Has Nelson Mandela Completely Lost His Mind?

The BBQ Pit
41

I guess it all depends on your perception of the word “atrocities”. Strangely, I can entertain the notion that the U.S government has been guilty of atrocious behavior in the past BUT I’d hardly agree that they as a matter of policy sanction atrocities. To me, atrocities are willful crimes against humanity, especially the targeting of civilians. In our quest to purge some armies and despots from power, civilians have undoubtably been harmed but I don’t believe it was ever by intention or policy.

I say that and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind. Fuck.

42

Just wanna point out that http://www.iol.co.za/ have it as “64%”. Would it be unreasonable to assume that a South African Sapa-AP journalist would be able to allow for his accent, if any, and would know exactly what he said?

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1043926920921B262

And anyway, the normal speech pattern would be to say, “Four to six percent”, not, “Six to four percent”, so if it was due to his accent or slurring, it would have sounded like he was saying, “Forty-six percent.”

43

Does the US really have to compare itself with atrocious regimes like Hitler’s to say “we are not perfect but we are not like them”? Methinks these comparisons are made rhetorically on the implicit understanding that there shouldn’t be any moral equivalence.

The Cold war was not about defending other countries and their freedoms and democracies. It was about stopping the Soviet Union’s expansion and influence. It was more self-interest than for the world’s good though it was amenable to be marketed, and IMHO somewhat correctly too, as a “good” versus “evil” conflict. It is this very simple hypocrisy that every country in the world affected by the Cold war see, which flames their dislike and mistrust for US foreign policy. Can anyone blame them for not thinking of the US as a flawed but benevolent power? It is only in the last 10 years or so that the US has taken part in humanitarian missions (which I fully support) and I hope the recent trends change the hearts and minds of the skeptical world.

44

We can keep hoping that, litost, in spite of the fact many of those efforts were directed toward African relief and that Mandela himself benefitted from American opposition to apartied.

45

lieu
You underestimate the power of the tradition of democracy, human rights and free media. Can the US possibly carry out a wilful massacre of civilians a la Saddam Hussein? Would it even want to? I don’t think it would.

But, OTOH, the US has had its fingers in so many country’s fortunes: replacing dictators with other dictators, and even overthrowing democratically elected regimes with despots… all of these have had negative effects on the civilian population and were carried out as a matter of policy. So, it is a fine line which rhetoric blurs.

On preview: why do you say " …hoping in spite of…" (or am I having a bad grammar day?)

46

I’m hoping some in the world appreciate and remember U.S. efforts, even if Mandela doesn’t.

47

Of course the US was not at all involved very deeply in placing Pinochet in power after the Allende government decided to nationalise its greatest asset, its copper mines which then was reported back to the US leadership as a strategic threat by the then EO of US industrial giant AT&T, which just happened to own the copper mines

Not too much Cold War strategy there I would think, more a risk to US industrial power.

(yet the US condemned France and the UK over the Suez crisis which was about the nationalisation of the very strategically important canal)

US vs Bolivia
US vs Haiti
US vs Grenada
US vs Panama
US vs Nicaragua-a democratically elected government no less.
US vs Korea
US vs Iranian fundamentalists resulting in a revolution and the fall of the Shah
US vs Iran, by supporting Saddam Hussain in his invasion of Iran and resuting in over 1millions dead on both sides, and we are still stuck with the old despots in both countries!
US vs Vietnam
US vs Cambodia, or maybe you forgot about that war which was never declared by the CIA.
US vs Democracy in the Phillipines, enables Markos to stay in power long after his people wanted rid of him.
US vs Afghanistan
US vs Iraq(part II to follow soon)
US vs Eritrea

If US sanctions led to the downfall of apartheid in South Africa, then why did it wait for so long, maybe the US should have intervened 20 or 30 years previous, or could it be that SA was doing a pretty good job of keeping its communist leaning neighbors down for decades ?

There are reasons for each and every one of these conflicts, most were part of a much bigger picture, some were by most views pretty dishonourable affairs, some justified, but when a non-US citizen looks at world history over the last 50 years it is not hard to understand why even intelligent folk draw the conclusion that its the US that is the loose cannon around the world, and the massive export of US culture in films etc serves to reinforce this even more, particularly the gung-ho “Rambo dies hard with a vengeance part XXXVII” style movies.

At the moment it seems we are going to war, and neither the US nor the UK governments have seen fit to inform their own citizens, never mind those of other nations, the longer the delay in providing convincing evidence, the greater the information vacuum, the more it is then filled by speculation.
Both these countries are supposed to be democracies, but democracy is not just about voting for head of state once evey five years, its about respect for the views of the electorate, its about informing them in a transparent way, such is just not happening, we are not little children, we are supposed to be the owners of the ship, but it looks to me like our employees, the bridge staff, are leading us to war without checking back with us.

I am not surprised that nations such as France, Germany and obviously Russia are concerned, these all have good intelligence networks of their own and likely have pretty much the same information, but they all seem to think there is another way, or at least a more cooperative one using the UN.

Maybe Mandela has lost it, he certainly was supported by the likes of Ghadhaffi and other leaders of the type so one should not be too surprised at the rhetoric.
Before his opinion is dismissed out of hand, perhaps the West should try to understand why he feels this way, and then think about how many people in many other nations feel similar, and think about the possible implications of that.

48

This is idiotic.

To classify the US defeating an effort of the Soviets and Cubans to take over Granada as “The US vs. Grenada” is sloppy moral thinking. To classify the arrest of a drug lord, which was wildly popular with the citizens of Panama, as “the US vs. Panama” is abuse of language. To classify the UN effort to expel the North Korean invasion of South Korea is moronic.

