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Comment by lelandfe | Hacker News Reader

RIP Jimmy Carter. A model of living meaningfully in old age.

The Onion has many funny bits on the guy's age[0]. "Former President Jimmy Carter, 98, announced Tuesday that he had gotten his recent vasectomy reversed," "Jimmy Carter Makes Pact With Dianne Feinstein That If Both Single In 50 Years They’ll Marry Each Other,""Jimmy Carter Concerned Desire For Fresh Faces In Democratic Party May Hurt His Chances In 2020"

I always hoped he read those and would laugh - he seemed the type of guy that would.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Ftheonio...

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and they finished it with: "48-year old rabbit finally finishes the job". https://theonion.com/48-year-old-rabbit-finally-finishes-the...

For those who do not know the reference...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

link to the original 3000x2254 picture: https://tinyurl.com/25ybcrh4

He gave his life to compassion in service to all of humanity.

All of humanity? Propaganda much?

No, thank you. At very least he destroyed Iran's government and was the American architect of the Islamic Republic in Iran[1], which has a direct causal relationship to many disasters within and outside the country and led to October 7.

But sure he put solar panels on the White House. Great guy.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadeloupe_Conference

I wrote out a snarky response based off what I understood and then I did more research and he had a big impact. This is a better article to link to in my opinion though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_wi...

Yup, none of this is particularly unknown or secretive for people who look and not interested in deliberate deception (Khomeini was delivered by Air France after all!) Yes, more specifically, Shah was an ally to Nixon and had put his eggs in that basket (to the degree that he attended Shah's funeral.) Once the tide turned and Ford lost, shit quickly hit the fan (a bit resembling how Biden treated MBS.)

The other funny and ironic thing is Shah was instrumental in mediating and shaping the deal between Sadat and Israel, but somehow he got the short end of the stick and was branded an asshole authoritarian dictator by US leftist media (see Mike Wallace 60 mins from 1976[1] for example) and Carter got the Nobel Prize.

P.S. for fun, compare to Wallace's attitude when he sat down with Khomeini only a few years later, with questions submitted and vetted in advance[2]! Oh well, how history is written and rewritten...

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RH2wXQtFdo

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwyWI_jKQaw

Trump abandoned the Kurds.

I'm not sure you can lay any particular blame on the 'left' for poor decisions.

It was strange how much Biden got blamed for pulling out of Afghanistan, everyone completely forgot the same pictures of Kurds.

These articles aren't painting the condemning picture I think you are thinking they do.

If someone becomes president, and a foreign government is already falling apart, and you talk about options and what might become the new government, does that automatically make it your fault? The Shah wasn't a saint, and kind of created the situation.

If you want to place blame for Iran, it might need to go further back to Eisenhower and the Coup that put the Shah in power. The US actually overthrew a democratic country, to put the Shaw, a monarch back into power.

From there forward, every president had their hand in kicking Iran. Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon.

They were all involved. Why lay it at Carters feet?

Or go further back. The West, after WW2, purposely split up the Middle East in a way to keep it in Chaos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

"The two diplomats' pencils divided the map of one of the most volatile regions in the world into states that cut through ethnic and religious communities."

Because it's not an argument in earnest. For some reason (maybe because a real louse of a president will be inaugurating soon), the right has suddenly taken up a vendetta against Carter. I've seen him blamed for every problem in world at the time, including the Asaba Massacre and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

No president has ever done everything right, but no president has also spent their retirement years devoted to public service. Hell, almost no _normal people_ do that.

Well said, friend. Thank you for expanding my understanding of the situation.

it was utopia. everywhere on the planet that was not the west. that cultural stagnation and backwardness could attract parasitic imperialism , if you hike at the foot of the exponential mountains , who could have known .. certainly not the culture that had all the greek scripts and did nothing with them but slavery and local imperialism. That history of half truths doesn't hold water anymore. We have colonized countries colonize the middle east now. Get new material or get of the stage .

??? can you clarify please.

Are you blaming the Greeks for Imperialism? Maybe referencing Alexander the Great era when they conquered Persia? Perhaps pushing the blame for Iran even further back?

That is just your narrative. The incident was a disasterous foreign policy and very direct and it backfired on him very quickly too (I frankly rather not further debate this on a gratitude thread out of respect for his supporters but we could go ad nauseum). You can add all the color you want to soothe your pain and paint your own hero in the story as an unmistakeable saint, meanwhile kicking every other leader down for basic decisions they had to make for the good of their people. In the end results speak for themselves: the American people did not see him worthy of a second term.

The point is not "there are hard choices a President has to make," which is a fine attitude, but the fact that the GP idolized him so much to declare him best for "all of humanity." That is absolutely ridiculous. Clearly not.

Wow. I didn't realize the narrative on the right had gotten this bad.

Did you forget that Reagan negotiated with Terrorist during an election to keep the hostage's hostage? To literally sabotage their freedom to tank Carter?

"kicking every other leader down for basic decisions they had to make for the good of their people"

So, all other leaders, face difficult decisions, but Carter, he has to be held to higher standard? His decisions were not "basic decisions they had to make"? But others were? Like all others were backed into a corner, but not Carter? Did you see my post, he inherited the mess.

You lost me at "narrative on the right" ad hominem. I am so sorry to let you now not everyone is coming from a US centric view. Please continue your idol worship. I'm done here sorry for the interruption.

Not a fan of this new trend where any response is called 'ad-hominem' and then quit like you are claiming a high ground.

How do I know where you are from? If it sounds like a 'right' talking point, then that is what it sounds like isn't it? I'm guessing the same views can be in multiple countries. There are people on the 'right' in other countries, maybe I'm German?

Also, not a fan of how you edited your post after my response, to clean it up and appear more generous than it was originally.

But, to continue the argument. Are you saying that when the US staged a Coup to put the Shah in power, that was ok. But then later when it fell apart under Carter, it was more his responsibility for not further backing the Shah? Like it was the US pulling support for the Shah that caused the Revolution.?

To help, what Incident are you referring to? I looked at the links you supplied and couldn't find anything directly attributed to Carter.

It's a good point how well republican presidents get away with contra affairs and weapons of mass destruction, but democratic ones are held to a very high standard. Good to keep in mind.

To add to the flaws of the D presidents, they typically are a continuation of complex foreign policy issue, like Obamas drone strikes and keeping Guantanamo Bay going. R crimes are usually nothing but power/money grabs.

I think you meant to type WW1 instead of WW2

correct. sykes-picot was WW1, 1916.

I would have sworn there was some post WW2 agreement concerning a desire to keep the Middle East in 'chaos'. But I guess I was just remembering Sykes-Picot.

Do you happen to remember anything 'like' Sykes that occurred after WW2?

> But sure he put solar panels on the White House.

Which were not photovoltaic and leaked like a sieve.

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