Former President Jimmy Carter has joined civil libertarians in denouncing President Barack Obama for his “widespread abuse of human rights” by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists. Obama has continued the drones strikes despite the public demand of Pakistan and other countries that he stop the attacks on sovereign territory. While the United States would never tolerate such attacks on our soil and would treat them as an act of war, Obama officials have said that the attacks will continue so long as it views them to be in our national interest. Carter also denounced Obama’s continued use of Guantanamo Bay, his continuation of abusive surveillance programs, denial of privacy protections of citizens and other violations.
While avoiding the direct mention of Obama’s name as opposed to referring to his Administration, Carter cited the clear violations of 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.” He noted that we are not only violating international law but that “[i]nstead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.”
Since January 2009, we have carried out an estimated 265 drone strikes in Pakistan alone — killing at least 1,488 people (1,343 of them considered militants).
The United States now routinely commits acts that would be deemed acts of war against other nations. For example, consider the recently reported computer virus unleashed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program reportedly caused explosions at a critical plant and damaged the entire program. The use of Stuxnet and later Flame has been heralded as a great success — even the later now appears to have spread to other nations causing disruptions. The use of “cyber missiles” differs little in impact from a bombing raid or an assassination on foreign territory. In this case it caused an explosion — a classic form of sabotage. Imagine Iran sabotaging a U.S. nuclear plant. Not only is the use of these virus an obvious act of aggression, it has denied the U.S. the moral authority to object to current attacks by China and North Korea. We have started a cyber war. Just as with our torture program, our objections to the conduct of nations like China is viewed as blatant hypocrisy abroad.
Carter’s public condemnation highlights the widening gap between the Administration and civil libertarians — some of whom are unwilling to vote for a president who has committed such violations as well as publicly refused to allow CIA employees to be prosecuted for torture (let alone Bush officials). The current presidential race presents the greatest ethical challenge for civil libertarians in decades with good people falling on both sides of this ongoing debate.
Source: ABC
Cant get my comments on the Vance v. Rumsfeld case posted
you would think there is a wiretap on my computer….Professor
you comments on this important case please??
amityfessenden,
Love your moniker, and your post. Don’t know anything about what has happened after 1900. ?????
School was deficient, and my interest was solely on my life—-although a brief period of ACLU and McCarthy interest and our war in Korea did awaken me at 14.
Appreciate therefore your defense of Carter. Seemingly the only honorable one we have had since his time. But charismatic Charlie he was not. Why plain speech is trumped by garbage has always amazed me.
Hope to see more.
Swarthmore Mom,
Nice to hear from you. My lighthouse in the darkness.
I will naturally bow to your assessment. Money has (always?) decided before, with a big help from the Sct
to bushjr. “There are other issues.”, you say. Yes, and am aware of some of yours.
But being the eternal pessimist, I think that a majority will say: “To hell with the others, I got mine and want to keep it. And I know who supports that.”
Speaking of that, are they doing any polls on how folks ARE reasoning.
That it was up for re-affirmation is news. Would not have thought it possible in a new suit.
There is a tendency in our analysis to put all the corruption into one basket, the president, the administration, congress, or the courts.
Another hypothesis sees group dynamics calling the shots at a higher level than the offices in the three branches of government.
The book Private Empire lays the control at the level of very big money international corporations involved in oil and munitions (“I am not an American company.”).
The government serves as the tool for extracting the wealth of the 99%, then transferring it to the 1%, which is why there is no longer any traditional American humane sentiment:
(Carter Editorial, NYT). Someone has to say these things because not saying them exacerbates the problems.
Carter never gave voters the warm and fuzzy “Morning in America” feeling voters seem to be looking for. He is a hard task master and very prickly and short in person. But he has always demonstrated rock solid values, principles and character. I remember him lugging his own garment bag and turning the thermostat down in the WH.He did away with the absurd WH livery that Nixon invented for non-military door keepers, etc.. People laughed at him, but I didn’t. Carter lost re-election due to massive (18%) inflation and other economic problems, which had no control over (see his absurd wage and price control attempts), as well as some dirty tricks by Reagan’s people on the timing of the Iran hostage release.
Look at Carter’s career post presidency and contrast it with any other ex-president in US history. Unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office, Carter earned his Nobel Peace Prize.
