True north,

Good point. It is fair to remember that Carter does have some blood on his hands. As I understand it per Chomsky, Carter supported Turkey and Indonesia as they both crushed ethnic minorities. It was the Kurds in Turkey and the East Timorese in Indonesia. Both could be termed genocide, and Carter at best turned a blind eye, and at worst increased aid to these countries as the violence intensified lending tacit support for it.

You have such good former presidents because the first thing each asks himself after leaving office is "What can I do with the rest of my life to make up for the crimes I committed as president?" The bigger the crimes, the better the ex-president. This is almost certainly the reason why Gore isn't gonna run: he knows the crimes he'd have to commit if he won. By the grace of god, he gets to be an excellent ex-president without actually having to commit crimes.

Carter has massive credibility because he has the knowledge and experience, and retains the prodigious intellectual gifts he has always had late into his life. He also has nothing to lose, has no reason to sugarcoat anything.

This is true patriotism. Carter continues to prove that he is the consummate statesman, and one can only hope that someone else will step up and carry this torch when he is no longer able.

If Cheney or Bush disputes his claims, let's have them face Carter mono a mono in a televised debate.

One can only assume that a globetrotting former President, Nobel Peace Laureate, top level foreign policy advisor, foreign election certifier such as Carter knows what is and what is not torture.

I say the 2008 Dem ticket should be Carter/Gore. YEAHHHHHH!!!!

The next question is why impeachment is still off the table. Or for that matter, arresting and imprisonment. We're either a modern democracy, anachronistic constitutional republic, or non-constitutional proto-fascist empire. Time to chose.

Gone is presumption of innocence, Habeas corpus, gone too is Magna Carta? Are we back to the Code of Hammurabi now?

Historically, have former presidents said anything this blatently condemning of a current president? Anyone have an answer? Though his statements only scratch the surface, I don't think that I've heard/read a former president saying so much.

"This government does not torture people."

This government can never be trusted again!

or the next government...

The so called Department of 'Defense's' invasion and occupation of Iraq, their "war on terror (so called), the world bank, the imf, are all forms and institutions of torture.

They piss on the poor while giving some rich bastards who already have too much, even more. The entire Moslem world is being tortured by the fanatic Christian aspect of the developed world.

Over 800,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US led invasion, and over a million have been crippled. All those people had family & loved ones. We mustn't forget that thanks to the policies of the empire, over 30,000 people die of hunger each and every day of the year, while tons of food rots in warehouses.

——————

"I swear by the God of my parents, I swear by my nation,
I swear by my honor that I will not allow my soul to rest,
nor my arm to relax until I have broken the chains
that oppress my people through the will of the powerful.
Free elections, free land and free men, horror to the oligarchy."

Oath used by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - the Great,
(when he was 28) and some of his revolutionary friends.
-copied from Page 80, !HUGO! by Bart Jones

==========

The revolutionary path is bathed in light. Take the oath and do what you can! To be complacent is to be complicit.

---------------------------

"Almost anything you do [to help humanity] will seem insignificant, but it's very important that you do it."
Mahatma Gandi

I would broaden Carter's remarks to say that the United States repeatedly has engaged in torture for at least the past century. Also, not only is the Bush Administration "the worst in American history for foreign policy" but the worst in American history, period! Good for President Carter to expose the corrupt and genocidal Bush Administration for what it is!

Talk is easy, and Carters comments are no less valid for his massive hypocrisy.
"A final glimpse of 'international co-operation based on international law' during the Carter Administration brings us to Afghanistan, site of a Soviet invasion in December 1979. It was here that Carter and Brzezinski aligned themselves with staunch anti-Communists in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to exploit Islam as a method to arouse the Afghani populace to action. With the CIA coordinating the effort, some $40 billion in US taxpayer dollars were used to recruit "freedom fighters" like Osama bin Laden. The rest, as they say, is history."
from "The legacy of Jimmy Carter" http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2463

What Carter and Gore both show us is that it is much easier to be honest when one is an ex-politician. This is deeply tragic.

Thank you Mr. Carter for having a spine and saying something that breaks through the thick haze of denial our culture demands. But, please don't insinuate that our country has never tortured before. Decades of covert warfare and installing dictators in Latin America and elsewhere cannot be glossed over. The CIA has been responsible for some of the most vile torture chambers in the world, and the US Army School of the Americas (now the WHINSEC) has helped train and foster torture as well. Some of this was even happening during your tenure as President.

We love you former President Jimmy Carter!

also, the "Carter Doctrine" is nearly indistinguishable from the "Bush Doctrine." Carter spoke in the State of the Union Address on Jan 23, 1980:

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine

President Carter,

I think this is the most important thing you've said in this report: "But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them..."

