I bummed about Nelson.

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diamond

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Nelson Mandela is saying some untoward things about the USA and GW, the day after President Bush proposed 15 billions dollars to the continent where he and his countrymen reside.
He even went to the race card.
Uncool.
Not righteous.

Diamond.

ps- somebody post the article, im too bummed...
 
Mandela: U.S. wants holocaust

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) --Former South African president Nelson Mandela has slammed the U.S. stance on Iraq, saying that "one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Speaking at the International Women's Forum, Mandela said "if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."

Mandela said U.S. President George W. Bush covets the oil in Iraq "because Iraq produces 64 percent of the oil in the world. What Bush wants is to get hold of that oil." In fact Iraq contributes to only 5 percent of world oil exports.

The Bush administration is threatening military action if Iraq does not account for weapons of mass destruction and fully cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Receiving applause for his comments, Mandela said Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are "undermining" past work of the United Nations.

"They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man?" said Mandela, referring to Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana.

Blair is expected to discuss the issue of Iraq when he meets with South African President Thabo Mbeki in London Saturday, a day after the British leader's meeting with Bush.

Mandela said he would support without reservation any action agreed upon by the United Nations against Iraq, which Bush and Blair say has weapons of mass destruction and is a sponsor of terror groups, including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. (Full story)

Nobel Peace Laureate Mandela, 84, has spoken out many times against Bush's stance, and South Africa's close ties with Libya and Cuba irked Washington during Mandela's own presidency.

In reaction to Mandela's comments, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush was grateful to the many European leaders who "obviously think differently."

"The president will understand there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that could turn into a holocaust. He respects people who differ with him. He will do what he thinks is right and necessary to protect our country," Fleischer said.
 
He called Mr Cheney a "dinosaur" and an "arch-conservative" who does not want Mr Bush "to belong to the modern age."

Mr Mandela recalled that Mr Cheney had been opposed to his release from prison.
this bummed out nelson, ya think.

Wednesday, 11 September, 2002, 11:31 GMT 12:31 UK
US threatens world peace, says Mandela
One of the world's most respected statesmen, Nelson Mandela, has condemned United States intervention in the Middle East as "a threat to world peace".
In an interview with the US magazine, Newsweek published on Wednesday, the former South African president repeated his call for President George Bush not to launch attacks on Iraq.


Mandela on the US
Bush motivated by arms sales and oil
Dick Cheney a 'dinosaur'
US responsible for Iran's Islamic revolution
US action led to Taleban


He said that Mr Bush was trying to please the American arms and oil industries.

And Mr Mandela, 84, called some of Mr Bush's senior advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney "dinosaurs".

He said that the United States' backing for a coup by the Shah of Iran in 1953 had led to that country's Islamic revolution in 1979.

On Afghanistan, Mr Mandela said that US support for the mujahideen (including Osama Bin Laden) against the Soviet Union and its refusal to work with the United Nations after the Soviet withdrawal led to the Taleban taking power.

"If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace," he said.

No evidence

Mr Mandela said that the US was clearly afraid of losing a vote in the United Nations Security Council.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nelson Mandela


"It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America," he said.

He said that no evidence had been presented to support the claim that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, while former UN weapons inspector in Baghdad Scott Ritter has said there is no such evidence.

"But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that," he said.

The former South African leader made it clear that the only member of the Bush team he respects is Colin Powell.

He called Mr Cheney a "dinosaur" and an "arch-conservative" who does not want Mr Bush "to belong to the modern age."

Mr Mandela recalled that Mr Cheney had been opposed to his release from prison.
 
underneath it all....

If you take Mandela's words away, the meaning is still there. And I agree that the US is threatening world peace. Who hasn't? But if this is carried out.....there could be grave consequences. I may be a citizen of this country and grateful for that, but I feel no loyalty to its actions.
 
i dunno.
2 ques should b asked here..

1- if clinton -a good friend of mandela's, were now president and the circumstances were the same, would mr mandela have wrote the same article after bill c just pledged 15 billion?

2- i think infering that cuz kofi is black the head of the u.n., gw is going into iraq is waay off base, inaccurate and inflamitory, dont the rest of u?

db9
 
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I disagree with Mandela's suspicions of Bush's motives, and I am truly disappointed in him playing the race card and introducing the word "holocaust" in this conflict. I wonder what Congressman Tom Lantos, the Democrat from California, will say of this? He survived the Holocaust of World War II.

~U2Alabama
 
Give me a break, holocaust is nothing new. The term is in no way exclusive to what happened to the Jews in WWII.

