Carter Not Afraid To Speak The Truth

Last week Bush tried again to tell us that his administration does not torture prisoners. He said this even though there were memos discovered where his administration specifically gave the CIA permission to use torture techniques. Sometimes I think he's so used to lying that he no longer knows how to tell the truth.

But ex-President Jimmy Carter doesn't have a problem with the truth. In a CNN interview on Wednesday, Carter was asked if he thought the US tortured prisoners. There was no hedging or waffling in his answer.

Carter said, "I don't think it. I know it. Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

When Carter was reminded that Bush said his administration doesn't torture people, Carter replied, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated."

But Bush wasn't the only person Carter criticized. He also discussed the rabid nature of the new crop of Republican presidential hopefuls. He said, "They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity -- things of that kind. They're competing with each other to appeal to the ultra-right-wing, war-mongering element in our country, which I think is the minority of our total population."

Carter also took some Democrats to task, saying he was disappointed that Obama and Clinton would not pledge to get the American troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term. He said, "I disagree with their basic premise that we'll still be there; I think the American people want out."

After all the lying Republicans and spineless Democrats of the last few years, it's refreshing to see someone who's not afraid of the truth. Thank goodness for Jimmy Carter.