Jimmy Carter: Shitbird Score 40

Ethical & Moral Breakdown:
Carter remains the least bad name on this list — Camp David, human rights as actual policy, the Panama Canal returned, genuine discomfort with the imperial playbook. But the halo has to come off, because the previous version of this page gave him a pass on the deadliest thing that happened on his watch.

The East Timor occupation's most lethal phase — the encirclement-and-starvation campaigns and engineered famine of 1977–79 — occurred squarely during Carter's term. And the human rights president didn't cut off Jakarta: his administration increased military assistance and greenlit new arms deliveries, including the aircraft used in the encirclement campaigns, while tens of thousands of Timorese starved in resettlement camps. That is material support during an atrocity, and it is charged at the enabling tier. He also launched Operation Cyclone, arming the Afghan mujahideen with consequences that echo to this day, and backed the Shah's repression until the house burned down.

Key Policies & Their Toll:

• East Timor famine phase (1977–79) — ~80,000 famine deaths during continued and increased U.S. arms flow; enabling tier (50%): ~40,000 (new entry — previously misassigned entirely to Ford)
• Operation Cyclone (1979) — armed the mujahideen; long-term blowback scored as ethics, not speculative bodies
• Support for the Shah of Iran — backed repression until the regime collapsed
• Iran Hostage Crisis mismanagement — 444 days, failed rescue

Toll Assessment:

• Avoidable Deaths: ~45,000
• Unavoidable Deaths: ~10,000

Shitbird Score Breakdown:

• Base Score (avoidable death toll): 33
• Ethics Penalty: +7 (East Timor arms flow, Afghan blowback seeds, Iran support)
• Final Shitbird Score: 40

The bar for decency in this office is subterranean. Carter dug upward — while quietly shipping the shovels to Jakarta.