This is the kind of fatuous foolishness that gives revisionist history a bad name.

Regards,
Shodan

49

Creaky, I stand by what I said absolutely. Have you ever seen the photos of people who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts? The ones of children with their skin hanging off them like kimonos?

If that’s not an atrocity, I don’t know what is. But as it has been pointed out, I agree with the decision. And hindsight in this case is decidedly not 20/20, otherwise nobody would still debate this issue. Using the bombs obviated the need of invading Japan, which would have made D-Day look like a garden party.

Oh, and you wanted more examples? There are so many I don’t know where to start. But here’s one you can try reading “Bloods”, by Wallace Terry. (Or any number of other books about the U.S. in Vietnam.) Routine atrocities committed by American troops are outlined, and I’m not even counting My Lai.

But if you’re looking for more systemic examples rather than individual acts, try reading the history of the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans some time. Very enlightening.

As I said, it does depend on how one defines atrocities, but I’m convinced.

Sorry if I’m being too “intellectual” in the Pit. I’ll use smaller words next time.

50

I guess you did not read all my post then Sodan , just the bits you didn’t like, talk about a kneejerk reaction, perhaps there were just too many words in it for you ?

Notice you didn’t have much to say about all the other conflicts I mentioned, just the kneejerk ones you took exception to, quite unjustifiable since you had not discovered the whole content of my post.

Try again, read it all, now concentrate !

Oh and the so-called “UN sanctioned” effort in Korea which was simply an anti-communist action is disengenouous to say the least, since various manoueverings at the UN security council had ensured that China was not part of the voting process, and Russia had withdrawn in protest at an earlier issue.
Guess you don’t know much about world events as well as having an extremely short attention span.

Even in the selected part of my post that you quoted one might have thought have you would have had an opinion on what happened in Nicaragua, but it seems you can’t be bothered to address this.

Nor any comment on Chile, or any of the other nasty tinpot dictatorships that the US has bascked over the years.

If you are going to call a post idiotic then I suggest that rather than take a small selected part of the whole and quote it out of context, perhaps you can struggle to make the effort and make a reasonably intelligent reply.

:::sheesh::::

51

Actually the People’s Republic of China was not a member of the UN until 1971, Taiwan represented China before then and I don’t think Taiwan cared much for communist North Korea.

52

Perhaps one of the atrocities he’s talking about is our First Lady’s kidnapping, beating, torturing, and murdering of political opponents, our gov’ts keeping Nelson imprisoned for 27 years, and the institutionalized racism that we exhibited through the 1990s.

Oh wait, that was Nelson’s wife, Winnie… (yeah, I know, ex-wife, but not at the time of the tire incidents). And the country that kept him imprisoned and stayed constitutionally racist through the 1990s was his own, which was linked to the Netherlands rather than UK (which Nelson also blasted)- my bad.

I wonder if he considered the U.S. troops who died in Rwanda “atrocity” makers? And a few hundred thousand Biafrans on his own continent are just really good at hiding.

53

And if you think about it even more, it becomes obvious that he was referring to the Chicago song “25 or 6 to 4” and probably saying “I rock!” instead of “Iraq”.

Damn media is just trying to stir things up.

54

So now we’re not supposed to post in disagreement with another person’s post unless we disagree with the entire post? wow, learn something new everyday.

55

I heard on NPR that he was saying his Iroc went from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds… which is a bald lie. It’s probably well over 5 seconds.

56

Wanna express your displeasure with the comments of this pompous (I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!!!) little dick-head (it is hyphenated, right?) moronic ball of stinking monkey dung? He can be addressed at:

nmandela@anc.org.za

(Basic MSN search; look for .anc link in the top ten, then go to bottom of the (all blue and white gui’ed).

With any luck, his head will explode in a cloud of pink spray…soon.

57

Are you saying you’re hoping someone assassinates him soon? Or are you saying that he decides to go for the Punk Look?

A. Obnoxious.
B. Funny.

Pick one.

58

Obnoxious? Try downright disgusting and offensive, DDG.

:eek:

59

But I heard on this talk-radio program that Hillary had done all that too! You mean she didn’t? Damn liberal media…

60

5-HT

Evidently you did not read my entire post either.

I’ll make it easy for you to understand my objections then, since you seem to be suffering the same lack of attention span as Shodan

I wrote

Which is a list of actions the US has participated in since WWII, this is by no means comprehensive.
I did not make much comment directly on most of them, it was simply a list.
I then qualified this list by stating,

If you and Shodan use your reading skills then perhaps you would understand that I was pointing out that the US has been involved in military actions around the world for various reasons.

What I object to is that ** Shodan** quoted a small part of that list, without adding the qualifier, which then strips it of the original meaning.

He goes on to say,

This I object to, because the quote that was selected by Shodan simply does not reflect what I wrote, and I have a perfect right to defend myself for being quoted so inaccurately and misleadingly.

If you wish to disagree with part of my post, make sure you read it all, and direct your criticism in a logical way by selecting all the relevant parts of the post with which you disagree, is that too much to ask ?

ctr22
I am aware that China was not a member of the security council, but had Russia been present on the meeting that proposed action in Korea then the resolution would certainly have been vetoed.
It was a mix of cynicism, opportunism and realpolitik that ensured that Russia was not present at the time and as such it is true to say that the action in Korea was a UN mandate in name only and was much more a US anti-communism event in reality, but such is the world, it is history now, except that we have not fully resolved that situation for whatever reasons.

(the reason China was not was part of the UN was because of the use of a technicality which allowed Taiwan a place in the UN but not China - political manouevering if ever there was)