Jimmy Carter: US Tortures Prisoners
WASHINGTON - The U.S. tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday, adding that President Bush makes up his own definition of torture.
“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights,” Carter said on CNN. “We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime.”
Bush, responding to an Oct. 4 report by The New York Times on secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of “harsh interrogation techniques,” defended the techniques Friday by proclaiming: “This government does not torture people.”
Carter said the interrogation methods cited by the Times, including “head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures,” constitute torture “if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored - certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.
“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,” Carter said.
In an interview that aired Wednesday on BBC, Carter ripped Vice President Dick Cheney as “a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military.”
Carter went on to say Cheney has been “a disaster for our country. I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush.”
Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell declined to speak to Carter’s allegations.
“We’re not going to engage in this kind of rhetoric,” she said.
In the CNN interview, the Democratic former president disparaged the field of Republican presidential candidates.
“They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity - things of that kind,” Carter said.
He said he also disagreed with positions taken by Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who have declined to promise to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq over the following four years if elected president next year.
© 2007 The Associated Press
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!
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?
I say the 2008 Dem ticket should be Carter/Gore. YEAHHHHHH!!!!
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.
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.
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.
Ignorance won’t solve this problem.
The very worst representatives of the USA have been torturing people since the barbaric genocide of Native Americans.
When we cut down Carter and other presidents, we should remember that they’re just puppets. There are understandings that they have with the really powerful ones behind the scenes. If they stray too far from the truly sinister norm established, they can get what JFK got.
———————–
Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983, U.S. Department of State, September 1984
If they turn on their radars we’re going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…. We dictated the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. Its a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.
U.S. Brigadier General William Looney, one director of the continued U.S. bombing campaign of Iraq
I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.
George H. W. Bush, then U.S. vice president, referring to an American ship that shot down an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians…
Using either the FBI or the State Department definition of terrorism, the U.S. must be considered a terrorist state. Since 1945, the United States has tried to overthrow more than 40 governments and repressed at least 30 popular movements outside U.S. borders. U.S. officials have funded and trained a long list of assassins, death squad leaders, and bombers to aid them in these projects.
Excerpted from:
Rogue State: A history of U.S. terror
by Katherine Dwyer
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Rogue_State_US/Rogue_State_Hx_US_Terror.html
00000000000000000000000000000000
A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to 1999 by William Blum
The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:
* making the world safe for American corporations; * enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress; * preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model; * extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a “great power.”
This in the name of fighting a supposed moral crusade against what cold warriors convinced themselves, and the American people, was the existence of an evil International Communist Conspiracy, which in fact never existed, evil or not. The United States carried out extremely serious interventions into more than 70 nations in this period.
China, 1945-49:
Intervened in a civil war, taking the side of Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists, even though the latter had been a much closer ally of the United States in the world war. The U.S. used defeated Japanese soldiers to fight for its side. The Communists forced Chiang to flee to Taiwan in 1949.
Italy, 1947-48:
Using every trick in the book, the U.S. interfered in the elections to prevent the Communist Party from coming to power legally and fairly. This perversion of democracy was done in the name of “saving democracy” in Italy. The Communists lost. For the next few decades, the CIA, along with American corporations, continued to intervene in Italian elections, pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and much psychological warfare to block the specter that was haunting Europe.
……….
Excerpted/copied from:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html
A collection of Mr. Blum’s work including more recent material can be found at:
http://www.killinghope.org/
***
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II.
Conglomerate owned commercial media will not allow the public to know Carter’s sins.
Jimmy Carter enjoys prestige and respect for his work as a dedicated promoter of peaceful solutions. What a enormous contribution to peace Carter could make by enlightening us on the process of covert murderous intention during his presidency. If he would just ‘fess up’ about his now no longer secret orders funding, training and equipping the fundamentalist tribes of the mountains against the socialist (women liberating) government in Kabul, a full six months BEFORE the first units of the Soviet army entered Afghanistan. One would imagine that Carter himself would see the great value of an honest admission and welcome an opportunity to unburden himself of whatever feelings of anguish and self-recrimination he might be experiencing.
It was Carter’s advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who bragged to French news magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, in Paris, 15 January 1998, of suckering in the Russians, by frightening them into believing the U.S. was threatening to create a hostile Muslim nation on its doorstep amid the Soviet Muslin republics, by our pouring in money to arm and train fundamentalists, fundamentalist tribes who would later receive much more, openly, from successive U.S. administrations, and which would include the funding, along with Saudi help, of tens of thousands of extreme Wahhabi sect madrasahs, schools that would eventually produce the Taliban, who along with Osama bin-Ladin, would eventually also receive U.S. aid.
“Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [”From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”
Peace loving Jimmy, please tell us candidly of the times when you weren’t for peace and the mitigating circumstances thereof. Help us understand that the roots of today’s genocidal belligerencies go way back to a history of nefarious foreign policy. Confess!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070609_confessions_3a_cindy_r.htm
The very worst representatives of the USA have been torturing people since the barbaric genocide of Native Americans.
When we cut down Carter and other presidents, we should remember that they’re just puppets. There are understandings that they have with the really powerful ones behind the scenes. If they stray too far from the truly sinister norm established, they can get what JFK got.
———————–
Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983, U.S. Department of State, September 1984
If they turn on their radars we’re going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…. We dictated the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. Its a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.
U.S. Brigadier General William Looney, one director of the continued U.S. bombing campaign of Iraq
I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don’t care what the facts are.
George H. W. Bush, then U.S. vice president, referring to an American ship that shot down an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians…
Using either the FBI or the State Department definition of terrorism, the U.S. must be considered a terrorist state. Since 1945, the United States has tried to overthrow more than 40 governments and repressed at least 30 popular movements outside U.S. borders. U.S. officials have funded and trained a long list of assassins, death squad leaders, and bombers to aid them in these projects.
Excerpted from:
Rogue State: A history of U.S. terror
by Katherine Dwyer
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Rogue_State_US/Rogue_State_Hx_US_Terror.html
00000000000000000000000000000000
A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to 1999 by William Blum
The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:
* making the world safe for American corporations; * enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress; * preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model; * extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a “great power.”
……….
Excerpted/copied from:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html
A collection of Mr. Blum’s work including more recent material can be found at:
http://www.killinghope.org/
***
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
“Jimmy Carter: US Tortures Prisoners”
For a former President of this vintage and quality, to be this outspoken of a current and serving ‘president’ and ‘veep’ [lower case intended] is unprecedented. Jimmy Carter’s remarks SO scathing bears testimony of the degree of criminality America and by association the world is being subjected to..
Well done Jimmy keep the critique coming quick and fast….
PS Any criticisms of a man of his seniority and deserving of respect, can quietly stick their head up their collective ass…
I was going to remind everybody that Mr. Carter had criticized Mr. Bush previously, and then apologized, because he got lots of flak for doing it - apparently it’s just “not done” for an ex pres. to criticize the present pres. But someone beat me to it, ending with this puzzling statement:
Stay home Jimmy until you find your backbone again. I’m very disappointed in what he did before.
Now I’m asking you, isn’t that exactly what he’s doing NOW? If this isn’t enough of a backbone for you, what do you expect? You want him to go poop in Bush’s plate? THIS is the present.
A decent man. He was no great shakes as a President, but he is a great ex-President.
And there is no doubt who among all is our worst president.
Jimmy Carter`s presidency was nothing to brag about, neither was it anything to be ashamed of, as is the present situation. When we see George W and Cheny helping build houses for needy people, then we can talk about their similarity. Jimmy showed compassion for people, George only talked about it.
I have always admired and respected Jimmy Carter. And as others have said here, Rosalynn is my favorit of all the first ladies.
I enjoyed the interview and know that he feels morally obligated to speak out. Appreciate that he has, and I hope he doesn’t apologize for it in a day or two - but I doubt he will. I think he’s pretty outspoken.
And I disagree with Kernel that there was nothing to brag about his presidency. Because of him Alaskan wilderness is protected today, including the North Slope the Bush’s want to destroy for oil. He had a wonderful energy policy that had it been continued we’d be far less dependant on oil today. He dealt with dictators because they were reality and the US just can’t go overthrowing all of them. The last one we overthrew (Sadam) most of us wish we’d left alone by not going to war.
I see Carter building houses and overseeing elections, and wiping out diseases in Africa. I see him as a statesman who negotiates deals for this country behind the scenes, and openly as he did when Clinton sent him to North Korea. I see his views on Israel as a refreshingly honest assessment of a country that deserves a little criticism.
I see Clinton pushing his initiative to help the poor of the world..
And I wonder why we never see former Republican presidents doing anything for the general good??? IT’s very telling.
