Posted on 11/21/2002 4:57:57 AM PST by SJackson
Former president Jimmy Carter told CNN that the United States should disarm, just like we’re asking North Korea and Iraq to do. After all, he said, we should set an example and do exactly what we’re asking the insane totalitarians of the world to do. When I first heard this childish suggestion I grew angry. This is a man who has grown powerful, rich and successful because of the greatness of this country. And yet, he thinks this country is somehow like a nation which is starving its own people, and another which has gassed thousands of its own citizens to death.
Carter also complained to CNN, "There is a sense that the United States has become too arrogant, too dominant, too self-centered, proud of our wealth, believing that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful and influential nation in the world." Reality Check for Jimmy: it’s not that we believe we deserve to be the richest and most powerful—we are.
Carter also whines in the same interview that the U.S. doesn’t give away enough money for international aid. "For every time an American gives a dollar, a citizen of Norway gives 17 dollars," he said. "Foreign aid in this country has a bad name, but in other countries, it's a right thing for the government to do."
What part of the last hundred years did Jimmy Carter miss? We are on a planet which has proven itself obsessed with a need to commit suicide and take the rest of the world with it. The existence of the United States of America has been the saving grace of every other nation specifically because we are armed and rich.
Here’s a little dose of reality for those, like Jimmy Carter, who have somehow forgotten how and why this country became the greatest on Earth. It’s because we have sacrificed dearly to save nations of strangers who were besieged by Bad Guys and Evil Doers throughout the 20th century. Here are the facts:
There have been several wars in the 20th century on which the freedom of the world hung in the balance. World Wars I and II; the cold war, fought most noticeably in Korea and Vietnam; and the Gulf War. In those wars, 1,748,038 Americans lost their lives. They died for those people of the world Jimmy Carter says, "I think they feel that we don't really care about them, which is quite often true." How dare he indulge that tripe.
Someone should ask Jimmy Carter how many more Americans need to die to prove to the world that we "care" about them. If the world feels bad and has a sense of uselessness and inferiority, it is of their own doing. As a former statesman, Carter should not be appeasing this self-indulgent arrogance, he should be reminding Europe and Asia that they exist because we saved them from themselves.
Carter also insists that foreign aid in this country has a bad name. Really? Let’s see, the financial cost of saving the world from fascist, Nazi, communist and totalitarian thugs during the last century is staggering. From 1917, and our entry into World War I to 1991 and the Gulf War, in 1990’s dollars, Americans spent over two trillion dollars, $2,959.5 in billions, to be exact. World War II alone cost each individual American $15,655.17. It’s worth noting, these figures reflect direct costs only, and do not include pensions, which would tend to triple the outlay.
Why else is Carter’s insistence we disarm absurd? Since the inception of the U.S. the world out there has produced Napoleon, Mussolini, Tojo, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and bin Laden, among countless other genocidal maniacs. Who have we given the world? Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among scores of other remarkable men and women. Gee, Jimmy, I guess it is too confusing to figure out who you can trust with the Bomb.
Here’s a news flash for Carter: Americans have paid and died to make sure the French can eat their croissants without having to watch Germans goosestep down the street; so Eastern European countries can enjoy freedom and contemplate membership in NATO, free from Soviet pigs who murdered and oppressed them; so England has the absurd time and energy to worry about rape in the palace by a valet as opposed to the rape of London by Berlin; so Kuwait and Saudi Arabia can continue to worry about how to keep their women from laughing, driving cars and voting (all forbidden by law), instead of worrying about what Saddam Insane might do next.
Now we are currently at war to rid the 21st Century of its first monsters, produced by the Middle East, and which are intent on converting the world to a brand of Islam which is nothing more than Fascism wrapped up in a turban. If the 20th century is any indication, the world has more monsters to come, Mr. Carter, and we are going to be ready for them, whether you like it or not.
Yes, a man like Jimmy Carter is given the Nobel Peace Prize because he helps make Europeans and the rest of the world feel better about themselves. That’s fine, but it is our duty to not forget who we are and how we got here. We embrace our greatness humbly because it has come at a vast and terrible price. It is a price, however, which also demands that we defer to the memory of the sons and daughters of this country who died in the many wars to save the world. I have a feeling they would recommend we not disarm and relegate Jimmy Carter to the peacefulness of his peanut farm where he can do no harm.
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Tammy Bruce is a former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW and author of The New Thought Police (Prima, 2001).
Classic!
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