Mandela Blasts Bush on Iraq, Warns of 'Holocaust'
Thu Jan 30, 9:35 PM ET
story.news.yahoo.com
They May take it off, so I've posted it below,
It's on the most e-mailed list at yahoo, yesterday AND
today.. BUT I don't see it any of our major TV
propaganda channes.
By Toby Reynolds
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson
Mandela lashed out at U.S. President George Bush's stance on Iraq on
Thursday, saying the Texan had no foresight and could not think properly.
Mandela, a towering statesman respected the
world over for his fight against Apartheid-era
discrimination, said the U.S. leader and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) were
undermining the United Nations (news - web
sites), and suggested they would not be doing so
if the organization had a white leader.
"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is
doing in Iraq," Mandela told an audience in
Johannesburg. "What I am condemning is that
one power, with a president who has no foresight,
who cannot think properly, is now wanting to
plunge the world into a holocaust," he added, to
loud applause.
"Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an idea (the United
Nations) which was sponsored by their predecessors," Mandela said. "Is
this because the secretary general of the United Nations (Ghanaian Kofi
Annan (news - web sites)) is now a black man? They never did that when
secretary generals were white."
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 (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network.
The United States has promised to reveal evidence that Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has breached U.N. resolutions, a
charge Iraq denies.
Mandela said action without U.N. support was unacceptable and set a bad
precedent for world politics.
"Are they saying this is a lesson that you should follow, or are they saying
we are special, what we do should not be done by anyone," he said in his
speech to the International Women's Forum on the theme of Courageous
Leadership for Global Transformation.
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. He also attacked the United
States' record on human rights, criticizing the dropping of atomic bombs on
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
"Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still
suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman
of the world?..." he asked.
"lf there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the
United States of America...They don't care for human beings."
But he said he was happy that people, especially those in the United
States, were opposing military action in Iraq.
"I hope that that opposition will one day make him understand that he has
made the greatest mistake of his life," Mandela said.
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