Posted on 04/22/2006 6:39:20 AM PDT by wagglebee
Everybody's playing the blame game these days. The current target is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who seems to be standing in for President Bush – the man who his enemies say is responsible for everything that's gone wrong since the Biblical flood. ("Bush lied about the need to build an ark.")
South of our borders we have a nut job running oil-rich Venezuela and threatening to do all kinds of nasty things to us. In North Korea we have another nut job building nukes and rattling sabers, and in Iran there's still another whacked-out leader threatening to blow Israel off the map, for starters.
Believe me, Rummy had nothing to do with any of that. Nor did George Bush. If you're looking for someone to point the finger at, look no further than James Earl Carter. Every one of these problems can be laid at the door of the Georgia peanut farmer and self-anointed evangelist for world peace, understanding, good-will, and promoter of universal love-ins with dictators who hate us.
Let's begin with Iran, a boiling cauldron of hatred for everything associated with Western civilization. Recall that when Jimmah took office Iran was ruled by a strong ally of the United States, the Shah. Like most Middle Eastern potentates, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ruled with an iron hand. Under him, Iran was not the kind of democracy we're now promoting for the Middle East.
The Shah, however, was also the staunch friend and ally of the United States. He saw to it that the oil kept flowing in our direction, and kept his military in good-enough shape to protect our interests in the area.
But the Shah somehow offended Brother Carter's exalted view of the inherent goodness of a mankind freed from the strictures imposed by dictatorial rules. With a wink and a nod, he arranged to have Pahlavi replaced by an exiled mullah - the Ayatollah Khomeini - who in Carter's view would be a moderate leader who would democratize Iran.
What Carter got for us was a Muslim fanatic seething with hatred for everything Western, who without blinking an eye spat on our national sovereignty when he took over the United States embassy in Tehran and held 52 American hostages for 444 days, until the U.S. came to its senses and elected my dad Ronald Reagan to replace the hapless Jimmy Carter.
Thanks to Carter, Iran today constitutes a grave threat to the United States and to world peace. He allowed the creation of an Islamic Republic bent on imposing the most repressive form of Islam on the entire world.
Then we can turn to Venezuela, now locked in the grip of a Castro-clone and fervent communist Hugo Chavez, who is creating a heavily armed communist dictatorship on our southern doorstep. When Chavez faced a recall election Cater was on hand to monitor the election, which turned out to be rigged to elect Chavez from the very start. Despite overwhelming evidence that the Chavez victory was the result of rampant vote fraud, Mr. Carter put his stamp of approval on it, declaring it to have been fair and honest. Carter kept Chavez in office.
In 1994, when Bill Clinton was facing down North Korea's Kim Il-Sung, father of current dictator Kim Jong-Il, he sent Carter to strike a deal on his development of nuclear technology. Speaking of the dying murderous dictator, Carter said he found him "vigorous, intelligent, surprisingly well-informed about the technical issues, and in charge of the decisions about this country," and added, "I don't see the [North Koreans] are an outlaw nation."
The deal Carter made allowed the North Koreans to work behind the scenes to build nuclear weapons which now threaten world peace. When he came back from North Korea he told CNN's Judy Woodruff, "I think it's all roses now..."
I agree with Jack Kinsella who once wrote in the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest that "... Jimmy Carter holds the hands-down record for being the worst ex-president the United States has ever known. His post-presidential meddling in foreign affairs has cost America dearly, both in terms of international credibility and international prestige."
Amen
I would also add that a moderal or liberal GOP president is better than a Democrat any day, but the Nixonian Republicans prepare the way for the Left. They open the gate and the radicals arrive in a hay wagon.
Ditto that !!
Don't anyone forget that Jimmah Carter had a big hand in bringing the despot Robert Mugabe to power in the former Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and look the hellhole that country has become.
He also handed Nicaragua to the communists and sold out Taiwan to the Chicoms.
And he did all of this while overseeing the worst economy certainly since the Great Depression if not ever. He figured out a way to have:
- high unemployment,
- high interest rates,
- stock market stagnation,
- multiple recessions and
- runaway inflation.
