Jimmy Carter's dilapidated house
No, not the ones he builds under the banner of charity, but the one he left behind in 1980, its facade tarnished and weakened, especially in the eyes of its enemies.My own dear sweet Mum has for many years defended the Carter administration, and the centerpiece of his achievement in her eyes is that Carter "Kept us out of a war". One doesn't choose to debate one's own mother on such a touchy subject, but I keep wondering: When exactly does a war start? It would seem to me that if a nation's embassy employees are held hostage by a newly-installed and hostile regime, that an act of war has already been committed. Can a president simply not respond and thus be thought to have "kept us out" of a war?
Wasn't the first act of war the taking of those hostages?
What if we had pulled a Clinton on 9/11, and simply vowed to "Track down the perpetrators and bring them to justice", and done nothing further? If Bush had not sent our troops to Afghanistan and unseated the Taliban, would he have been credited with "Keeping us out of a war"?
Number one, I doubt it. Number two, staying out of a war and failing to engage in an existing one are two different things. It's hard to see how holding hostage another country's embassy employees is in any sense NOT an act of war, but the desire for "Peace" can trump all rational response, as we have seen in many, many axes of appeasement, both past and current.
posted by ET @ 1:56 PM
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