I read Carter’s Op-Ed piece in the NYT and agree 100%. I hate voting for Obama, but the prospect of Mitt is terrifying. What a dilemma. However, I feel forced to vote for Obama despite his abyssmal record if only to prevent Mitt from appointing yet another rightwing hardliner to the SupCt. Ginsburg will not remain on the court for another 4 years I suspect. I doubt Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy will resign unless there are health issues I don’t know about. Roberts and Alito are both young and healthy. I wish we could get Thomas kicked off for conflicts of interest re his idiotic wife, but that will never happen.
.
Let’s see if Obama lives up to the standards you have stated and turns down the superpac money……. Then we will know which gutter he lies in…..
idealist, It is up to the SUPERPACS, and it is even more so after the re-affirmation of the Citizens United decision yesterday in another 5-4 ruling. Kennedy seems to side with the liberals on matters like immigration but when it comes to the rights of corporations he is firmly on Robert’s side.. At least Obama does not believe that corporations are people as his opponent does. I think the election tilts toward Romney as his SUPERPACs are raising more. I don’t think Planned Parenthood can compete with the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove when it comes to money. There are other issues.
Maybe all that’s left to hope for is our quick demise—-all of us. Many of the comments here suggest such an outcome.
CARTER blames the public
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“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.”
Otteray Scribe exculpates Obama
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“We have a choice between a man with soaring rhetoric but who turns a blind eye to crimes against humanity..”
NB It could be a misunderstanding of what turning a blind eye means as to Obama being accouuntable for ordering drone strikes. Clarification desired.
Let us not be distracted and debate the messenger, but the message he carries.
Will civil libertarians have a candidate to express their will in voting for. Neither of these two will do.
Will civil liberties seriously influence this election.
NO.
Can hardly see either of them playing this card, not anyone else doing so effectively—in spite of Carter’s try.
Who do you choose: the devil you know; or the ephemeral “maybe I do and maybe I don’t” promises of ones who’s intents are clear.
So it is now up to politics. Not civil liberties or human rights.
The only rights we support are: “I got my rights”.
Wow….. I sit til the cores get this news……
OS:
“While it is true he is of African descent, his cultural and social upbringing is about as far from the experience of the average African-American citizen as you can get.”
YEP!!!
A lot of people don’t understand that,its not a bad thing but there is much diversity in the African American community and you also have to understand he grew up with totally different Family visuals than most A,As.
See, there you go again, blaming Obama. Who is this Carter guy anyway. Just some loser who stumbled in. Yeah, Fox tells me he’s a loser, not a real murkin. We’ll shoot any goddam foreigners we want to, and bad murkins too, wherever we feel like it. Get over it Carter-lover.
Hey, Plato. Getting your “news” from Fox News, I see. Obama has many faults, but being an “ultra-leftist” is not one of them. In some ways he’s to the right of Reagan. As for “worst president,” how about the man who started so much of this mess, namely Georgie W.
While some, like Otteray Scribe “have been struggling to figure out just where Barack Obama is coming from,” those of us who understand that the background of a person makes the person what he or she is, know that Obama is a far Leftist, with all the standard beliefs, policies, and practices of a Leftist. Thus, as an ultra-Leftist, Obama long-term goals are to tax the middle class out of existence; eliminate freedom of speech; advance the cause of terrorism worldwide; take away guns from the middle class; and so on.
As for Jimmy Carter, he should be delighted that Obama has duplicated Carter’s act of turning over Iran to the Islamic Terrorists by turning over Egypt to the Islamic Terrorists. In many ways, Obama has bested Carter and has emerged as the worst president in the history of the United States. Carter was at least formerly known for holding that title, but now as a result of Obama seizing that crown, Carter will be forgotten, only to be mentioned in passing as a joke, like Millard Fillmore.
However, I have great hope for Obama. I believe that in his second term, he will plunge the US into the total abyss, becoming not just merely the worst president in US history, but ranking among the most vilified persons in history.
The MIC should be replaced with the Global Energy Initiative, feeding people sustainably and creation of sustainable energy instead of war. Then all human rights would be respected and humans could advance.
We still need detectives and investigations to track real terrorists, but we don’t need a standing army to deal with them.
We need to track loose nuclear material, things like that. We do not need a ground war anywhere, they only create more bad will and blow back.
