Jimmy Carter on Bush and the Middle East

[bgates]

Perry, let’s negotiate. I’ll be Iran, you be the US. What’s your offer?

[PD]

I find it ridiculous that so many people point to GW as the originator of Islamic hate toward the US. What a short and selective memory! But I’m not surprised. Americans tend to be very stupid when it comes to knowledge of history.
Jimmy Carter is and always was a wimp. Although he certainly is flapping his yap like he knows something, he was singularly ineffective when faced with problems in the Islamic world during his presidency.

[rankandfile]

If anyone is a conspiracy theorist, it’s me. But some of you other posters make me look as pragmatic as Rich. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are the real axis of evil? George Soros is also speaking out against the administration? You’ve got to be kidding me. Believe me, I am ticked off at the current administration for many things; namely doing nothing on illegal immigration, doing nothing about Terri Schiavo, and not running a lean government. But those of you who criticize the things that are being done to combat terrorism are the same ones who criticize and say he did nothing when we were hit on 9/11. Hypocrites! When you start criticizing someone by commenting on their looks, you’ve already lost the argument. I expect a better effort than that from you, Powayseller.

[PerryChase]

It’s funny that Real Estate is like Iraq. The bulls are hoping for a soft landing but we all know that the crash won’t be pleasant. The confluence of misguided decisions has made the situation beyond repair.

I’m just sitting back and watching the events unfold.

The world is sitting back letting America fail just like us Piggingtons are watching greedy buyers loose their shirts in the coming RE debacle.

Bush did nothing for Terri Shiavo? The Republicans did everything their could to interfere in a family matter. So much for little government intrusion.

[justme]

The 2-party system that we have is a result of
single-representative election districts, which makes it
pretty much impossible for a third party to get any
representatives elected.

This fact is known as Duverger’s law in Political Science.
There are some interesting articles on this topic in
Wikipedia. The technical name they use is “single-member
district plurality system (SMDP)”.

What would it take to change election laws so that there is
at least 20 representatives per district? Nothing short of a
minor revolution, I think.

But if successful, parties down to 5% would then have a
chance to get represented, and we could have some real
democracy around here.

Add on a parliamentary system, and we would depose (!) the
president when necessary. The advantage of the parliamentary
system is that one can get rid of all the current members of
the executive branch by a simple vote of no-confidence,
unlike the need for impeachment trials, which are also
impeded by the implicit 2-party system.

Having at least a few (4-5) major parties ensures that each
party must actually stand for something to be
successful. Party list elections ensures that the system
cannot be corrupted one representative at a time, which is
what happens in the US. If a representative of some party
behaves corruptly or criminally, the party will lose votes,
and/or the representative will not be nominated on the next
party election list. Since there are >2 parties, there will
be competition for being the less corrupt party, unlike now
where both parties are corrupt and can get away with it.

I’m dreaming of something better than what we have — many
countries in Europe and other parts of the world are
successfully and peacefully governed within a system that
supports multiple parties and truly proportional
representation, down to a small level of granularity (5% in
Germany, for example).

[bgates]

Come on, liberal smart guys!

Diego – “Saddam was a crook and a dictator, but he was no madman, and he kept order in his country.” How do you know that? Were there independent media reports from Fallujah about how safe it was in the 90’s? Have you seen Baghdad police records documenting crime rates? Or do you think that if the tv news and western newspapers didn’t tell you about something, it must not be happening?

ps – “I would prefer a president who had better than a C average in school. ” That’s what Kerry had. Bush got a Harvard MBA. What did you do?
“Many of his advisors have resigned,” and I’m sure you can come up with a list, because it’s so unlike you to make an unsupported assertion.
“his lack of intelligence and vision”
Have you read
this?
it’s the first speech outlining his vision that comes to mind, but there are others.

“lack of ability and/or willingness to negotiate with our perceived enemy. ” OK, you guys can do much better. Step up. I’m Ahmadinejad. I want nuclear energy, and I want Israel moved to Denmark or Alaska or somewhere. I am sure you are paying attention to my arguments, because of the green aura coming from my head.

Counter-offers? How about speedingpullet, who complimented the level of discourse after reading comments no deeper than ‘idiot’ and ‘Satan would be proud’. Surely one of you wouldn’t mind a spirited debate.

[bgates]

“Terri Shiavo? The Republicans did everything their could to interfere in a family matter.” Her parents wanted her kept alive, her husband who was living with and had children by another woman wanted to pull the plug. Did you know that?

