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| Carter savages Blair and Bush: ’Their war was based on lies’ |
| 2004-03-22 |
| EFL- London Independent’s title sort of went overboard. Maybe the should be renamed the London Indiscriminant, Incendiary, Incoherent, or Predictable. Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticised George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on "lies or misinterpretations". The 2002 Nobel peace prize winner said Mr Blair had allowed his better judgement to be swayed by Mr Bush’s desire to finish a war that his father had started. In an interview with The Independent on the first anniversary of the American and British invasion of Iraq, Mr Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, said the two leaders probably knew that many of the claims being made about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were based on imperfect intelligence. He said: "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] ’Let’s find a reason to do so’." What will he say if Iran is freed? |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #27 Yes Carter did try -- halfheartedly to rescue the hostages -- once. But then he started to negociate(sp?) with the terrorists. Attacking that embassy (or any embassy) is an overt act of war just as if they had marched on Washington DC or New York or any other U.S. territory and should have been treated as such -- including dispatching military forces if necessary and the revolutionary government (and its leaders) should have been held personally responsible for the welfare of the hostages. But Carter treated it like a regular hostage situation. (pretty please dont hurt the hostages.....). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-22 11:51:07 PM |
| #26 Carter left 4 covert ops military guys out to dry in the mountains behind Teheran during the aborted hostage rescue. They took 4 grueling months to evade and escape into Afghanistan. There were originally five of them, but one of them's chute did not open at 500' AGL during a night HALO drop and he smacked the ground. Carter could NEVER be trusted. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-3-22 11:17:27 PM |
| #25 The Carter Doctrine: 1) When the pressure isn't directly on you, boycott the Olympic Games. 2) When the pressure is directly on you, cave in. Make sure that the world knows that you are a paper tiger. 3) When no one asks your involvement, jump in with both feet and negotiate the most ruinous possible outcome for the United States of America. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-3-22 10:38:10 PM |
| #24 I was stationed in Germany when the Iranian hostage situation occurred. We went on alert for a week figuring the 15s would be sent in . Then suddenly we were sent home. Guess Carter got weak-kneed about actually doing something about the situation. Postnote: I was gone for the past week with no internet access! The one thing I really missed was Rantburg. Took me a few hours to get caught up on the past week's rants! |
| Posted by: AF Lady 2004-3-22 7:44:07 PM |
| #23 James - what carter did was worse the multilaterilism - he tied the military's hands in that rescue attempt...he demanded to be part of every key decision. not a way to conduct an operation. do the politics and let the military do its job. in this respect he did more harm than good. |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-3-22 7:38:31 PM |
| #22 Um, CrazyFool, I seem to remember that Carter did try to rescue the hostages. It wasn't well planned: the helicopters didn't like the weather much; but you can't say he didn't try. He didn't worry about unilaterilism either. |
| Posted by: James 2004-3-22 4:23:03 PM |
#21 Carter savages Blair and Bush: ’Their war was based on lies’He should know. His WHOLE USELESS LIFE has been a lie. He's a waste of oxygen. I should have voted for George Wallace in that primary; turns out he was actually the lesser of two evils. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-3-22 3:37:20 PM |
| #20 Hey, folks, this is not just Carter. There was an editorial in our local (actually pretty conservative) newspaper, "Much of the Intelligence about Saddam's Weapons was Untrue", written by a David MacMichael. Mr. MacMichael just happens to be a "former CIA analyst", and a member of the "Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity", which just HAPPENS to oppose the Iraq war. I'm working on a Fisk of the article that I'll hopefully have posted to my website by the end of the week. This - each and ever bit of it - is an orchestrated campaign by the Democratic National Committee to smear George Bush and see John Kerry elected. None of this is being done "off the cuff" - every ounce of it is planned, programmed, and carefully manipulated for every ounce of impact it can get. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-3-22 3:35:24 PM |
| #19 What should Bush have done, Jimmah? Dim the lights on the National Christmas Tree? I think that's what you considered force projection. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-3-22 3:11:20 PM |
