: Unfair to compare Carter with Neville Chamberlain
Chamberlain finally figured out appeasement wouldn't work when Hitler invaded Poland.
Carter still hasn't figured it out.
Posted on 10/09/2006 8:03:21 AM PDT by Bernard Marx
Of all the reactions to North Korea's admission that it has been secretly defying its promise not to develop nuclear weapons -- shock, fear, etc. -- the one most in order is some good old-fashioned finger-pointing.
Let's start with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. On Oct. 11, the Nobel committee announced it would award its Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter. It was really an un-Peace Prize for George W. Bush, whom the Nobel crowd believes is a foolish warmongering meanie.
"In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power," intoned the Nobel press release, "Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development." Translation: Bush should be more like Carter.
Well, one of the conflict-resolutions that supposedly put Jimmy over the top for winning the prize (over the more-deserving Afghan president, Hamid Karzai) was the one between the United States and North Korea in the early 1990s. When Bill Clinton and Kim Il Sung were squaring off over Pyongyang's nuke program, Carter jetted off to the world's last Stalinist nation to compliment the mass-murdering North Korean dictator as a "vigorous and intelligent" man. He declared of a government that has imposed famines on millions: "I don't see that they are an outlaw nation."
And it was brother Jimmy who had the bright idea of lavishing the North Koreans with aid in exchange for their "cross-our-hearts-and-hope-to-die" promise that they would stop pursuing nuclear weapons technology. Of course, many argue it was Carter's mollycoddling of the North Koreans during his presidency that encouraged them to start their nuclear program to begin with. But hey, that's heavy water under the bridge.
In 1994, when Carter went to North Korea to strike a deal, he didn't have the support or authority of the U.S. government to agree to anything. That didn't stop him from announcing on television that he'd made a deal. And the fact that the Clinton administration was out of the loop didn't stop Al Gore from persuading Bill Clinton to leap on the proposal, even though it basically surrendered every major American demand, starting with our insistence that North Korea completely and immediately stop its nuclear weapon program.
The final agreement, which Clinton dubbed "a very good deal indeed," called for the United States to provide the North Koreans with $4 billion worth of light-water reactors and $100 million in oil in exchange for a promise to be good and an assurance that inspectors would be allowed to poke around at some indeterminate point down the road.
At the time, Kang Sok Ju, the chief North Korean negotiator, bragged that "the complete elimination of the existing nuclear program will only come when we have the light-water reactor in our hands." In other words you pay first, we stop later.
The problem with this deal, which prompted The New York Times to declare, "Diplomacy with North Korea has scored a resounding triumph," is the problem with all such deals: It was based on the assumption that evil men willing to murder their own people would never presume to lie to someone like Jimmy Carter. Just as so many thought Hitler wouldn't deceive Chamberlain. The founding Soviet dictator, V.I. Lenin, called the pliant liberals of the West "useful idiots," and the label still has resonance today.
There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam's useful idiots will cite the threat of a potentially nuclear-armed North Korea to argue that we should put Iraq on the back burner and deal with North Korea first. That would be a better argument if it weren't made by precisely the sort of people who allowed North Korea to become such a threat to begin with.
And that's why a little finger-pointing is a good thing -- not because it's fun (it is), but because those who believe laws and treaties will stop murderers and madmen would have us strike a similar deal with Iraq. The Clinton administration, the gray beards of the Democratic Party, the editors of The New York Times and the "enlightened" thinkers of Europe represented by the Nobel committee: They all believe that George Bush is a fool or a warmonger for not approaching Saddam Hussein the way Clinton and Carter approached North Korea.
And if they win the day, we'll be debating what we should do about Iraq's nuclear weapons in no time at all.
You're right. Because NO ONE is going to remember this when the DBM starts their campaign blaming Bush!!
And still Carter gets all the support of every other retired president when he deserves to be in a prison sharing a cell with Mr. Clinton.
We are still paying the price for the stupidity of electing Jimmah Carter as our President.
klintoon, catah, and half-bright... THE AXIS OF WEASELS!
LLS
And he never will, not even when a N.K.-designed nuke/missile combo detonates in Israel. You're right: compared to Carter, Chamberlain was a visionary.
If you look at the history books starting in 1950, only Truman had the balls to take millitary action against NK and should have along with the UN.
Our Government has failed since then to do ANYTHING constructive against NK outside of appeasement and the giving of nuke technology (thanks bubba). Look at where we are now and I have to shiver.
