the world is lead by assholes, on all sides.
This is an objectively true statement. Of course the world is lead by assholes.
We all know that power corrupts. Neuroscience has shown that getting power damages the brain’s capacity for empathy.
You just can’t lead a nation without becoming capable of great evil.
You just can’t lead a nation without becoming capable of great evil.
Yup. One of the very few who had the capability and likely didn’t use it.
Which of course led to him being single term because he wasn’t ruthless enough for a voting public that would rather have a former actor run the country into the ground while paying loveable grandpa to hide the evil.
But that wasn’t because he couldn’t lead the country, just that the public loves to fall for confident blowhards that tell them what they want to hear.
There isn’t a single US president in living memory without a litany of war crimes on their head, and probably going back further but I don’t particularly feel like going back to pre-WWII history because just why bother at this point?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/18/jimmy-carters-blood-drenched-legacy/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/11/jimmy-carters-blood-drenched-legacy-2/
Jimmy Carter was good at lip-service, not in reality. And honestly, I don’t even think it’s because he was a particularly nasty person - although I wouldn’t be surprised, he was a politician - it’s just the job forces you to become a war criminal. That’s what happens when you volunteer to supervise the war crimes factory.
EDIT: Actually, if you want to go back further, read one of the US military’s most decorated generals on what the military’s true purpose is, written in the interwar period: https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket
Edit 2: before anyone else wants to pile on this and call it all bullshit because they read one item and it wasn’t genocidal enough for them, at least read as far as East Timor, 1977. The list is chronological, if you get bored after the first item I’m sorry, but I’m not spoon-feeding you the whole article.
If those are the worst examples you can come up with the man was basically a saint. What a bullshit hit piece. I am now dumber for having read it.
So he has blood on his hands for not getting involved and for getting involved when both sides are likely to commit atrocities.
What a ridiculous bar to set.