During the cold war, the threat of 'nuclear holocaust' was on the tip of alot of people's tongues.

In addition the term used for what happened in WWII is generally capitalized, i.e. "Holocaust".

Good for Mandela. He asked questions racists would rather you turned a blind eye to. Much easier to pretend it doesn't exist than deal with it straight on.

Good for Mandela.
 
i say good for mandela, but he would have been better off not mentioning anything to do with race. well said, otherwise.
 
diamond said:
i dunno.
2 ques should b asked here..

1- if clinton -a good friend of mandela's, were now president and the circumstances were the same, would mr mandela have wrote the same article after bill c just pledged 15 billion?

That question is irrevelant since Clinton can't serve three terms in a row, which I'm sure you know...
The circumstances will never be the same as they are now, even if he were re-elected in the future.
Which will never happen.
 
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I have never heard that Cheney was opposed to Mandela's release.

Does anyone have a source to confirm that?

I can't imagine why on earth he would have been :scratch:

I am also truly disappointed in Mandela for introducing race into this.
 
I too am disappointed in Mandela bringing race in to this.

As for Cheney, not sure on that one. Maybe he was breaking the sanctions on South Africa to do business there. Maybe he thought Mandela would disrupt his work in the country. don't know.
 
Anybody else particularly disturbed by the fact that 64 is much greater than 5? (5% is also approximately how much of the US's oil imports come from Iraq. Or least it was in 2002, according to http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw246.shtml )

If he meant to say that Iraq has much more oil than that in reserve, that's what he should have said.

As Bernard Baruch once said, "every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
 
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Well what the hell got up his ass. Those are some pretty harsh words. I give him props for having the balls to say it but really what is this going to do for him. Everyone is gonna write him off, chalk it up to bable!

Oh and some were saying that how could he say this after Bush just said he might give 15b to Africa. Well why should he just shut up. Just because someone gives your people money doesnt mean you have to go quite. But really he was very stupid to say such damning words to the public.
 
Flag Pole Pear said:
i say good for mandela, but he would have been better off not mentioning anything to do with race. well said, otherwise.

I agree. While there very well could be racial issues involved his bringing it up in this context makes people defensive and disregard the rest of his speech as that of "an angey black man".
Just because GWB gave some money to his continent (keep in mind that this continent is made up of many, very different countries. It's silly to say that he represents a whole continent, just like it would be silly to say that Canada's leader represents all of N. America) doesn't mean that from now on he has to agree with everything the United States does. You can disagree with what he said all day long, but he's now supposed to be the US's yes man because we have aid to his continent?
 
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ILuvLarryMullen said:
I agree. While there very well could be racial issues involved his bringing it up in this context makes people defensive and disregard the rest of his speech as that of "an angey black man".
:yes: it reminds me of an ali g interview where he asked, "is it because i's black?" (yes, i know he's not black.) too many people are willing to play the race card. case in point, michael jackson and nelson mandela.
 
One thing that's really annoyed me about the response to Mr Mandela's comments is the number of people who have not simply disagreed with what he's said, but gone as far as to actually criticise him as a person. Let's not forget this is a man who led the struggle to free millions of Black people from Apartheid, even when that struggle meant he was imprisoned for a great number of years. We can disagree with him, but I hate to see people acting as though simply because they don't like his comments, he must be a bad person. (I'm not saying anyone in this thread has done this, but it's been expressed in the media and a few people I've spoken to have also said similar things.)
 
