Say what you want about Carter as a president, but he is one of America's best statesmen. ---------------- The Seeds Of a Rights Scandal In Iraq By Jimmy Carter Friday, May 14, 2004; Page A25 To ensure that additional human rights embarrassments will not befall the United States, we must examine well-known, high-level and broad-based U.S. policies that have lowered our nation's commitment to basic human rights. Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, many traumatized and fearful U.S. citizens accepted Washington's new approach with confidence that our leaders would continue to honor international agreements and human rights standards. But in many nations, defenders of human rights were the first to feel the consequences of these changes, and international humanitarian organizations began expressing deep concern to each other and to high-level U.S. military and government officials about the adverse impact of the new American policies, and to promulgate reports of actual abuses. Some of their recommendations were quite specific, calling for vigilant independent monitoring of U.S. detention facilities and strict enforcement of Geneva Convention guidelines. Others were more general, describing the impact of these policies on defenders of freedom and human rights around the world. These expressions of concern have been mostly ignored until recently, when photographs of prisoner abuse let Americans finally see some of the consequences of our government's policies in graphic, human terms. Some prominent concerns were: • Extended incarceration of arbitrarily detained men of Middle Eastern origin living in the United States -- deprived of access to lawyers or to their families, and never charged with a crime. • Civilians and soldiers arbitrarily detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without access to legal counsel or being charged with any crime. The secretary of defense announced that they could be held indefinitely even if tried and found to be innocent. • The secretary of defense's declaration, expressing official policy, that Geneva Convention restraints would not apply to interrogation of prisoners suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. • Persistent complaints from the International Committee of the Red Cross about prisoner abuse in several U.S. prisons in foreign countries. • Reports by respected news media outlets that some accused terrorists were being sent to Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other countries where torture was thought to be acceptable as a means of extracting information. These American decisions had an immediate global impact. In response to urgent requests from human rights defenders from many countries, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and I agreed that it would be helpful to hear directly from a representative group. After the high commissioner's tragic death in Iraq last August, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Bertrand Ramcharan to serve as my co-chair, and in November 2003 the Carter Center brought together leaders of human rights and democracy movements from 41 nations. We learned from these nonviolent activists that U.S. policies are giving license to abusive governments and even established democracies to stamp out legitimate dissent and reverse decades of progress toward freedom, with many leaders retreating from previous human rights commitments. Lawyers, professors, doctors and journalists told of being labeled as terrorists, often for merely criticizing a government policy or carrying out their daily work. Equally disturbing are reports that in some countries the U.S. government has pushed regressive counterterrorism laws, based on the USA Patriot Act, that undermine democratic principles and the rule of law. Some American policies are being challenged by Congress and the federal courts, but the reversal of such troubling policies is unlikely in countries where legislative and judicial checks and balances are not well developed. We decided to share the disturbing findings with the media and public officials. In addition to a one-hour roundtable discussion on CNN, participants from Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), the Carter Center, and defenders from Egypt, Kenya and Liberia went to Washington and met with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz; the undersecretary of state for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky; and legislative leaders. The group also participated in a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and met with editors of the New York Times and The Post. In each case, the adverse impact of new U.S. policies on the protection of freedom and human rights was described with specific proof and human experiences. These officials listened attentively and promised to consider ways to alleviate the problem. As subsequent events have revealed, there were no significant reforms at the highest levels of our government. In many countries, the leaders of human rights and democracy movements represent our best hope for a safer and more just world in which fewer people will succumb to extremism fueled by hatred and fear. These human rights defenders on the front lines of freedom are our real allies, and the United States must make long-term commitments to support -- not undermine -- them. In the interests of security and freedom, basic reforms are needed in the United States and elsewhere, including restrictions on governments' excessive surveillance powers; reassertion of the public's right to information; judicial and legislative review of detentions and other executive functions; and strict compliance with international standards of law and justice. The United States must regain its status as the champion of freedom and human rights. Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta. The center's current report on human rights defenders is available at www.cartercenter.org.
I will: he sucked as a president. What is a statesman? Someone who, now that he is out of office, can go around acting as if he has all the answers to the worlds problems?
statesman. n. 1. A man who is a leader in national or international affairs. 2. A male political leader regarded as a disinterested promoter of the public good. 3. A man who is a respected leader in a given field: “a mature statesman of American letters” ------------------------------- THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR 2002 The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Carter, for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development. During his presidency (1977-1981), Carter's mediation was a vital contribution to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, in itself a great enough achievement to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize. At a time when the cold war between East and West was still predominant, he placed renewed emphasis on the place of human rights in international politics. Through his Carter Center, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2002, Carter has since his presidency undertaken very extensive and persevering conflict resolution on several continents. He has shown outstanding commitment to human rights, and has served as an observer at countless elections all over the world. He has worked hard on many fronts to fight tropical diseases and to bring about growth and progress in developing countries. Carter has thus been active in several of the problem areas that have figured prominently in the over one hundred years of Peace Prize history. In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international co-operation based on international law, respect for human rights, and economic development. Oslo, 11 October 2002
If you don't understand what a statesman is, what Carter stands for or is speaking about, educate yourself, man.
