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USA’s presidents have all been awful humans
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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I understand the point, but as an exercise, try to find four historical figures without glaring character defects. Eventually, I figure we’ll all be either judged or forgotten in time.
These are a little more than character defects... theres lots of historical figures who didn't rape and murder.
Yeah every political leader have little oopsies like being called "town destroyer" by the people which land they invaded and towns they destroyed. They also were proud of it, used it to invade even more land, and their grandpas were also called that because it's their family and nation thing to do for generations.
Obama bombed a wedding of civilians not to mention hid Afghanistan casualty reports, was a part of the death of half a million Iraqi casualties, was part of the Syrian hell that targeted mainly children with fatalities at 191,000 by 2014, then there was Yemen and saber rattling on Iran and full support of Israel. Carter sadly oversaw the East Timor genocide at 25% of the population or 170,000 killed.
You might want to rephrase that as the East Timor genocide started while Carter was in office. Carter played no role in that genocide. The Indonesian government was responsible for it. It is odd that you are blaming Carter at all.
I'm not rephrasing shit because you're incapable of reading.
Hey internet... the shitty bot account doesn't know how to look info up on Carter and East Timor. Can you please do it for it?
Jimmy Carter's administration faced significant criticism for its handling of the East Timor situation during Indonesia's occupation. Despite Carter's reputation as a champion of human rights, his presidency saw a continuation and even expansion of military support to Indonesia while it committed atrocities in East Timor[1][2].
In 1977-1978, as Indonesia engaged in wholesale destruction of East Timor through massive bombardment and forced relocation of populations, the Carter Administration increased the flow of military equipment to Indonesia[1]. This included supplying OV-10 Broncos, planes designed for counterinsurgency operations, which were used in ferocious attacks that devastated East Timor[1][2].
The administration's response to the crisis was particularly troubling:
U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, misled Congress about the situation in East Timor, downplaying the severity of the conflict[2].
When the CIA reported that Indonesia was running out of weapons due to the intensity of its bombardment, the Carter administration responded by increasing military sales to Indonesia in 1978[2].
The administration provided ground attack fighters like OV-10 Broncos, A-4s, and F-5s, knowing they would be used against East Timor's civilian population[2].
Carter later expressed regret for his lack of intervention, admitting in a 2007 interview that he was not as thoroughly briefed about the situation in East Timor as he should have been[2]. However, this does not negate the fact that his administration's policies contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of East Timorese during his years in office[1][3].
Citations: [1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/30/jimmy-carter-the-false-savoir/ [2] https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide [3] https://inthesetimes.com/article/jimmy-carter-foreign-policy-palestine-legacy [4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/1/10/historians-say-jimmy-carters-human-rights-legacy-includes-grim-failures [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_Jimmy_Carter_administration [6] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2019-08-28/us-sought-preserve-close-ties-indonesian-military-it-terrorized-east-timor-runup-1999-independence [7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/08/12/carter-assails-indonesia-over-east-timor-security/b128a1a8-b856-404c-a84a-2202332e6fb5/ [8] https://sporastudios.org/mark/epluribusunum/carter.htm
Im not incapable of reading. Your writing clearly states that Carter was responsible. You claim he oversaw it which is just flatly incorrect.
You think Im a bot because my username contains the word "bot"?
"In 1977-1978, as Indonesia engaged in wholesale destruction of East Timor through massive bombardment and forced relocation of populations"
That REALLY sounds like Indonesia was responsible for the genocide they were committing. Why are you blaming an American president for a war waged by Indonesians due to choices made by the Indonesian government? Do you think Indonesia had no agency in the genocide they perpetrated?
Again it is really weird you are blaming Carter for this.
If you knew anything at all about the thing you're talking about, the democratically elected Indonesian government were some of the ones being targeted in the genocide, by far-right groups who were able to overthrow it due to US backing. Absolutely disgusting to try to blame this on the Indonesians and trying to absolve the US of guilt.
If I go through your post history, what's the over-under I'll find you blaming Russia for the rise of the far-right in the US?
The US role in the East Timor genocide is common knowledge. Henry Kissinger is usually blamed for greenlighting and facilitating it, but Carter did not have clean hands.
I dunno Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, seem to have been personally good people. That's two recent US presidents. Then I guess I would add some super low hanging fruit like Nelson Mandela, Frederick the Great, John II Komnenos, any of the Five Good Emperors, Cyrus the Great, Ashoka, and one could keep going.
EDIT: To all those pestering me about how US presidents presided over criminal imperialist policies, here is my answer from down below:
I'm not here to defend US imperialism, don't @ me.
