Carter Accuses Obama of Human Rights Abuses

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright June 26, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

                  Former President Jimmy Carter slapped President Barack Obama for human rights abuses, largely connected to fighting the war on terror.  Carter, the one-term 39th president [1977-81] now 88, lashed out at Barack for violating 10 of 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Adopted Dec. 10, 1948 by the fledgling United Nations in the ashes of WW II, the declaration is somewhat obsolete in a post-Sept. 11 era.  “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion on human rights,” insisted Carter, spewing more platitudes than when he told Americans as president to conserve more and do with less.  Known for his high-minded rhetoric, Carter forgets the days under his watch when the Prime Interest Rate hit 21% in the worst recession and inflation since the Weimer Republic.  Now he blasts Obama for not following an obsolete U.N. mandate.

            Since his landslide beating by the late President Ronald Reagan Nov. 4, 1980, Carter quietly retired to his Plains Georgia retreat, working at Emory University’s Carter Center, monitoring foreign elections, and writing various tomes on life and foreign affairs.  His 2007 book “Palestine:  Peace Not Apartheid” called Israel an “apartheid state” for its treatment of Palestinians, sparking outrage inside and outside Jewish circles.  When Sept. 11 blindsided the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities, the U.S. had to pivot away from its “nice guy” treatment, giving any foreign criminal habeus corpus or adhering to the post-WW II Geneva Convention regarding appropriate treatment of prisoners of war.  No matter what criticism by Carter and other peace activists levy at former President George W. Bush or now Obama, they’re missing how much safer the world is today from global terrorists.

            Former President Bill Clinton never really took the terrorist threat seriously, even after the original 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.  While former CIA Director George J. Tenet and FBI Director Louis B. Freeh declared “war” on Osama bin Laden in 1998 after bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, the U.S. National Security Agency was asleep at the switch.  Bin Laden’s reign of terror continued unabated until Bush mobilized the U.S. military Oct. 7, 2001 in Operation Enduring Freedom.  Carter hasn’t noticed that the U.S. has been on a war footing since Sept. 11, attempting to prevent another terror attack.  He complains about the terror detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but has no answer, as Obama found out, for what to do with dangerous terrorists plucked off the battlefield.  Carter also complains about unlawful predator drone strikes against terrorist targets.

            Less than five months before the next presidential election, Carter lashes out at Barack for violating a 64-year-old U.N. declaration.  “Instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends, Carter wrote June 24 in the New York Times.  Since Obama took office Jan. 20, 2009, there’s been 265 predator drone strikes in Pakistan, the exact spot in Abbotabad where Bin Laden was tracked down and killed May 1, 2011 by U.S. Navy Seals under Obama’s direct orders.  If Carter doesn’t believe the U.S. and world are safer without Bin Laden, then there’s no helping the 88-year-old former president.  Carter doesn’t accuse al-Qaeda of human rights abuses only his own country that’s trying to pick up the pieces after Sept. 11.  Obama hasn’t shirked his role on “human rights,” he’s relentlessly pursued Mideast criminal gangs.

              Carter’s new attack on Obama is no different from his outrageous claims about Israel being an “apartheid state.”  Jimmy knows that Israeli Arabs are voting members on the Knesset or Israeli parliament, while, simultaneously, Islamic extremists suicide bomb Israeli civilians.  As a 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Carter knows that Palestinians are officially at war with Israel.  Carter also knows that since Sept. 11 the U.S. has been at war with various terror groups plotting new terror attacks on the U.S. homeland.  None are more virulent and capable than al-Qaeda, still hiding out in the mountainous borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Whether Carter admits it or not, the U.S. has the blessings of the Pakistan’s Zardari government to go after terrorists, including what’s left of al-Qaeda and the Taliban

            Grandstanding for headlines, Carter no longer speaks with any authority on what constitutes human rights abuses.  He has no answer for how to keep the homeland safer or prosecute today’s war on terror.  Ranting about the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay or drone attacks doesn’t propose any fixes to the current system that, so far, has prevented another Sept. 11.  Accusing Bush and Obama of “unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining out electronic communications [eavesdropping],” Carter doesn’t get the job of U.S. National Security in a post-Sept. 11 era.  Whether or not Bush’s former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales go it right, the U.S. must engage in unprecedented efforts to protect the homeland from another Sept. 11.  Complaining about Guantanamo Bay, predator drone attacks or the Patriot Act, doesn’t make the U.S. any safer.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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