Indeed. Bush thinks he's authorized to unilaterally rewrite human rights law and what constitutes torture, just as he thought he had the authority to unilaterally "enforce the UN resolutions" against Iraq.

Where does he get off thinking he's such a hotshot dictator? He really needs to be prosecuted for several egregious anti-Constitutional actions.

Yes, the current people running the government cannot be trusted; but let's all remember who the government is: We citizens.

Most people forget they are the government, and have the 'responsibility' to vote/hire only those who will uphold the Constitution and other laws of our beloved America.

I want big government in my life to be sure we citizens are as safe as possible from terrorists; that our food and products are safe; that some of the taxes go to help the least fortunate; that everybody has free health-care; and social security to fall back on as we get older.

That isn't asking much and it's not pinko squawk . . . History records a certain gent preached sharing, love and compassion for fellow beings nearly two-thousands ago . . . and he didn't carry weapons either! Guess who?

While the Carter administration supported regimes guilty of massive human rights violations, the US itself was not running gulags. Carter is right to condemn the present administration. He has grown a great deal since his presidency and has evolved into a wise statesman. I wsih he would consider another run for the presidency along with Moyers or Kucinich,

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell declined to speak to Carter's allegations.

"We're not going to engage in this kind of rhetoric," she said.

And just what kind of rhetoric ARE they going to engage in????? The other kind??? Double speak???? Oh yeah, warmongering.

They dont want to address it because they dont want to drag out the media attention. Carter is no innocent but anyone who attacks Bush and Cheney is doing something right.

jimmy carter was in jacksonville,yesterday....so he was featured on our 6 o'clock local news,last night.i forget what the question or subject was i only remember carter's reply"yes,since i was the very last president to ever be really(truly) "ELECTED" !!!"(by the people)i believe him.i never understood what the deal was with giving back the panama canal,didnt make sense to me.i did understand that the hostage delay and fiasco,was sabotage from within carter's own cabinet.but i have the greatest admiration for a man that gets out and works with his hands.a war vetern and the only president to ever hold a degree as a nuclear physicist.and one of the few recipriants of the noble prize...that actually deserved it !!no credit is ever given to rosalyn carter,who is the true founder,author and genius of the WIC program(women,infants and children)which has most literally fed MILLIONS !YES,MILLIONS !of women and babies and growing families for many,mant years !!give a nobel peace prize to,rosalyn carter !!!

I heard Rosalyn speak to a women's group at a conference in Florida several years ago. She gave the most inspiring speech I have ever heard and she did it with such quiet grace and dignity. She really was (and still is) a genuine First Lady.

Who in the F&*K is Megan Mitchell? Rhetoric? Your Vice President is the freakin laughinstock of the World! Go get your ass a paper sometime please,,,,,, and to think that someone would actually stoop so low to take the job as spokesperson for the VP.

Give me and the rest of the Nation a break!

"It is fair to remember that Carter does have some blood on his hands. As I understand it per Chomsky, Carter supported Turkey and Indonesia as they both crushed ethnic minorities. It was the Kurds in Turkey and the East Timorese in Indonesia. Both could be termed genocide, and Carter at best turned a blind eye, and at worst increased aid to these countries as the violence intensified lending tacit support for it."

To Mirf59:

For what it's worth Pres. Carter did address the East Timorese situation with Amy Goodman when she interviewed him at the Carter Center back in September (see Democracy Now archives). It may not be a completely satisfying response, but he admitted that he was not as understanding of and focused on what was going on in East Timor as he should have been. He seems to have been trying to make up for that major mistake through efforts at the Carter Center. He acknowledged that they sent a delegation to monitor free elections and to further East Timor's efforts to remain independent of Indonesia. Whether these efforts can make up for all the bloodshed in East Timor during his tenure is a different question. Of course Amy Goodman was gonna ask about the East Timor thing given her history with East Timor.

Torture is so horrible, so anti-American, so beyond the pale of decent human behavior...

Unless it's "Saw," "Saw II," "Saw III," "Saw IV," "Touristas," "Hostel," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," etc.

Hmm... wonder why "the people" aren't more disgusted and appalled by the idea of State torture...

GIVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO SOMEONE WHO DESERVES IT,ROSALYN CARTER!KUDOS,to my favorite FIRST LADY !!

As mentioned above, Carter is a Nuclear Physicist, which implies some brains. I think he did try and very hard, to turn things around.

Think back. What was the portrait that we had of him during his term, fortified 24/7 by the (free?) press?

