Zimbabwe, Terrorism, and Mandela

Well, it's official. Robert Mugabe is now a bad guy.

If you follow the English press in a Western country, you might be saying "Well, duh." If you ONLY follow the English press in a Western country, your opinion does not count, because, as I have pointed out here on many occasions, they have a tremendously unrecognized propensity for lying.

Nelson Mandela, on the other hand, does not. While sound criticisms of some of his policies have been made, if there is one former head of state whose word I would take at face value, it would probably be Mandela's.

So when Mandela "failed" to publicly condemn Mugabe, it caused great consternation amongst the wise sages who pen weekly opinion columns. Still, in a speech before his 90th birthday celebrations in London, he called what was happening in Zimbabwe "a tragic failure of leadership." For some well-meaning white people who still feel they know better than Mandela, this is not enough. As usual, people still want Mandela to sing with the choir. When reporters asked him to do a solo against Castro, he declined. When Clinton asked him to sing a ditty against Libya, he refused. Mandela doesn't let other people decide who his enemies should be.

Mandela knows what he is doing. And if he says that Zimbabwe's situation represents a failure of leadership, then that's all that needs to be said.

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Adding to Mandela's credibility is the fact that only last week did the U.S. Senate vote to remove Nelson Mandela's ANC party from its list of terrorist organizations. ANC members are now free to travel in the United States. Truly the courage of U.S. Senators is legendary. . .

The United States of America is not now, nor has it ever been, a champion of freedom.