Free Republic

To understand what feeds former president Jimmy Carter's anti-Israeli frenzy, look at his early links to Arab business. Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.

We Need Fewer Secrets By Jimmy Carter Monday, July 3, 2006; A21 The U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) turns 40 tomorrow, the day we celebrate our independence. But this anniversary will not be a day of celebration for the right to information in our country. Our government leaders have become increasingly obsessed with secrecy. Obstructionist policies and deficient practices have ensured that many important public documents and official actions remain hidden from our view. The events in our nation today -- war, civil rights violations, spiraling energy costs, campaign finance and lobbyist scandals -- dictate the growing need and...

After the price of oil quadrupled in 1973, Syria and other Arab states put pressure on Saudi Arabia to use its new wealth against Israel. Part of the Saudi government's response was to lead a campaign against support for Israel in the U.S. On their own, however, the Saudis lacked the connections and savvy to affect American-Israeli ties. To make up for this, the Saudi state recruited help. In "The American House of Saud" (Franklin Watts, 448 pages, $18.95), Steven Emerson, a journalist and former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chronicles anti-Israeli activities undertaken in recent years...

WASHINGTON - When two Russian immigrants and their American financial backer needed marketing help for their innovative electric motor, they turned to a merchant banker at one of the nation's largest investment houses - retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The meeting at the Washington office of Stephens Inc. in late 2001 proved fortuitous for both Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and the principals in WaveCrest Laboratories, at the time a small research and development company in Dulles, Va. "They hit it off pretty much right away," said WaveCrest spokesman Tom McMahon. Clark signed on as a consultant...