James Meikle
London Guardian
June 25, 2012
The former president Jimmy Carter has declared that US drone strikes and targeted assassinations abroad have seen the country violating human rights in a way that “abets our enemies and alienates our friends”.
In a stinging attack on US foreign policy in the New York Times, Carter says America is “abandoning its role as a champion of human rights” and calls on Washington to “reverse course and regain moral leadership”.
Revelations that top US officials are targeting people, including their own citizens, abroad are “only the most recent disturbing proof” of how far such violations have extended, he says in a furious critique of the administrations of George Bush and Barack Obama.
At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the US should be strengthening, not weakening “basic rules of law and principles of justice”, Carter says in the paper on Monday. His criticisms, just months before Obama hopes to regain the White House in November’s presidential election, lambast the use of drones and detention.
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