| #18 Wasn't Carter at the helm when Iran violated our territory and committed an act of war by invading our embassy and holding the people hostage? And sent the clear message that the united states is a paper tiger? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-22 2:58:58 PM |
| #17 Remote man -- Carter had nothing to do with creating Habitat for Humanity, all he did was publicize it. It was already a going concern when he became involved. So, there's NOTHING Carter has been a success at. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-3-22 1:05:14 PM |
| #16 Carter is responsible for a lot of this Islamofacist mess. If he had done the right thing and supported the Shah (or helped the Shah introduce democracy back then) we would not have the black hats. They were the ones who served as the seed for the introduction of the Islamic State. Carter is an ass whose presidency and life since, other than Habitat for Humanity, has been a failure. What a creep. |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-3-22 12:55:28 PM |
| #15 past presidents are not supposed to criticize the sitting president "Unless the sitting pres is a Republican", or, "does not apply to past Democratic presidents", or, "unless a past president wins a Nobel", or, "it's Carter, whadya expect". One of these four is the disclaimer, I'm not sure which though. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-3-22 12:54:26 PM |
| #14 Shoulda just killed that fuckin' rabbit, Jimmy... |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-3-22 12:54:11 PM |
| #13 we in the west are bad, bad i tell you..but when jimmy visits ole kimmy...well kimmy is good guy.... i think the peanuts went to carter's head years ago... |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-3-22 12:47:26 PM |
| #12 I could shorten Jarhead's comment and it would be all-encompassing and still true: "Carter fails" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-3-22 12:44:09 PM |
| #11 Is it just me, or does Carter seem like he's become more of an ass since he won the Nobel? |
| Posted by: Lil Dhimmi 2004-3-22 12:21:59 PM |
| #10 This all boils down for me to do you want to a) interdict terrorism proactively or b) take the Interantionalist view and follow the majority in this case the Euros. We all know where Bush and Kerry both stand on a & b. I thought of the worst scenario that b comes to fruition and Kerry and his Dimmygogues get in. We pull out of Iraq. Those left behind are slaughtered who had the nerve to seek a democaracy. We cut and run like in NAM. That is the difference between the candidates. Forget the economic bs. Greenspan and the markets control that. It seems to me to be obvious what is really important here. You can figure at least close to 1/2 the population is in the camp of pacifism ala Kerry doctrine. A sad story. There is hope. I predict Kerry will self implode like Dean before November. Yep Kerry and Dean, what a group of "patriots" and credit to their country. lol. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2004-3-22 11:58:11 AM |
| #9 Carter fails to realize that past presidents are not supposed to criticize the sitting president, it's supposed to be protocol. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-3-22 11:55:14 AM |
| #8 Wasn't Carter that really bad president in the late 70's? Just checking... |
| Posted by: Ol_Dirty_American 2004-3-22 10:56:36 AM |
| #7 Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticised George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on "lies or misinterpretations". Wow, this coming from some guy who was supposed to be all about human rights, something practically nonexistent in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-3-22 10:55:45 AM |
| #6 I should've nailed that canoe. But shit the FeatherLites were raining down, I didn't realize the stakes we were playing for. I'm sorry. I am still watchful and hopeful, tho I am slower now. |
| Posted by: Johnny Wisebunny 2004-3-22 10:53:48 AM |
| #5 BN do you know what the dolt (Jimmy Carter) was looking at when he claimed to have seen a UFO, a subject where he 15 years on still talks about? Venus. None of the other people at the party who saw the same thing were fooled for one second, Phillip J. Klass (UFO debunker) tracked down those people and interviewed them. |
| Posted by: Evert Visser in NL 2004-3-22 10:49:34 AM |
| #4 claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction And here we see Carter repeating two of the major lies of the |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-3-22 10:46:15 AM |
| #3 One of these days I'm going to tell you about an American president who didn't see a reason to worry about Soviet SS 20 missiles... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-3-22 10:42:26 AM |
| #2 Frankly I don't give a hoot what Jimmy UFO Carter thinks we should have done or not. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2004-3-22 10:39:30 AM |
| #1 Lileks has the best response to this kind of thinking: Better the Iraqi people live under the boot for 20 years, and rise up and get slaughtered and rise up again and slaughter those who killed their kin, then have Bush push the FF button and get it over with now. Better they suffer for the right reasons than live better for the wrong ones. |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-3-22 10:32:35 AM |