Obama was incredibly evil.
Without the US, the world would be much more peaceful today, most of the current wars and terrorisms are caused by US interventions, directly and indirectly.
That’s a claim I would LOVE for you to attempt to back up.
Just off the top of my head I would suspect UK, French, and Soviet imperialism to have been as big if not a bigger factor than the USA.
That is an incredible list. Did a find for a few things I personally knew about and have always been disappointed in Obama for... and sure enough found them. First one I searched, was extending the Bush tax cuts on the rich. I remember Bill O'Reilly saying "Oh, if I have to pay taxes, I'm going to have to fire people, and that's on Obama, so tax cuts means less jobs!" (so glad Bill got canned) and Obama just fucking caved like a spineless coward.
Obama?? Obama??? The Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya Obama? You must be joking, right?
OP talked about "glaring character defects".
These are policy failures and state crimes, arguably attributed to the American state as a whole, and the long term US imperialist policies, rather to the singular person of the president.
You might have noticed that I added Frederic the Great in the list, which tells you exactly what my understanding of the challenge was.
Yes! Buying dentures made from slave teeth is overshadowed by the fact this man did what very few would have done by setting power aside.
Would we get labeled by history as evil because we might have bought a product from China made in a work camp?
Washington was the richest man in the US at the time, and had the most to gain from indigenous eviction. The Iroquios named him "the town destroyer", for burning down dozens of their cities. He also owned slaves and supported the institution just like most presidents after him (I think 10 presidents in a row were southern slave-holders like himself).
And also, its the US, not China, that has slave labor camps. Just because an anti-semitic evangelical christian (adrian zenz) who works for the US government claims that China has forced labor, doesn't make it so. These claims have been debunked over and over.
China has forced labour, according the the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences: https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/51/26
I looked that doc, and they source debunked Zenz reports, and WUC. So nothing new.
If the UN fucking rapporteur deems it reliable enough, and if the UN HRC hasn't found reason to retract this report, then I have zero reason to believe some internet rando that it has been debunked. For all I know, your one liner responses are no different from pro-Zionist hasbara casting doubt on UN reports on Palestine.
Someone should tell that UN reporter to stop using anti-semitic US state department sources then.
Some sources debunking this are
Also notably, it's the WUC (a far right org that again your reporter cited) that supports Israel.
Are you joking? You must be joking, right?
A delegation of envoys and senior diplomats is not a fact finding mission. It is wining and dining and saying nice things. Give me a break.
I'm supposed to discount the UN Special Rapporteur because I'm supposed to believe the ramblings of the website of a RT contributor? Do you have any Breitbart sources too?
Opinion pieces are what we call "debunking" now?
The US funding something via a quasi-independent organization (that Trump is defunding) is proof of the US funding something. It is not proof that the allegations are wrong, that's just a version of the ad-hominem fallacy. During the Cold War, in Greece any remotely credible link to the USSR was used to crack down on trade unions, political organizations etc. Same thing happened during the Grande Noirceur in Quebec with the "padlock law". Sumud in Canada has recently been banned as a terrorist front for having "links" with Palestinian resistance. The pattern here is common: instead of addressing what is being said, there is an attack on "the links" of the one saying the thing. It's a cowardly, lazy and fallacious arguing tactic that I reject on its face.
"Prolewiki"? Give me a break. What's next, the conservapedia or the uncyclopedia?
Awesome bro.
Some people of ethnic group X did something (according to random internet sources). Ergo... nothing bad can possibly be happening to ethnic group X?
Reddit drama disproves Uighur genocide. We're being super serious here.
"My reporter" makes it sound like some journalist. We are talking about the UN Special Rapporteur of the UN HRC. What the WUC is is besides the point. It might be Elon Musk's cat for all I care. What they say is what is important. And I am willing to assume that the UN Special Rapporteur did his fucking job and did more than just say "hey some randos are saying XYZ". Same level of trust as I accord to Francesca Albanese.
Some links removed because the instance wouldn't let me post them. Must be a CIA plot or some shit.
Also kind of boggling that you're calling mintpressnews and other anti-imperialist sources, as breitbart. Do you skip the parts about Zenz, the source of these claims, being a far-right evangelical anti-semite?
Mintpressnews are pro-Assad. I mean the same Assad who butchered Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians and who operated CIA dark sites after 9/11. That guy. What's mind boggling is that you call that ...anti-imperialism. That's not anti-imperialism, it's crude campism.
