Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has slammed American assassination drone strikes in other countries, saying that killing civilians in such attacks would in fact nurture terrorism.
“I personally think we do more harm than good by having our drones attack some potential terrorists who have not been tried or proven that they are guilty,” Carter said in an interview with Russia Today.
“But in the meantime, the drone attacks also kill women and children, sometimes in weddings … so this is the kind of thing we should correct,” he added.
Carter, who served as U.S. president from 1976 to 1980, also criticized incumbent American policy makers for violating the country’s “long-standing policy” of “preserving the privacy of U.S. citizens.”
“We now pass laws that permit eavesdropping on private phone calls and private communication,” he noted, explaining that in the past, in order to do that, the government had to obtain a court ruling that proved the nation’s national security was at risk, “which was very rare, but now it’s done all over America”.
“We need to back off [and] restore basic human rights as spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” the former U.S. president underlined.
He concluded by saying that there are 30 paragraphs in the UDHR, “and at present time, my country, the U.S., is violating 10 out of the 30.” The News
The United Nations has identified the U.S. as the world’s number one user of “targeted killings” largely due to its drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In 2008, after Barack Obama won the presidency in the U.S., the drone strikes escalated and soon began occurring almost weekly, later nearly daily, and so became a permanent feature of life for those living in the tribal borderlands of northern Pakistan.
The CIA and the U.S. military use drones to target and kill those Washington describes as “suspected militants” in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya.
Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich said President Obama is bypassing Congress by authorizing drone strikes overseas. Daily Caller
A report on the secret drone war in Pakistan says the attacks have killed far more civilians than acknowledged, traumatized a nation and undermined international law. In “Living Under Drones,” researchers conclude the drone strikes “terrorize men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities.” Democracy Now
“The number of ‘high-level’ militants killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low — estimated at just 2% [of deaths]”, says the report
According to revised military stats revealed on December 6, the U.S. launched 447 drone attacks in Afghanistan this year. That makes Afghanistan, not Pakistan or Yemen, the epicenter of U.S. drone attacks, The Wired reports
See there is some morality left in one ex US president but none since him. Of course if anybody cared about him someone might listen.
I HIGHLY APPRECIATE GOOD SERVICES BY JIMMY CARTER FOR PEACE AND SECURITY IN THE WORLD .