Jimmy Carter: 'We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. We never went to war'

[malaise]

I love Jimmy Carter - this is one fabulous article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/11/president-jimmy-carter-interview
<snip>

It's the simple fact of not going to war that, given what came next, should be recognised. "In the last 50 years now, more than that," he says, "that's almost a unique achievement." He was bitterly opposed to both Iraq wars. "Iraq was just a terrible mistake. I thought so in Iraq 1, and I was against it in Iraq 2." And it's not just George W Bush who has blood on his hands, he says, but Tony Blair too: "I don't know what went on in private meetings when Tony Blair agreed to it. But had Bush not gotten that tacit support from Blair, I don't know if the course of history might have been different."

It's the second time we've talked about Blair. Money has disfigured American politics, Carter says. I ask him about the pledge he made the day after he lost his bid for re-election, when he told the press he would not make money off the back of his presidency. Is that true?

"That is correct," he says. Then he jokes: "It was kind of a weak moment."

What inspired it?

"My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman. When Truman left office he took the same position. He didn't serve on corporate boards. He didn't make speeches around the world for a lot of money."

Unlike Blair, I say. He's made a fortune since leaving office.

"I know he has. I know that."

Rosalynn has been quoted as saying that, had her husband bombed Tehran, he would have been re-elected. I put this to Carter. "That's probably true. A lot of people thought that. But it would probably have resulted in the death of maybe tens of thousands of Iranians who were innocent, and in the deaths of the hostages as well. In retrospect I don't have any doubt that I did the right thing. But it was not a popular thing among the public, and it was not even popular among my own advisers inside the White House. Including my wife."

In my book Carter is the greatest of the post war Presidents - bar none. He is an honest man - I do love him.

[rosesaylavee]

1. I greatly wronged him then by not understanding

why he did what he did. I was a fool and he was wiser than we deserved.

[teddy51]

2. I really liked Carter as well, he is a good man with extreme morals and no one will ever

take that away from him. I seriously don't think he has a mean bone in his body, and everything he does is for mankind good.

[malaise]

21. Not a mean bone in his body

For real

[BOHICA12]

3. Let's not rewrite history too much ....it's not that he didn't want to ...

but all we were able to do is to leave a bloody mess in the desert.

[malaise]

5. Huh?

He did not start a war - simple fact

[orpupilofnature57]

9. A failed attempt that was courageous to order. No Dick's to hide behind.

[BOHICA12]

13. Desert One wasn't armed with squirt guns ....

President Carter did not have the military (regular or Special Ops)to much else. Viet Nam and VolAr had stripped the tool box of options.

[rurallib]

14. I am confused - could you explain the bloody mess he left in the desert?

[BOHICA12]

19. Desert One ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw according to Wikipedia.

[Webster Green]

32. Oh bullshit! Ollie North (the war-criminal) sabotaged that mission.

Under the direction of Poppy Bush (the war-criminal).

[BOHICA12]

33. Even if I was wearing the same style tin-foil hat ....

.... doesn't change the intent. He was taking offensive action - but the ineptness of Special Ops was manifest and wasn't sorted out until Desert Storm.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jwirr]

39. Taking offensive action? He was trying to rescue American hostages

taken by another country. It would not have been necessary if raygun had not conspired with the Iranians to keep them until he defeated our president.

[malaise]

43. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

:hi:

[jwirr]

47. LOL

[midnight]

66. That' exactly how I remember that time period....

[newfie11]

87. Thom Hartman has been talking about that quite often.

About Raygun being involved to destroy Carter.

[a la izquierda]

91. I remember doing research for a project for my MA

I was working on media accounts of the crisis in Nicaragua, so I spent hours looking at microfilm of newspapers and government documents from the late '70s and early '80s. One thing I found was a little blurb about a Baath party leader named Saddam Hussein taking the helm in Iraq. Then I happened upon a more recent article, clipped out and clearly misplaced (chronologically) in a folder of documents that mentioned the following: Arafat told Carter that there had been a conspiracy with Republicans to delay the release of the Iranian hostages until after the election.
I copied the article and have it in my files somewhere. Though I'd always been a Democrat, I moved far to the left after that.

[malaise]

106. Correct n/t

[Yooperman]

109. Thank you... I agree!

Carter was set up by Reagan and Bush. Remember Bush was the former head of the CIA and if my memory serves me correctly, Carter laid off a bunch of CIA officers trying to cut the budget. That left Poppy Bush his own little group to help him with any covert actions.

[chervilant]

120. Be Careful!

You might cause that pitiful wee mannie (whose nickname suggests a rather sad vulnerability) a bad case of cognitive dissonance.

[CrispyQ]

110. It was a WTF moment for me when the hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day.

Did millions of Americans not see that they had just been played? Or did they not care, since the guy playing them was an ex-movie star who cracked a few jokes & told them they didn't have to turn down the thermostat & drive 55?

Carter was the first president I voted for in '76 & I proudly voted for him again in '80.

