Jimmy Carter and the Long Gray Line

Posted Thursday, December 8, 2005.

Photo by Jeff Goulding of the Times Herald-Record.

No wonder they hate him.

I'd hate him too if he was using his hard-earned moral authority to point out what a rotten, stinking liar I was, especially if he was pointing it out to some of the people I most need to believe my rotten, stinking lies.

Last week, in a speech at the Naval Academy---Jimmy Carter's alma mater---President Bush, without actually promising that we'll be scaling back our military presence in Iraq, did his best to sound as if he was promising that we'll be scaling back our military presence in Iraq.

This week, Carter was at the Military Academy, saying, essentially, "Um..no."

Just the opposite. From the story by Greg Bruno in yesterday's Times Herald-Record:

West Point - Despite assurances from the Bush administration that American troops might begin withdrawing from Iraq next year, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday that he had serious doubts whether the United States military will ever completely leave the war-torn country.

During a brief stop at the U.S. Military Academy yesterday to promote his newest best-seller, "Our Endangered Values," Carter said leaders in Washington need to level with the American people.

"There has never been a single declaration among the higher levels of government now that we ever intend to withdraw completely our military forces from Iraq," Carter told reporters.

"My belief, and it may be erroneous ... is that the top leadership in this country intends 20 years from now, 50 years from now, we'll still have a major military presence in Iraq."

Fortress Iraq has always been the keystone to the Bush Leaguers' and neo-cons' plans to bring "democracy" to the Mideast.

Democracy being a string of puppet governments in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, friendly to Israel and even friendlier to American oil companies.

The neo-cons and the Bush Leaguers, being cowards and bullies at heart, believe that the only way to bring about peace---a phrase which here means merely keeping American business interests abroad safe---is to scare the beejeebers out of anyone who scares them.

Plus, they have become really enamoured of, and dependent upon, the flypaper theory.

So Carter was only pointing out the obvious. Bush can't scale back in Iraq to any great degree without giving up all his Administration's plans for the Mideast.

And he wasn't telling the cadets anything they don't know.  There are no dummies at West Point.  These are very bright young men and women, and they have smart professors who are training them for the real wars and battle situations they will have to fight in, not to march blithely off into the PR fantasies of the Bush Administration.  And they've heard about what's going on from their former classmates now serving in Iraq.

They heard Bush in the same speech in which he wanted to appear to be promising to ease us out of there actually promise to stay there until the insurgents and terrorists just get tired of killing American soldiers and Marines.

"To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins as long as I am your commander in chief."

The cadets know how to translate politician-speak.

Bush promised the troops that he will keep sending them to be killed by car bombs just to prove that they aren't afraid of being killed by car bombs and that he will keep sending them until there are no more cars in Bagdad to blow up.

He promised them that he will keep sending them to die as long as his own ego is on the line and there's any chance that somebody, somewhere might think he's not tough enough to send them to die to save his ego.

They know that while Bush goes around pretending to be reasonable, all the while out to wind up in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most utterances of the word "victory" in a week, Dick Cheney---the reports of whose political death have probably been greatly exaggerated---is growling assurances to the last remnants of the party faithful that the Administration has no qualms about sending more and more soldiers to die to save his and Bush's egos.

Jimmy Carter wasn't at West Point to give a speech or talk to the cadets about policy. He was there to sign copies of his new bestseller, Our Endangered Values.

For their part, cadets waiting in line for an autographed copy of Carter's 20th literary work didn't seem too concerned with the former leader's politics.

Rather, they wanted to meet a living legend, a politician whose prominence has mushroomed since he left office, and score a cool present for under the tree.

"It's for my mom," said Phil Brown, a sophomore from Logansport, Ind., after receiving his newly autographed book. "It makes a good Christmas gift," he said.

I expect that a lot of those presents "for mom" are going to arrive under the tree pre-read.

Related:

Step and Repeat. Tom Watson shakes his head over Bush's speech at Annapolis. 

No Questions, No Answers. The Heretik finds a lot of people shaking their heads over Bush's speeches since.

10 Questions. The Green Knight links to and summarizes Michael Schwartz's replies to ten questions about the War.

A Former President Warns of 'Endangered Values'.  NPR devotes a page to President Carter and his new book, with links to interviews with Terry Gross and Steve Inskeep, selected clips from those interviews, a clip of Carter reading from Our Endangered Values, and an excerpt from the book's first chapter.

Comments

[Samuel]

"Democracy being a string of puppet governments in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, friendly to Israel and even friendlier to American oil companies."

I guess that makes you one of those far left wackos Chris Matthews was talking about. :-). Is this definition of democracy conventional wisdom yet? Or do people really believe in this being a noble cause wherein this is the new 'white man's burden'?

What scares me is this, even if you assume everyone knows we are not building true 'democracies' but puppet regimes will the people bother enough to raise a stink, or will they be happy enough as long as the oil flows in?

[sabretom]

Carter is often remebered as a failed president (gas lines, stagflation, hostages in Iran), but the ideas and policies he tried to implement have been shown to be correct.

IRAN: Do everything possible to get the hostages back alive - DONE

ENERGY: Make the country less dependent on foreign sources of oil - NOT DONE; we are like crack whores and the Middle east is the supplier. Also NOT DONE - continue federal funding of alternate energy sources - all cut by Reagan.

Economy: Have a recession to cut inflation - DONE by Reagan; he kept Paul Volker as Fed Chairman and Volker kept interest rates high, cutting down the amount of money flowing thru the economy, resulting in high unemployment and a lower value of the dollar. Result - inflation controlled, which meant the dollar was worth more, which meant people wanted to buy more, which resulted in more jobs (the Reagan tax cuts played a very small part in this).

Bush says he's a Christian, but his policies have resulted in tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of deaths. Carter is a Christian and during his administration there was no wholesale killing like we have now.

[Linkmeister]

Something I've always wondered: How did that speech Carter gave get tagged with the "malaise" theme, when it never appeared in the speech? Was it another case of headline writers gone bad?

[Nargess]

I'm Nargess Kiaee from Iran and I need to write you Mr. Presiden Jimmy Carter.
Please send my request to him.

Kindest, Nargess

[Paul]

I would just like to comment on the amount of grammatical errors in this article. To be considered an educated person, one must sound educated. This author clearly does not. The fact that the author takes a cadet perspective on the interpretation of the President’s speech is also laughable. If he was actually there for the speech, he would have heard a multitude of cheers coming from the graduating class and the rest of the corps. I was present for the speech. Phil Brown, the sophomore who was quoted in the article, was separated from the academy.
Also, to respond to one of the comments made in another post only about 15% of the crude oil we receive comes from the Middle East. The majority of the oil we import comes from Latin America. Paul Volker controlled the economy by running extremely high interest rate. This then caused an increase in personal savings and capital inflows. President Reagan was incorrect about "supply-side" economics, but the public believed him. Economics is based as much on speculation as it is on hard science; therefore the tax cuts did have a physiological effect.