A Failed Former President (Carter -- Iran history)

The only thing more painful than listening to Jimmy Carter lecture President Bush on how to conduct a successful presidency was living through his disastrous attempt to turn his advice into reality.

As I noted earlier this week, Carter has channeled his hatred of non-leftists, secular and religious, into a glut of slanders in his new bestseller, Our Endangered Values.

He charges his opponents with, among other things, countenancing female circumcision, defending the murder of federal judges, torturing innocent Islamofascists, and forcing North Korea to manufacture nuclear weapons. Jimmy once again offers himself as the nation’s savior-by-acclamation, leading his errant people, like a latter-day Moses, to the Promised Land.

Every time he flashes his toothy grin before an adoring interviewer, the American people should ask why they should listen to anything he has to say.

Jimmy Carter’s presidency could be summed up by a Billy Joel couplet: “Ayatollahs in Iran/Russians in Afghanistan.”

However, this would omit so much: “malaise,” the misery index, soaring interest rates, a “helpless giant” foreign policy, stagflation, gas lines, record deficits, and killer jackrabbits. The former president doesn’t ignore his record in his book; he lies about it.

Carter provides a portal into his alternate reality in chapter one, where he insists, “As a Southern moderate and former career naval officer, I espoused a conservative fiscal policy and a strong defense.” [1]

Insert laugh track. He boasts, for instance, that he brought religious liberty to China (on p. 26), although his book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list the week Chinese Communists sentenced three Christians to a total of six-and-a-half years in prison for distributing Bibles. His tome is replete with such Carter revisionism.

Above all else, Our Endangered Values book drips with self-congratulation for his enlightened racial views and clear intimations his opponents are bigots.

Modern “fundamentalists” – especially the conservatives Carter relentlessly smears – have made “racial reconciliation” a defining priority. Evangelicals don’t need racial tolerance lectures from the man who campaigned for governor of Georgia as a self-proclaimed “redneck”; whose campaign distributed a photo of gubernatorial opponent Carl Sanders being embraced by black basketball players to a Ku Klux Klan rally; who pledged to invite George Wallace to Georgia; [2] and who said he was “proud” to have Lester Maddox as his lieutenant governor in 1970, calling him “the essence of the Democratic Party.”

As Maddox’s successor, Carter turned criminals loose as part of “a competition over who could reduce his prison population the most.” [3]

In 1972, he promised – then broke his promise – to the newly crippled George Wallace to nominate or second him at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, jumping at the opportunity to give the nomination speech for Henry “Scoop” Jackson. But Jimmy had just begun his self-promotion.

According to his son, Jack Carter, the governor had his surrogates lobby aggressively to become ultra-leftist George McGovern’s vice president. Carter had invited McGovern and fundraiser Morris Dees to the governor’s mansion, where this “Southern moderate” soon “found himself much more compatible with George McGovern than he had expected.” [4]

The peanut farmer chartered his own course to the Oval Office by hoodwinking Southern conservatives.

Twenty-five years after being chased out of the White House, Carter has discovered the perils of evangelical “marriage” to politicians. He writes such “a political marriage is in conflict with my own belief in the separation of church and state – I would feel the same even if the marriage were with Democrats.”

[5] His actions tell another story. His self-described “campaign autobiography,” Why Not the Best? – which he wrote to advance his 1976 presidential run – was published by Broadman Press, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board.

Carter admits, “They print all the Southern Baptist literature, and I had some influence with them as a member of the Baptists’ Brotherhood Commission.” During the North Carolina primary, he had his sister, Baptist evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, write a letter “to her extensive network of religious friends and contacts around the country” in which she declared:

My reason for writing you is to acquaint you with an important facet of Jimmy, one that couldn’t possibly be pursued with any depth by the press and television, and that is his quality of deep personal commitment to Jesus Christ and his will to serve Him in whatever capacity he finds himself…please pray for Jimmy. And if you share my feelings that he is the best candidate, I urge you to actively support him. [6]

After finding people responded positively to the term “Born Again,” Carter wore his religion on his sleeve as he snookered evangelicals into enthusiastically supporting his campaign.

Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, and the vast majority of “fundamentalists” Carter now derides campaigned tirelessly for Carter in 1976. Carter may have conveniently forgotten; the evangelicals certainly have not. Carter belittles Robertson by name three times in his book, LaHaye once. [7] Common mythology aside, Carter actually won the Southern Baptist vote in 1976 and 1980. [8]

Upon his inauguration, he provided a “strong defense” by slashing defense spending $6 billion (in 2003 dollars) in the first two years of his administration, canceling the B-1 bomber, and decimating the U.S. fleet.

[9] Gerald Ford warned this would devastate military preparedness in their second debate but was instead remembered for quipping, “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”

Carter boasts as president he set about “convincing the Soviets of our ability and resolve to respond.” [10] Unfortunately, his response was naïvete and unilateral surrender. Carter failed to consult either the Pentagon or the Kremlin before removing U.S. missiles from South Korea within hours of his inauguration, a move Brezhnev interpreted as weakness rather than conciliation. In 1979, Brezhnev refused to remove Soviet submarines and aircraft from Cuba.

Carter now frets, “A recent announcement of withdrawal of U.S. troops farther away from the demilitarized zone has caused increasing concern in South Korea that hard-line leaders in Pyongyang and Washington might precipitate the threatened conflict.”

Hard-liners “in Pyongyang and Washington,” Mr. President? [11] Beyond his reprehensible equation of President Bush with Kim Jong-il, Carter apparently forgot that he offered to remove all troops from South Korea during his presidency.

