Nobel Peace Price winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a column for the BBC News Web site with which I could not agree more. Some excerpts:
(…) I never imagined in my worst dreams that I would live to see the day when the United States would abrogate the rule of law and habeas corpus as has happened in the case of those described as “enemy combatants” incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. Or that I would hear an American government and its apologists use exactly the same justification for detention without trial, as had been used by the apartheid government of South Africa - a practice that the United States at the time condemned roundly, as was so utterly right to have done.So, it was a devastating case of deja vu for some of us, thoroughly disillusioning.
The Bush administration managed to rile people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude sadly polarised our world.
Against all that, the election of Barack Obama has turned America’s image on its head.
On US election night last November, I wanted to jump and dance and shout, as I did after voting for the first time in my native South Africa on 27 April 1994.
(…) In the midst of this celebration, however, a word of caution is appropriate. In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world's sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it.
Obama too could easily squander the goodwill that his election generated if he disappoints.
It would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, Obama apologises to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.
The complete column can be found here.
