Tel-Chai Nation

Camera's got a whole roundup of news on the slanderous and deceitful book by America's worst president, Jimmy Carter. But the ones I'll be taking a look at here are the ones about who his financiers are, and it's certainly eye-opening. First, from Rachel Ehrenfeld at the Wash. Times:

To understand what feeds former president Jimmy Carter's anti-Israeli frenzy, look at his early links to Arab business.

Between 1976-1977, the Carter family peanut business received a bailout in the form of a $4.6 million, "poorly managed" and highly irregular loan from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG). According to a July 29, 1980 Jack Anderson expose in The Washington Post, the bank's biggest borrower was Mr. Carter, and its chairman at that time was Mr. Carter's confidant, and later his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance.

At that time, Mr. Lance's mismanagement of the NBG got him and the bank into trouble. Agha Hasan Abedi, the Pakistani founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), known as the bank "which would bribe God," came to Mr. Lance's rescue making him a $100,000-a-year consultant. Abedi then declared: "we would never talk about exploiting his relationship with the president." Next, he introduced Mr. Lance to Saudi billionaire Gaith Pharaon, who fronted for BCCI and the Saudi royal family. In January 1978, Abedi paid off Mr. Lance's $3.5 million debt to the NBG, and Pharaon secretly gained control over the bank.

Mr. Anderson wrote: "Of course, the Saudis remained discretely silent... kept quiet about Carter's irregularities... [and] renegotiated the loan to Carter's advantage."

There is no evidence that the former president received direct payment from the Saudis. But "according to... the bank files, [it] renegotiated the repayment terms... savings... $60,000 for the Carter family... The President owned 62% of the business and therefore was the largest beneficiary." Pharaon later contributed generously to the former president's library and center.

When Mr. Lance introduced Mr. Carter to Abedi, the latter gave $500,000 to help the former president establish his center at Emory University. Later, Abedi contributed more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects. Even after BCCI was indicted — and convicted -— for drug money laundering, Mr. Carter accepted $1.5 million from Abedi, his "good friend."

A quick survey of the major contributors to the Carter Center reveals hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi and Gulf contributors. But it was BCCI that helped Mr. Carter established his center.

Then, here's another item from Front Page Mag by Jacob Laskin:

Bluster aside, Carter’s chief complaint seems to be that anyone who identifies with Israel, whether in the form of individual support or in a more organized capacity, is incapable of grappling honestly with the issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Carter is poorly placed to make this claim. If such connections alone are sufficient to discredit his critics, then by his own logic Carter is undeserving of a hearing. After all, the Carter Center, the combination research and activist project he founded at Emory University in 1982, has for years prospered from the largesse of assorted Arab financiers.

Especially lucrative have been Carter’s ties to Saudi Arabia. Before his death in 2005, King Fahd was a longtime contributor to the Carter Center and on more than one occasion contributed million-dollar donations. In 1993 alone, the king presented Carter with a gift of $7.6 million. And the king was not the only Saudi royal to commit funds to Carter’s cause. As of 2005, the king’s high-living nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center.

Oho, that Alwaleed bin Talal, the one who went the blame America route after 9-11, and attempted to bribe NYC mayor Giuliani as well. And Carter is taking money from him? Tsk tsk tsk.

Betsy's Page had this to say about Carter, and she sums it up well regarding the fallout of his bottom-of-the-barrel book:

One positive from Carter's despicable book is that he is now being exposed as the mediocrity many have always thought him to be. Prominent Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi are shunning him. I predict that Michael Moore will have to find another Democratic big wig to offer him seating at the 2008 Democratic convention. Jimmy Carter will no longer be a featured dignitary even in his own party.

Good. I'm glad to see that even Pelosi realizes the embarrassment he can cause the Dems if they stick around him any longer. He should be kept away from the DNC altogether.

See also this topic from Emet m'Tsiyon on Carter's hypocrisy, and also this article by Julia Gorin.

Labels: House of Saud, islam, political corruption, United States