Jimmy Carter Is Spot on: "The USA is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights".

[kpete]

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
By JIMMY CARTER
Published: June 24, 2012


Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.



Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.



At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.






http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html?_r=1

[Bonobo]

1. The GREAT LIE that tied Carter to "malaise" and "ineffectual" was the start of the party's downfall

We allowed the greatest champion of the traditional Democratic principals in my lifetime to be branded with the above catch phrases.

This caused the Dem party to become the party of business and eschew the values at our core.

The process continues to accelerate.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

19. +1000

[Lionessa]

2. President Carter, the USA HAS BEEN abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights,...

ever since you left office. You were our last great Democratic president, those since have been merely BlueDogs.

[valerief]

3. Wow, imagine that. The biggest warmonger is losing its human rights status.

[Initech]

4. Why give people these things called "rights" when there's profit to be had!

[malthaussen]

5. Sorry, James, your verb is off

and your definition inaccurate. The US has only "championed" human rights when and where we have found it a convenient excuse for projecting our power. Where it has been in our interest to ignore human rights, we have ignored them. Within our country, as well as without.

-- Mal

[BlueDemKev]

6. I hate to say it Jimmy, but...

...that occured the day you left office.

[Odin2005]

7. I thought the same thing.

[L0oniX]

8. This fucked up corporate government is also abandoning the rights of US citizens.

So uhm ...do you think they will give a shit about other countries more than our own? ...Oh stupid me ...they do care about other countries more than our own ...when it comes to having fucking military bases and missile launchers in their countries.

[cbrer]

9. Correction: HAS abandoned...

It's been a while since we goose stepped into Iraq. And to this day continue inflicting the world with American military might.

[JVS]

10. FYI

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service

Mail Message
At Mon Jun 25, 2012, 01:47 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

Jimmy Carter Is Spot on: "The USA is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002854133

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

This post is a sneaky and indirect way of attacking President Obama. With the general election season started, no attacks on Obama are to be tolerated. If you've got anything bad to say about Obama you better wait until November 7th, or you will be considered a traitor to the Democratic party and perceived to be aiding and abetting Romney and the repukes. Please hide.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Jun 25, 2012, 01:51 PM, and the Jury voted 0-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: LOL.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Posting an article by Jimmy Carter is a TOS violation? Whoever complained about this should be given a 30 day tombstone.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: i don't see where it singles out obama.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[hobbit709]

11. WTF?

[morningfog]

13. That is hilarious. There are some seriously thin skinned folks here.

Alerters need to be made public.

[naaman fletcher]

14. I agree with Juror #2.

Perhaps the Mod's should add a new category when complaining about a post: "I'm butt hurt".

The other thing I hate is when two people have been going back and forth insulting each other for 10 posts, and then one gets the smack-down and hits the alert button because they lost the pissing match. One of my rules of thumb when on jury duty is that if you entered into the pissing match, you have no right to complain when you lose.

[Bonobo]

18. I'd like to point out the language in that alert and how fascistic it sounds.

This post is a sneaky and indirect way of attacking President Obama. With the general election season started, no attacks on Obama are to be tolerated. If you've got anything bad to say about Obama you better wait until November 7th, or you will be considered a traitor to the Democratic party and perceived to be aiding and abetting Romney and the repukes.

[Blecht]

21. All that's missing

All that's missing is a reference to a Dolchstoss.

[bullwinkle428]

23. I was going to make a snarky and sarcastic post about

how Jimmy Carter is nothing more than a tool of Free Republic these days, but apparently, someone already beat me to the punch, minus the snark and sarcasm, of course!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Kinda like saying the KKK is abandoning it's role as the Champion of Integration.

[HiPointDem]

15. kr

[Kolesar]

16. If we could have bombed a hundred drone strikes instead of invading Afghanistan

...we would have been better off than what happened in the Bush war.
----
I have seen citations of "breeding more terrorists" after a drone strike, but I never see more than a few tentative sentences and no material showing the extent to which exists. Here are a few tentative sentences:

Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

[azurnoir]

17. we did what??????

really, we were the champion of Human Rights?

I think during the cold war we billed ourselves as the champion of world freedom, especially in places like Vietnam and Cambodia, but all that ended with the cold war, so we had to find a new enemy, so we did and this time it's one that the average American will not be as likely to see as their counterpart, as the American public came to view the Soviet public, nope no seeing them as us this time, make really foreign, seen as primitive, and make sure that no matter how horrific what we may do them is, the public sees it as either their desire (martyrdom) or not as bad as what else may happen to them, see we can kill little kids and help them too

[malaise]

20. Is

Plueeeeeeeeez!! He means was.

[nanabugg]

22. President Carter was correct when he pushed this in the campaign against Reagan

and he is correct now. Human rights for the GOP is only a tool for corporate economic policy against other nations. Otherwise, they don't give a damn. Sadly, President Obama is caught in the trap of "strong on US security" and "human rights."