[dotymed]

128. Carter was my first and second also. n/t

[Fokker Trip]

115. Yuuuup...that's the way I see it too. n/t

[txlibdem]

92. You couldn't *be* more wrong

And calling our Special Ops teams inept is dead wrong. Who took out Osama Bin Laden?

[BOHICA12]

140. The Special Ops community of 2011 is light years ahead of 1980 ...

... in coordination, assets, equipment, training, and (most important) higher level respect & commitment. It took clusters like Desert One, Grenada, and Panama (to some extent) to get the US where we are today.

[vets74]

125. The guy is William Healey Sullivan --> "The hostages are in the air !"

Insubordinate, dishonest, tied to the Far Right oil interests and the older generation of Taiwanese plutocrats.

Sullivan refused to adapt to intel related to the Shah of Iran's cancer. This hard liner supported SAVAK. He was Ambassador in Teheran until President Carter fired him. Subsequently, Sullivan was one key to connecting up the participants in the Iran-Contra scheme. This ended up arranging massive bribes to Iranians and the hostages being held until January 20, 1980.

President Reagan was able to announce during his Inaugural Address in Washington that the hostages had been freed and "are in the air !"

From Time Magazine in 1979:

William H. Sullivan, 56, who played a major role in shaping U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, has been Washington's man in Iran since 1977. Last week, as he was held hostage in his own embassy, the irony of those mementos was apparent. "They shot up my home, my office and the chancery−an interesting Valentine's Day," said the ambassador. "You win some, you lose some."

Sullivan's sang-froid was characteristic; he is known in diplomatic circles as a self-assured salesman of policy, cool under stress and adroit at coping with diplomatic delicacies. "I think he's got water for blood," says Eugene Lawson, a former State Department colleague who is now a director at Georgetown University's foreign service school. "He's a collected, shrewd guy who always seems to land on his feet."

Democrats should look to Sullivan as a model for what to avoid for critical assignments.

Another example: the godawful Larry Summers.

[rhett o rick]

133. I dont think it appropriate in a decent debate to call someone a "tin-foil hat" wearer.

Cant you win your argument w/o bullying?

[gateley]

136. Trying to rescue American citizens doesn't QUITE qualify as

"taking offensive action". There's a difference, and it kind of saddens me that you don't see that.

[DissedByBush]

142. Carter sorted it out way before Desert Storm

After the failed mission, Carter ordered the military to figure out why the first had failed.

The simple reason: We had no pilots trained for this sort of thing. So he ordered a new unit to be stood up and trained for special ops aviation to mount a second attempt, Operation Eagle Claw.

But the hostages were released before anything could be done.

The 160th Special Operations Air Regiment was stood up in 1981 as a result of Carter's order. Their first combat was Grenada in 1983.

Furthermore the Joint Special Operations Command was stood up to coordinate the kind of joint effort that Operation Eagle Claw would have required.

Carter's smart move has resulted in the awesome special operations capabilities we have today, the very units that got Bin Laden.

Of course Carter gets no credit.

[Zywiec]

45. Yep, Ollie called in the sand storm

and ordered the helicopter to crash.

Brilliant work on his part.

:crazy:

[Webster Green]

48. Believe whatever you like.

I don't give a fuck.

BTW, did you hear the one about the CIA starting the crack epidemic? Ollie was in on that too.

Why would anyone believe what a bunch of war criminals have to say about anything?

[Zywiec]

52. So you really believe the sand storm had something to do with Ollie North?

[Enthusiast]

77. Based on what we DO know about

Iran-Contra how could we doubt any allegation about these people? I figure that it is far worse than we could ever imagine.

I have no doubt that these "operatives" had a hand in the mission failure in some way.

[Webster Green]

114. No doubt in my mind whatsoever.

These scumbags will do anything to win an election. They are currently trying to destroy our economy to make Obama look bad so they can win in 2012. They are evil and ruthless.

[BOHICA12]

51. Especially good for an O-5 Marine in Camp Lejune ...

...to sabotage CH-53s flown off the Nimitz in the Indian Ocean and direct other Marine Pilots to fly into C130s from Tyndall/Eglin AFB. Not all human f***kery needs a conspiracy as an explanation.

Here is a good example of some of the issues: The Joint Task Force commander was U.S. Army Major General James B. Vaught, while the fixed-wing and overall air mission commander was Colonel James H. Kyle, the helicopter commander Marine Lieutenant Colonel Edward R. Seiffert, and Delta Force commander Col. Charlie Beckwith. Too many commanders in the sandbox.

[Zywiec]

53. Yep, some have the tin foil wrapped a little too tightly. n/t

[rhett o rick]

134. Are you projecting? It shouldnt be necessary to accuse someone of wearing a "tin-foil hat".

But I guess that's all you got.

[Aristus]

50. Keep in mind, though, Desert One was intended as a surgical strike

to rescue the hostages, maybe kill their captors, and that's it.

It wasn't a plot to blow up all of Tehran, to invade Iran, and steal all of their oil. It was a legitimate move, with legitimate grounds, and with a legitimate motive.

