Jimmy Carter Indicts Obama As Assassin. Rating Options

[André]

Ex-US president indicts Obama as assassin
27 June 2012

A column published Monday in the New York Times by Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, constitutes an extraordinary indictment of the Obama administration for engaging in assassinations and other criminal violations of international law and the US Constitution.

Titling his column “A Cruel and Unusual Record,” Carter writes: “Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended.”

Referring to the infamous provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by Obama on December 31 of last year, Carter writes: “Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or ‘associated forces,’ a broad, vague power that can be abused without meaningful oversight from the courts or Congress.” He goes on to refer to “unprecedented violations of our rights” through warrantless wiretapping and electronic data mining.

Elaborating on the US drone strikes, the former president adds, “Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable… We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.”

Carter’s column appeared on the same day that Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations testified before the UN Human Rights Commission, denouncing US drone attacks on his country in which “thousands of innocent people, including women and children, have been murdered.” He said that in 2010 alone, 957 Pakistanis were killed.

Carter goes on to indict the administration for the continued operation of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where, he notes, out of 169 prisoners “half have been cleared for release, yet have little prospect of ever obtaining their freedom,” and others “have no prospect of ever being charged or tried either.”

In the few cases where prisoners have been brought before military tribunals, he notes, the defendants “have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers.” He continues: “Astoundingly, these facts cannot be used as a defense by the accused, because the government claims they occurred under the cover of ‘national security.’”

Aside from moral qualms, and there is no reason to doubt that these play a significant role in Carter’s case, the former president expresses profound concerns that the brazen criminality of the actions carried out by the US government is undermining American foreign policy. Not only are these methods fueling popular hostility around the globe, they are depriving Washington of the ability to cloak its policies in the mantle of human rights and the defense of democracy, a method employed to significant effect by US imperialism since its advent at the end of the 19th century.

Carter himself played the “human rights” card prominently during his presidency, even as his administration sought to prop up the torture regime of the Shah in Iran, initiated the CIA-backed Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan, and affirmed—in the Carter Doctrine—America’s right to use military force to assure its domination of Persian Gulf oil supplies.

A former senior naval officer and submarine expert, Carter was brought into the White House in 1977 to restore the credibility and stature of the American presidency in the wake of US imperialism’s debacle in Vietnam and the criminality surrounding Watergate.

Yet, nearly four decades later, the extra-constitutional methods and criminality in the White House go far beyond anything done under Richard Nixon.

There is no question that Carter chose each word of his column carefully, avoiding hyperbole. Indeed, the name Obama does not appear. In the first word of the piece, however, he inserted a link to the lengthy New York Times article of June 1 documenting how Obama personally directs the preparation of “kill lists,” choosing victims and signing off on drone strikes when it is known that innocent civilians will be killed.

In this context, Carter’s use of the word “assassination” to describe the drone attacks has an unmistakable meaning. The president of the United States, this former president is saying, is guilty of war crimes and murder.

At the age of 88, Carter is a disinterested observer, concerned more with his legacy than any political gain. His testimony is all the more extraordinary in that he occupied the same office as Obama, is a member of the same party, and supported Obama’s election.

What could impel him, with little more than four months until the presidential election, to level such charges at his party’s candidate and the sitting president? He must believe that the political setup in America has descended so far into criminality and the threat of a police state is so great that it is imperative for him to speak out.

Carter makes the telling point that these criminal actions have been carried out with “bipartisan executive and legislative” support and virtually “without dissent.” Indeed, as if to prove his point, his own statements in the column—which have explosive political significance—have been largely passed over in silence by the mass media.

Twelve years after the stolen presidential election of 2000, the central lesson of that crucial episode in American political life has been driven home ever more forcefully: there exists within the US corporate and political establishment no significant constituency for the defense of democratic rights and constitutional methods.

The unprecedented gulf between a ruling financial oligarchy and the masses of working people—which has grown uninterruptedly throughout this period—is wholly incompatible with such rights and such methods.

Carter’s words are a warning. The threat of an American police state and the use of the murderous methods employed by US imperialism abroad against the working class at home is real and growing. The working class must prepare accordingly, mobilizing its independent political power against the capitalist profit system from which these threats arise.

