Carter: Misled Into War

Former President Carter has some things to say about the departure of The Administration from the moral code of decision making which has been the Presidential precedent until Bush took office:

In an interview with CNN, Carter addressed some of the comments made in his new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." In the book he says the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq using "false and distorted claims after 9/11."

Carter said the Bush administration spoke of mushroom clouds, weapons of mass destruction and the threat of thousands of Americans dying to garner support for the war. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

He was careful to say he didn't know whether intelligence was misinterpreted or purposely twisted, and Carter praised the attempts by his fellow Democrats in Congress to press efforts to look into the matter.

"If the investigation would go ahead and proceed, as Democrats have been trying to in the Senate now for more than 18 months, then we will know the circumstances under which the American people -- and I think an entire world -- was misled about what was going on in Iraq," he said.

Carter's thoughts fuel the necessary action of Harry Reid last week to shut down the Senate in order to insure full disclosure, investigation, and follow-through by Republican led committees which are investigating the reasons for the war; as well as the multitudinous corrosions of moral values in the White House led conservative government.

But he also uses a key word: misled. We must realize how terrible our error in leadership judgement has been. We have been misled, in every meaning of the word. We have been lied to, sure, of course. But we have also been taken, in good faith, by our leadership into a cultural realm of chaos, conflicting messages, and a corrupt moral code. We've been misled in the highest levels of societal need- the cultural values which keep our society open and free.