In an OP-ED piece in the New York Times[1] former president Jimmy Carter decried the loss of moral leadership by the United States.
“THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”
In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[2] with the strong support of the United States. It sent the world a strong message. In President Carter’s words:
“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.”
Since 9/11 we’ve turned our back on these principles.
“It is disturbing that, instead of strengthening these principles, our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’
“In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications.”
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 inflicted enormous damage on the United States, 2,996 dead and billions of dollars in property damage. But the most serious damage was that it changed who we are and what we believe in.
In 1775 Benjamin Franklin wrote: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Those words have never been more true.
[1] Jimmy Carter, A Cruel and Unusual Record, The New York Times, June 24, 2012
[2] United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948