Jimmy Carter let loose on the war in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay while at a conference of Baptists in Birmingham, England:
Former President Jimmy Carter said Saturday the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base in Cuba was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.Well, what else can I even say. He's right.
Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as "unnecessary and unjust."
"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.," he said at a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary 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 President Bush's administration have long accused the U.S. government of unjustly detaining terror suspects at Guantanamo. Hundreds of men 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 despicable means to hurt innocent people."
Meanwhile, AP is reporting that five more American troops were killed yesterday in Iraq.
