Not usually offered as a role model by right-wing columnists.
There’s been no shortage of right-wing criticism of Barack Obama’s policy towards Russia. But some are advising he be more like…. Jimmy Carter?
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer (3/13/14) explained:
Obama is not the first president to conduct a weak foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was similarly inclined—until Russia invaded Afghanistan, at which point the scales fell from Carter’s eyes.
From that moment on, he writes, Carter “responded boldly,” winding up with
the massive military aid we began sending the mujaheddin, whose insurgency so bled the Russians over the next decade that they not only lost Afghanistan but were fatally weakened as a global imperial power.
Invasion woke Carter from his illusions. Will it wake Obama?
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson (3/17/14) seemed to crib from Krauthammer’s analysis a few days later, explaining that “in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,” Carter “began aid to Afghan insurgents.” Gerson closed with this:
This is now the state of Obama’s foreign policy: He must rise to Carter-era levels of resolve.
Brzezinski: “That secret operation was an excellent idea.” (cc photo: CSIS)
There are at least two points that deserve clarification. Carter’s support for the anti-Soviet mujaheddin did not actually begin after the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1998, Carter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski gave a revealing interview to the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur (cited in CounterPunch, 1/15/98), where he explained what really happened:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
He added: “That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?”
The interview became more prominent after the September 11 attacks, which drew considerable media attention to this history, since Al-Qaeda’s origin is linked to Osama bin Laden’s experience in Afghanistan. As the Nation‘s Eric Alterman (11/12/01) noted: “The truth is that the United States began a program of covert aid to the Afghan guerrillas six months before the Soviets invaded.”
So it’s inaccurate to describe Carter’s support for Afghan insurgents as a consequence of the Soviet invasion; to hear Brzezinski tell it, the reality was more the other way around.
But a more fundamental question might be: Do Krauthammer and Gerson really believe that what transpired in Afghanistan in the 1980s is something to be emulated now? The war killed thousands of Soviet forces; the Afghan death toll could have topped a million. But from the perspective of US Cold Warriors, the loss of life is secondary to the real goal of humiliating the Soviet Union.
Does anyone want that kind of war over Ukraine? Krauthammer seems to. His most recent column (3/20/14) mocks the US offer of military rations:
Putin mobilizes thousands of troops, artillery and attack helicopters on Ukraine’s borders and Washington counters with baguettes, American-style. One thing we can say for sure in these uncertain times: The invasion of Ukraine will be catered by the United States.
Why did we deny Ukraine weapons? Because in the Barack Obama/John Kerry worldview, arming the victim might be taken as a provocation.
Krauthammer offered Obama some advice: “Send the secretary of Defense to Kiev tomorrow to negotiate military assistance…. Putin is deciding whether to go beyond Crimea and take eastern Ukraine. Show him some seriousness, Mr. President.”
For people who think of the Soviet/Afghan war as some kind of model, it is not hard to figure out what these words mean. One has to wonder how many Ukrainians they believe need to die in order to send Putin the right message.
In these soulless chess games
The pawns always bleed
I have an idea about foreign policy . It works well for my neighbors and myself. We mind our own business , and don’t meddle in each others affairs. We all get along , and have no problems.
The United States should mind its own business and let other countries solve their own problems. All these people who claim the president has no foreign policy are not satisfied unless we are meddling and inserting the U.S. in other countries. The world would be a much safer place , if we stayed home minded our own business and took care of all the problems in our country. It is not a sign of weakness to stay out of other countries squabbles. There is no reason , we can’t maintain a strong defense and protect our own country. All of these people who are always demanding saber rattling and provocation , are never the people who end up fighting and dying and being wounded in the troubles they stir up. The very same people who are trying to involve us in other countries are always complaining the U.S. doesn’t have any money but they sure don’t mind wasting it on their escapades. These are people like Charles Krauthammer ,Cal Thomas, both Limbaughs , John McCain , Lindsay Graham , and others. Too many democrats play their game because they don’t want to be called soft or unpatriotic We have no business in Syria , Iran Iraq , Egypt , the Ukraine or any other countries. You can bet the U.S. and Europe were both involved in some way in what happened in the Ukraine. The Ukraine , Russia , Crimea and other nearby countries have been involved and part of the same country for hundreds of years if not more. In this 21 century we should have learned some lessons from the past. It would be better to make the best of a bad situation instead of inflaming it.
I believe you will find the true cause of the current trouble is oil , and natural gas. Greed
So that was the James Earl Carter, Jr. who interrupted the careers of many Olympian athletes ( forcing the boycotting of the 1980 Moscow games), though he knew he had provoked the Soviets into what Carter called the “worst case of aggression since World War Two?”
These early bin Laden- types of the late ’70’s actually crossed the
Soviet border and attacked Soveiet residents and villages, a clear violation of international law by their USA sponsors. Well, they say Carter was a liberal, and everyone believes it, even now, except for an elighterned few of us
Also, carter was the first since Johnson to raise Pentagon spending, cut social progrmas, and initiate the Rapid Deployment Force (the precursor of Africom), all with the help of Alexander Hiag, who also recommended cutting the top marginal tax rate, which Carter quickly did. To call Carter a weak liberal is a misnomer, at least if you are referring to his presidency.
Peter Hart has provided a sufficient argument in the above blog. As for Michael Gerson’s “Carter-era levels of resolve” statement, once should consider what that entails: https://fair.org/media-beat-column/jimmy-carter-and-human-rights-behind-the-media-myth/
I would also add that the Carter dministration’s support of Unitas during the Angolan civil war, the government of South Africa, refusal to provide aid of rice to Laos, and refusing to say to apologize to Vietnam for US actions their because, as Carter said, “The destruction was mutual.” further illustrates the foreign policy of the Carter administration.
Right, no More LOAFING, Krauts! Recall Hitlery from the bakery with some more Nuland Lebensraum strudel for the halfascist Ukrainian Viktors, instead!! If the putsch must be catered; also serve up Yatzi’s skinheads some Svoboda fries mit bier!!!
Why is the media still quoting “experts” whose policy recommendations have been a disaster? Brzezinski sheds some light on past events that are relevant to current wars, but he was architect of other events just as disasterous. The media should “retire” him as an expert. As well as any pundit — Krauthammer, et al. — that have been wrong more than 70% of the time.
The Lame Stream Mogul bought Media of the Corpse-arations live in the past. They are simply practicing the Inner party IngSoc meme of “Those who control the present, control the past. Those who control the Past, control the Future”. Every current President will always was nothing more than a figment of Imagination on the part of the Reporters.
They, like so many others, live in a world of their own, inside their own head, where “Facts” are made up instantly by placing the word ‘Fact’ in front of any dubious recollection, of which they can’t fully recall with accuracy, but they are sure “That is the way it should be”. Tush Limburger
I heard Rush mention this. He said”Jimmy carter may of been as worthless as any man who ever held the job.Only rivaled by Obama”Nuff said