His “positive inducements” and warnings about America’s “inordinate fear of Communism” led the Soviets, and Cubans, to believe the Third World was fair game. In his book, Carter praises himself for “establishing diplomatic relations” with Cuba in 1977. [12]

That policy consisted of standing by as Castro kept Cuban soldiers fighting in Angola and sent 16,000 more to Ethiopia. He cut off aid to El Salvador, which was fighting a Communist insurgency, but gave more than $90 million in aid to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

He soon halted diplomatic recognition of our allies on Taiwan and recognized Beijing in their place. The man who declared “human rights is the soul of our foreign policy” showered accolades upon Tito, Ceausescu, Ortega, and Kim il-Sung (the last, after his presidency). [13]

Meanwhile, brother Billy tried to open trade relations with Libya in 1978 after depositing a generous $220,000 “loan” from Qaddafi. He registered as an agent of a foreign government two years later. (Billy exerted no influence over his brother, although Jimmuh made his teenage daughter an ad hoc nuclear advisor.)

Carter further demonstrated his mettle by surrendering the Panama Canal after a few riots. Ports at either end are now controlled by a front for the Chinese military: Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., and this month, President Bush had to plead for “equal access” to the canal.

More troubling, it now stands at risk of a potential terrorist attack. In 2001, the canal was visited by Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah, a 30-year-old Saudi-born al-Qaeda terrorist dubbed “the new Mohammed Atta.” Last summer, this most-wanted operative surfaced in Honduras, possibly recruiting for the strike. In response, a dozen nations participated in a simulated terror assault on the isthmus. [14]

The ex-prez now asserts he did a better job of collecting international intelligence than Bush-43. “It was quite different when I was there,” he told Tim Russert.

He called his CIA chief “Stansfield Turner, a notable man…an admirable person in every respect, and he gave me unequivocal intelligence regularly…We didn’t have any secret intelligence agencies established within the Defense Department” that already had “a commitment to go to war with Iraq.” To this day, he says, “there hasn’t been any allegation of impropriety” of his use of intelligence.

Stansfield Turner gutted the CIA, cutting 820 human intelligence positions. Without assets of its own, Langley had to rely on the intelligence agencies of foreign governments.

Thus, on New Year’s Eve 1977, Carter would toast the Shah’s Iran as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world…[due] to the respect, admiration and love which your people give to you.”

Eight months later, the CIA issued the report Iran in the 1980s, in which Carter’s spooks surmised, “Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a ‘prerevolutionary’ situation.”

As tensions mounted, Carter withdrew U.S. support from the Shah, turning Iran into a beacon of hope for jihadists around the world. Before admitting the exiled Shah to America, he accepted Iranian guarantees they could secure our embassy, one of the costliest miscalculations in the history of American foreign policy.

If al-Qaeda was emboldened by American reversals in Beirut and Somalia, one can only imagine their glee at the 14-month-long hostage crisis.

Carter ultimately agreed to pay a ransom of $8 billion (of which, Iran netted $3 billion), [15] although Ronald Reagan’s toughness and resolution was the decisive factor in ending the crisis.

Nonetheless, in his book Carter presumes to advise George W. Bush on how to deal with Iran. [16] Without Carter’s policies, the Iran-Iraq war would not have raged for nearly a decade; the United States would not have had to form an unsavory alliance of convenience with Saddam Hussein, in order to hem in the mullahs; Hezbollah would not receive $100-$200 million a year from Tehran’s coffers; al-Qaeda would not have received training in Iran in 1992; and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, if they existed, would be of no consequence to the West whatsoever.

Jimmy Carter’s presidency was the lowest point of American prestige in modern history. The missteps he made during those critical years continue to threaten the United States and the West.

He wasn't just incompetant......he was DEADLY Yes he was

Whenever I see Carter postings, I am reminded of his brother, Billy Carter. I often had occasion to stay in the same hotel that Billy stayed at in Atlanta. Several times I bought him a beer or two in the lounge and would be rewarded with his tales about his brother, Jimmy. Suffice it to say, while Billy did not have the intellect of his brother..., he certainly knew him. He called him a DREAMER and said, were it not for Rosslyn, the Plains peanut warehouse would have gone under! She was Jimmy's only contact with reality since Jimmy had always tended to see the world as the fantasy he wished for!

Carter was a "useful idiot" for the dims (and a disaster for all of us!).

Speaking of Brother Billy "beer" Carter

In late 1978 and early 1979, Carter visited Libya with a contingent from Georgia three times. He eventually registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and received a $220,000 loan. This led to a Senate hearing over alleged influence peddling which some in the press dubbed "Billygate." A Senate sub-committee was called To Investigate Activities of Individuals Representing Interests of Foreign Governments (Billy Carter-Libya Investigation).

The Libya Controversy
In September 1978 Billy made a highly publicized trip to Libya with a group of Georgia legislators and businessmen eager to make deals. Several months later, he hosted a delegation of Libyans in Atlanta, as they looked for a place to locate a permanent trade mission. When asked why he was involved, Billy said, "The only thing I can say is there is a hell of a lot more Arabians than there is Jews." He also argued that the "Jewish media [tore] up the Arab countries full-time," and defended Libya against charges of state-sponsored terrorism by saying that a "heap of governments support terrorists and [Libya] at least admitted it."

President Carter tried to disassociate himself from the controversy that ensued, telling NBC News that he hoped people would "realize that I don't have any control over what my brother says [and] he has no control over me." Billy also apologized and explained he wasn't anti-Semitic, but the damage was done. The Atlanta Constitution remarked, "If [Billy's] not working for the Republican Party, he should be." Some time after this, Billy spent seven weeks at an alcohol addiction treatment facility in California.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html

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