It failed in one night, and 8 Americans died.

Iraq failed over and over again over 8 years, and 5,000 Americans died.

Desert One was the forgivable failure of a wise leader.

The Iraq invasion and occupation was the miserable, unforgivable failure of a pathetic mediocrity.

[Phlem]

55. I think you knocked that

out of the Fuc&in park.

good on you.

-p

[tomg]

56. Spot on. Nt

[Nostradammit]

65. Thank you for saying this, it's the damn truth.

Bloody mess?

After this last decade, Desert One is a single blood cell
compared to the buckets of blood in Iraq - all in the
pursuit of filthy lucre by a family of despicable in-breds
who arranged to keep the fucking hostages AS HOSTAGES!!!

[malaise]

69. Excellent post

:fistbump:

[Enthusiast]

79. Great post with excellent points!

Iraq is still failing today. It is a major contributor to all the other ills that plague us.

And after Iraq who can still believe in America?

[Turbineguy]

111. That pretty much

sums it up.

[chervilant]

121. hmm...

"...a pathetic mediocrity." I hope you don't mind if I reuse this apt description.

[FSogol]

122. +100 n/t

[itsnotaboutu]

135. Indeed!

:woohoo: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: You are spot on.

[Aristus]

137. Thanks.

I'm a pretty solid supporter of former President Carter. Truly a great man, in my opinion.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[H2O Man]

59. comical

[chervilant]

117. Excuse me?!

"Let's"?!? Have the cajones to stand alone in this mendacious assertion.

[DissedByBush]

138. Bloody mess in another desert too

Don't forget, he started what Reagan only continued, arming the Afghani Muslims to fight against the Soviet Union.

He wanted to turn Afghanistan into their Vietnam.

And it worked, helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union, and Carter never gets any credit.

But it also helped plant the seeds for what's against us today.

I guess his crystal ball was a bit out of whack, I don't think anybody foresaw that.

[orpupilofnature57]

4. Almost too good of a man to be an effective Politician ,a great Philanthropist...

Also a small group as far as presidents, most graze and gaze ,he works his ass off.

[malaise]

8. He and his wife still work their asses off

They are my definition of role models and I am an atheist.

[orpupilofnature57]

12. No former president can hold a candle for altruistic sacrifice and ridicule...

though I bash shrub & poppy whenever possible.

[sad sally]

35. When he lost the election to Reagan, I sent a letter thanking him for

being the best President I'd ever had the honor to vote for, for being concerned about Planet Earth - its resources and his best efforts to keep the United States at peace instead of war. (this was back in the days of paper letters, no emails)

Several weeks later, I received a reply from President and Mrs. Carter - thanking me - wow! I still get that good feeling when I look at it every now and again.

[jwirr]

41. I still get Christmas cards from them - granted with a request for

money to support their work - but still I am proud to hang that card among my others.

[malaise]

44. How lovely

:hi:

[Scuba]

6. Thank you President Carter! n/t

[liberal N proud]

7. He was another Democratic President targeted his whole term

The GOP, then, like now, made defeating him their sole priority.

[malaise]

11. Absolutely correct

And the big oil companies and media hacks went after his Crisis of COnfidence Speech - one of the great speeches of all time.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-crisis-speech/

Perhaps appreciating the president's astonishing frankness, the public rewarded him with higher approval ratings in the days that followed. But then, as historian Douglas Brinkley notes, "it boomeranged on him. The op-ed pieces started spinning out, 'Why don't you fix something? There's nothing wrong with the American people. We're a great people. Maybe the problem's in the White House, maybe we need new leadership to guide us.'" Historian Roger Wilkins concurs: "When your leadership is demonstrably weaker than it should be, you don't then point at the people and say, 'It's your problem.' If you want the people to move, you move them the way Roosevelt moved them, or you exhort them the way Kennedy or Johnson exhorted them. You don't say, 'It's your fault.'"

[orpupilofnature57]

15. Single celled ameba's when it comes to the negatives.

[rurallib]

17. yep - per Thom Hartmann after Nixon the purified Repubs

have done anything and everything to stop any semblance of liberalism.
The top targets are any Dem Presidents. They have a lot of weapons, especially the media.

[hughee99]

40. Exactly, if only Carter could have had a Dem House and Senate for his 4 years...

Oh wait, he did. A filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for his first two years as well.

Carter's problem wasn't just the GOP, it was the Democrats too.

[iamthebandfanman]

62. a problem that persists today ;) n/t

[Rhiannon12866]

60. +1

;(

[mmonk]

10. He did arm the mujahideen.

[Robb]

25. Eh. Even Brzezinski disputed that.

All we know for sure is he authorized money, guns and PR people. But I don't think there's any evidence of movement prior to 1980.

[mmonk]

37. I have it differently.

We pulled the USSR into Afghanistan on Christmas Day, 1979.

