Veritas hits Jimmah again

veritas on Jimmy Carter's "Today Show" appearance -- Part Two

"And now I think we've reached a point in Iraq that it's become a quagmire very similar to what we experienced in Vietnam."
~~ Jimmy Carter

Jimmy -- if you still get briefing papers [G-d forbid!], ask 'em to send the large-print versions from now on, will you?

Getting your news from TV -- well, Jimmy, there's a danger, a real danger, that Leftists who do that will start taking themselves seriously, while remaining studiously uninformed. See, TV newsies think Leftists, with their utopianism and "noble" purpose, really are the Anointed.

Oh. I guess that's what happened with you.

"There's no real extrication for us to accomplish the goals that we had when we went in."

Does the "Today Show" offer simultaneous translation? Like, into English?!?!?!

"I think a lot of the violence in Iraq now is directly attributable to the fact that U.S. forces are there. And there's no clear concept at any early stage of when they will be withdrawn."

Of course there's violence in Iraq.

There are bloody knives and unconscious people in operating rooms, too.

Do either of these conditions mean the goal should be forfeited because the process can't take place at a 5-star dinner table? [With, of course, somebody's taxpayers picking up your tab.]

Saddam turned 100,000 to 150,000 criminals onto Iraq's streets as we initiated our brilliant campaign to topple his thugocracy. He counted on them to complicate things. His "warriors" eagerly, desperately slipped away from the teenaged volunteer soldiers and Marines who were kicking them to Kingdom come-- so they could fight from behind women and children, and shoot from "holy" mosques, literally betting their lives that OUR principles and morals were incalculably better than theirs.

Well, our morals are better. But then, our troops are incalculably better than their best ever were, too. No brag,'cause it's true.

As for when to leave -- well, Jimmy, you'll soon [if it pleases G-d] be able to ask MacArthur and Nimitz how they knew when to leave the Pacific. Ask Patton or Ike how they knew when to leave Germany. Ask Washington -- no. Never mind.

If you wind up where the magnificent General Washington is, I don't think he'd really want to talk to you, considering what you did to the country he midwived to life, and the office he created from the mettle of his character's steel.

"You know, we just finished, the Carter Center did, our 52nd election. All of our elections have been in troubled countries where the outcome was doubtful. But in every case there has to be a central government that can set up the constitution and bylaws and rules so that an election can be held peacefully."
~~ Jimmy Carter

Yessir, those jackbooted tyrannies sure know how to manage a nice, peaceful election, don't they? "Voters" get bused in all tidy and docile, and right on time. Your Carter Center functionaries can nod and smile, and count all those "freely" cast ballots, while certain willing accomplices can walk the tyrants' streets in peace, admiring all those civic improvements. Can't they, Jimmy?

Sorry -- but I think Jefferson's closer to the truth than you, Jimmy: "The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."

Or --isn't liberty your goal?

"I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January."
~~ Jimmy Carter

Thanks, Jimmy. That's mighty helpful.

Would you like to phone a young sergeant in 130-degree Iraq, with a family at home, and tell him directly that all he's done hasn't given you a whit of confidence? No confidence in Freedom?

Tell a 19-year-old red-shirt, loading ordnance on an F/A-18 at 4:00 am [who's all the while "refreshed" by a 50-knot salt-spray gale coming across the slick deck, where 300 of his brothers also execute patriots' duties that would need not one word of explanation to the men who wintered at Valley Forge] that you don't believe?

Would you like to tell an Iraqi, whose brother's tongue Saddam ripped out, who's seen the bodies of a half-dozen friends shredded by the car bombs of the Islamic butchers -- and who will, tomorrow, through some unexplainable triumph of the human craving for freedom over slavery no matter the cost, stand in line in the very spot where they died, look down at their blood stains in the street -- just to put on the uniform his dead compatriots died seeking, the uniform of a free Iraq, and thereby make himself a yet-more-marked target?

Want to tell him you don't think HE is ready to vote?

No -- I forgot -- you're used to talking to the smooth, media-savvy tyrants of the world, the silk-suited butchers-once-removed, who flatter your ego as the easy price of renting out a former President of the United States for an election season, or a sanctions vote they hope to sway. Those are YOUR consorts, Jimmy.

Not that sergeant; that armorer; that police recruit. No, not them. They sweat, and swear, and bleed, and die, and offer no TV time for you. No chance to tear down what one million American lives were given to preserve. No wonder you have no confidence in them.

You don't know that men can indeed be more than you are. Much more. And for no more than the honor of service and the character of duty.

Hmmm...

OK, Lord -- we got the point. Jimmy Carter's an idiot.
You can have him back now.