Carter receives Nobel Peace Prize and takes swipe at Bush

Here, I'll go ahead and give the typical response so <B>some</B> conservatives can save their fingers:

He was a ****ty president.

 

I agree with a lot from this article. I'm unsure why Carter deserves the prize THIS year. He should have been awarded it the year he arranged the Camp David meetings -- but the prize was awarded to Sedat and Arafat. (Arafat with the Peace Prize?? Maybe Sharon was in the running this year??).

Carter is a worthy ex-prez, though I wasn't too impressed with his handling of international affairs while he was in office (central america; iran; etc).

The prize should not be viewed as an endorsement of his presidency, but rather for well deserved acknowledgement for his contributions to the peace process.

 

Doesn't Jimmy Carter care about the 170,000 Iraqis that have "disappeared", according to Amnesty International?

How about the men, women, AND children who are tortured by Saddam's thugs?

How about the GENERATIONS of Iraqi Kurds who are, and will, suffer neurological problems because Saddam gassed their villages to test out his new weapons of mass destruction bought from then East Germany?

No, Jimmy doesn't like G.W. looking so presidential- something Jimmy was never able to accomplish.

(btw, I think Jimmy is a great guy with the best of intentions...he just doesn't always achieve good results.)

 

Here's another reason Saddam MUST go.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/63492.htm

WASHINGTON - A horrifying dossier of the systematic rape, torture and executions of Saddam Hussein's political rivals was released by the British government yesterday in the latest bid to win international support for war against Iraq.

The chilling 23-page report is based on the findings of intelligence agencies and human-rights organizations, as well as tales from survivors.

It gives gruesome details of the atrocities being carried out in underground prisons throughout Iraq.

"Iraq is a terrifying place to be," said the report released by the British Foreign Office, noting that 4 million people, roughly 15 percent of the population, had fled Iraq.

"A cruel and callous disregard of human life and suffering remains the hallmark of Saddam's regime."

The report said widespread methods of treatment of Saddam's opponents include eye-gouging, piercing hands with electric drills, lowering prisoners into vats of acid, staging mock execution and repeated raping of women.

It also described a vicious method of torture known as falaqa, in which victims are beaten on the soles of their feet with a cable until they pass out.

Also contained in the report, titled "Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses," are:

* A government personnel card of a "fighter in the Iraqi popular army" named Aziz Salih Ahmed, who listed his official occupation as professional rapist or "violator of women's honor."

* A March 6, 1991, order from Baghdad Security Headquarters to officials in outlying provinces instructing them to "kill 95 percent" of any crowd of demonstrators - leaving the remaining 5 percent for interrogation.

* The tragic case of Najar Mohammed Haydar, a Baghdad obstetrician, who was beheaded in October 2000 on charges of prostitution. Her real crime: speaking out against corruption in Iraqi health care system.

* New eyewitness details about the Sijn al-Tarbut or "casket prison" - a ghastly underground structure operated by Saddam's elite Republican Guard in Baghdad, where victims are held in coffin-like rectangular steel boxes and are allowed out for only a half-hour each day.

* The story of Um Haydar, a 25-year-old woman who was dragged from her house and publicly beheaded in 2001 after her husband, suspected by the authorities of involvement in armed opposition activities, fled Iraq. Guards took away her children and mother-in-law, and they have not been heard from since, the dossier said.

The report was released just six days before the U.N. deadline for Iraq to catalog its weapons of mass destruction or face being charged with "material breach" of Security Council resolutions, which could lead to massive U.S. military action.

"The aim is to reveal that the abuses of the Iraqi regime extend far beyond its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the violations of its international obligations," British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said in a speech yesterday.

"By disarming Iraq, we not only help those countries in the region which are subject to Iraqi threats, we also deprive Saddam of his most powerful tools for keeping the Iraqi people living in fear and subjugation," he added.

Some left-wing British groups and political opponents of the government criticized the timing of the release, calling the dossier an attempt to whip up emotions and jingoism during this critical pre-war period.

"I think that this highly unusual, indeed unprecedented publication, is cranking up for war," said Tam Dalyell, a Labor Party member of Parliament.

 

Puhleaze.

The obsession with Iraq is getting out of hand.

Is Sadaam Hussein a menace? yes. If he were to die a horrible death would anyone here grieve? no. However let's look at some consequences should we elect to attack Iraq

1. Our economy would go to crap. The market has rebounded nicely since its nadir about 3 months ago. The economic climate is cautiously optimistic. A war will bring the fragile economy to its knees. Consumer confidence will go down the tubes.

2. The war would cost a trillion or so dollars. Our tax money would be spent rooting out someone we shouldve gotten rid of 10 years ago. Frankly, spending that money trying to resurrect the economy or domestic spending would make a lot more sense. Even spending the money on developing more sophisticated weapons and technology would be better.

