Carter Disparages Gitmo, War In Iraq
BIRMINGHAM, England - Former President Carter said Saturday 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.
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 told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. "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."
Carter's premise is a canard.
The terrorists hate us for many, many reasons. They hate our culture because we treat women as equals, don't murder gays for being what they are and refuse to live under Islamic rules. They hate our government because for decades its done little else in the middle east outside of look after its oil needs. The goings-on at Gitmo are, if anything, a footnote in all of this.
And if we close it down its not going to make them hate us less (they're going to hate us regardless of what we do at Gitmo), its just going to further entrench in their minds the idea that America is a "paper tiger." That we can't even be tough with our enemies without the bleeding hearts in our society wreaking havoc.
Which means that Carter's whining about Gitmo is not part of the solution here but rather part of the problem.
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