Web Letters: Echoes of South African Redemption

And the next great redemption will be when the Palestinians are freed from occupation and apartheid.

Jack Robinson

Fort Collins, CO

Obama to become America's Mandela? That's a laugh!

Obama has already shown his aptitude for corruption: His silence when Gazan children were being slaughtered (he even played golf at the peak of the massacre) shows that it will be business as usual. Obama did speak out, however, when the Mumbai attacks occurred, showing how he selects who should live and who should die. Mandela never favored bullying of the downtrodden, while Obama obviously does. Obama has been bought by Israel hook, line and sinker--Mandela always spoke out against the tyranny of Israel against the Palestinians.

South Africa was not overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, certainly not amongst whites, where Bush's one-sided support of Israel was favored.

America's policies of torture did not dissuade South African whites to rethink this support of Bush.

Obama never spoke out against Israel's supplying the thug Mugabe with arms and munitions, and Mbeki certainly did not. Mandela was a man of peace, a true visionary, while Obama has already announced a huge surge of troops in the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. The military-industrial complex thus speaks to Obama, while Mandela is not fooled.

I hope Obama succeeds, but he has already signaled that he will not allow accountability for war crimes--"We must look forward, not backward"--while Mandela always believed in the rule of law. Obama does not.

stanley hersh

New York, NY