Since we're on a tangent, I always felt that Carter sucked as a President because he didn't do enough (or earlier enough) WRT the hostages. Then, decades later, I read about Iran's gripe with the US; how Eisenhower and the CIA had their democratically elected leader overthrown (because he wanted to nationalize the BP oil fields). And we brought back the Shah, a tyrant. I can now understand how he would have had some difficulty rationalizing the deaths of Iranians if we had fully attacked them.
I understand this, and believe that propping up the Shah was a huge mistake for us. I don't know if we should have had a full scale invasion or not to get our hostages back, but I do wish that the attempted rescue hadn't gone so disasterously wrong before it even got started. Our support for the tyrant, the Shah, doesn't justify taking those folks hostage, and it was a sad ordeal. It's crazy to think that Iran might still be a democracy today if it wasn't for us. Now we have a fundamentalist regime in place there instead.
We didn't just 'prop up' or 'support' the Shah, we organized and funded an operation to militarily overthrow an elected leader to get the Shah's power back. Operation "Ajax". You don't think that justifies taking hostages? What would you feel is justified if another country organized and funded a coup against our President and put in his place a dictator who murders hundreds of thousands, merely to protect their bank accounts? I'm not saying it justifies it, but I don't know that it doesn't, either. What would you have done?
That was done years and years before the hostages were taken. Had hostages been taken right away, and were related to that overthrow, then yes it would have been justified. Waiting 2 decades and then taking American hostages who weren't involved in the overthrow was not justified. The islamists who revolted and overthrew the Shah weren't the leftovers from the democrartically elected Iranian leadership. They were instead people who had suffered under the Shah, while the U.S. propped him up. I understand the the U.S. help overthrow the a democratic govt. and then propped up the Shah after that. I do think overthrowing the Shah was justified. But they didn't need to take the U.S. hostages in order to accomplish that.
The hostages couldn't have been taken any earlier; the Shah was in control, and I mean control. This was their first opportunity, and they claim it was not only in revenge, but as they saw the US already trying to undermine their latest populist govenment, which records show we were.
I understand that. I hold the U.S. accountable for supporting the Shah. But their overthrow didn't hinge on the taking of those hostages. Success was already theirs. I think expelling all U.S. personell, and once the new govt. was set up taking diplomatic actions against the U.S. would have been the way to go.
No. The problem was in the fact that we left a long-time ally, the Shah, out to dry. The Shah kept things under control there, but Carter hated that he didn't have a republic and was not exactly perfect in regards to humans rights. So Carter let him be overthrown by a bunch of corrupt Shiite mafia dons and if you thought things were bad under the Shah (when Iran was prosperous, Westernized and civil), things are much worse under the Mullahs. Thousands have been butchered thanks to Jimmy Carter and his lack of support of the Shah. Thanks a lot, Jimmy.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a joke, plain and simple. Carter got the prize simply for mouthing off against Bush. link So Jimmy, don't pat yourself on the back too much there.
I know all about it. I also know that our CIA trained them. But the Mullahs founded something just as bad to do the same thing. So which would you have? An oppressive ally friendly to our aims or someone who would love to see us a smoking ruin? For that we have Jimmy Carter to thank. He may be a decent guy, but as a president, he was bumbling buffoon. I'd like to see everyone enjoy the same economic and personal freedoms I enjoy here, but the world is not perfect.
The point you're missing is that the original government, the one we destroyed to get the Shah back in power, was NOT an extremist, fundamentalist group, and there were NO Savak like death squads and torture camps. Their great evil deed was to nationalize their oil resources. Yes, the Thocratic, extremist regime that followed decades of US funded and supported torture, murder, and tyranny was almost as bad, but that is a natural consequence of living under one regime like that. ANd that, my friend, is entirely at our door. BTW, did you know that, in addition to the CIA, the Mssad also oversaw the operation of Savak? It is also directl correlated to our propping up of another murderous tyrant opposed to populist government next door, Saddam Hussein. As we did all across the planet, we were quite willing to help tyrants kill millions so long as our interests and pocket books were advanced. But they just hate us because they're jealous. Yep.
The problem was that we supported a tyrant and helped toss out a democracy. The shah was the tyrant who replaced a democracy. As a result people ended up supporting a fundamentalist regime rather than continue living under the tyrannical and inhumane rule of the Shah. Carter was right to stop support for the Shah. What's ashame is that any of our presidents supported him to begin with.
