Jimmy Carter Wants to Ease Sanctions on Terror Groups, ARB Benghazi Chair Pickering on Board Too

Former President Jimmy Carter is trying to convince the US government to ease up the sanctions on terrorists groups so peace groups are able to work with them. Carter and other do-gooders have petitioned Secretary of State John Kerry to exempt peace organizations from rules that “make it a crime to offer negotiation training and humanitarian law classes to terror groups.”

“The Secretary of State can, and should, exempt peacebuilding activities from this counterproductive application of the law,” says the petition. “Doing so would open the door for professional peacebuilders to fully engage in helping to end armed conflicts and suffering around the world, while making the U.S. safer.”

The Charity and Security Network is spearheading the petition. “The organization told The Hill that in the past efforts to build bridges with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and leftist guerrillas in Colombia have all been stymied.” WAIT, WHAT? Where’s the problem?

Signers of the petition include “more than two dozen groups and former officials, including Mercy Corps; Andrew Natsios, former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development under President George W. Bush; retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering; [<----ARB REPORT CHAIR FOR BENGHAZI] and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department from 2009-2011.”

Apparently a UK report in 2011 reported that “the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have created bureaucratic red tape and fostered an atmosphere of “fear” and “confusion” that has endangered the lives of aid workers and made it impossible for them to work in many of the world’s hot spots.

I don’t even know what to say to this idiocy. What sort of classes would be of interest to terror groups? I am not perceiving a high level of demand for classes on “negotiation training and humanitarian law” since we are talking about groups who chop people’s heads off, hide behind women and children and target innocent civilians. These “peacebuilders” didn’t do much of a job before 9/11, without the restrictions so it doesn’t seem likely their future success is being curtailed on account of the sanctions we have now against murderous terrorist groups.