> Behalf Of John D. Giorgis
>
> Mandela was not a terrorist, as far as I recall, but that was
> before my time.
>
Mandela set up the armed wing of the African Nationalist Congress. Their
plans included the use of terror tactics to wrest control from the apartheid
government.
> Speight is a member of Parliament in part because of his renunciation of
> terrorism. Of course, the peace in Fiji is imperfect and
> tenuous at best.
>
Speight has renounced terrorism? News to me. He'll renounce the use of armed
force only so long as the unspoken threat - backed up by past use - gets him
his way.
> Araft is not a legitimate leader of the Palestinian people as far as I am
> concerned. Once the US has dealth with Afghanistan and Iraq, I hope (but
> know better) that Palestine will be next. Peace is simply not
> possible in
> Israel until Arafat and his cabal are out of the picture.
>
Neither is it possible while Sharon is in charge. One word - Shatila - will
forever condemn him.
Now, what about past Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin? He that sent the
Israeli army into Lebanon? The same person who blew up the King David hotel,
killing dozens of British troops, in 1947?
> >(Just to clarify my position, as my last couple of posts have suggested
> the CIA
> >has done the wrong thing over the last 50 years,
>
> And I recognize the wrong things that the CIA has done. Those wrong
> things, however, did not amount to active state-sponsoring of terrorism.
One word - UNITA.
I could also mention the Hmong in Vietnam (1970s), Ustashi in Yugoslavia
(1950s to 1970s) and our good friends the Contras in Nicaragua.
A US led war on terrorism is going to have to include a few organisations
that were at one time or another US sponsored. But then, so was bin Laden.
It is possible for ex-terrorists to become legitimate leaders. Mandela and
Gerry Adams are perhaps the two most prominent examples of this. In British
eyes, your first Congress contained quite a few terrorists.
Brett