[Robb]

97. If we were that good

... Why did it take so long? ;)

[stockholmer]

68. here is evidence of this and how it has played out since (including US support of al-Qaeda in Libya)

Zbigniew "Its easier to kill a million people...than it is to control them" Brzezinski laid the foundational philosohy for what is now a fully actualized Arc of Crisis. Carter was the least bad president of that horrid lot since JFK, and I think he truly meant well, but was simply a CFR globalist frontman, (again providing left cover) at the end of the day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The USA seeds of al-Qaeda (via support of the proto Mujahadeen movement) started in 1978 and 1979, under Robert Gates and Brzezinski of the Carter regime. Now have continued key roles in the present day, as Gates has been the Sec of Defense under both Bush and Obama and Brzezinski is a de facto chief architect of geo-political policy for the Obama administration http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65720/zbigniew-brzezinski/from-hope-to-audacity http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23726367#23726367 http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_obama08.htm .

Al Qaeda is a West-created/funded insta-war/invasion/liberty crackdown/fear machine, an artificial hydra, utilizing the 150 year-old methods the British practised in the middle east.


http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/07/15/the-imperial-anatomy-of-al-qaeda-the-cia%e2%80%99s-drug-running-terrorists-and-the-%e2%80%9carc-of-crisis%e2%80%9d



The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a 3 part BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis.


The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two. More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organized force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5lByw7kvS0 part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai6LhnW4Oa8 part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HvzR8w1z2g part 3



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zbigniew Brzezinski


http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=cambodia_662


1980-1986: China and US Support Kymer Rouge

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/us.html

China and the US sustain the Khmer Rouge with overt and covert aid in an effort to destabilize Cambodia’s Vietnam-backed government. With US backing, China supplies the Khmer Rouge with direct military aid. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser during the administration of President Carter, will later acknowledge, “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot…. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.”




September 4, 1997: Brzezinski’s ‘The Grand Chessboard’ Advocates Overthrow of Iranian Goverment


“The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. In the book Brzezinski details how in order to protect America’s status as the last remaining super power on earth it would be necessary to invade and control key locations in the Middle East, particularly Iran. The book theorizes that America could be attacked by Afghan terrorists which would lead to our invasion of Afghanistan and ultimately control of Iran as a key strategic country to hold in the war for global supremacy.



---------------------------------------------------------------------
The US empire's currency (the rapidly-dying dollar) is backed up, collateralized by oil, and the oil is backed up by the global Anglo-American war machine.

This crisis point with the current global monetary debt regime will occur in the next 2 to 5 years max, it even may cause a new world war, as many industrialized countries (not just 3rd world periphery states) will simply be unable to continue to operate at a level that will prevent their own citizens from outright civil wars and coup d' etats (much like we see now in the 'arc of crisis' ie. Morocco to the Chinese border).

This concept was laid out over 30 years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski (chief geo-political strategist for Carter, now for Obama) in his books, speeches and CFR articles. His goal is to use this arc to force a China vs. Russia war by 2020. This will complete the elimination (in his mind) of the last threat to the Anglo/American banking cartel for true, lasting technetronic global hegemony.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921766,00.html

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/32309/george-lenczowski/the-arc-of-crisis-its-central-sector

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_chessboard.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/04-0

-----------------------------------------------------------
2 key books by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Grand Chessboard

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299979870&sr=8

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119973.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------


Between Two Ages

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Between-Two-Ages-Americas-Technetronic/dp/0313234981/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5

http://wearechange.org.uk/london/wp-content/themes/arras-theme/resources/misc/Zbigniew%20Brzezinski-Between%20Two%20Ages.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Creating an "Arc of Crisis": The Destabilization of the Middle East
and Central Asia
The Mumbai Attacks and the “Strategy of Tension”

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24770171/Creating-an-Arch-of-Conflict


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Abdel Hakim Belhaj (military commnader of Tripoli under the National Transitional Council) is a ranking al-Qaeda leader (emir of the Islamic Fighting Group of Libya)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.pvtr.org/pdf/Report/RSIS_Libya.pdf (page 18 has interview with Belhaj)

One of Belhaj's underlings is Nasser Tailamoun, who was Osama bin Laden's driver. Qadaffi released these 2, plus dozens of other radicals, in September of 2010.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/libya-releases-islamists-including-bin-ladens-driver-48737

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US and NATO use and support of al-Qaeda in the Libya coup d' etat

Abdel Hakim Belhaj, Tripoli's newly installed military governor (also a key official within Libya's National Transitional Council), is linked to Al Qaeda, reports Liberátion (Leftist French newspaper).

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012356209-abdelhakim-belhaj-le-retour-d-al-qaeda

http://translate.google.se/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liberation.fr%2Fmonde%2F01012356209-abdelhakim-belhaj-le-retour-d-al-qaeda

Belhaj is the former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (an affiliate group of Al Qaeda). In 2003, Belhaj was arrested in Malaysia in 2003, later being interrogated by CIA in 2004 in Thailand. He was set free in Libya in 2008.