http://slate.msn.com/id/2078003/

Race and Rescue
Nelson Mandela's odious views on Iraq.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Saturday, February 1, 2003, at 12:28 PM PT
It's a strong field in which to compete, but the contest for the most stupid remarks
about the impending confrontation with Saddam Hussein has apparently been won by Nelson Mandela.
Not content with describing this confrontation as a "holocaust" and attributing every administration motive to the greed for oil, the first president of liberated South Africa said that contempt had been shown for the United Nations because Kofi Annan was black, and that such things never used to happen when U.N. general secretaries were white. (This is the second time in six months that Mandela has said this and the second time that Kofi Annan has had no comment on the suggestion.) Where to begin? And what to say when Nelson Mandela plays the race card? I can remember when the secretary-general was Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian Coptic Christian married to an Egyptian Jew, and I can remember when he said that the West only cared about Bosnia because Bosnians were white. I didn't know how to begin on that occasion, either, because the fact was that the West at that stage didn't give a damn for the Bosnians. But if it had followed Boutros-Ghali's advice and let Bosnia slide, we would certainly now be hearing that nobody cared for the Bosnians because they were Muslim.
In the same period an urgent fax was received at the United Nations HQ from the French-Canadian commander in Rwanda, Gen. Romeo Dallaire. It warned that plans for genocide were about to be made real and begged for a small increase in the U.N. military presence in Kigali. The fax landed on Kofi Annan's desk (he was then a deputy to Boutros-Ghali) and stayed there. Madeleine Albright later vetoed any further action to forestall the mass slaughter of Tutsi by Hutu. I can think of many reasons to condemn Annan's culpable inaction, but I would hesitate to assert that he lifted no finger to save fellow Africans because he was by birth a Ghanaian but married to a Swede (who, incidentally, is a direct descendant of Raoul Wallenberg).
During the last round with Saddam Hussein, the secretary-general of the U.N. was a listless Peruvian named Javier Perez de Cuellar. He also conceived it as his job to ask for "more time" (without ever specifying more time for what) and incurred much American criticism for doing so. Are Peruvians white or black? Or neither? Does the epidermis count in such matters?
The Burmese U Thant was a ditherer par excellence as secretary-general, but he enjoyed wide respect for his philosophical bearing and manner. Kurt Waldheim basked in support from all factions during his period of pointless jet-setting but was then discovered to have been a raging Nazi and is now, because of the brown-ness of his former shirt at least, forbidden even to set foot in the United States. That's racism for you. The only secretary-general to have been really hated by the leading Western powers was the pale Scandinavian Dag Hammarskjold, and there are to this day those who believe that his plane crash in Africa was no accident. He had devoted himself to the saving of the post-independence Belgian Congo and to the prevention of Katangese secession: an important cause that Nelson Mandela as a young man would have followed closely.
In other words, there isn't even any metaphorical truth in what one of the world's moral heroes has just said. And a pool of embarrassment has formed around his remarks: Not even Cynthia McKinney is likely to want to push it this far. I doubt that Jacques Chirac, whose fondness for Africans and for abrupt interventions in Africa is sans pareil, will want to take advantage of this rhetorical opportunity, either.
A further question arises. Does Mandela suppose that weapons of mass destruction are no matter? South Africa is the country most often cited as exemplary in its decision to destroy the nuclear devices that it built under the foul old regime and to demonstrate (indeed, to volunteer) clear and precise compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the very week that Iraq declines contemptuously to do the same, Mandela speaks as if the U.N. were being insulted only by those who sponsored the disarmament resolution. And to this he adds the accusation that those who disagree with him are guilty of racism! There were those who said that South Africa disarmed itself only so that nukes would not fall into the hands of blacks. Does Mandela now think that they were right?
The grand old man has made crass remarks before. In a speech in Kenya a few years ago he said that critics of then-President Moi were motivated by colonialist nostalgia. The Kenyan voters recently and overwhelmingly dismissed the candidate of the discredited Moi regime. Mandela also praised Col. Qaddafi and Maximum Leader Fidel Castro for their help in assisting the revolution in South Africa (which is true enough in the case of Cuba). But he said this while defending his policy of uncritical friendship with both leaders. A man of ordinary moral courage might have gone as far as saying that he wished they had been elected, as he himself was (by a probable majority if not plurality of "white" votes as well as black, Indian, and "mixed" ones). What could he have been afraid of? But political courage and moral and physical courage are not axiomatically linked, and Mandela has a surplus only of the last two.
I have never in my life kept a photograph of myself with any politician or celebrity except the one I have of my meeting with Mandela. I can remember sitting and drinking several times with his successor Thabo Mbeki, in the latter's student leftist days. Nothing can take anything away from the imperishable movement that they and others led. But this latest garbage is a very timely caution against our common tendency to make supermen and stars and heroes out of fellow humans. Iraq is not Saddam any more than Zimbabwe is Mugabe, and being on the right side of history once is no guarantee that the subsequent fall will not be from a very great height.
 
Meanwhile, Hitchens suggests that old nemesis Bill Clinton was a CIA plant at Oxford, where both were students in the late 1960s. "I think he was a double," Hitchens says. "Somebody was giving information to [the CIA] about the anti-war draft resisters, and I think it was probably him. We had a girlfriend in common -- I didn't know then -- who's since become a very famous radical lesbian."

But that's another story.

what a guy.
 
Christopher Hitchens continually waxes eloquence even when speculating ..:up:
and
all the girls were Bill's girlfriends, Chris just hadnt learned that yet.::huh:

DB9
:dance:
 
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