...Yeah, he registered in 1980 (after he got caught) for a "loan" that he got from Libya back in 1979...
Posted on 03/15/2004 7:44:03 AM PST by Eala
Carter accepeted a $13.5 million 'donation' from the BCCI bank. POS!
He had some pretty sleazy people in his Administration as I recall. Maybe one or more misrepresented the "demand" as coming from Carter.
OTOH, Carter was and continues to be completely oblivious to the results of his proven incompetence.
Maybe he thought he was doing it for the "good of the people".
In any case, he did go to the Soviet Union in hopes of getting help to defeat Reagan.
JULY 1980 : (BILLYGATE : PRESIDENT CARTER'S BROTHER, BILLY CARTER, REGISTERS AS A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE LIBYAN GOVERNMENT, AND ACCEPTS CASH FROM THE LIBYANS FOR 'OIL SALES' HE WAS SUPPOSED TO FACILITATE) Once sober, Billy was no longer in demand on the talk-show circuit, so he turned again to his Libyan friends for financial help. In July 1980 he belatedly registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and admitted to receiving a $220,000 "loan" for oil sales he was supposed to facilitate. The press rushed to find out whether the president's brother had hawked his influence with the White House, and a new presidential scandal, "Billygate," was born. As Jimmy himself later admitted, "He was the president's brother, and therefore fair game." - "People & Events : Billy Carter (1937 - 1988) ", American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html
[* My note: As history would unfold, by 2002 it was pretty clear that Jimmy's accomodating philosophy on terrorism is not unlike his brother's ]
JULY 22, 1980 : (BILLYGATE : PRESIDENT CARTER DISTANCES HIMSELF- AN ELECTION IS COMING UP) On July 22, the White House issued a statement disclosing what it knew and denying that it had interfered in the Justice Department's investigation of the matter. The president also released a personal statement saying that he did not think it "appropriate for a close relative of the president to undertake any assignment on behalf of a foreign government." While all this was basically true, a number of inaccuracies and omissions would surface in the coming days which kept the scandal alive and fueled the perception that something dirty had happened.
"In truth, the White House had concealed nothing," concludes historian Burton Kaufman. "But as [it] had to keep amending its July 22 account, there was doubt cast on Carter's forthrightness with the American people." While relatively few people doubted Carter's basic integrity, the whole thing did cast further doubts on his judgment, and what Kaufman calls his "presidential timber" in the midst of the president's uphill battle for re-election. "The damn Billy Carter stuff is killing us," complained Hamilton Jordan. It was the last thing the Carter campaign needed going into the Democratic convention in August. - "People & Events : Billy Carter (1937 - 1988) ", American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html
I find this to be unbelievable. The students in the street in Iran didn't differentiate between Carter and Reagan, they thought all of America was The Great Satan and wanted revenge for the CIA's assistance in overthrowing Mossadeh back in the 1950s.
There was speculation in some Iranian quarters — as well as in some US minds — at the time and later that Carter’s actions were the result of either close ties to, or empathy for, the Soviet Union, which was anxious to break out of the longstanding US-led strategic containment of the USSR, which had prevented the Soviets from reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
Carter’s mistaken assessment of Khomeini was encouraged by advisors with a desire to form an Islamic “green belt” to contain atheist Soviet expansion with the religious fervor of Islam. Eventually all 30 of the scenarios on Iran presented to Carter by his intelligence agencies proved wrong, and totally misjudged Khomeini as a person and as a political entity.
So which is it ?
Carter in sympathy with the USSR, of Carter wanting an "Islamic Belt" to encircle the atheistic Communists ?
This is the message that the "leakers" of this strange attempt at putting a spin on those events of 1979 are really about:
In 1978 while the West was deciding to remove His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi from the throne, Shariatmadari was telling anyone who would listen not to allow “Ayatollah” Ruhollah Khomeini and his velayat faghih (Islamic jurist) version of Islam to be allowed to govern Iran. Ayatollah Shariatmadari noted: “We mullahs will behave like bickering whores in a brothel if we come to power ... and we have no experience on how to run a modern nation so we will destroy Iran and lose all that has been achieved at such great cost and effort.”
Today, Iranian-born, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the dominant Shia leader in Iraq faces Shariatmadari’s dilemma and shares the same “quietist” Islamic philosophy of sharia (religious law) guidance rather than direct governing by the clerics themselves. Sistani’s “Khomeini” equivalent, militant Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was gunned down in 1999 by then-Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein’s forces. Sadr’s son, 30-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr, lacks enough followers or religious seniority/clout to immediately oppose Sistani but has a hard core of violent followers biding their time.
This is coming from Sistani's camp. It's their attempt at lobbying.
I agree with Andy, I thought Carter was a terrible president, but one thing that I am sure of, is that he was not motivated by money, nor were his backers. They were silly people, but they weren't mendacious.
...Yeah, he registered in 1980 (after he got caught) for a "loan" that he got from Libya back in 1979...
You must be kidding. The whole world feared Reagan. Iran let the hostages go the day that he was inaugerated, rather than risk open atomic warfare with us.
In contrast, Khomeni was backed by Communists. This odd alignment of fundmentalists and athiests was possible only because both sides were weak and needed to ally together to oppose the power of the U.S.
Likewise, athiestic Communists openly support to this day the Palestinian terrorist organization PFLP (formerly Black September) in a region that only permits fundmentalism amongst its people.
Ditto again for the Communistic Basques in Spain and France as well as for the fundamentalists in Chechnya.
At every turn you will find that radical Islamic fundamentalists are financially backed by athiestic Communists and aided by Communists...to the extent that the athiestic Cubans permitted the radical fundamentalist Arabs to use the Cuban embassy in Lebanon to base their attack on Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
These people know full well who they are opposing; American nationalists. They also know that they can count on indifference, tolerance, and the occassional outright aid for their causes from the Socialist wing of American politics (Carter falls well into this camp).
Carter's own direct contribution to this anti-American nationalism movement was to give away the Panama Canal and permit the establishment of the illegal (price manipulations of commodities are forbidden by U.S. law, for instance) OPEC oil cartel .
On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/
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