It's important to note Belhaj is supported by NATO, as Le Parisien and MSN France report:


http://news.fr.msn.com/m6-actualite/monde/libye-calme-relatif-%c3%a0-tripoli-avanc%c3%a9es-dans-louest-statu-quo-dans-lest-2

10 h 20. Un islamiste à la tête du commandement militaire de la rébellion à Tripoli. Abdelhakim Belhadj a été le chef militaire qui a préparé, avec l'aide de l'Otan, la prise du QG de Kadhafi, à Bab Al-Azizya. Al-Jazeera lui a consacré un long entretien en direct du QG à l'issue des combats. Ancien dirigeant du Groupe islamique des combattants libyens (GICL), lié à Al-Qaida, Abdelhakim Belhadj, a été arrêté en 2004 par les Américains en Asie et livré par la suite à la Libye, selon la presse arabe. Il aurait bénéficié de l'amnistie de centaines d'islamistes libyens en mars 2010 ordonnée par Saif Al-Islam, fils préféré de Kadhafi.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karel Abderrahim, a researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques, a French think tank) said in an interview to La Croix, a Catholic French newspaper, that he is skeptical about the dissolution of Al Qaeda-Libyan Islamic Fighting Group:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.la-croix.com%2FActualite%2FS-informer%2FMonde%2FKader-Abderrahim-chercheur-a-l-Iris-Je-ne-vois-pas-qui-pourrait-federer-la-Libye-_EG_-2011-08-24-702836

Further background:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/libyan-fighting-factions-to-unite-under-single-military-command-1.380955?localLinksEnabled=false

http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2011/08/27/al-qaeda-in-libya-started-to-act-killing-friends-and-foes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html

"Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries"....................


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

flashback 2 years (including Young Turks video) more US support of terrorist groups

Saudis and CIA back Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s Jundullah in Pakistan and Iran?

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2008/12/saudis-and-cia-back-khalid-sheikh.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

flashhback to 2007 (BBC)

Libyan Islamists 'join al-Qaeda'

Zawahri called for North African leaders to be overthrown
A Libyan Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda, according to an audio message on the internet attributed to the radical network's second-in-command.
Ayman al-Zawahri purportedly said the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya was becoming part of al-Qaeda.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7076604.stm


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

flashback to 2002 (Guardian UK) French intelligence experts revealed how western intelligence agencies bankrolled a Libyan Al-Qaeda cell (and how the UK flat-out lied)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/nov/10/uk.davidshayler

MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy' about Gadaffi plot

British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.

The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ties things up rather neatly, going back to at least 1978-79 ...................

[malaise]

70. This should be an OP in its own right

Excellent post :fistbump:

[Octafish]

16. A nuclear hero, too.

Personally led the repair of a runaway nuclear reactor in Canada.



Jimmy Carter, USN

[malaise]

20. Thanks for that

:hi:

He is a decent man - fearless and not afraid to express his opinions or facts based on empirical evidence (which are like crosses to a movie vampire to ReTHUGS). :evilgrin:

[Kennah]

18. His one mistake was his position on the Shah

He is characterized as soft and weak by some, but I think Operation Eagle Claw showed Carter had real mettle. If the Operation had succeeded, he probably woulda won re-election. We'd be living a very different, and probably far better, reality today.

[orpupilofnature57]

22. He made a mistake keeping us out of the olympics too ,But had enough

vision to say Less for the 80's ,to pay the deficit by 91 ,thats solvent not potential.Instead we opted for Bonzo's buddy and the first wave of voo-doo. he Was thought a fool for addressing our pure addiction for excess as a nation.

[malaise]

23. Yes I'd agree with that one

:hi:

[bread_and_roses]

24. East Timor. The Shah. South Africa.

There were others - is a long time ago now, and the horrors have piled one on another until I can no longer keep them straight. El Salvador? Others, too ... I know I've forgotten ...

He was no Saint. He may have started out with good intentions - I remember voting for him with "hope" too ...

American Exceptionalism and the interests of the monied classes won in the end, whatever he started out to do ...

I'm sure he'd like to forget too - but we shouldn't.

[shanti]

26. great article, great man

thanks for posting :hi:

[malaise]

27. Isn't it sad that we have to read an article of this quality in

aa British newspaper? I'd love to see Olbermann interview Jimmy Carter for a full hour.

[shanti]

31. very sad

he's such a caring man, he deserves more respect here than what he is getting.

[Generic Other]

28. I suspect he hears daily how well-respected he really is

He is still our senior party leader and perhaps our wisest one. A man with strong moral fiber who has the courage of his convictions. He was the twilight before the darkness of the Reagan-Bush regimes. I wish Obama would listen to him. The two might actually accomplish great things if they put their heads together.

[malaise]

29. Ditto

I wish Obama would listen to him.

[ChandlerJr]

30. President Carter left office 2 million dollars in debt

Due to the trustee of his blind trust screwing things up. He paid all his debts and is now worth north of ~10 million due to his book publishing and speaking fees. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trading on your name and fame. There really isn't much else an ex-president can do.