3. We would lose a lot of American lives. Yeah, it's not you or me, but it's someone's child that doesnt have to die. I would understand if someone is threatining America and an attack is imminent. However, this is a totally different situation. We would be invading their turf. And as history has told us, when you invade a country, the results are a b****. Especially when you dont have the suppport of the people youre invading.


Frankly I dont give a damn about the Iraqis being tortured just like President Bush doesnt give a damn about all the people who die daily in Africa civil wars. The stuff about Iraqi victims is just propoganda. In the big scheme of things, it's to justify our oil interests in the middle east.

What should we really do?

Put more $$$ into investigating alternative fuel sources so we dont have to rely on OPEC or any foreign entity for basic essentials.

 

So you're saying he's a great guy who is advocating a particular foreign policy, ignoring the plight of thousands, and permiting the use of chemical weapons to somehow appease his ego about another President allegedly looking 'Presidantial' some 20-something years after his own inability to do so!?!?!??!?!

1) Why do some people always confuse a President being militarily aggressive with being "Presidential"...Even if you don't think Bush is using/escalating this scenario to help his own political cause, wouldn't the fact that that is an accepted result amongst voters make you re-think the distinction? If everyone knows that a Presiden't popularity always rises at the outset of a war, irrespective of whether that war is jusitifiable (WWII) or not (VietNam), don't you think that it's a tad sophomoric to still be confusing 'Warlike' and 'Presidential'...What else, aside from his being aggressive with regards to Iraq, has Bush done which makes you think he comes across as Presidential? His dignified bearing and statesmanlike public addresses? His obvious brilliance and immediate grasp of an intricate situation? What? I'm not questioning his effectivness, another discussion, but I am asking about his image...I know of few people who think that Bush comes across all that well, and most in fact think first and foremost of his relatively limited intelligence, his endless gaffes when speaking, and his repetetive facial expressions...Compare him with Colin Powell, for example, who seems much more Presidential to me.

2) Has it occured to you that the world is acknowledging Carter's work in exactly the field that you claim he is ignorant? Has it occured to you that he might even be as enlightened as yourself re: the plight of Iraqis and Kurds, etc.,,but might have an alternate, and dare I say it, better solution. Or that maybe his warning about the incredible danger of justifying pre-emptive or preventative wars, a point I have been making for months, might just have solid historical and practical priority over as yet to be proven threats to world security?

3) I noticed that you conveniently left out the fact that some of the chemical weapons used on the Kurds were originally supplied to him by the US, or indeed the US's role in putting the Kurds in the precarious position they have since found themselves in....best not to mention it.

4) Again, we have supported, set up, and funded several people who have killed/tortured/exterminated their men, women, and children when it suited our own ends...We have even helped those same kinds of tyrants do so...So to take the moral highground as a means of justifying military agression which just happens to coincide with what the President thinks is best for US interests is so hypocritical it's laughable...

 

ref...seriously...don't you even see the pattern of sheep like submission to Presidential authority when it comes to the demonisation of evertone whom we seek to oppose? Do you honestly believe that you couldn't put up a list of atrocities in hundreds of other countries who don't have oil, or haven't fought against the President's daddy? Do you think that any nation which opposes ours couldn't put up a list of terrible things of which we have been guilty, or a list of terrible thjings happening here right now? Why is that we only limit our idea of what is so wrong it takes us to right it to the things that the other guys do?

Do you honestly not see how automatic and predictable the kind of rhetoric that NY post article is? Were the same things happening 5 years ago, before Bush launched his Axis of Evil campaign in the wake of 9-11? Yes....did we care? Not really...would it have justified us going to war? Hardly...Are those kinds of things happening all over the planet right now? Yes...do we care? Not really..Are we talking about invading Saudi Arabia, or Israel, or Tanzania? Hardly...

You will usually get semantic at this point..like if I were to say " Why are we attacking Jim for beating his kids and not Bob for attacking his? You would answer an equivalent of " Well, Jim uses a rolled up newspaper and Bob uses his hand, and if Bob ever used a rolled up newspaper, you're damned right we'd attack him!" And beyond the subjective and very target-specific objection to Jim, it becomes apparent as alliances shift and rhetoric alters that if Bob were the declared enemy and jim the ally, the criteria for invasion would be that 'a rolled up newspaper is ok, but a fist is no, and if Jim ever used his fist like Bob does, you're damned right we'd attack him too!'

The fact that we have ourselves used newspapers, fists, feet, and whips on our own kids is also conveniently overlooked, or said to be irrelevent because it's theoretically in the past...And the fact that we were accorded the right to work out our own flaws, or that we have helped others increase those flaws when it suited us gets swept under the carpet of American interests...

 

I would like to assure the world community, on behalf of all Bobs, that we reject the imperialists' claims that we hit out children, with or without weapons of mass spanking. I would like to welcome the UN to inspect our homes seeking evidence of this child beating. In good time, we will provides a multi-thousand-page document detailing the whereabouts of all hands and newspapers in our domiciles.

 

LOL!....I AM assuming you got the analogy...

 

THANK you!