You mean Jimmy Carter is still alive?
Posted on 07/30/2005 11:47:39 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter on Saturday said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.
Speaking at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, central England, Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq and said it was "unnecessary and unjust."
"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he told a news conference. "I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."
Carter said, however, that terrorist acts could not be justified, and that while Guantanamo "may be an aggravating factor ... it's not the basis of terrorism."
Critics of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration have long accused the U.S. government of unjustly detaining terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. Hundreds of men detained in the war on terror have been held indefinitely at the prison, without charge or access to lawyers.
"What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people," Carter said. "I'm embarrassed about it, I think it's wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people."
Carter, who won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his years of peace efforts, has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war.
"I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false," he said Saturday.
The Baptist World Alliance, which comprises more than 200 Baptist unions around the world, was formed in London in 1905. The headquarters of the alliance, which meets in a different location every five years, moved to the United States in 1947.
An estimated 12,700 delegates gathered in Birmingham, Britain's second largest city, for the conference. Carter, a Sunday school teacher in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, was due to lead a Bible study lesson during the conference.
He praised British police and intelligence services for the swift arrests in connection with the July 21 bombing attempts on London's transit system.
"I'm very proud to be in a nation that stands so stalwart against terrorism with us," he said. "The people of my country have united our hearts and sympathy for the tragedy that you have suffered from terrorism."
Carter, who was noted for his devotion to the Baptist faith during his time in the White House, called on people of all faiths who believed in freedom, peace, justice, hospitality and alleviation of suffering to work together to defeat terrorism.
"We should try and identify the things that divide us and set them aside ... and build a common commitment," he said.
the Peanut needs to shut the pie whole
Carter defines the term delusional-what a waste of time
and affront to logic HE is!
the Headline should read:
Carter gets blasted and screams about something....
Former President Jimmy Carter on Saturday said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was he is an embarrassment
It's the only employment you were good at.
Oh' BTW, I think your getting senile because you think people actually listen to you. Only the moon bats are listening
Jimmy has been wrong on everything he's said from 3 Mile Island to his deal with the Chia Pet. He needs to go back to his peanut farm and just shut up!
You mean Jimmy Carter is still alive?
Arafat won a Nobel as well, didnt he? So much for the "prestige" of the Peace prize..
if the peanut had any nuts when he was pres we wouldnt be in this mess today.
One thing Carter knows is embarrassment.
Brave words, coming from a man who's afeared o'swimmin' rabbits.
Mr. Peanut's picture accompanies the word 'irrelevenant' in the dictionary.
(Waitress in a cheap diner tone of voice) "Yeah? So?"
Jimmy Carter is an embarrassment and has given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.
Jimmy couldn't have said it better hisself.
Former President Jimmy Carter on Saturday said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States
Dear Former President and current Moron, Jimmy Carter.
Just what was the excuse for 9-11 Peanut Brain?
What exactly does Jimmah find "embarrassing" and "wrong"? The detainees are eating better than they have in their whole lives (and better than many GIs), we're giving them Korans and then pointing them in the direction of Mecca so they can pray to their moon god 5x/day, .....and we're not physically torturing them. Jimmah should be elated.
We need to send this idiot to Gitmo....I'm sure they would love to hear about Billy Beer and how to grow peanuts...
And make sure we send some stuff from Rush's site, like soap on a rope.....
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