What may actually be his "greatest" accomplishment is that he was able to pull this off, because every economic theory out there shows that these conditions are impossible to produce simultaneously.
Why is Congress always left out of the loop?
It confounds you?
Is it really true? Or does it only seem that way?
Why is the American public unmoved by these atrocities? Or at least appear to be?
What is this you're going on about?
I(!!!) sound like who?
Doesn't it say something about personal attacks somewhere in TOS T&C's?
What do you mean? You mean little thing?
What does how I sound have anything to do with the price 'a rice?
Someone needs to take her meds. You are a female aren't you?......you sound like one....a goofy one.
Sorry for the double post but things like this should be said twice.
High tech can't compete with old morality. The U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, etc etc all have direct (or indirect) links to Christian doctrine, despite what some atheists claim. Iran, even if converted to a "Western" type democracy would not give up Islam, which is the root of the problem. If you get poison ivy, and keep going back to the plant that gave you the violent itching in the first place, how will that solve the problem?
Remember during peanut's term in office it surfaced that his brother billy was, shall we say, "befriended" by certain middle eastern interests? We all thought at the time that poor, corn-fed billy was being duped in order to gain influence with his brother the prez. Little did we know, huh? Can you say "Gratuity".
Wasn't that Quadafy? Then later we had to cross that dreaded "Line of Death".
In a perfect world, people would have said Pat Robertson was right. Yet another gift from Jimmy that just keeps on giving!
“Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin."”
Jimmah Carter's Mother.
I agree with Jack Kinsella who once wrote in the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest that "... Jimmy Carter holds the hands-down record for being the worst ex-president the United States has ever known. His post-presidential meddling in foreign affairs has cost America dearly, both in terms of international credibility and international prestige."
"Congress had both the duty and responsibility to pass a Declaration of War and authorize Carter to use any means necessary to free those citizens, whatever force it took."
It's well established that the President takes the lead on foreign policy, for the simply reason that we need unity in action. THE PRESIDENT LEADS. We get into trouble when Congress tries to 'lead', just look at the horrible meddling of Congress in various subplots of GWOT - doing more harm than good.
"ongress had both the duty and responsibility to pass a Declaration of War ... Had they done that, ..."
But a key point: CARTER NEVER ASKED FOR IT. President Carter was an awful leader whose foreign policy led to so many bad outcomes. every president in since Teddy Roosevelt has understood the President's role as shaper of our foreign policy, and I can't think of any President since TR who did a worse job than Jimmy Carter at handling it. He was and is clueless, naive, and bereft of common sense and cohones.
On Iran, he pressured Shah to resign, withdrew US support (same thing he did in Nigaragua that led to the Sandinista takeover from Somoza), and his UN rep Andy Young called Ayatollah Khoumeni 'a saint' (a saint who built a theocrat prison out of Iran).
He never put an embargo when the hostages were taken, he wimpily went for diplomacy, and the ill-fated mission wasnt properly planned, and there was even the absurdity of his under-secty Warren Christopher suggesting the shoot hostage-takers in the leg instead of tryign to kill them, as we resuced hostages... Carter said he was 'shocked' by the USSR invasion of Afghanistan, as if he was unaware of 45 ears of Soviet domination of both eastern eurpoe and central asia... the list goes on.
You are right that had the Iranian hostage crisis been better handled with a stronger response (such as "Return the hostages within 14 days or you wont have an economy; kill the hostages and your government will be a target; etc.")
... we would have avoided much of the problems of terrorism since then. Islamofascists see USA as weak because of what Carter did and failed to do.
While Congress can share some blame in foreign policy problems, the primary responsiblity, and concurrent blame, falls on the President.
No president must request a Declaration of War, it is not his role. Show me where the Constitution requires this. Congress knows what is going on in the world, they deliberate and they pass it and require him to act on it. Congress failed this country.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
The idea of a Congress declaring war on its own without the Constitutionally-defined Commander in Chief asking for such a declarationg is in my mind close to absurd ... but then so was much of the Carter years. :-)
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