I also remember that it was Jimmy Carter’s speech at the last Democratic convention that was the most stirring….
I think he has a lot of fight left in him….
There’s clearly something to be encouraged with about Carter. He’s the best ex-president this country has had in arguably 40+ years.
Neither LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan nor King George I did the sort of work Carter did after leaving office, or became elder statesmen, humanitarian workers, etc. And none of them protested as vocally, when it was needed, as Carter.
Despite his shortcomings, and the Reagan/Bush junta (issued in with Iran/Contra) that sabotaged his chances for a second term, I believe Carter will go down in history as a reasonably adept president, and a high caliber ex-president.
The U.S. not only tortures — but it kills children:
U.S. attack kills 15 civilians — including 9 kids.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21233421/
The U.S. government started its illegal war and occupation on Iraq over lies — or shall we pretend it was “faulty intelligence” (hehe). So instead of doing the right thing and pulling out of Iraq and leaving the people alone, the U.S. politicians — the GOP including the Republicrats like Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, plan to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely to continue to kill children and control the oil there.
How shameless can anyone get??
President Carter stated what is true, he did what was honest and that which no other previous or current leaders had the balls to say.
I do not think any presidency is without incidents that have harmed others. Yet as a former President and someone who has remained involved in issues important to many he spoke up. For that he should be commended.
mirf59,re;Turks crushing Kurds. The Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, are recognized as a terrorist group by EU, US, UN. They have murdered 37,000 Turks and it is daily, now. Ask Iran about the terroist problems they have had with the PKK shadow group that operates within Iran.
I forgot to mention, just how many children, inside America, do you think this current Administration has murdered? Withholding healthcare, Katrina victims in NOLA and every other anti-child act this group of cretins has ignored?
Go Jimmy!
Right on, Jimmy! What a breath of fresh air to hear you speak the simple truth about our use of torture, about the danger that Cheney represents to our country and the world, and the craven submission by Hillary and Barack to militaristic thinking. I hope you live to 100 and that you keep speaking out day after day.
I love citizen Carter much better than I liked the Carter Administration (1977-1981). I felt that Carter was a lousy President, but a wonderful human being.
mirf59,
I don’t want to write for Gandhi, but I believe that he is a non USAn, (Indian?). So, like me, I suspect that his observations about US exceptionalist imperialism far predate anyting the Carroll wrote.
The “City on the Hill” expression in describing the US is an old one.
forextrader,
Can you explain some of the ways that Carter was a lousy president, compared to all the ones who followed him?
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.
Most at this site probably don’t watch Bill O’Reilly much on FOX news. Last night I saw him tell his viewers that Wolf Blitzer of CNN should have stopped Jimmy Carter from being so critical of Bush. O’Reilly said Blitzer wasn’t “doing his job as a journalist” if not constantly interrupting and questioning each of Carter’s allegations.
Sounded to me like the “no-spin zone” had its spin machine revved up on high, precisely because they were concerned that some of us might actually listen to Carter. We can’t elect Mr. Carter again, but we can indeed listen to him uninterrupted on a civilized program (CNN.)
Carter had his errors, and he’s had 27 more years of life experience since, too. Counts for something, and his peace advocacy now is not much different from that of our favorite progressive, Kucinich.
Thank you, President Carter. I’m sure that nothing this directly and unequivocally critical has ever been uttered by a past President about a sitting administration - but I’m also sure that no past President has ever witnessed the dismantling of our government by a rogue militarist junta either.
To Daniel David: Kucinich is not just our “favorite” progressive, he’s the only progressive we’ve got (on stage nationally - there are certainly other progressives in the House). If progressives are serious - and we’d better be - we need to support this guy with everything we’ve got.
Not that I would consider voting for Jimmy Carter if he was a candidate, but he only served one term, so I believe he could run if he had the mind to.
Jimmy Carter as president acted, as all our presidents since at least FDR, in the best interests of the empire. Since I am fundamentally opposed to the Empire I have a hard time supporting the policies of one such as Carter or any of the other imperial candidates. Neither Carter or the Goreacle are worthy of hero status, they both have way too much blood on their hands, and way to many sins committed against humanity. No I find my heroes in the likes of Paul Wellstone, Joe Hill, Utah Phillips, Rachel Corie, Amy Goodman.
