When you set aside the might of the U.S. military, as the opposition knew Mr. Carter did and knows Mr. Obama will do, then you definitely are playing with a weak hand.

That’s an indiction of US foreign politics often implied but rarely heard explicitly from right wingers. It’s even half true. With their bellingerency the US have squandered much of the soft power they once had, they have diplomatically neutered themselves to an extent.

Obama’s proposition to extend the war in Afghanistan, possibly even more into Pakistan is not exactly promising in that regard.

Carter wanted to conserve energy, invest in new energy technologies. If we had done so, the US economy and the world in general would be in far better shape.

McCain and supporters think their playing Risk. But the people killed are real human being.

Zhu Bajie

Well, I fought in Viet Nam, and it was *NOT* about freedom, but vanity and the lust to dominate.

Zhu Bajie

Speaking as a real historian/archaeologist, history is what people really do, and it’s mostly “the follies and vices of mankind”, to quote another historian, Gibbon.

We did not shrink nor hide from these historic and fateful events. We took up the cause of freedom

Well, that all sounds nice. But what was the substance of actions taken? A disastrous invasion of Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11 & everything to do w. a neocon agenda involving settling scores w. Saddam. And now how would McCain define “not shrinking fr. history?” Staying in Iraq for 100 yrs if necessary so that our gamble isn’t lost.

the weak and feckless administration of Jimmy Carter

That “weak & feckless” administration negotiated a peace treaty bet. Israel & Egypt who only a few yrs before had fought an incredibly bloody & costly war. That weak & feckless administration’s peace treaty had held since 1979 when, in the interim there has been endless bloodshed bet. Israel & its other Arab neighbors like the Palestinians, Lebanon & Syria. If that’s “weak & feckless” I’d like to know what “strong & tenacious” is.

The 1979 treaty didn’t solve the entire Middle East conflict. It only brought peace with Egypt & did that extraordinarily successfully. So much for yr. grasp of Israeli-Arab history.