Carter calls Bush administration foreign policy ‘worst in history’


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — President George W. Bush’s administration is “the worst in history” when it comes to international relations, former President Jimmy Carter said Friday, taking aim at the White House’s policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.

The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented from the 39th president, also took aim at Bush’s environmental policies and the administration’s “quite disturbing” faith-based initiative funding.

Reversal of basic values

“I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me,” Carter said in a copyright story in Saturday’s edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered. But that’s been a radical departure from all previous administration policies.”

Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having “zero peace talks” in Israel. Carter also said the administration “abandoned or directly refuted” every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents.

Church and state

Carter offered his harshest assessment for the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.

“The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things in my opinion are quite disturbing,” Carter said. “As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”

RNC responds

White House spokesman Blair C. Jones declined to comment, referring questions to the Republican National Committee. Republican National Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson questioned why Carter, who teaches a Sunday school class in his hometown
of Plains, Ga., would attack Bush.

“Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man,” she said. “It’s hard to take a lecture on foreign policy seriously from President Carter considering he’s the same person who challenged Ronald Reagan’s strategy for the Cold War.”

Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer, described Carter’s comments as unprecedented.

“This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president,” Brinkley said. “When you call somebody the worst president, that’s volatile. Those are fighting words.”

Reached at home Saturday morning, Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo told The Associated Press she had no comment on the article and said she would be unable to reach the former president. Carter made the comments while promoting his new audiobook series, “Sunday Mornings in Plains,” a collection of his weekly Bible lessons.

Carter also lashed out Saturday at British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Asked how he would judge Blair’s support of Bush, the former president said: “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient.”

“And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world,” Carter told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Oh, and, to be sure, hes still a politician first and foremost and has already issued a retraction. Which is worse, a passive aggressive foreign policy tragedy (Bush) or that of a complacent apologist (Carter)? The world may never know...

Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said his comments over the weekend about the Bush administration were “careless.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18759682/

Jimmy Carter is no apologist. And his words do not affect U.S. policy. There is no comparison between the misguided policies of a failed and incompetent administration and the words of a former president who feels powerless in the face of it.

i know that this is semi unrelated, but osama said he attacked the US over our foreign policy towards his home land. but Clinton also faced several attacks from bin also, so its not like Bush has had the only perceived bad policy


also, can anyone tell me what our foreign policy is and why its so bad?

Osama said specifically that he staged the attacks against us prior to 9/11 because we were desecrating the Holy Land by having military bases in Saudi Arabia. They were left over from the first Gulf War.

Also, our foreign policy was one of either bribing or bullying those that we had some need for. Since we've run out both money and troops, things aren't going so well these days.

the original WTC and the cole were on clintons shift, you do know this, right?

Of course, dear.

And Osama specifically said that these attacks were provoked by our presence in the Holy Land. You do know that we had bases in Saudi Arabia from the first Gulf War into the Iraq War?

Do you know why Clinton maintained the bases in Saudi Arabia even after the end of the first Gulf War?

i know that this is semi unrelated, but osama said he attacked the US over our foreign policy towards his home land. but Clinton also faced several attacks from bin also, so its not like Bush has had the only perceived bad policy


also, can anyone tell me what our foreign policy is and why its so bad?

Was ist los, bin ich auf Deustch sprechen?

I reckon there is a comparison, in fact it would be a direct comparison between the misguided and incompetent policies of their respective administrations. See, we can "compare" the "foreign policies" of the two "presidents".

What else do you suggest we use to compare the policies of these two men? I was going to base it on their foreign policy records but you suggest there is no correlation because Carter is out of office? I think I speak for everyone when I say "what the fuck?" Go brush up on the Carter administration, realize his was a comedy of errors as well, then get back to me.

Remember, I am not defending Bush, or insinuating Carter is wrong, I am stating that Bush is a terrible diplomat and Carter is a hypocrite [emphasis added].

And you would be wrong in your insinuations. Check out Mark Bowden's book "Guests of the Ayatollah." Every president makes mistakes, and a key part of our understanding of a presidency lies in the reasons why those mistakes were made.

And Carter's words at this point in time do not affect our foreign policy, Bush's, on the other hand, do. Saying that his statements were "careless" and being an apologist for Bush's policies is not the same thing.

Ok, we simply have a failure to communicate. Carter is a hypocrite for criticizing Bush's foreign policy, he isn't necessarily wrong, he's just a hypocrite.

Also, "Guests of the Ayatollah" is a fascinating read. Its informative, its often funny, its articulate, and it is almost, but not quite, entirely unrelated to the arguments I have presented. Carter's bungling of the Iran Hostage was (in my opinion) the least of his errors.

Lets start during his first month in office when Carter cut the defense budget by $6 Billion. This would bite him in the ass when his crippled intelligence services could not foresee the Iranian revolution. He gave away the Panama canal for reasons no one will ever understand. Additionally he saw fit to arm the Sandinista's in Nicaragua (sounds Nobel-worthy to me) and ignored Óscar Romero's request to stop U.S. intervention in his country. For his efforts Romero was latter killed. The Nobel-laureate also personally advocated U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, and no one is sure how much money Carter and Brzezinski dumped into the training of Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan

If one were so inclined they could justifiably blame Carter for Bush's mistakes, but I won't go that far, I'll just reiterate the fact that hes a hypocrite.

I don't think anyone on earth can explain U.S. foreign policy at present. I'll give it a shot:

1. We have moved from isolationist to interventionist policies. At the beginning of the 20th century the United States was effectively neutral, we now use military and economic clout to shape the world as we see fit. We engage in nation building exercises which are naive, idealistic, costly and more often than not, failures.

2. The previously mentioned activities are perceived as imperialistic by most nations and in increasing numbers within the U.S. as well. We have lost the "moral high ground". Whereas only 20 years ago the world viewed the United States with kind eyes, they now see us as reckless cowboys, "globocop". And no one likes cops right?

3. Powerful nations which were once staunch allies, the E.U. in particular, capitalize on this emerging anti-Americanism for political and economic gain. Additionally, other states are "emboldened" as the Bush administration often asserts, because we are weakened and spread quite thin. We simply are not as powerful as we once were and will be ridiculed and scorned for decades due to these terrible decisions.

4. Bottom line is our foreign policy is currently costing lives and money and providing no returns the investment.

If you want to discuss geopolitics we are gonna need another thread.

That's a pretty fair assessment. The ineptitude of these policies is the one area where I have sensed almost unanimous agreement in this forum.

That's a pretty fair assessment. The ineptitude of these policies is the one area where I have sensed almost unanimous agreement in this forum.

The reality is that we, as in we the non-CIA briefed people, will never know everything that Carter, Reagan, Clinton, or any other president knew at the time they made what history views as "mistakes". I'm not making excuses for anything our leaders have done, I'm just saying that these events are probably not as cut and dry as our reader's-digest-civilian version of history makes them out to be.

Carter should be criticized for his support for Chavez's tryanny in Venuzula. If you want to lynch him, try there.