US promises to stop treating Nelson Mandela like a terrorist
George Bush has signed a special bill that allows Nelson Mandela to travel freely to the USA without going through a special process because the DHS classes him as a "terrorist." Nelson C. adds, "Now, if only people who aren't world leaders could get off watch-lists so easily...."
A US senator said the new legislation was a step towards removing the "shame of dishonouring this great leader".Link (Thanks, NelsonC!)Under the legislation, members of the ANC could travel to the United Nations headquarters in New York but not to Washington DC or other parts of the United States.
See also: Nelson Mandela and the ANC are on the US terrorist watchlist and need waivers to enter the country
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So he's not a terrorist, but we don't trust him anywhere but New York? How can they say he's off the watch list if his movements are still restricted?
So can we stop President Bush from traveling freely within the US as a step towards removing the shame of honoring a terrible leader?
Oh, and "fnord"...
To quote the great Belinda Carlisle (while in the Go-Go's), "BYEeee!"
This seems highly unnecessary considering the fact that Mandela is dead.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KGwQ1O88Y
The US has always loved those white catholic Irish terrorists however.
sy w wthhld hs pssprt ntl h tlls s wht t ws h sd t Cry tht prmptd ths whl Vlt Bl thng.
So if Nelson Mandela isn't a terrorist, who exactly is?
He fits the bill on every account:
Charged with being the head of a terrorist orginisation.
In control of the arsenal to be used for terrorist activities.
Responsible for planning and implementing bombing campaigns.
Widely accepted to still be in charge of the organisation while in prison and OK'd a bombing campaign that blew innocent people to bits.
Quite rightly by anyones standards sent to prison for a long time.
Refused to denounce violence in exchange for release.
Still refused to denounce violence and released anyway by a weak regime under international 'Hypocricy' pressure.
The death toll under the ANC in Africa is practically genocide.
His story must warm the hearts of every terrorist out there.
'If I keep going I could be like Nelson!'
If YOU had a loved one blown to bits or maimed for life by the ANC it would be pretty galling to see world leaders and do-gooders licking his ass on TV.
You-know, like one day when Bin Laden is on TV as some elder statesman of Afghanistan, The armed struggle against the Zionists has become a celebrity cause and those twin towers have slipped into history.
Dear oh dear.
#8: You realise that when he was sent to prison, Umkhonto we Sizwe had not killed a single person, and were scrupulously careful to ensure that the bombings they did do stayed that way.
When they started the bombing campaign at all, they did so with great reluctance, after massacres of innocent civilians and violent crackdowns on their membership by the regime they opposed.
"The death toll under the ANC in Africa is practically genocide."
Huh?
The bombing campaign really didn't kill very many people, compared to, say, other terrorist bombing campaigns or war. Certainly a lot of people died in faction fighting between MK and armed members of Inkatha, but there's fairly strong evidence that this fighting was deliberately instigated by the government.
The bombing campaign also did not target a specific ethnic group. I really fail to see how it equates with genocide.
Hmmm...
"Zionists". "BillyBob".
You sound like the kind of person who hangs around on Stormfront.org ...
Er , I was quoting a future hypothetical Bin Laden, he uses the term Zionist a lot.
Read up about ANC activities over Africa, of course they were not all bombings, they only killed a handful and yes it did start out as a non-lethal bombing campaign, but tell that to the dead people.
Every cause has a reason, but it doesn't excuse starting a bombing campaign.
The government at the time were murderers and the ANC were terrorists...no question about it.
Violence is a tool which, regrettably, does need to be used in certain cases, such as to prevent further violence, or oppression where the oppression is so bad that it equates to violence upon the oppressed.
It can be hard to work out where it is justified. The UK and France declaring war on Germany in 1939 after the invasion of Poland almost certainly was. The UK and USA carpet bombing German and Japanese cities during WW II probably wasn't (IMHO).
In the case of MK, it was a decision to undertake violent resistance to a violent and oppressive regime. Certainly the violence crossed the line at times, but as a whole it was necessary.
Anyway, all of this is besides the point. Nelson Mandela is venerated for having *prevented* violence, not for having caused it. In 1994 he managed to hold together a country on the verge of fragmenting and collapsing into civil war.
Also, equating Nelson Mandela with Osama Bin Laden is spurious: Mandela undertook a campaign of violence reluctantly as a last resort towards achieving the goal of freeing a people from real and obvious oppression. Bin Laden was a fighter from the beginning, with the goal of spreading a particular extremist religious view. He happened to be opposed to the Soviets in Afghanistan, once upon a time, but I get the impression that was more of a holy war than a careful moral decision.
"Every cause has a reason, but it doesn't excuse starting a bombing campaign."
Three words: Shock and Awe.
Sorry, couldn't resist :p
@#9: The bombing campaign really didn't kill very many people
well, i'm sure those very few who did die deserved it.
#14: I'm quite sure none of them did. Killing another human being is immoral. That doesn't make the bombing campaign by MK any less necessary.
Interestingly, the constitution of South Africa, as agreed upon between the ANC under Mandela and a wide spectrum of other political parties, guarantees the right to human life. The first case heard by the South African Constitutional Court found that the death penalty was unconstitutional, and thereby abolished it.
But really, I'm not an expert in the ethics of conflict. I think I should read up on it sometime.
Oh, and the reason I was making the distinction in terms of numbers was to refute the very spurious claim in #8 that the MK bombing campaign equates to genocide. There is a distinction when it comes to the "badness" of killing people, no? (e.g. Auschwitz > Dresden/Tokyo > D-Day)
So basically if you want you name off the DHS terrorist list, it takes an act of congress. I feel for those who have been placed on their by mistake.
