The Political Divide

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter claims that he represents the vast majority of Democrats in this country. Mr. Carter made this statement in a magazine interview with Der Speigel a German Magazine. That is a very interesting statement in light of the overtly negative things that Mr. Carter said about the current President of the United States of America, Israel and the American government. (click on title above)

Mr. Carter wouldn’t be the first Democrat that spoke negatively of his country to a foreign country. It seems that Democrats enjoy speaking badly of their country to foreigners. Maybe Mr. Carter is correct maybe he does speak for all Democrats.

There is a Political Divide in this country a divide between Liberal and Conservative views. Liberals and Conservatives view things differently and that can be no more apparent as in Mr. Carter’s interview.

Here is an account of Mr. Carter’s opinions as he interviewed for Der Speigel again let it be known that Mr. Carter believes most Democrats in this country think as he does.

Starting with the war Mr. Carter believes that President Bush started the war. On this point he is probably in line with the majority of Democrats in this country. The only problem with that myopic perception is that it totally disregards the fatwa declared on the United States in 1996 by Osama bin Laden who restated the same fatwa in 1998 not to mention Islamic terrorism committed against the U.S. starting as early as 1979 and the mandate for Islam to conquer the world.

November 1979 shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power in Iran, riding the slogan "Death to America" - and sure enough, the attacks on Americans soon began. In November 1979, a militant Islamic mob took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days.

The rescue team sent to free those hostages in April 1980 suffered eight fatalities, making them the first of militant Islam's many American casualties. Others included:

April 1983: 17 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
October 1983: 241 dead at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
December 1983: five dead at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.
January 1984: the president of the American University of Beirut killed.
April 1984: 18 dead near a U.S. airbase in Spain.
September 1984: 16 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut (again).
December 1984: Two dead on a plane hijacked to Tehran.
June 1985: One dead on a plane hijacked to Beirut.
After a let-up, the attacks then restarted: Five and 19 dead in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, 224 dead at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 and 17 dead on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
Simultaneously, militant Islamists murdered on U.S. soil:
July 1980: an Iranian dissident killed in the Washington, D.C. area.
August 1983: a leader of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam killed in Canton, Mich.
August 1984: three Indians killed in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash.
September 1986: a doctor killed in Augusta, Ga.
January 1990: an Egyptian freethinker killed in Tucson, Ariz.
November 1990: a Jewish leader killed in New York.
February 1991: an Egyptian Islamist killed in New York.
January 1993: two CIA staff killed outside agency headquarters in Langley, Va.
February 1993: Six people killed at the World Trade Center. (the 1st WTC attack)
March 1994: an Orthodox Jewish boy killed on the Brooklyn Bridge.
February 1997: a Danish tourist killed on the Empire State building.
October 1999: 217 passengers killed on an EgyptAir flight near New York City.
September 2001: about 3,000 people killed by planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field 2 miles north of Shanksville of Pennsylvania

Mr. Carter believes that Israel’s reaction to Hezbollah’s encrochment on Israeli territory was illegal, immoral and unjustified even though Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers and then launched Hezbollah rockets into Israel which were terrorist acts. He also believes that the United States supported and encouraged Israel to do so and was wrong by doing so.

However, Mr. Carter seems to forget that Hezbollah has infiltrated the Lebanese government and totally disregarded the 2004 U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 which demanded the disarming and disbanding and removal of all militia from Lebanon.

Mr. Carter told Der Spiegel that President Bush should have negotiated between Hezbollah and Israel as equals. Mr. Carter equates that happened in the Egypt and Israel peace agreement in which Anwar Sadat the Egyptian President and Israel’s Menachim Begin agreed to peace. What Mr. Carter forgets to mention is that President Sadat a Muslim was later assassinated by other Muslims for daring to make peace with Israel.

Carter went on to intimate that Israel should allow terrorist to continue to attack it and make terrorist demands on Israel and Israel should just trust that terrorist will stop it’s 59 year harassment against it.

When Der Spiegel asked Mr. Carter whether the German Army should be apart of an international force to be put on Israel’s border in light of the German Holocaust against the Jews Mr. Carter stated that Germans should be apart of an international peace keeping force on Israel’s borders and that enough time had passed that we could all just ignore the fact that Germany attempted to eradicate all Jews.

However Mr. Carter’s most disturbing and divisive comments were reserved for religion. Mr. Carter believes that there is no difference between Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists, both according to Carter claim a unique relationship with God, both claim that they represent God according to Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter further stated that fundamentalist believe that they are always right while their opponents are always wrong, inferior even sub-human.

Mr. Carter believes that a fundamentalist can’t negotiate with people who disagree with them because that would place the opponent on the same level as the fundamentalist.

Mr. Carter told Der Spiegel that fundamentalist believe that they cannot make mistakes and Carter blames what happened at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib on the President indirectly intimating that President Bush is a religious fundamentalist.

Mr. Carter stated that the patriotism after 9/11 was unfortunate and that the Bush administration manipulated citizens of the United States of America and the main stream media because of it.

Lastly Mr. Carter believes that Senator Joseph Lieberman loss in Connecticut was self-correcting politics in America. Mr. Carter is hopeful that America will self correct itself in 2006 and 2008 and vote the Republicans out of Office.

What former President Carter’s interview does is lay out the stark differences between the two parties and if Mr. Carter’s assessments are correct and he is the voice of the Democrat party then he makes it evident why there is a political divide in America.

This interview also makes clear to Moderates, Independents and Conservatives alike that the thinking that presently represents the Democratic Party in America is irresponsibly delusional at best or fiendishly diabolical at worst.

What remains clear is that Mr. Carter and people who think like him should not be voted into political office and I believe that the majority of the America people will see the Democrats are the ones who have caused the political divide in America for the last 6 years.