[go west young man]

61. I believe his book fee's go to the Carter Center to help with charity work.

His worth is estimated at 5 million. He did climb out of a million dollar deep hole after being president because his peanut farm suffered financially.
The jest of the article is that money and material goods mean almost nothing to Carter.
I like the way the reporter contrasts Carter to Blair. Blair has made a fortune and has 9 homes. Carter just says I'd rather not comment on that.

[malaise]

74. Well said

:hi:

[sabrina 1]

34. The best living president. Too bad he's so far ahead of his time in

a country that believes that violence is the answer to everything, not to mention profitable.

I think history will see him as one of the better presidents. He made the right decision regarding Iran. He is an honorable man.

[lucca18]

38. Jimmy Carter is a truly great man.

The Carter Center does great work in their commitment to human rights.

[JI7]

42. if Carter could have been re-elected and been able to do some things, particularly on environment

we would be far better off today. not just our country but the world.

Reagan was a huge set back and the negative influence is still with us today.

[malaise]

46. 100% correct

:hi:

[SemperEadem]

94. he had solar panels installed on the white house roof

and raygun promptly had them removed once he took office.

[Lorien]

49. Loved him then, love him now. nt

[kestrel91316]

54. I have never entirely forgiven myself for voting Libertarian in 1980

Instead of for Carter. I can't, to this day, fathom WTF I was thinking.

[Enthusiast]

82. Considering the media of the time, in 1980,

your misunderstanding of the issue is entirely understandable. It affected all of us.

[BiggJawn]

105. Me neither. I voted for Carter in '76, but Anderson in '80.

I thought Ray-Gun was a putz, but Carter was a "pussy" for not kicking the Iranians in the balls, so I voted for the third guy.

What the hell was I thinking?

I was only 23 at the time and not too well informed about politics.

[rucognizant]

141. I voted for Carter in 1980!

My career was at it's best between 1976 - 1980.............Started going downhill in Feb. 12981!
Hell is seeing what is going on & not being able to influence enough people to change it.

[Zorra]

57. I totally agree that he was the greatest of the post-war Presidents.

Very progressive, and had great foresight.

If he had gotten a second term I believe this country would be like a utopia compared to the wasteland it's become primarily because of Reagan and his masters.

[malaise]

71. More importantly

the Middle East would not be in this mess.

[shotten99]

58. They should have tried rescue operations again.

Even though the rescue attempt was a abject failure, they should have learned from the experience and tried again at a minimum.
I believe he was morally right to act as he did, but not militarily or politically right.
In the context of post Viet Nam, his response only added insult to injury. In retrospect, I'd rather have had Carter heal the nation
than the way Reagan "healed" the nation. Taking an embassy is an act of war. He would have been completely justified in a military
response.

[democrank]

63. Jimmy Carter was way too principled for Washington.

[NewJeffCT]

64. If DU were around in 1980

most DUers would have hated Carter and supported the more liberal Ted Kennedy, who primaried Carter from the left.

Carter was a good person who had a lot of good ideas - however, he was never good at getting his ideas implemented and he was not a strong leader.

[malaise]

93. A profound point

:fistbump:

[Harriety]

67. He was very under rated as a president. Jimmy's tops in my book though.

[mdmc]

72. best president ever

[stockholmer]

75. strange, did not you have Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, Jackson, etc as POTUS?

[mdmc]

76. best pres in my lifetime

[stockholmer]

80. thanks for the clarification, I assume you, like me, were not alive during JFK's term

cheers

[Enthusiast]

84. But I was alive..............nt

[Enthusiast]

83. Mine too...........nt

[pinto]

73. Kick

:kick:

[stockholmer]

78. "I see nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained."How Reaganism actually started with Carter

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/08/lind_reaganism_carter

snip

In politics, both Carter and Reagan sought to exploit the "white backlash" in the aftermath of the civil rights revolution that had led many white Southerners and white Northern "ethnics" to defect from the Democrats to support third-party populist candidate George Wallace. Reagan did so by beginning his general election campaign in 1980 in Neshoba County, Miss., where white supremacists had recently fire-bombed a black church and had earlier murdered three Northern civil rights activists, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney. In a thinly disguised appeal to white Southern racism, Reagan declared, "I believe in states' rights."

Jimmy Carter used similar coded language in fishing for votes from white ethnics in the North who objected to blacks moving into their neighborhoods. In an interview with the New York Daily News in April 1976, Carter said: "I see nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained. I would not force a racial integration of a neighborhood by government action." A few days later, questioned about this remark, Carter elaborated: "What I say is that the government ought not to take as a major purpose the intrusion of alien groups into a neighborhood simply to establish their intrusion." Jesse Jackson called this "a throwback to Hitlerian racism." Carter not only won a majority of the Southern vote but also did well among white ethnics. (The quotes are from Steven F. Hayward's "The Real Jimmy Carter.")

snip


It was Carter, not Reagan, who brought the religious right into national politics. Even though they turned against him later, Carter won the Southern evangelical vote in 1976 by advertising himself as a born-again Christian. Like Reagan later, Carter, the folksy farmer and veteran from Plains, Ga., appealed to the nostalgia of white Americans in the 1970s for a simpler, more rural, more traditional society.