Registrado, stop being an idiot. You posted a gaudy and deliberately disruptive comment that had nothing to do with this thread. It got removed for those reasons. That doesn't make you a freedom fighter.
Eustace, the same goes for you.
@#11 Absolutely. The man deserves all the credit he gets.
The DHS terrorist list just points to the fact that the US tacitly supported apartheid for many years.
Because to name someone a terrorist presupposes that
they were fighting against a legitimate regime, surely?
I think the point we're arriving at here is that ultimately, being a terrorist is sometimes acceptable. Just as killing people is acceptable in rare, extraordinary circumstances, so it is with terrorism. The current US paradigm is loathe to admit this, but there it is.
I mean, terrorism is a tactic, not a political platform, religion or philosophy. Compare it to the tactic of killing. Almost all the time, it's completely unacceptable and abhorrent, but there are times when one has no choice but to kill in order to save oneself or others from Really Bad Stuff. Only absolute pacifists disagree with that. Someone who killed in this context isn't considered a "murderer", because we understand the necessity - and sometimes value - of the normally abhorrent thing they did.
It ain't that way with terrorism, though. Simply the act of "fighting dirty" against an established government/military is considered a high crime, no matter the reasons behind the violence or the enemy faced. Since most real-world instances of terrorism today /are/ pretty unacceptable and abhorrent, there's usually a lot of truth to the accusation, but it's not universal.
"So basically if you want you name off the DHS terrorist list, it takes an act of congress."
Not quite that simple, unfortunately - first you have to win the Nobel Peace Prize to prove that you're not a terrorist. It's the only reasonable test. Then, if you're lucky, a congressional committee will review your file for a decade or two. If congress acts and you're "downgraded," a team of CIA officials are sent to your home to remove the GPS implant(s). Then you're free to travel and enjoy the few remaining years of your life.
He isn't off the list. He now has a special, permanent, waiver that allows him (and other ANC members) to go to UN HQ in New York, but not anywhere else in the US. It appears that it's impossible to get anyone off the list once they have been put on the list.
The interesting question here is how do we get "George Bush" onto the list? Given that it's impossible to get anyone off the list, once they've been put onto the list ... now, wouldn't that be fun?
Do I get onto the list for this post?
Was George Washington a terrorist?
#19: Exactly my views. Thank-you.
#22: Probably, as were the French partisans resisting the Germans during WWII. You didn't see Charles de Gaulle getting put on any "terrorist watchlists".
The Department of Homeland Security has proven itself time and again to be incompetent and overreaching. Ask your representatives to disband the DHS and distribute its resources to the traditional anti-terrorism agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, & ATF, etc.
DHS as a solution to fragmented efforts by traditional agencies has not worked. All it's done is add another layer of generally clueless bureaucracy full of people pursuing political and wrong-headed schemes.
Congress should take the money squandered on DHS and use it to fund a network shared by all law enforcement and investigative agencies. Additionally use those funds for training and equipping local law enforcement. Real training, not knee-jerk propaganda.
For all their faults, I'd rather have traditional agencies pursue anti-terrorism than this agency whose very name hearkens back to Nazi fascism and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
doggo ..."Reichssicherheitshauptamt."
Gesundheit.
(Ah, German...the language of love)
Agree with above :-)
Basically: Just because Mandella was illegally/unjustly imprisoned does not mean he was innocent. I am not a history expert, and submit no opinion as to whether Mandella was a goodguy or badguy prior to imprisonment. I just hate the way the USA media and government made him out to be the Second Coming.
Hang on - "members of the ANC"? I wonder what this law *actually* says. Can one simply become a card-carrying member, and thereby get through despite being on the watchlist? (At least for travel to the UN, which I guess might make for a bit of a boring USA trip...)
Mandela was a terrorist in the 80's because he was with the ANC, who the US labeled a terrorist group. Of course at the same time the US considered Saddam Hussein an ally because he was attacking Iran.
It would be nice if the US and all governments (and all people in general too) could just define their morals and stick with them, instead of changing their minds every time the wind changed.
"One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist", but often "one man's freedom fighter is THE SAME man's terrorist" a few years later.
So what is a terrorist? Perhaps the ANC used methods that were violent, but the SA government was being violent and brutal towards it's own people too. Was it the method or the aim that defined "terrorist"?
In recent years even non-violent protesters have been called "terrorists", so I guess a "terrorist" is whoever you want it to be.
It would be nice if the US and all governments (and all people in general too) could just define their morals and stick with them
Governments don't have morals, only people do. Governments have laws.
So what is a terrorist?
A terrorist is anyone who acts against the state.
"Now, if only people who aren't world leaders could get off watch-lists so easily...."
An act of congress counts as "easily"?
At Mandela's 1962 trial he was outspoken in his support for violent action as a means to further the ANC's aims. Can a person change? Of course, however his anointing has to be tempered somewhat. In the case of the 90th birthday bash, what do expect from a bunch of Brit-Pop stars anyway?
Kudos #18 and #27
Yes Mandela was a terrorist
terrorism is a tactic when fighting against a state (in some cases the only tactic that an oppressed people have against a minority who have weapons and government backing)
I think what this goes to show is the short-sighted hypocrisy and stupidity of the leaders of the 'free' world.
Here in the UK glorifying terrorism is a crime. Gordon Brown writes a book about his heroes... includes Nelson Mandela. Go figure.
One rule for us, another rule for them?
I completely support any group using terrorism and subversion as a tactic to fight a corrupt and despotic regime.. unfortunately I will probably now be arrested for saying this.
So... how do I go about getting a Nobel Peace prize?
How do you get Bush on the list? All you need is one person named "George Bush" or even "G. Bush" on the list, and the resulting matches do the rest...
Any volunteers?