JIMMY CARTER: “Well, as you may know, I had a policy when I was president of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world, and some of our allies were very irate about this policy. And I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then.”
That sounds like a completely believable explanation to me. I can completely believe that that the military advisors didn’t give him the full picture of what was happening there.
The CIA, in the spring of 1977 and into 1978, told the Carter administration that Indonesia was literally running out of weapons, running out of bullets and bombs, because of the intensity of its bombardment of East Timor, and that the Suharto regime was requesting a doubling of military assistance so it could more effectively prosecute that war. And in 1978, the Carter administration actually increased military sales to Indonesia, including the provision of ground attack fighters, such as OV-10 Broncos, A-4 and F-5 ground attack fighters, which the administration knew would be used to bomb and attack the defenseless civilian population of East Timor.
What’s more, let’s pretend to be the most gullible person in the world, totally unaware of how the US has historically operated, and take Carter at his word. Was anyone prosecuted for lying to the president? Was anyone court martialed, did anyone in the CIA, State Department, or Department of Defense face any sort of legal repercussions? No?
Then I guess the US must have been pretty satisfied with the outcome, to not make any provisions to ensure it wouldn’t happen again or even punish those who led to it. And of course they were, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman must have made a literal killing.
So you’re moving goalposts from the original claim “Carter oversaw east Timor” to “maybe someone in the CIA should have been prosecuted” and “the military industrial complex is bad”?
Big shift if true.
A shift from actually new information to “turns out the bad guys are bad, guys”
Of course, the classic “don’t ask, don’t tell” of the national security state. The careerists don’t want oversight and the president wants plausible deniability so they’re left to just do whatever tf they want with no democratic accountability whatsoever.
I know you want to imagine something darker, but once you get your first job you’ll realize how very very very very easy it is for simple things to slip through the cracks, let alone complex things like a conflict on the other side of the planet from you in a region your country hasn’t traditionally cared about.
That it’s trivially easy for them to just casually decide to do a genocide with no input or oversight from any democratic process that could hold them accountable or allow the people to actually control what our foreign policy is.
JIMMY CARTER: “Well, as you may know, I had a policy when I was president of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world, and some of our allies were very irate about this policy. And I have to say that I was not, you know, as thoroughly briefed about what was going on in East Timor as I should have been. I was more concerned about other parts of the world then.”
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide
That sounds like a completely believable explanation to me. I can completely believe that that the military advisors didn’t give him the full picture of what was happening there.
From the article you linked.
What’s more, let’s pretend to be the most gullible person in the world, totally unaware of how the US has historically operated, and take Carter at his word. Was anyone prosecuted for lying to the president? Was anyone court martialed, did anyone in the CIA, State Department, or Department of Defense face any sort of legal repercussions? No?
Then I guess the US must have been pretty satisfied with the outcome, to not make any provisions to ensure it wouldn’t happen again or even punish those who led to it. And of course they were, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman must have made a literal killing.
So you’re moving goalposts from the original claim “Carter oversaw east Timor” to “maybe someone in the CIA should have been prosecuted” and “the military industrial complex is bad”?
Big shift if true.
A shift from actually new information to “turns out the bad guys are bad, guys”
Ah, so you’re not actually interested in learning, but in sealioning.
That’s cool, I’ve been around democrats before.
Sealioning: a word people misuse when they are annoyed in an internet conversation.
Go ahead, look up the definition and break down what I said by that definition. I look forward to it.
Especially since you clearly aren’t able to argue the case in front of you.
Of course, the classic “don’t ask, don’t tell” of the national security state. The careerists don’t want oversight and the president wants plausible deniability so they’re left to just do whatever tf they want with no democratic accountability whatsoever.
I know you want to imagine something darker, but once you get your first job you’ll realize how very very very very easy it is for simple things to slip through the cracks, let alone complex things like a conflict on the other side of the planet from you in a region your country hasn’t traditionally cared about.
And that in itself is a reason why the intelligence community cannot be allowed to exist in its current form.
What is? That humans are fallible?
That it’s trivially easy for them to just casually decide to do a genocide with no input or oversight from any democratic process that could hold them accountable or allow the people to actually control what our foreign policy is.
Also it continued until 1999 which makes blaming him for it an odd choice.