*This is not the country that I once knew*: Jimmy Carter

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Sun, 20 Nov 2005 05:46:39 -0800

*This is not the country that I once knew*: Jimmy Carter

 

 

 

 

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1646666,00.html

 

*This is not the country that I once knew*

 

Former President Jimmy Carter believes that a warring America is

abandoning its fundamental values

 

*Sunday November 20, 2005

The Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk>*

 

In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of

radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles

espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

 

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and

social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

 

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with

truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with

respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

 

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from

the restraints of international organisations and have disavowed

long-standing global agreements, including agreements on nuclear arms,

control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

 

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority

unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy

of 'pre-emptive war', an unabridged right to attack other nations

unilaterally to change an unsavoury regime or for other purposes. When

there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as

international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve

disputes.

 

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by US leaders to

exert American imperial dominance throughout the world. These

revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that

our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be

internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and

America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our

declaration of 'you are either with us or against us' has replaced the

forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests,

including the threat of terrorism.

 

Another disturbing realisation is that, unlike during other times of

national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively

on the heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the

quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any

sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimise public

awareness of casualties.

 

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we

now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under

some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

 

Of even greater concern is that the US has repudiated the Geneva accords

and supported the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo,

and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called

extraordinary rendition programme. It is embarrassing to see the

President and Vice President insisting that the CIA should be free to

perpetrate 'cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment' on

people in US custody.

 

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their

further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of

others) to retain our arsenals, expand them and, therefore, abrogate or

derogate almost all nuclear arms-control agreements negotiated during

the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear

proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of 'first use'

of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations and is contemplating the

previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

 

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of

government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and

other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought

continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal

condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

 

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented

favours to the rich, while neglecting America's working families.

Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year

since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among

industrialised nations).

 

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of

worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly

intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

 

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving

champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the

focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to

international security and to enhance the quality of our common

environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance

to people in need.

 

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our

country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common

commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values

that we have promoted during the last 230 years.

 

*·* Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. His latest

book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, is published this

month by Simon & Schuster.

 

*·* This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

 

 

 

 

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