Answer: Carter was a dumb ol' peanut farmer who whacked a rabbit on the head with a canoe paddle and he had a drunken brother, Billy Bob, or thereabouts that was always doin' something embarrassing.

When he was in office, he got about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield.

Agitprop knows how to emasculate anybody who might be effective, and they do it very well; almost as well as putting halos on vicious, stupid criminals if it suits their purposes

It seems that the former President, for whom I have great respect, is an other man without a country. It's so sad and enraging to see this great country devolve into a despotic third world horror show.
Where's my waitress? I need a double!

Carter constantly puzzles me. As others on this thread have pointed out, this is a man who looked the other way as Indonesia slaughtered the people of East Timor, funded Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan who would later blowback in the form of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and advanced an utterly imperial doctrine in the Middle East (the "Carter Doctrine"). I would add that during the last days of his administration, he renewed funding for El Salvador's murderous military and established ties with former members of Nicaragua's National Guard which served the dictator Somoza before his overthrow in 1979. Reagan came into office and picked up where Carter left off. The result was civil war and human rights abuses perpetrated by those Carter supported. Now Carter is blasting this administration for things that he tolerated when he was president. There are three possible explanations:
1) As a private citizen, he can speak his mind and make decisions free of the pressures and expectations of the foreign policy establishment. Now we see the REAL man.
2) This is about party politics, and Carter is operating as a functionary for the Democrats.
3) Carter is simply a hypocrite willing to hold others responsible for things he himself did or condoned.
Like I said, he confuses me. I don't know which explanation holds at this point.

We love you Rosalynn Carter!

killyt: Or perhaps D.C. politicans are mere figureheads while real foreign policy is conducted by autonomous extra-legal corporate interests. Perhaps they can arrange a scandal at any time and get you removed from office? Manchurian Candidates all of them, tainted water, weird groupthink dynamics?

Granted there certainly IS something odd.

A Vietnam veteran told me about an observation he had while being transported in an Army helicopter. He said that the US Army put 2 captured VC on the helicopter. One of them was questioned about troops, movement, supplies and whatnot. He refused to talk and was thrown out the door to his death. The other VC was held out the door to watch his comrade fall. Afterwards, he was questioned and sang like a canary. He told everything he knew. When he was finished, he was also thrown out the door to his death.
In war it seems that things can become confused. In 1968 Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan shot a man in the head right in front of journalists. The photograph won a Pullitzer Prize. In May of this year Sgt. Evan Vela and Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval murdered an Iraqi man and planted a detonation wire on the body. Sandoval has already been acquitted.
Everyone who knows anything about war knows that atrocities are always committed on both sides. Only a deluded fool thinks that there's a "good guy" and a "bad guy" in war. The US commits murder, torture, illegal imprisonment, and theft as do our adversaries. Carter didn't say anything new. Until we get our people out of there, this madness will continue to wreck lives and fill the world with despair. Mr. Carter re-iterated that it is time for change.

For the first time in his lifetime. LOL. Maybe he means so blatantly and openly and undeniably ignoring human rights. Must have forgotten about the CIA south of the border.

Killyt,

Carter is a principled man. All I can say is that the times are different. Carter's presidency was in the late 1970s (where you even born then). The U.S. had gone through a constitutional crisis, crime and racial tensions were rampant in America, the Soviet Union was strong and aggressive (the cold war was still going strong with a genuine threat of nuclear attack against the U.S.) Geo-political situations where many and complex (Carter helped start peace between Israel and the Arabs; communism was strong and spreading; China was still asleep but a factor). I wonder how you would have handled the situation.

Nonetheless, you are right with one exception. During Carter's time and with his knowledge and probable consent there were Indonesians killing Indonesians, Salvadorians killing and torturing Salvadorians, etc. Today, however, Americans are killing and torturing Arabs and just about anyone else they please to. And they've been doing it for 5 years and no end in sight.

Jimmy Carter has done it again!!!!!!!! He voiced his opposition against the criminal activities of "Nazi regime" of Israel. Now he has acknowledged what his own country is involved in and what kind of ELECTED leadership it has.

However, it has taken such a long time for Carter to acknowledge this glaring reality. His own deep conviction about his country as "a city-on-the hill" is reflected in his statement "our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights". He seems to have forgotten the American track record in Philippines, Vietnam (Asia), South and Central America, Africa, and the Middle East.

He has also forgotten that the US is founded on HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. Therefore, America as a country has started with human rights violations. This culture of crime, genocide, slavery and plunder is continuing even to this day. The only thing is the corporate media, the corporate government, and the American public in general have put a positive spin on the above criminal activities by characterising them as acts of "civilizing" the "other", and benevolent acts.

