President Mandela took a particular interest in helping to resolve the long-running dispute between Gaddafi’s Libya, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other, over bringing to trial the two Libyans who were indicted in November 1991 and accused of sabotaging Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed at the Scottish town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, with the loss of 270 lives. As early as 1992, Mandela informally approached President George Bush with a proposal to have the two indicted Libyans tried in a third country. Bush reacted favourably to the proposal, [...]

and the son:

In 2003 Mandela criticised the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration in a number of speeches. Criticising the lack of UN involvement in the decision to begin the War in Iraq, he said, “It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations”. Mandela stated he would support action against Iraq only if it is ordered by the UN. Mandela also insinuated that Bush may have been motivated by racism in not following the UN and its secretary-general Kofi Annan on the issue of the war. “Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white”.[40]
…

attributing any of the successes of these leaders “as a direct result of the foreign policies of the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush” is quite a stretch…

but, imagine that…
…

but this info about marcos was intriguing:
It was reported that when Marcos fled, U.S. Customs agents discovered 24 suitcases of gold bricks and diamond jewelry hidden in diaper bags; in addition, certificates for gold bullion valued in the billions of dollars are allegedly among the personal properties he, his family, his cronies and business partners had surreptitiously taken with them when the Reagan administration provided them safe passage to Hawaii.[21][22]
[...]
By 1984, his close personal ally, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, started distancing himself from the Marcos regime that he and previous American presidents had strongly supported even after Marcos declared martial law. The United States, which had provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, was crucial in buttressing Marcos’ rule over the years.[23] During the Carter administration the relation with the U.S. soured somewhat when President Jimmy Carter targeted the Philippines in his human rights campaign. In 1981 Vice President George Bush seemed to signal a different approach when in his visit to Manila he told Marcos, “We love your adherence to democratic principles and to democratic processes.”[24]

from the wiki… more to come…
.

“all of those situations were set up and made possible by the previous Dem administrations.”

Uh huh…Sure….Care to explain to what Democratic administrations you refer and what actions they took to “set up and make possible” these events?

I look forward to your response. I am sure it will be….well, let’s just say, interesting.

All he needs to do is repeat this accusation a few dozen more times, get Fox to air some segments on it, have Cheney and Rice repeat the talking point– et voila, the case will be made: we invaded Iraq to avenge the murder of Nelson Mandela!

Which doesn’t make that much of a difference because he’s lying, anyway.

If someone’s looking for the Iraqi Mandela, Muqtada al-Sadr actually somewhat fits the bill. Despite the efforts of the Bush administration to have him killed.

see youtube, search “cheney invade iraq”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uYelErVS6_w

“when we finally got a leader who was not shaped and distorted by Stalin, M. Gorbachev peeled apart the Soviet Union and its millions stood blinking in the sunlight. No war. Ferdinand Marcos lost his dictatorial grip on the Phillipines with huge peaceful throngs in the street led by a housewife. No war. And Nelson Mandela walked up and shook F. Wileem DeKlerk by the hand, and apartheid became a bad memory. No war.”

And what is the common thread that goes through all of these triumphs of freedom and justice?

They all took place during and as a direct result of the foreign policies of the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — foreign policies that you will recall were bitterly by opposed by liberals at the time….

You have made a powerful argument for the foreign policy of Republican administrations and against those of discredited liberals.

Very nicely done.

Comment by Luis M — September 21, 2007 @ 6:06 pm

But it’s not even a good metaphor. Nelson Mandela’s post-Apartheid work wasn’t all that spectacular, frankly. He was an inspirational figure when he was imprisoned and immediately after he was released, but as policymaker and president of South Africa he was rather ineffective. Ineffective politicians are something Iraq doesn’t need any more of.

But the Republicans don’t want Mandela’s, because they put the lie to the fact that power and money is all that works.
No, no, no, we can’t slowly encourage people to find their path to freedom! We must invade them, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Democracy!

But we didn’t slam bang into war against Russia. (of course we couldn’t.) But we contained them. We resisted them, but we offered the open hand at every opportunity.
And when we finally got a leader who was not shaped and distorted by Stalin, M. Gorbachev peeled apart the Soviet Union and its millions stood blinking in the sunlight.
No war.
Ferdinand Marcos lost his dictatorial grip on the Phillipines with huge peaceful throngs in the street led by a housewife.
No war.
And Nelson Mandela walked up and shook F. Wileem DeKlerk by the hand, and apartheid became a bad memory.
No war.
And the anonymous Chinese Mandela who stopped a tank in tienanmen Square?
No victory (yet)–but it shows Mandelas are everywhere.

Bill Clinto probably wanted to be Nelson Mandela–but George Bush doesn’t. He wants to be the tough guy who takes care of bidness after the stupid Mandelas have all been shot. He wants their message and their methods discredited, and things solved the Right way–out of the barrel of a gun.
But George Bush has shown the world that the Right way often doesn’t work either.

And in the meantime, Nelson Mandela is still alive.