Friday 16 September 2011

I didn't allow the killing of anyone. "wimp" says the Republican

Jimmy Carter presided over a period when the US didn't kill masses of people. Of course, this
weakness was taken advantage of by the Republicans who paid the Iranian revolutionaries
to keep the hostages until they won the election.
Also, Reagan fixed the 70s economic problems by starting a huge ponzi scheme
that we're all paying for, now that Ronnie is in his rightful place. dead

checkitout: 1
Karl Denninger
The latter is not going to happen because the entire last 30 years of our so-called "growth" was a Ponzi built upon more and more debt everywhere. Yes, during Clinton, yes, during Bush (pick a Bush), yes, during Reagan.
2
Jimmy Carter: 'We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. We never went to war'
He may live a modest life in a one-horse town, but Jimmy Carter, now 86, retains his global vision. And 30 years after leaving the White House, the peanut farmer turned president is still a man on mission. In Plains, Georgia, we found the 39th US president full of energy… and determined to make a difference
o Carole Cadwalladr, Guardian
What he's most proud of, though, is that he didn't fire a single shot. Didn't kill a single person. Didn't lead his country into a war – legal or illegal. "We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals. We brought peace to other people, including Egypt and Israel. We normalised relations with China, which had been non-existent for 30-something years. We brought peace between US and most of the countries in Latin America because of the Panama Canal Treaty. We formed a working relationship with the Soviet Union."
It's the simple fact of not going to war that, given what came next, should be recognised. "In the last 50 years now, more than that," he says, "that's almost a unique achievement." He was bitterly opposed to both Iraq wars. "Iraq was just a terrible mistake. I thought so in Iraq 1, and I was against it in Iraq 2." And it's not just George W Bush who has blood on his hands, he says, but Tony Blair too: "I don't know what went on in private meetings when Tony Blair agreed to it. But had Bush not gotten that tacit support from Blair, I don't know if the course of history might have been different."
It's the second time we've talked about Blair. Money has disfigured American politics, Carter says. I ask him about the pledge he made the day after he lost his bid for re-election, when he told the press he would not make money off the back of his presidency. Is that true?

"That is correct," he says. Then he jokes: "It was kind of a weak moment."

What inspired it?
"My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman. When Truman left office he took the same position. He didn't serve on corporate boards. He didn't make speeches around the world for a lot of money."