Good one Mr. Carter, Maybe you and Miz Rosalynn and Mr. Mandela( yes, he yet lives) and Mr. Gore and the few patriots that you might pick up in Washington; and, go clean out the mess in the Whitehouse.

Please go back over some of your past decisions as president and explain to the folks how 'Henry the Mutterer' was the one bent on getting lots of people tortured and/or killed.

Very good, Mr. Carter. However, we remember—with shock—TV picturing your smilingly signing a bill to sell arms to ALL nations...

Despite Carter's foreign policy blunders in office, which included some support for murderous dictators, I don't think there is any possible way to equate Carter with Bush 43, or to claim that the Carter Doctrine is analogous to the Bush Doctrine.

As someone else pointed out above, there is a big difference between a convenient pact with a dictator who serves our interests economically but is brutal with his own people and opening up a federal gulag overseas where men are held without charges, without trials, and tortured.

Bush 43 has launched a full assault on the Constitution, moving the US as close as it has been since maybe under Lincoln to being an authoritarian regime under the unitary executive. We all know the list of actions in this area.

And, let's not forget that Bush initiated an absolutely elective war of aggression on a mostly defensive sovereign nation. And, he defrauded the public and the Congress into supporting the war. Certainly, nothing Carter has done can compare to this.

Also, let's imagine for a moment what Carter's response would have been to Katrina. Rather than popping the Dom Perignon in the name of Social Darwinism as this conservative Administration seems to have done, I think it is safe to say that he would have taken responsibility and pushed a quick and efficient rebuilding of the affected areas.

I wonder if the explanation of this enigma of decent men supporting repressive policies overseas is inexperience. Imagine these men mostly take office with little to no foreign policy experience and vast power, including the most potent military in the world, at fingertips.

In the interest of not making a mistake, and in a state of inexperience with such matters, it is only natural to support the existing dominant paradigm, which is the realist school of amoral self-interest at the nation level.

What this perhaps suggests is that we should consider foreign policy experience as much more important as a quality in our presidential candidates.

Recall even that Bush 43 entered with no foreign policy experience, perhaps no experience of note at all, and ran saying we would not be involved in "nation building". Perhaps he was being sincere, and Cheney was chuckling to himself at Bush 43's perfect naivete. When 43 got it in, it must have been a quick job to overwhelm him with the neo-con vision.

Just a working theory that inexperience and risk avoidance might account for a lot of these errors by Presidents that otherwise seem like decent people.

It's only when the errors continue to be made in spite of all the evidence that we must certify those such as Bush 43 as incompetent idiots.

Rosalyn Carter is a nice, sweet lady, and she didn't get a face lift as all of the other Republican first ladies have: Laura Bush, Betty Ford, and Nancy Reagan.

fpal,

"communism was strong and spreading..."

by "communists", do you mean the popular movements attempting to shake off brutal US-supported dictators in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatamala, Vietenam, Indonesia. By "communists" do you mean the democratic election of Allende in Chile?

Indonesians killing Indonesians, Salvadorians killing and torturing Salvadorians, etc...

do you mean the CIA aided dictator Suharto killing up to a million indonesian union orgaizers and socialist party members, and CIA-trained and funded Salvadoran death squads killing villagers, priests and nuns trying to orgainze against a system that promised them nothing but a life of grinding poverty?

You need to learn some history.

Please, read "Killing Hope - A history of CIA and US Military Interventions since World War II", by William Blum

gandhi,

Thanks for saving me having to make the same points.

The only difference is that Bush is openly admitting and bragging about to US lawlessness, impunity and torture, which leads one to believe that considering the brutality they are admitting to, there must be far greater brutality that is NOT being admitted to.

I am an agnostic, but over the past couple years, I have been dearly wishing that Hell exists, so all those participants in this brutality either through active participation in the military or war-industry, or passively through consent or apathy, will spend eternity there.

Gandhi, you have been reading those excellent Carroll articles. I find his stuff really insightful. The city upon the hill idea is every bit as dangerous as the eugenics approach openly espoused by right wing radicals. Howard Zinn's book certainly proves, for me, that you are correct and that this is what the US has been about right from the moment Columbus licked his chops at those hapless rubes that swam out half naked to greet him.

Regarding Carter's mideast peacemaking, how much of that hinged on massive foreign aid given to both warring sides (Israel and Egypt)? To this day, they still recieve the bulk of all US foreign aid.

If that money -- both sides -- were stopped tomorrow, would the region be stable?

If not, then is it more accurate to call such peacemaking a "national bribe" with no subsequent follow-up work since '79? How long can that gambit last?

Wake up and smell the present!

