Carter maintains clueless stance on human rights
By LUKE BOGGS ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTIPATION
Luke Boggs of Alpharetta is a corporate speechwriter.
This week, former President Jimmy Carter claimed that in the wake of Sept. 11, an assault on civil liberties at home had given the green light to a rash of human rights abuses abroad.
Well, to borrow from Ronald Reagan, there he goes again, laying the world's troubles at Uncle Sam's feet.
Not only has there been no loss of civil liberties at home, but the war on terror is advancing, not injuring, the cause of human rights abroad.
Joining the American Civil Liberties Union chorus, Carter complains about the incarceration of foreign terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Unfortunately, we are at war. And while I don't know what we do with the terrorists long term, I am certain that reading them their Miranda rights and treating them like homegrown gangsters would be a big mistake. That was the way the Clinton administration dealt with terrorists -- including the first crew that attacked the World Trade Center -- and it didn't work very well.
On Carter's watch, the Soviet empire reached its zenith. It was easily freedom's darkest hour since the worst days of World War II.
With President Bush at the helm, America is serious about protecting its citizens against terrorism at home, and the United States and our allies have deposed two of the world's most brutal regimes and liberated millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For all Carter's talk about human rights, how many people were liberated from oppression during his presidency? How many gulags were closed? Exactly zero.
Carter may not be a bad man, but he was a bad president. We would follow his advice today at grave peril to both America and the global cause of human rights.
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