GOOD. You go Jimmah’.
Well done.
While President Carter correctly for the most part I believe asserts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights properly in applying this to GTMO and other abuses by the administration, I am curious if he considered fully Article 30 which reads…
* Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
A good argument can be made that Militants in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas, or whatever the correct term is for this, are without question violating the terms of Article 30. So if that is to be accepted as being the case would not President Obama have the ability under this caveat to prosecute military action against these militants; even if irrespective of Pakistan’s protests to the matter.
Much of this lies in Pakistan’s lack of ability, whether this is actual or merely a great omission of effort, to control its problems within its border. To a certain degree any nation that allows lawlessless to continue unabated and this spreads out beyond their international borders cannot realistically expect that another nation won’t at least hold them accountable for the actions of their citizens and at worse will instigate a war against them. It is a matter of self preservation.
Some would argue that if the US and other countries decided tomorrow to stop the drone and other expeditions into other nations for the purpose of attack tomorrow would the militants have an sudden epiphany that the time has come to say farewell to arms and go about being responsible citizens? That is that their oppressors are gone and they can once again return to normal. Regrettably I don’t see this happening in many of these areas. I see rather the opposite as being more likely the case in the short term at least.
Another possibility is that if the US abandoned its adventure in Pakistan that the warlord feudalism would be rather benign and keep to itself. Again, aside from the oppressed people that live in this type of environment, I would worry that others might pump money and support to this group of people to recruit them as proxies to fight other conflicts with especially the West. Just like we did in the 80’s against the Soviets.
But in doing so it is without question we are losing the moral ground as our Professor mentions. I personally also agree that you have to take the moral and legal ground however painful it might be. But consider this. How well does morality protect you when your enemy is now at the gate. And what would it matter if you were the greatest beacon for freedom and rights in the world when you enemy has defeated you and extinguished the light of your lamp.
And when we have many other nations that want us to address the boogymen of the world and defer 99% of the cost and pain to us because they lack the backbone to do so themselves, it creates a difficult situation. Not one that is easy for any sitting president or world leader.
Certainly it would be best for all of humanity to bid a farewell to arms and embrace instead the notion that we are really all we got in this universe as so far we have discovered. But it is clear that I at least will not live long enough to experience this reunion of harmony. So I suppose it would only stand to reason we all should endeavor to make it better for those who will be born later while not allowing forces of evil to compromise our endeavors.
I see the ethical conflict a little differently. We are comparing the proven acts of one individual with the campaign rhetoric (and associated blather surrounding it) of another. As 2008 should have proved, campaign rhetoric–no matter how beautiful–and a dollar will get you a ride on a suburban bus. One guy has betrayed those who care about civil liberties, the other is a cipher about whom we may be “scared to death”t. Reality vs, at most, possibility. You don’t convict someone for war crimes they might commit but for those they have committed.
I vehemently oppose drone strikes… but this person named Jimmy Carter blasting “widespread abuses of human rights” — is he related to the Jimmy Carter who called the Shah of Iran his favorite world leader, but literally helped murder Oscar Romero, and backed Pol Pot?
For the past three years I have been struggling to figure out just where Barack Obama is coming from. While it is true he is of African descent, his cultural and social upbringing is about as far from the experience of the average African-American citizen as you can get. I suspect that is part of what is confusing about him. The only thing he has in common with most Americans of color is the color of his skin. There the commonality ends. Can one imagine a Fredrick Douglas or Martin Luther King, Jr. making the same policy decisions as the current occupant of the White House?
I agree about the ethical dilemma the fall elections pose. Since I live in a solid red state, it will probably not matter whether I vote or not. However, I cannot see voting for Mitt Romney because, frankly, he scares me to death. We have a choice between a man with soaring rhetoric but who turns a blind eye to crimes against humanity, and a man who does not care about anything but he and his friends getting more and more obscenely rich. I guess I will probably have to go with the inspiring speaker over the mannikin in an Armani suit.
Absolutely loved President Carter’s article.
But I disagree with your statement that the “current presidential race presents the greatest ethical challenge for civil libertarians in decades.” There is no ethical challenge. A civil libertarian, in my opinion, can’t vote for either of these two men (Obama and Romney). What this presidential race does offer, unfortunately, is one of the bleakest outlooks for civil libertarians in recent memory.