Oops low battery. gotta go
the point is that carter is right. yes he’s no real good guy - trilateral commission and all - but he isnt lying here and it is good that one from their side be saying such things - and dont forget about all those nice and true-believing democrats out there who still think of such men as carter, clinton, and nobel peace prize winning gore, as speaking for them - while those who come closest to representing my views have been making this accusation in one form or another since the colonization of the americas began (even one of america’s greatest authors, taught to high school students across the land, said that america, by holding slaves and invading mexico while claiming to be an example of liberty, had lost its right to exist), and there is truly nothing new or brave in making the observation that the united states of america is guilty, and since its inception, of various crimes against humanity, carter making such statements is much better than seeing some cheney spokesperson blathering on like the empty headed automaton at personified evil’s beck and call that he or she is.
I agree with MaxheMust’s statement that to a certain extent all politicians have masters. But I must take exception to the quote he followed that very reasonable statement with: (see above) Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983, U.S. Department of State, September 1984
This brash oversimplification of history is most amusing. And those who try to discredit a brave patriot like Jimmy Carter, who dares to speak out against tyranny is completely one-sided and misinformed.
Again many people confuse deaths of peasants by others with what is going on in today’s white house: senseless torture as a open public policy inciting all law enforcement to commit the same crimes. Jimmy Carter was legitimately elected and did what presidents have to do when faced with proliferation of nuclear hostility all over the globe. Covert activities. He looked out for American Interests, but balanced it with (what I thought was foolish then) giving back Panama which he viewed was wrongfully stolen from the Panamanians.
Blum’s one sided anti-American quotes are so unrealistic, I scarcely know where to begin…. Take China for example. The Chinese PEOPLE were raped killed and tortured (not the communist government as Blum misrepresents) by an overreaching oppressor: The Japanese, who were bent on world domination. In 1942 we provided the AVG (American Volunteer Group) and aircraft to defend the Chinese people and harass the Japanese supplies to Indo China and the South Pacific. When that aggression was checked, we faced a bigger one from a massive oppressive Chinese government: the AVG transported the Chang Hi Chek and his freedom fighters to Formosa (now Taiwan) where, they have lived in peril in the shadow of the brutal Chinese mainland ever since (saved only by the might of the U.S. Military.) Now Blum can shed tears for the poor, poor, betrayed Communist Red Party if he wants to, but his mischaracterization of what happened there, is true also of most of the conflicts he cites. George Orwel would tell you that this kind of meddling is characteristic of all empires. None of his examples were saintly bystanders. They were bloodthirsty aggressors. They became victims only because they lost their bloody struggles.
All the rancor over the American Indians is one-sided as well. It is well documented that massive bloodshed between native american tribes was a regular part of life BEFORE the colonist set foot on North America. I have studied early American tribal life, and it was frequently expected to avenge the death of a tribe member by scalping five heads of the other tribe, including women and children.
The bush oil cult is different. They are not pushing for the safety of a people. Quite the contrary. They are pushing for the religious and environmental extermination of all mankind through the offensive use of nuclear weapons and open, state-sponsered torture.
The world has never faced an evil quite like this, and we should recognize that this is not the first time Jimmy Carter has put his life in peril for the good of others. During the Three-Mile-Island nuclear reactor “minutes to meltdown” when everyone else was panicking and evacuating, Jimmy Carter landed in a helicopter at the reactor itself, risking his life, to appeal for calm under the most dangerous nuclear event the U.S. has ever faced.
I didn’t like Carter while he was in office due to our humiliation in Iran at the time, but I realize I was wrong about him, and I admire him greatly now. He was a nuclear submarine crew member in the service, a graduate of nuclear physics, and I respect his opinion about such grave matters of nukes and human rights.
He could have just been silent, like 300 million Americans I know, but he did not sit by and watch the country he loves commit atrocities in the name of us all.
Thank God a good man finally spoke up against evil!
God Bless you President Carter.
pacplyer
What about the leaders of the other countries who are supporting the Bush administration? Carter should have mentioned their guilt too.
Carter is a transformed man since leaving the life of politics. But his greatest days of public service came after this transformation… Gore seems to be on the same path as well.
I regret that Carter was undermined by the D.C. Elites but he brought much of the problem on himself with his “Milaise Speech” and the public reaction it caused. He looked, sounded and acted like a beaten man… we were not prepared then for such straight talk from a leader. That is the secret to GWB’s ’success’… he can mask his intentions enough to fool his following; and the rest of us are really concerned that if we challenge him up front he might ‘melt down’ and then Cheney’s in charge! Now that would be a fluster butt!!