Do something about it, like President Carter; don't wait for it to become the past so you can criticize those who do something today.

PJD,

I do not doubt your account and, yes, I do need to learn history and try to every day.

The difference I was trying to highlight is that Carter may have supported dictators whereas Bush has unleashed the U.S. military and extra-judicial power against Arabs and has done so for 5 years and with no end in sight. Which is worse? You be the judge.

the USA has been teaching torture at The School of the Americas for a long, long time. they usually just get others to do the dirtywork for them.

I don't want to hear from Jimmy Carter. He is just like all the other Democrats. In fact, he let us down before Congress did when he apologized for making the derogatory comments about George Bush. Stay home Jimmy until you find your backbone again. I'm very disappointed in what he did before.

Regardless how one views Carter's presidency, he is at least a man of principle. He speaks the truth but he truth speaks for itself. Do not overlook his comments about Clinton and Obama. (The former a shill for the military/industrial complex and the latter beginning to show an unadmirable ability to blow with the wind.) What he Dems need are more Kuciniches, Feingolds and Richardsons (and Carters). They are unafraid to stand up against the punk challenges to their patriotism (soft on terror, don't support the troops) and assert that American ideals and values come first. As far as the troops are concerned, the only way to support them is to get them home.

Jimmy Carter will not go down in history as a great president, but he is bidding to become our greatest ex-president. Only John Quincy Adams can compare with him.

And, yes, Jimmy Carter, you've hit the nail on the head with your assessment of this criminal regime of ours.

I must say that some of the regulars on Common Dreams really seem to relish trashing every prominent political figure in existence. Okay, I've been guilty of that too. ;-)

I don't disagree with any of the criticism of the Carter Administration. My question is, so what? Why does this surprise or outrage you? My friends, the history of this country is one bloodbath after another; one racist, imperialist, capitalist adventure after another with no end in sight. U.S. Presidents are largely pawns in this gruesome charade. Yes, the carry moral responsibility for willingly participating in it; but the system would be in place, the atrocities largely unchanged (with some exceptions) no matter who had occupied the White House.

And the same goes for the future. Even if Dennis Kucinich were elected President (it's hard to type that without laughing), there would be little he could do to challenge the imperialist-corporatist juggernaut. Ultimately, he'd have one of three choices:

1. Cave in and become a willing pawn.
2. Resign and maintain his moral fiber
3. Be assassinated and/or driven from office.

I agree with Paul Bramscher; they are all Manchurian Candidates, even if some don't realize it when they first get elected. Our Corporatist politico-economic-cultural system will tolerate nothing else. If you want to remain morally clean, don't get involved in national politics in either faction of the Corporate Party. If you really want to stand up for human rights and justice, support the ongoing (and fledgling) effort at building a genuine Second Party. Support Ralph Nader!

That said, I am pleased that Jimmy Carter is speaking out on torture; and everyone concerned about human rights and the emerging fascist hierarchy in this country should be pleased as well. From a pragmatic standpoint, it doesn't matter one iota that he's a hypocrite with a morally doubtful past (again, like every U.S. President). The sad fact is that he has stature in the "mainstream media" and culture that most leftists do not. Thus, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Alexander Cockburn, et. all could scream about American torture at the top of their lungs for years on end and it would still get less attention than if Jimmy Carter says it once.

And forcing the public to pay attention is the first step towards real change; towards a social and political revolution that *could* bring about genuine democracy, peace and a universal brotherhood. Not saying that it will happen or is even likely, just that the first step is mass awareness of the REALITY that is so easily ignored.

Jimmy Carter may not realize or welcome what a firestorm he has helped to unleash. But regardless, I'm delighted that he has helped.

PJD: He wasn't suggesting that Carter was lousy compared to Reagan and the Bush Dynasty, just that Carter was lousy.

I'm old enough to remember Carter's failed hostages rescue. The US right-wing MSM ate him alive for that, and I could never figure out why there wasn't a second attempt.

I somewhat read that as the beginning of the orchestrated and periodic self-collapse of Democrats. It was almost as if some string-pullers, running both the corporate parties as well as the MSM, periodically decide when to smear or "when to lose" a Democrat.

* Carter's failed rescue attempt (while Reagan and Bush were dealing with terrorists).
* Clinton's impeachment weakness. When asked about his personal sex life, why -- for the love of god -- didn't he flatly state: none of your business.
* Gore's easy cave-in in '00.
* Kerry's half-hearted campgain & subsequent cave-in.

It's almost as if Dems are meant to be weak, to step aside, on occasion. One would almost be led to conclude that they're working for the same employer as the Rethugs, and that it isn't We The People.