Jimmy Carter: U.S. Needs to Be 'Champion of Peace'

President Jimmy Carter is proud of his country. He just wants it to do better.

“I would like to see America become a nation that is champion of peace, champion of human rights," the 39th president said Monday at Lafayette College in Easton. "I’m not criticizing America, because I know America is the greatest country on earth."

But the country needs to do more to promote peace, Carter said, and that includes talking with countries like North Korea, which Carter visited in 1994.

"What the North Koreans want is a peace treaty with the United States," he said, describing it as a "paranoid" nation. "They're honestly convinced the US wants to attack them."

Carter said the nation also needs to work on improving its human rights record, singling out issues such as drone "executions," prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay without trial, and America's status as the only country in the Western world using the death penalty and as world leader in incarcerating prisoners.

Carter—whose lecture drew more than 3,000 people to the campus quad—also discussed his work with the center that bears his name, which works to promote human rights around the world.

Sometimes, that means monitoring elections in places like China and Syria. Other times, it means providing basic medical care in countries like Ethiopia, where the Carter Center helped get rid of a fly problem—which was causing infections that led to blindness—by putting in latrines.

At first, the center thought they'd put in a few hundred. Instead, they've built 86,000 in Ethiopia alone.

"So now, instead of being known as the one who brought peace between Egypt and Israel, I’m known as the number one latrine builder in the world," Carter joked.

Carter's address was the college's first-ever Robert and Margaret Pastor Lecture in International Affairs, named for a Lafayette College alumnus who later worked for the Carter White House, and who introduced the president, praising both his post-presidential and presidential careers.

And Carter in turn praised Pastor, saying his White House work helped normalize relations with Cuba and promote democracy in Latin America.

"He was bold, brilliant and aggressive, and he had a mind of his own," Carter said.

RCN Cable was expected to broadcast the speech on its channel Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., according to Lafayette.