Next president should focus on human rights, Carter says

MACON, Ga. (ABP)—President Jimmy Carter called upon the next president, whoever he is, to focus on restoring human rights as a primary objective in American foreign policy.

“Beginning in January, we need to set an unblemished example for the rest of the world to follow,” he said.

Carter spoke during the Mercer University President’s Lecture Series, on the Georgia Baptist school’s Macon campus.

Recounting a question recently posed to him by the British newspaper The Guardian, Carter said he was asked what the next president could do in his first 100 days in office to restore the United States’ standing abroad. Carter responded that the next administration could restore America’s standing in just 10 minutes.

“I outlined the inaugural address that could be given this coming January,” Carter said of his conversation with the reporter, saying the next president should declare: “‘While I am president, there will never be another person tortured (in U.S. custody). The United States will regain its position as the preeminent champion of human rights. We will abandon our policy of preemptive war. We will never attack another nation again unless our own security is threatened. That’s been our policy since George Washington—until six years ago.

“‘America will be at the forefront of combating global warming, and will lead in meeting all challenges to the world’s environment. Our tax policy will be designed to help the poor and working families, and not the few richest Americans.

“‘We will restore our recent rejection of every nuclear-arms-control agreement that has been negotiated since the time of Dwight Eisenhower. At this time, all those are in the waste can. And we will reduce our nuclear arsenal to zero. We will rebuild the Jefferson-ian wall between church and state,’” Carter said.

Two major Carter Center initiatives—establishment of a world criminal court and a U.N. high council on human rights—have been resisted by the United States, particularly since Sept. 11, 2001.

“Since then, the U.S. government has abandoned its role as a champion of human rights and has condoned or perpetrated terrible abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison,” Carter lamented.

“Our government has sent prisoners secretly to other nations where they knew they could be tortured. They denied the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, which were designed to help protect American prisoners. And we have severely restricted personal privacy, which was a time-honored civil liberty in their own country.”