Carter, not Reagan, pioneered the role of the fiscally conservative governor who runs against the mess in Washington, promising to shrink the bureaucracy and balance the budget. Early in his administration, Carter was praised by some on the right for his economic conservatism. Ronald Reagan even wrote a newspaper column titled "Give Carter a Chance." The most conservative Democrat in the White House since Grover Cleveland, Carter fought most of his battles with Democratic liberals, not Republican conservatives.


snip

[malaise]

85. Sure he has flaws

We know

[stockholmer]

86. he said some bad things to get elected,but actually governed much better,sort of an Obama in reverse

[inna]

90. so true. as a side point, Carter is the most underrated American president of all time, AFAIC,

even I do not idolize him even a bit (read Chomsky, if anyone has any questions).

[MissDeeds]

81. President Carter is the epitome of what a president should be

Honest, decent, ethical. I love him too, malaise.

:patriot:

[Divine Discontent]

88. one of the greatest "known" human beings to walk this planet. a wise caring leader.

Thank you, President Jimmy Carter!


http://www.zazzle.com/republicans_2012_keeping_millions_out_of_work_bumper_sticker-128002960205017719

[Bryn]

89. K&R for President Jimmy Carter

I, too, love him!

[MadHound]

95. I guess he's forgetting a few things that happened on his watch,

Like US material and monetary support for the nascent contras in their bid to overthrow the democratically elected government of El Salvador. Much like the operations the US took under Carter against the democratically elected government of Nicaragua. Or the proxy war with the Soviet Union over Afghanistan, which was inspired by the saber rattling of the Carter Doctrine(which stated that the Persian Gulf was an area under the US sphere of influence and we would fight to keep it there).

Carter was the least bloodthirsty of modern American presidents, but his hands weren't clean, not clean at all.

[malaise]

96. Carter was the least bloodthirsty of modern American presidents

That's good enough for me

[MadHound]

99. Yeah, but it's not good enough for the hundreds of people buried in mass graves,

Killed by those Washington bullets.

Being the least bloodthirty is not something to celebrate. To do so is to show just how far this country, this society has fallen. We need to celebrate people who have no blood on their hands.

[malaise]

100. There is no such President

but at least Carter started no wars

[MadHound]

101. Again, I guess you're forgetting El Salvador and Nicaragua

Starting two wars against two democratically elected governments.

And just because there is no such president that doesn't mean we should celebrate the least bloodthirsty, but rather we should strive to elect representatives that will bring peace, not war.

[malaise]

107. We were the victims of US foreign policy in the 1970s

ReTHUG hawks such as Kissinger came here and threatened us on ideological grounds.

[MadHound]

144. And who was in charge of that foreign policy?

The president, you know, the place where the buck stops. Carter was no angel, just less bloodthirsty than the others.

[inna]

98. exactly, "the least bloodthirsty"- i was actually trying to say something to that effect

in my post, but you did it so much better.


I still do think that Carter is the most underrated (modern) American president, though.

[Mosaic]

102. Segregationist crap, not a great man

Too cancervative with his segregationist views. I only rate him a C. Still that's the highest rating I'd give any u.s. president, as they all were militaristic in some way or another.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

103. There were covert doings in Central America under Carter.

And some of it was pretty nasty business.

However, Carter was definately one of the more peaceful presidents and has been underrated by "history."

[craigmatic]

104. I agree with you about Carter. The man has integreity and was the last president to ask the country

to sacrifice for the greater good.

[LWolf]

108. The first president I voted for...and the only president I ever voted FOR. nt

[lsewpershad]

112. Only in America

can a president become so maligned because he loves and dedicated his life to peace.

[malaise]

113. Well that's what you get when you're President

among those who believe the only solutions are war and bombs.

[dharmamarx]

116. This "we never fired a bullet" claim is complete bull.

Most of the covert interventions and weapons buildup that we associate with the Reagan administration began under the Carter administration. The man was a cold warrior:
"By July 1979 -- less than two weeks after the Sandinista rebels took power from the 43-year Somoza-dynasty dictatorship in Nicaragua, a long favored Washington client in Central America -- would begin mounting the first covert actions against the popular, and populist, new regime in Managua, as they would soon be shoring up a ruling oligarchy that faced a mounting leftist insurgency in neighboring El Salvador.

There would be similar interventions and intrigues in the Horn of Africa, on the Arabian Peninsula, and elsewhere, always justified by the Soviet (or proxy Cuban) menace. "On the march" was the way both Gates and his boss were fond of describing the communist hordes. The result would be a rash of secret wars, assassinations, terrorist acts, and manifold corruptions around the world by the administration of the "human rights" president. Moreover, these acts preceded, sometimes by several years, the vaunted covert actions of the Reagan regime, which were often only continuations of Carter policy, in some cases even on a lesser scale. "Jimmy Carter was the CIA's first wholly owned subsidiary," an Agency operative would boast to a friend later, "and the beauty of it was that so few people, even on the inside, ever knew it."
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/174814/tomgram%3A_roger_morris%2C_the_cia_and_the_gates_legacy

[Safetykitten]

118. Ah...the rehabilitation of the Carter is ongoing I see. Statues being built soon.

[spanone]

119. K&r...

[coalition_unwilling]

123. Much as I like and admire Carter, the title of the OP is the tiniest bit

disingenuous (and, if the article is accurately quoting JC, Carter himself is being more than a little disingenuous).

