Ex-president Carter had a press conference this morning announcing he had 1/10th of his liver removed and was to undergo radiation for several small cancerous tumors in his brain.
Carter was the last good US president. There was a window of democratic sunshine under Carter where the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed. The right-wing military type governments that followed Carter have disallowed such democratic committees.
From another thread:
Quote:Jim DiEugenio Wrote:Was everyone aware of this episode I describe in the essay:
"Before leaving the subject, it's interesting to speculate on another possible aspect of the pressure campaign brought to bear on Carter to let the Shah into the United States. Everyone knows that John McCloy served on the Warren Commission. In May of 1979, Carter was visiting Los Angeles to make a speech at the Civic Center. He had still not allowed the Shah into the country. The police apprehended a man with a starter's pistol in the crowd. When they questioned the suspect, he told the authorities he was part of a four-man assassination team. His function was to fire a diversionary shot into the ground while the other members shot at Carter from a nearby hotel. Although the police were skeptical, they later found that a room at the hotel was rented by a man the suspect had named as part of the plot. In that room was a shotgun case and three spent rounds of ammunition. Further, the occupants had checked out the day of the assassination attempt. The apprehended suspect's name was Raymond Lee Harvey. One of the men he named as a co-conspirator was Oswaldo Espinoza Ortiz. (Time, 5/21/79)About four months later, Carter admitted the Shah."
Coincidence or conspiracy?
And then there was the
October Surprise to end prematurely his Presidency and legacy. He was a targeted man. Also, the only President I can think of who actually spent his retirement DOING something useful and saying meaningful things - not just counting their money and making deals to further their money and power. He even in his last several years has criticized [subtly and gently] the powers behind the curtain. While far from a perfect President, he was too much a man of the People, supporter of the Constitution, and his own man [not fully under their control] he had to be dealt with - and was. Sadly, given his current diagnosis, he won't live much longer. His Houses for Humanity alone is such a break with what ex-Presidents do - and he had many other causes, peace missions, and significant actions and statements after his Presidency. After JFK, it was all downhill - by design [sculpted at 12:30 on Elm St., Dallas, TX]. A few little bumps here and there - but soon hammered down and eliminated. You can bet your bippy there won't even be anyone like Carter (much less so anyone like JFK!) ever again this side of the Revolution.
During the conference they asked Carter what he felt deepest about from his presidency. Proof that Carter is a man of integrity is the fact he said peace in the Middle East was one of his foremost concerns and that it had reached a new low recently because Israel broke the deal on the 2 state solution that the rest of the world desired. The room was dead quiet because the extremist pro-Israel media has quietly not mentioned anything about that as a policy.
Albert Doyle Wrote:There was a window of democratic sunshine under Carter where the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed. The right-wing military type governments that followed Carter have disallowed such democratic committees.
Actually the HSCA was formed in 1976 while Ford was still President, not that he had anything to do with it. It was that particular liberal Congress elected 11/1974 in the aftermath of Watergate, lasting until the GOP came back in the elections of 11/1978, that did some good things.
Carter is a good man, but he had too many people like Zbigniew Brzezinski in his administration making their own policies. And when Stansfield Turner cleaned house at the CIA, many of them just went off and formed their own private spook networks (which made things worse, leading to the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, etc.)
Peter Lemkin Wrote:And then there was the October Surprise to end prematurely his Presidency and legacy. He was a targeted man. Also, the only President I can think of who actually spent his retirement DOING something useful and saying meaningful things - not just counting their money and making deals to further their money and power. He even in his last several years has criticized [subtly and gently] the powers behind the curtain. While far from a perfect President, he was too much a man of the People, supporter of the Constitution, and his own man [not fully under their control] he had to be dealt with - and was. Sadly, given his current diagnosis, he won't live much longer. His Houses for Humanity alone is such a break with what ex-Presidents do - and he had many other causes, peace missions, and significant actions and statements after his Presidency. After JFK, it was all downhill - by design [sculpted at 12:30 on Elm St., Dallas, TX]. A few little bumps here and there - but soon hammered down and eliminated. You can bet your bippy there won't even be anyone like Carter (much less so anyone like JFK!) ever again this side of the Revolution.
The military "goof up" in the desert (Operation Eagle Claw) that resulted in the rescue attempt of the US hostages in Iran being aborted has always struck me as being engineered to fail. I mean out of 8 helicopters sent to the first staging area, Desert One, three didn't arrive. One had hydraulic problems, another got caught on a cloud of fine sand that disabled it and the third "showed signs" of a cracked rotor blade. The planners of of Eagle Claw agreed that if less than 6 helicopters arrived at Desert One the mission would be aborted (despite only 4 actually being needed).
Had this mission succeeded - or rather been allowed to succeed - the raison d'etre of October Surprise would have evaporated. In other words Operation Eagle Claw had to fail in order for October Surprise to succeed.
Carter's antagonism about the CIA with his appointment of Admiral Stansfield Turner as his appointment to DCI followed by the sacking of over 800 HUMINT assets (with the subsequent emphasis on SIGINT and TECHINT instead) plus Turner's breaking the secrecy seal on MKULTRA to Congress is what, in my opinion, put paid to Carter's presidency.
I agree with others here that Jimmy Cater was a much more independent and more honest president than any of those who have followed him (even though his National Security Advisor was the beastly Zbigniew Brzezinski). And for my money too, all those that have followed him have been entirely beholden to the US intelligence community, especially the CIA (Reagan was a front man - Bush was the power behind the throne).