A Cruel and Unusual Record
By JIMMY CARTER
Published: June 24, 2012, The New York Times
THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
Revelations
that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad,
including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof
of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This
development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and 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.
While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of
human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the
past. 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.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no
longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established
equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal
protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or
forced exile...
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