1. NK has a functioning nuke and cannot be attacked with conventional forces w/o any major loss of life.
2. Iran will be right behind NK. Their scientists were at the test.
3. Pakistan is involved in this mess by providing nuke technology to Lybia, Iran, and NK.
4. Japan will now be forced to re-arm. The entire Asian-Pacific rim including Hawaii and the West Coast is now under threat of a nuke missle. It won't be long.
5. China and Russia won't raise a finger.
6. The UN as usual is useless.
7. Iran will certainly look at the US as a paper tiger. All talk and no action.
Wait until 2008 and the Islamic nut jobs will have what they want, top down appeasement from the US and UK.
The only reason Carter ran for office in the first place was because he just could not stand for another peanut crop failure. America has had to pay the price for his brain failure time after time. What a disgrace !
Of course it is, and it has been for 50 years. Ditto the Pulitzer when it touches on politics. Why are the American people so slow to catch on? It could have something to do with the word "media."
The Nobel Peace Prize is about as meaningless as anything that comes out of Carter's mouth.
Jimmy Carter was the WORST President...EVER!!! Clinton was the worst PERSON to be President (per George Will) but it's pretty close to a tie. Both HATE America's superiority!!
***1. NK has a functioning nuke and cannot be attacked with conventional forces w/o any major loss of life. ***
I dont believe this to be the case---yet.
The N. Koreans took weeks to get their nuke to work, I dont believe they yet have the capability to set one off in a battlefield situation where movement of troops would man they wopuld have to set it up way in advance.
Which means we probably have a year before something has to be done or your statement will come true.
If Truman had listened to McArthur we wouldn't have this situation in the first place and I'm not a McArthur fan.
Here is a chronology of North Korea's relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons ... up to the year 2000. If some media idiot or ex-Carter/Clintoon "expert" is going to argue about what SHOULD have been done, and when, and by whom, they might as well join the camp of "useful idiots" by being called on to answer to historical fact.
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/nkorea/nuke-miss-chron.htm
PS: Wonder if Maddie Albright will demand that Kim Chong IL reurn to the American taxpayer those autographed Michael Jordan sneakers she gave him as an incentive to be a great statesman.
It's clearly dated in two places. We need to remember how we got into the present mess.
My wife and I had a fight a few years back, when I bitched (not at her) vocally about something on the Today Show (I think it was the whole thing with the "Reagan is an Airhead" thing, where they had the author and other "experts" on for something like three days in a row on the same subject, but I could be mistaken). She read me her riot act, saying it is what she likes to listen to, so leave her alone and control myself. To keep the peace, I readily agreed.
After all, I DO NOT WATCH THAT CRAP (I have not watched any television for several years now). But she does, and she has it concurrently going on two televisions with the volume up early in the morning. Which is bad for me, because I am not a morning person. But we live in a small house, and with the volume up on two separate televisions, there is no escaping it.
This morning, they spent the first TEN OR FIFTEEN FRICKING MINUTES OF THE SHOW on the Foley thing!!! Now, I know they are beating the living crap out of this issue because they want to keep it in the forefront (never mind I do not think it will have the effect they wish) but you know...there was this little issue of a TERRORIST STATE OFFICIALLY JOINING THE DAMNED NUCLEAR CLUB over the weekend. You would think there might be some mention (maybe there was in the first minute or so, and I missed it.)
Sigh. Anyway, I thought I might just wear my MP3 player around beginning at 0700, but I know I would have to keep pulling them out of my ears to converse with her, because she doesn't really listen or watch all of it, it is kind of background material for her.
In any case, I doubt that any finger pointing will take place at all by the NYT, LAT, WP, NBC, CBS, ABC Time, Newsweek or any other major media channel.
As Rush is fond of saying, "I know these people like every square inch of my glorious naked body", and I know them pretty well too. All of the blame will be on the Bush administration, non-stop, 24x7. You won't see these damned fools mentioned anywhere:
But, as usual, Jonah Goldberg does an EXCELLENT job of summarizing the reality.
"Let the spin begin."I predict:The msm will minimize or totally omit the Carter,Clinton,Albright connection.If the msm were honest the current problem with NK and nukes can be traced directly to the Clinton admin and of course Jimmah Carter-living proof that a high IQ and common sense are not mutually inclusive.
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