This, from the Huffington Post.
1986. Congress put together a Comprehensive Anti-apartheid Act which was designed to show U.S. disapproval of apartheid in South Africa. It had teeth which involved sanctions, among other things.
The bill passed Congress with bipartisan support. The Republican Party, however, opposed the act, and it was vetoed by President Ronnie Reagan, the B-grade movie actor who somehow stumbled his way into the presidency.
Congress overrode the veto.
One of those who voted against the act was none other than Dick Cheney, then a Wyoming congressman. Today, he maintains he did the right thing, that the African National Congress was a terrorist organization and Nelson Mandella was a terrorist.
In 2004, John Nichols, a Cheney historian, spoke to Mandella about Cheney's "record and worldview." Nichols summed up Mandella's response this way:
He’s very blunt about it he says one of the many reasons why he fears Dick Cheney’s power in the United States, and Mandela does say, he understands that Cheney is effectively the President of the United States, he says, one of the many reasons that he fears Dick Cheney’s power is that in the late 1980’s when even prominent Republicans like Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich were acknowledging the crime of Apartheid, Dick Cheney maintained the lie that the ANC was a terrorist organization and a fantasy that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist leader who deserved to be in jail. Frankly it begs very powerful question. If Dick Cheney’s judgment was that bad in the late 1980’s, why would we believe that it’s gotten any better in the early 21st century?
As we have discovered over the past several decades, Cheney's bad judgment and bad attitude and downright nastiness never has changed. He's still the sniveling, creepy war criminal who should by all rights, be behind bars!
And the Republican Party continues it's long trek through time on the wrong side of history!
[Read the entire article at the Huffington Post, here.]
1 comment:
How easily we forget history that most of us lived through.
Mandela had every reason to be a violent, hateful leader upon his release from prison. He choose a path that eventually led to whatever reconciliation happened. Imagine if he had taken the violent road instead! He was a remarkable man and he was right!!!
How many reading this agreed that Mandela was a terrorist at the time? Most knew little about the internal politics of South Africa or how terrible its laws were re “people of color”, which included Indians and those of mixed ethnicity.
Post a Comment