ambienttraffic

jimmy carter is running for what?

We rented a documentary on Jimmy Carter that was part of PBS's American Experience series. It was completely fascinating. It's a period of history that I had absolutely no clue about. I was a wee tyke during Carter's administration, so I was oblivious to everything that was going on. But I've never really discussed the issues of the period with anyone. It was probably considered too "contemporary" to discuss in any history classes I had taken, yet so much of what happened during Carter's administration is directly affecting what's going on today.

For instance, the legacy of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel set the tone for the next decade or so of trying to achieve peace in the Middle East (although that seems to have gone completely out the window). And the whole incident in Iran, when a group of students kidnapped about 50 Americans and held them hostage for more than a year, it was seen as a major "terrorist threat". Terrorism has much deeper roots than many of us realize - we all tend to think back to September 11th as "the event" that brought us to our current attitudes.

We need to analyze our history more thoroughly and learn from our mistakes. It seems to me that we keep doing the wrong things over and over again.

I'd like to know what Carter thinks of the prisoners that are being held in Guantanamo Bay, who have no access to legal representation and are quite possibly being tortured...as a champion of human rights, what does he think of our current administration?