[GPSCC-chat] Jimmy Carter Gets It

[Brian Good]

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

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights. . . . 
Our nation’s violation of human rights . . . .  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. . . .


With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in
 the world”. . . .Our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly 
violating at least 10 of the 
declaration’s 30 articles, including the 
prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading 
treatment or 
punishment”. . . .        
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. . . . 

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. 


As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and
 regain 
moral leadership according to international human rights norms 
that we had officially 
adopted as our own and cherished throughout the 
years.         		 	   		  
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