PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES ….
By Charles Cole (08/07/05)
Perhaps the most tiresome of the far leftwing liberal extremist group these days is one James Earl Carter, aka Jimmy. He seems to have a simplistic, Rodney King “can’t we all just get along” solution to every problem on earth, despite mountains of concrete evidence that his simplemindedness wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy during his failed presidency (not to mention his dithering foreign policy, if indeed he had one).
But a horrible track record of non-accomplishments doesn’t stop good old boy Jimmy from blaming everything from election debacles at home to “botched” foreign policy abroad on George W. Bush. Listening to his palaver and bloviations on world events might make one think he actually knew what he was talking about, were it not for the inconvenient little fact of his own utter failures while in the White House.
As a president, Carter was a feckless anecdote of a man. As an "elder statesman" purporting to represent American views, he is disingenuous in the extreme. One need look no further than the “stagflation” of the late 1970-s to the ludicrous “accord” he brokered with the North Koreans in 1994 (which they ultimately admitted to having intentionally violated). Now he claims that the war in Iraq is “unnecessary and unjust” and calls for GITMO to be closed, due to “reports” of prisoner abuse there (the facts of investigations even by Democrat members of congress notwithstanding).
One of the (few useful) things one learns in lawschool is the so-called "but for" legal test. It is used most often to establish tort liability or factual causation in criminal cases.
Carter is trying to apply this test to the current situation in the Middle East. His argument, if such can be so defined, goes like this:
But for the Bush Administration’s post 9/11 retaliatory strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and but for President’s Bush’s ousting of Saddam Hussein, the Islamic terrorists (although he probably wouldn’t refer to them as such) would likely cease their attacks on western civilization.
I would prefer to apply the “but for” test to the horrendous mistake President Reagan made in not cleaning out the Islamofascist rats' nest in Lebanon after the murder of our Marines there. My “but for” reasoning goes something like this:
But for President Carter's incompetent, pollyannaish meddling in the affairs of state of Shah Palavi's Iran, the Islamic revolution of 1979 would likely not have occurred. But for this revolution, the Shah would not have been deposed. But for the deposition of the Shah, Iran would not have funded international Islamic terrorism, but for which the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon would likely not have been attacked. But for that occurrence, President Reagan would not have made the mistake he did (in not eradicating this global threat in its infancy), and but for that serious error, the world would very likely not face the severity of the threat it now faces.
Assuming at least partial validity for my line of reasoning as opposed to that of James Earl Carter, the latter would seem to bear a considerable portion of the blame for the carnage inflicted on innocents the world over by these Islamofascist thugs. But he certainly throws a lot of rocks for someone living in such a glass house, doesn’t he?
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