• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I will be very sad when he goes. Regardless of his success or lack thereof during his presidency, I don’t know that a better person in general has been president. The man devoted his post-presidency to building houses for the poor (with his own two hands) and eradicating guinea worm… and never showed up to say something on the endless news cycle unless he had a specific point to make.

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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    6 months ago

    I remember when Carter was president. I always respected him. In the early 2000s i remember getting so much shit for defending him. I’m proud to be an American when I think of him and his legacy. He is a good man and I hope that he will be remembered in a positive way. He was truly wronged by the Republicans and the Iran Contra shit will forever be a shadow over the good that Carter tried to create in the middle East.

    I imagine if the dirty tricks Reagan pulled or like if Gore wasn’t cheated or even Hillary got 4 years, the world would be a much better place than it is.

        • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          No.

          Fact is Carter’s administration sold those weapons. It wasn’t a secret what Indonesia was looking to use them for.

            • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              The basics that

              A) Carter sold weapons to Indonesia
              B ) It’s the Cold War
              C ) To empower brutal murdering authoritarians like Suharto

              Just as whenever America armed some authie in South America or anywhere else in the world, we know what it was going to be used for.

              But please share your “basic”.

              • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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                6 months ago

                The fact that I provided you the information, spelled out and you continue to spout idiotic nonsense is just amazing.

                First thing

                The Indonesian invasion of East Timor, known in Indonesia as Operation Lotus began on 7 December 1975

                James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

                Facts.

                The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor documented a minimum estimate of 102,000 conflict-related deaths in East Timor throughout the entire period from 1974 to 1999, including 18,600 violent killings and 84,200 deaths from disease and starvation; Indonesian forces and their auxiliaries combined were responsible for 70% of the killings.

                During the first months of the occupation, the Indonesian military faced heavy insurgency resistance in the mountainous interior of the island, but from 1977 to 1978, the military procured new advanced weaponry from the United States, and other countries, to destroy Fretilin’s framework.

                In an interview on 5 April 1977 with the Sydney Morning Herald, Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said the number of dead was “50,000 people or perhaps 80,000”.

                The UN’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) estimated the number of deaths during the occupation from famine and violence to be between 90,800 and 202,600 including between 17,600 and 19,600 violent deaths or disappearances, out of a 1999 population of approximately 823,386.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Timor#US_involvement

                For US President Gerald Ford and his administration, East Timor was a place of little significance, overshadowed by US–Indonesian relations. The fall of Saigon in mid-1975 had been a devastating setback for the United States, leaving Indonesia as the most important ally in the region. Ford consequently reasoned that the US national interest had to be on the side of Indonesia.[84] As Ford later stated: “in the scope of things, Indonesia wasn’t too much on my radar”, and “We needed allies after Vietnam”.

                Let’s not forget Harry Kissinger

                As early as December 1974—a year before the invasion—the Indonesian defense attaché in Washington sounded out US views about an Indonesian takeover of East Timor.[86] The Americans were tight-lipped, and in March 1975 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger approved a “policy of silence” vis-à-vis Indonesia, a policy that had been recommended by the Ambassador to Indonesia, David Newsom.[87] The administration worried about the potential impact on US–Indonesian relations in the event that a forced incorporation of East Timor was met with a major Congressional reaction.[87] On 8 October 1975, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Habib told meeting participants that “It looks like the Indonesians have begun the attack on Timor.” Kissinger’s response to Habib was, “I’m assuming you’re really going to keep your mouth shut on this subject.”[

                So let’s go back to the original argument here. That Carter sold a bunch of weapons and caused all the deaths.

                Clearly that’s not what happened.

      • Xhieron@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I hope you never find yourself standing in judgment for the worst thing you ever did.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      300,000 people in East Timor certainly didn’t deserve Carter supplying Indonesia with the tools to carry out genocide.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It’s very easy to forget why Carter was largely considered a middling President in his time.

        Between his fumbling of the Iran Hostage Crisis, his public sector strike breaking, and his Volcker Shock Economics, he set the stage for Reaganism and the end of Progressive Era politics.

        But then he did Habitat for Humanity which was nice. And he talked a good game on climate change. And he called Israel Apartheid as he saw it decades before any other mainstream politician.

        • katy ✨
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          6 months ago

          to be fair, the republicans conspired with the iranians in secret to hold the hostages until after the election in exchange for money which the us used to buy arms for terrorists in central america.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            The Ayatollah buying scud missiles from Donald Trump Rumsfeld and Oliver North was crazy, when you consider how much the GOP say they hate Iran and love Reagan.

            But Tip O’Neal and Ted Kennedy and a young Senator from Delaware whose name I can’t recall brushed it all under the table. The sentence for these henous crimes landed on North’s shoulders and totaled

            a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours of community service

            But even that was too much.

            with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, North appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On July 20, 1990, the D.C. Circuit vacated North’s convictions on the ground that witnesses in his trial might have been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony.

            The Aristocrats!

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                They’ve got a very checkered past. Very much a “rights are for whites” organization in a lot of cases.

                Backing Klan and Nazi parades while dropping off the map in the face of the Stonewall Marches, the anti-war movements, and BLM.

                They’ve been near useless when it comes to abortion rights, police brutality, and refugee rights, as far as I’ve seen.

      • jaspersgroove@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Sorry bud, it’s hard to understand what you’re saying with Jinping’s cock all up in your mouth like that

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Neither of us live in China, and they had nothing to do with the atrocities the US facilitated under Carter (which admittedly, is less than any other recent president), why are you bringing them up?

          He did good things after the presidency, but acknowledging that Israel is an apartheid state fails to make up for excluding Palestine from the Camp David accords.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              Is it really inconceivable that someone could organically not like genocide?

              Any American who acknowledges that every president for the last century has done things we hanged Nazis for at Nuremberg must have been tricked by outside forces?

              • jaspersgroove@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                No, that part’s not inconceivable. The inconceivable part is that you claim to not like it while also defending the undisputed kings of it. Mao makes Hitler look like a fucking amateur lol

  • ImADifferentBird
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    6 months ago

    Probably the last truly good person to hold the presidency. Godspeed.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I find it sad that president from the late 70s showed more care for his constituency and broader world during the cold war than what our current president seems to be actively avoiding during a self funded genocide.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      One of the consequences of the Cold War was a sense of domestic nationalism that fell apart when the USSR did. No point in working together without a singular globe spanning enemy to work against.

      Ironic that Ayn Rand’s anti-communist philosophical selfishness came out of Soviet Russia in the 40s, and that’s what will likely bring the American Experiment to an end.

  • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    He was a truly great person. He didn’t do so well at politics, but that’s because he was such a good person.

  • Bone@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    You’ve given it your all. More than most can say. And, you’ve done it while taking it on the chin the whole time from lesser people and politicians. You are/were a great man!

  • katy ✨
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    6 months ago

    a great president and an even greater human being

  • bean@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    He is truly a wonderful and selfless person. I can think of way worse people much easier than I can think of truly great people. He’s up there with Fred Rogers in my book. Jimmy, thank you for you service, bless you and your family. I hope there is no pain. 🫂💐