Of course, he is slammin' the US while abroad
BIRMINGHAM, England - 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. oPresident 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.
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