“The world is sitting back letting America fail” and don’t you think they should be helping the Iraqi people?

But come on, Perry- you said you wanted negotiations with Iran. Let’s hear it. What’s your proposal? Do you know what Bush’s is?

[rankandfile]

Bgates, I think that more could’ve been done concerning Terry Schiavo. He’s the stinkin’ President for crying out loud and his brother is the governor of Florida. If they wanted her to be put back on life support, it would have been done in a heartbeat. Family matter? My friend, there are no clear cut lines as you may be implying. Was not the Andrea Yates case a “family matter”? Perhaps we should just let people kill their own if they want. It’s THEIR own and not ours, afterall- right? What right do we have interefering?

[bgates]

Rank, I was responding to someone else. Read the thread.

[PerryChase]

I used to vote for Republicans because I thought that they were principled and stood for:
The constitution,
Individual rights,
State rights,
Free trade,
Small government,
Pay as you go,
Privacy,
Medical choice,
No nation building, etc…

It turns out I was wrong. Republicans are just opportunists who want to push their oppressive agenda onto others. Talk about flip-flop! The Republicans made a complete 180 on everything that they stood for.

As far as foreign policy is concerned, Kissinger (under Nixon) advocated the pragmatic policy of engagement. Brzezinski (under Carter) is the one who wanted a more interventionist approach to foreign policy. Kissinger has been speaking out a lot lately on Iraq. While he won’t directly criticize the Bush Administration, he’s making oblique remarks on how misguided the current policy is. I’m no particular friend of Kissinger (he’s a mean smart weasel) but he’s a brilliant pragmatic diplomat who can solve problems.

I don’t blame the rest of the world for letting us squirm in Iraq. We didn’t ask for their input when we went in and broke all the pottery. Why would they pickup the pieces?

On Terri Shiavo, her husband was the legal guardian. The state courts, all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, ruled in the husband’s favor. Family matters belong in State Courts. The Federal government and the Congress should stay out of family matters (remember state rights? ).

[bgates]

We asked for the world’s input. Bush went to the UN. Several nations (UK, Australia, Spain, Poland, Italy, South Korea, to name the most prominent) joined us. Iraq was busted before, and it’s busted now. How is it in anyone’s interests to have Iraq in its current condition, except someone who wants to see the US weakened? And if a nation wants to see the US weakened, isn’t it foolhardy to try to get their diplomatic or military support?

For Iran, do I understand that your ‘policy’ would be, “send Kissinger”? Do you have an independent thought? You said earlier that you thought we should negotiate with our enemies. I’ve given you Ahmadinejad’s perspective. What’s your response? Terri Schiavo? Focus, buddy!

[rankandfile]

My bad, Bgates…Should’ve read more. I think I am the one to blame for bringing Terri Schiavo into this. I don’t know how much more I will respond to this thread because it is pointless trying to reason with people on certain issues. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

[PerryChase]

BTW, most everyone, except the Brits, in the coalition of the willing pulled out. South Korea doesn’t even support us on North Korea.

I don’t think that Europeans and others want to see us weakened. They simply resent cleaning-up our mess and have us take the credit. Think about your bossy colleague at work. Would you want to help him so he can get a promotion at your expense?

Negotiating with Iran requires opening up diplomatic channels. That would be a good first step. Otherwise, we’ll continue to have fighting by proxy in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

W is steadfast in his policy. We’ll see if he prevails. Those of us who disagree with the Bushies have not choice but to give them the benefit of the doubt.

bgates, Bush has the power now. So you have your way. You should be the happy one.

I’m willing to let history be the judge.

[salo_t]

So all of a sudden Bush takes office and he’s ready to go to war with Iraq “there’s WMD’s there” and he tries to convince the world. The evidence is weak at best but he’s on a mission and pulls the patriot card. Next thing you know your either for the war or a terrorist. Then all of a sudden there we are involved in a major war in Iraq but to date no proof of WMD’s has been found but guess what? While Bush was wrapped up in Iraq north Korea goes ahead and develops the very thing Bush was trying to prevent. I’m waiting still for the logic? I’m prior military so I know a clusterf**k when I see one and this administration is the epitome of clusterf**k.

[PerryChase]

Anyone who uses the word clusterf**k is a friend of mine. 🙂
My best buddy who’s a naval officer supported beating the sh*t our of those Arabs. But now he can’t see anything but a clusterf**k — a quagmire we can’t extricate ourselves from.

[Author]

Posts