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor, has bragged openly that the U.S. used Afghan mujahedeen as a proxy force to destabilize the legitimate Afghan government, in order to lure the USSR into Afghanistan so the Soviets could experience their own Vietnam. When called out on this logic in the wake of 9-11, Brzezinski has said that he thinks the downfall of the USSR was worth arming a rag-tag militia (or words to that effect). It should go without saying that, without the Soviets in Afghanistan, there would have been no Osama bin laden and no 9-11. Can we therefore say that Carter (through his NSA advisor Brzezinski) was a cause of 9-11? I'll leave that for the logicians and ethicists to decide.

Reminds me somewhat of Clinton's Sec of State Madeleine Albright who said, famously, that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of sanctions imposed on Iraq after Gulf War I were 'worth it.' N.B. Osama bin Laden cited these 500,000 deaths as one of his casus belli in the fatwa he issued.

Albright has since said she regretted saying those words, but Brzezinski has never recanted, AFAIK.

[malaise]

129. It's the title of the article n/t

[RZM]

130. I've always taken Brzezinski's bragging about 'luring' with a grain of salt

The Communist government came to power in a coup, so I guess you could call it legitimate, though that's quite a slippery slope when applied to other coup situations.

But anyway, some sort of Afghan resistance to that government was inevitable and history showed that even with Soviet help, it was damn near impossible to stamp it out. Plus it also should be noted that the Soviet intervention was not entirely about the resistance either - remember their first major combat action was weighing in on the government factional dispute with that commando raid on the presidential palace. Soviet analysts had come to the conclusion a while before that perhaps their biggest problem in Afghanistan wasn't even Islamic resistance but the inability of factions within the government to play nice.

Plus the decision to get involved at all highlighted flaws in the Soviet decision-making process. A teeny-tiny handful of bigwigs made the decision. Even when looking at the US decision to invade Iraq (which also didn't go so well), a whole lot more people than a handful played a part in it.

I've always thought that Brzezinksi might have been taking a bit too much credit for what subsequently occurred, which is really pretty common for public officials when looking back on their careers.

Just my two pennies, anyway :)

[coalition_unwilling]

131. That's a good point you make. Just because Brzezinski brags that

U.S. policy was to arm the resistance to lure in the Soviets does not necessarily make Brzezinski's claim true. I suppose I had always found his realpolitik comments so tasteless in light of subsequent events that I never bothered to ask myself whether Brzezinksi might be engaged in a little post-hoc self-puffery at the expense of the truth. I will go back and review and, time permitting, give you my further take once I have finished.

Thanks for your perspective. Definitely a point that needs to be considered, imho.

[RZM]

132. Thanks!

American cold warriors have always tended to give themselves way too much credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union. My own opinion (and I think this is close to what has emerged as the most popular post-Cold War view) is that when you peel back the curtain on the Soviet Union itself, you see that US actions did matter in what finally happened, but if you want to isolate the most important causes, most of them came from structural flaws built into the Soviet system, particularly the economy.

Historians in many countries tend to overestimate their own society's role in world affairs, but when you're dealing with a superpower like the US, which really has had a lot of global influence, I think that tendency is even stronger.

[lunatica]

124. I have always loved Jimmy Carter too

More so today. He's a man who I will never doubt. He was the right President for that one opportunity we had to face facts about ourselves as a country and grow up. It was a moment in our history when we could have admitted we weren't the glorious and perfect country and we could have pledged to be better and joined the world in brotherhood. But instead we got Ronald Reagan who again wrapped us in the deluded flag of uber patriotism and jingoism.

I truly believe this.

Maybe we're close to another pivotal moment now. I hope so. Something has to finally wake us up to the truth.

[davidwparker]

126. The last, great Democratic President.

Without vision, the people will perish.

[indepat]

127. Unfortunately, the unwillingness to kill tens of thousands of innocent people seems to be viewed by

the electorate as a terminal political weakness: give us a mano mano macho, macho guy with the balls to be willing to use our entire lethal arsenal of advanced weaponry, incidentally mostly financed by others, anytime, anywhere, for any reason, even a purely political one. :patriot:

[airplaneman]

139. Carter is also my fovorite president.

I believe he was ahead of his time. He wanted to develope alternative fuels. Brought down the deficet. Put solar pannels on the white house (which regan tore down). Wanted to mandate higher fuel efficiency as a requirement (we would all have 50 mpg cas by now). I do not think we have had
a better president since although Clinton is not very far behing.
-irplane

[Zywiec]

143. Kick