Thank you, Jimmy Carter. Former US President Jimmy Carter wrote a piece for the Washington Post (apparently buried on page A31) decrying recent changes he perceives in traditional US foreign policy. He suggests that Washington is now in the hands of some wiry belligerents, “a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism.” Let us be quite clear about who these war-mongers are: the old hawks Cheney and Rumsfeld. A theory about what their ambitions might include can be found in this Salon article from June 17. Carter restricts his attention to changes in human rights policies, our turn from “good-neighbor” participation in the global community, and our rôle in the Middle East peace process. That’s no small umbrella—it shelters an alarmingly broad coterie of crimes. Carter writes:
Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.
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Also from the Post: September 11: ‘American Idol’ Seizes the Day. I don’t think I have anything intelligent to say about this one. Just read it—and weep with me.
NP: Future Bible Heroes, From Some Dying Star on KEXP
