IRVINE, CA--"Although Jimmy Carter's efforts to convince Egypt to recognize Israel's right to exist was a genuine achievement, he has otherwise continually betrayed the principle on which peace depends," said a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
      The principle Mr. Carter has betrayed, said Andrew Bernstein, also a philosophy professor at Pace University in New York, is "the sanctity of individual rights." Dr. Bernstein noted, "For many years Carter, espousing collectivist ideals, has traipsed the globe, treating dictators and their victims with equal 'respect.'" This image of the great peace arbiter, selflessly above the fray, trying to resolve "differences," is apparently what the Nobel Committee finds so admirable. But, as Dr. Bernstein pointed out, giving a "hearing" to bloodthirsty communist dictators, like Castro of Cuba and Kim Jung Il of North Korea, who trample on the rights of their citizens and those of other nations, "has never achieved peace. It can only achieve the same result as a compromise between food and poison--death."
      One of the reasons Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week was that he brokered North Korea's 1994 agreement to terminate its nuclear weapons program. This week, North Korea boldly announced it still has a nuclear weapons program--implying that it now possesses nuclear weapons. "Could anything reveal more clearly the deadly consequences of appeasing dictators while ignoring individual rights?" asked Dr. Bernstein.
      "A Nobel Peace Prize that has previously gone to such killers as Le Duc Tho and Yasser Arafat is not an honor--and Mr. Carter should feel ashamed for winning it."

ARI senior writer Andrew Bernstein is available for interviews on this topic.