dying animal in the forest who runs, then falls then runs and falls again.
The smell of his impending doom fills the air, and the vultures circle over head.
The predators are invited and move in quickly.
Nations throughout history have risen and fallen according to these rules.
Jimmy marks the beginning of this process for our formerly strong and brave nation.
Of course many of us did not support him, but the fact remains that the majority of the American people held him up as the most powerful man in the world.
Since then, we have been running and falling, running and falling.
Now the wolves encircle us.
Yet our youngsters, intoxicated with the foolish notion that freedom is some type of vested inheritance, rally around the the foollowers of Mr. Carter. Accentuating the gray areas of life and human existence.
So Sad. as in the end there are no grays....you are alive or dead, be you an individual or a nation.
The Waffen SS guy above be he 18 or 88 was a predator. He fed on weakness, both of the innocents he slaughtered and the influence he attempted to wield from the weak and deceptive Puke, Jimmy Carter.