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Carter gets his prize and N. Korea develops nukes
Townhall.com ^ | October 18, 2002 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 10/18/2002 10:07:33 AM PDT by gubamyster

October 18, 2002

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.

Jonah Goldberg is editor of National Review Online, a TownHall.com member group.

Contact Jonah Goldberg | Read his biography

©2002 Tribune Media Services


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: jimmycarter; nobelpeaceprize; northkorea

1 posted on 10/18/2002 10:07:35 AM PDT by gubamyster
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To: gubamyster
Jimmy Carter: "Useful Idiot" or "Traitor"?

"[Marshall Tito] is a man who believes in human rights.
[He is] a great and courageous leader [who] has led his people
and protected their freedom almost for the last 40 years."

-- Carter, while still in office, hailing Yugoslavia's communist dictator

"Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and
politics ... We believe in enhancing human rights."

-- Carter comparing himself to Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu

"Our concept of human rights is preserved in [Communist] Poland."
-- Carter speaking to Stalinist Edward Gierek, Poland's First Secretary

"[I am] ashamed of what my country has done to your country."
-- Carter speaking to Haitian dictator Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras

"I don't see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation."
-- Carter in North Korea, lauding Stalinist Kim Il Sung,
   one of the most destructive and repressive dictators in history

"Ill-informed commentators in both countries have cast the other side
as a villain and have even forecast inevitable confrontation
between the two nations."

-- Carter making exquisite moral equivalence between the giant and
   repressive Chinese Communist state and America

Carter gave away US oversight of the Panama Canal, "the most
important waterway in the world," says Adm. Thomas H. Moorer (ret),
which is now "packed with Chinese communists."

Sadat, appalled that Carter wanted the Soviets in on Middle East peace
negotiations, decided to directly offer peace to Israel's Begin. When
their plan was essentially worked out, they then called the White House,
because obviously, "they needed someone to pay the bill" (Bernard Lewis).

Not resting on his laurels, Carter demanded the Shah of Iran step down
and turn over power to the Ayatollah Khomeini, an Islamic madman. Carter
had the Pentagon tell the Shah's top military commanders - about 150 of
them - to acquiesce to the Ayatollah and not fight him. The Shah's
military listened to Carter. ALL OF THEM were murdered in one of the
Ayatollah's first acts. By allowing the Shah to fall, Carter created one
of the most militant anti-American dictatorships ever. Soon the new Iranian
government was ransacking our embassy and held hostage its staff for over
a year. More than 20,000 pro-Western Iranians were put before firing
squads. With the Shah gone, the whole region was destabilized. Iraq also
took advantage of the Shah's departure to invade Iran, a war that killed
more than 500,000 people. It also created the regional instabilities that
led to Iraq’s later invasion of Kuwait and to Operation Desert Storm,
which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands more. But Carter meant well.
And yet, with the blood of perhaps a million people dripping from his hands,
Jimmy Carter continues to stalk the world in his sick quest to be given a
Nobel Peace Prize.

"Our people, who face Israeli bullets, have no weapons: only a few stones
remaining when our homes are destroyed by Israeli bulldozers."

-- from a speech written by Carter for Yassir Arafat

"[Arafat's] election [was] democratic, well organized, open and fair."
-- Carter describing the "rigged" 1996 Palestinian election

"[Arafat] may well see the suicide attacks as one of the few ways
to retaliate against his tormentors, to dramatize the suffering of
his people, or as a means for him, vicariously, to be a martyr."

-- Carter in an apologia for the Pali homicide-bombings

Since leaving office, Carter has:
- praised Syria's late Assad (killer of at least 20,000 in Hama)
- praised Ethiopian tyrant Mengistu (killer of many more than that)
- secured Saudi funding for Arafat after he sided with Iraq against the US
- wrote the UN Security Council after Iraq invaded Kuwait, urging them
to thwart President Bush's pre-Gulf War coalition (designed to reverse
that act of aggression) - an action some called "treason"

And of course, Carter won't return the Nobel for being wrong about N. Korea.
R E F E R E N C E S:

Jimmy Carter: America basher
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/jg20020515.shtml

Carter: Cuba Terror Claims False
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/682807/posts

There He Goes Again
http://www.nationalreview.com/20may02/nordlinger052002.asp

You Didn’t Ask for It, You Got It: Carterpalooza!
http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus050302.asp

Carter & Castro
http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/ponte05-08-02.htm

Jimmy Carter’s Trail of Disaster
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/12/164726.shtml

'Idiotic' Carter Castro's Dupe
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/15/202903.shtml


2 posted on 10/18/2002 10:12:28 AM PDT by polemikos
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To: gubamyster

3 posted on 10/18/2002 10:14:50 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: gubamyster
...a foolish warmongering meanie.

For some reason, this elicited hysterical laughter from me.

4 posted on 10/18/2002 10:17:28 AM PDT by Hobsonphile
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To: gubamyster

Everything is proceeding according to schedule.


5 posted on 10/18/2002 10:18:35 AM PDT by Falcon4.0
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
We need a cartoon showing Jimmy Carter getting the Nobel Medal from Kim Jong Il in exchange for nuclear bomb materiel.
6 posted on 10/18/2002 10:22:59 AM PDT by spycatcher
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To: gubamyster
HOW ABOUT A WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN FOR A POSTHUMOUS PEACE PRIZE FOR

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN???????

Carter's is worth about as much!!!!!!!

7 posted on 10/18/2002 10:25:01 AM PDT by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN
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To: gubamyster
bump
8 posted on 10/18/2002 10:33:56 AM PDT by PoisedWoman
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To: spycatcher
Here...this is close to what you want...


9 posted on 10/18/2002 10:39:32 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: polemikos
Your list shows that Jimmuh *richly* deserves the Nobel "Peace" prize.

I mean, they don't give out the Lenin prize anymore, so he'll have to be satisfied with the Nobel...

10 posted on 10/18/2002 10:45:35 AM PDT by chilepepper
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To: gubamyster
I posted several times on October 17 in an AOL chatroom to recall Carter's Nobel prize award. I kept being ignored. The only worst president more than Carter was Clintoon.
11 posted on 10/18/2002 10:49:31 AM PDT by lilylangtree
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To: spycatcher
We need a cartoon showing Jimmy Carter getting the Nobel Medal from Kim Jong Il in exchange for nuclear bomb materiel.

This makes a lot of sense since Sakarov, the man who gave the Soviet Union the hydrogen bomb, and later recieved the Nobel Peace prize.

12 posted on 10/18/2002 11:16:40 AM PDT by DrDavid
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To: Oldeconomybuyer; DrDavid
Thanks, good info
13 posted on 10/18/2002 11:28:35 AM PDT by spycatcher
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To: polemikos
'Thank you for those Links' Bump
14 posted on 10/18/2002 1:06:16 PM PDT by Pagey
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