I have nothing to say about Zenz's politics, that's why I don't. His politics are irrelevant with respect to the truth of what he alleges.
But to centre Zenz in this discourse is disingenuous. There are about 84,000 entries in the Xinjiang Victims Database. Those are the people to centre.
Incredibly fucking ironic how say:
immediately after condemning Mintpress for their politics. Really goes to show that you're not even trying to be good faith.
Funny you should say that, because I picked a person at random, and guess who the only source was? That's right, Adrian Zenz, as always.
You're right to point out my inconsistency when it comes to the two. Apologies.
So let me retract that and go back to this line: whoever Zenz is, the UN special rapporteur deemed him a credible enough source to include his work in a UN HRC report. The report has not been retracted. I'm not an expert on the sources, but I can in good faith assume that the UN HRC is a reasonable arbiter of reputability. This is the same standard as I use for other conflicts and controversial world events. I therefore accord this UN special rapporteur the same benefit of the doubt as his colleague, Francesca Albanese.
And just like I mistrust attacks on Albanese's reputability when it comes to Palestine, I mistrust attacks on Obokata when it comes to Xinjiang.
And I'm going to leave it at that.
Damn, I recommend you look into some of the other claims Zenz has made before deciding he's credible.
That's the thing. I don't decide he's credible. The UN Special Rapporteur did.
And I mean, fuck Zenz, since engaging with this thread, I've actually learned more about Xinjiang than I wanted to. Here is a whole OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ohchr-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ohchr-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang-uyghur-autonomous-region Is this shady Zenz character cited? Yes (oh no!), in ....2 footnotes among a total of 300 footnotes.
The claim that this one shady dude somehow is the mastermind (Emmanuel Goldstein much?) behind the entire set of Uighur allegations is fucking ridiculous. It's like when antivaxxers or climate change deniers find the one off-colour source in some WHO or IPCC report and them latch on to that one to claim vast conspiracies.
Okay, good job ignoring all those while not engaging with any of the arguments. I'll try pictures, since that might be at your level.
Why do all the Muslim countries support China's Xinjiang policy, and don't believe there's a genocide going on, while only the imperialist euro-american countries think there is:
There is nothing to engage with. You presented NOTHING at the level of credibility as a UN report. Just opinion pieces, youtube videos, and random noise. Enjoy your day.
Does this also apply to Zenz claims about LGBT people then? Or are you just a dishonest scum bag?
Are Zenz's opinions about lgbt people cited in UN HRC reports as reliable fact? No? So wtf are you talking about?
Lol. You hypocrite.
I do have to "Be civil and nice", so I can't actually respond to this drivel the way it deserves.
No, China has forced labor camps.
The US has prison work camps, but most prisoners don't have to work if they dont want to, it isn't forced.
Anything to back that up other than white-supremacist vibes?
Because the majority of Muslim countries disagree with you. The only ones who believe that China has forced labor, are the US and UK, countries that have been bombing Muslim countries for decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
Check those sources, its Zenz all the way down. These have been debunked over and over again, even reddit doesn't believe this anymore.
You will need to argue with Amnesy International and Icij (links below). I cannot be convinced of your point of view.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/china-draconian-repression-of-muslims-in-xinjiang-amounts-to-crimes-against-humanity/
https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/xinjiang-police-files-uyghur-mugshots-detention/
Fr, like look into the companies that get you your fruits and vegetables. You can't escape unethical consumption.
Carter supported Pol Pot and Obama was a monster to people in the Middle East, neither can be considered to be "good people."
I mean we absolutely could call out their flaws too, someone with that much power/responsibility is going to do abhorrent things (drone strikes with Obama being an easy one to bring up). Just like the four on Mount Rushmore these things aren't what we typically call out because they either were "of the times" or not on the same scale as their accomplishments.
They called Obama the Deporter in Chief. Trump wishes he could get a nickname like that. Carter himself was a nice guy but his below average presidency led to Reagan.
The drone strikes thing is a bad example. If he didn't touch it, individual combat units could use drones with impunity. He required drone strikes to be approved by his office.
Tell me if you had the choice between sending in boots to kill a guy, or drone strike, would you really ever risk your guys getting shot?
He added red tape, the minimum thing he could do. I'll agree with criticism that he did the bare minimum, but all these comments about this frame it like he was horny for drones. That's reductive and misleading.
Your comment is exactly the point I was trying to make. The world is complex and imperfect, so anyone with the power/responsibility of a president is going to do controversial things.
Oh I get it.
Yeah running countries is a series of shitty compromises, unless you are small enough to gain consensus.