Bill Van Auken http://www.wsws.org/

[GroundPounder]

What could impel him, with little more than four months until the presidential election, to level such charges at his party’s candidate and the sitting president?

it's either theater or he needs to attempt to atone before he meets his maker. i'm betting on theater.

[amazed!]

In my lifetime, Jimmy Carter was the only man to occupy the Office that possessed and exercised a conscience. He is the only man to demonstrate that he knew the difference between right and wrong. Thus his single term.

Though I did not vote for him, once he took office I admired his actions.

His criticism of Obama is spot on, and demonstrates that his moral authority is without equal in this country today.

[GroundPounder]

In my lifetime, Jimmy Carter was the only man to occupy the Office that possessed and exercised a conscience. He is the only man to demonstrate that he knew the difference between right and wrong. Thus his single term.

Though I did not vote for him, once he took office I admired his actions.

His criticism of Obama is spot on, and demonstrates that his moral authority is without equal in this country today.

and in my lifetime, the last guy worth a grunt was jfk and see how that turned out. i lived through the carter administration. do yourself a favor and look up cfr members, dcm, etc.

his observations of o-not-to-be-named are rudimentary. a child of ages gone by could/would have made them. now with the vaccines, chemtrails, fluoridation, gmo's, maybe not. moral authority... yeah, right. because of his admission to 'lust' in a playboy interview? wow, there is a criteria.

unless you are a psychopath, you know the difference between right and wrong. what a low hurdle that is. do you think he became president because he wasn't (s)elected?

[amazed!]

GP

Recall that my description of Carter was that he possessed AND exercised a conscience. I'm judging him by his record as Prez, not his religion or anything else. His record as Prez.

Knowing the difference between right and wrong, and ACTING accordingly, are 2 different things.

[bill]

I think it is very interesting that both Carter and Obama were propelled into the POTUS by the same handler, Zbigniew Brzezinski

Maybe Carter, at 88, is finally not caring if he gets put to sleep early.

When Carter was president I ridiculed him as ineffective and maybe downright stupid


now

I think he did as little evil as he could -- some credit for doing that without being permanently 'retired'

I think he was less pliable and smarter than his handlers thought and he was denied reelection by tptb

In contrast Obama is proving to be a very successful puppet.

Brzezinski must be proud

(IMG:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Zbigniew_Brzezinski_gru2010.jpg/220px-Zbigniew_Brzezinski_gru2010.jpg)



This post has been edited by bill: Jul 6 2012, 10:50 AM

[bill]

Tom Fife, an American computer networking specialist and international businessman, reported the alarming facts about the Kremlin’s connection to Barack Obama from a conversation in 1992.

"The owner’s wife was a Communist Party official and was “climbing two ladders”, as Fife puts it, one ladder being the KGB and the other being the traditional Russian society and business ladder. As the evening wore on, the female Communist official became increasingly agitated over a perceived slight and her emotions spilled over.

“You Americans like to think you’re so perfect!” she snarled. “Well, what if I told you that very, very soon you’re going to have a black president… and he’s going to be a Communist!”

The KGB operative was not finished. As she had now dropped this bombshell on the entire gathering, she felt compelled to continue.

“His name is Barack,” she sneered. “His mother is white and his father is an African black. He has gone to the best schools, he is what you would call ‘Ivy League’.”



more here

http://www.thecomingattack.com/russian-off...nist-kgb-agent/

[André]

now

I think he did as little evil as he could -- some credit for doing that without being permanently 'retired'

I think he was less pliable and smarter than his handlers thought and he was denied reelection by tptb

That is my view on Carter, while it's not possible to be a fan of the Carter presidency, looking back it does seem he did as little evil as he could given the circumstances, for whatever it's worth I do believe he is a decent human being in spite of the people that surrounded him a long time ago.

[GroundPounder]

i'm going to let you all battle this out, but if pipe is correct and there is a kremlin connection and madsen
purports a cia connection, well that really begs the question....

edit: my bad, i transposed fife -> pipe..maybe there is some subconscious thing at work there. just saying.

[amazed!]

B'rack is a creature of the CIA and Wall Street. Janny Scott's book A Singular Woman details how his mother worked primarily for the East-West Institute and the Asia Foundation, 2 entities created by Congress back in the 50's and supervised by CIA.

The young man was raised in the shadow of the Agency. The Agency does not raise communists, but it does approve of fascism.