Title really should be: "The Day Mandela Was Arrested, With A Little Help From A Hired Private Security Contractor Who Happened To Have Worked For The CIA In The Past"
Mandela was arrested in the 1962, and Shirley (the person in question) only retired from the agency a decade later, in 1973.
http://www.salon.com/1996/11/14/news_577/
I believe the confusion comes from when the training manuals for the South African security/intelligence forces were being developed by him, which came later, after his ostensible retirement.
That's one part of capitalism I hate, paying fat checks, and knowing it will never backfire to you. When you're a government agency, when you hire somebody, there's espionage/politics involved, don't pretend the CIA is pinky pony. It's strategic moves from start to end.
I've seen worse headlines.
While it is easy to sit back and judge the past we have to realize that some actions were seen as prudent at the time. The nation Mandela came up in is far different from what it is today but so is the world. This by no means excuses actions of the past, but at the time who would have ever figured the transformation that took place in him at the time.
"At the time, it made sense to help racists (who happened to be our allies) imprison and possibly hang a black agitator. We now know it was wrong, but back then who knew?" Um, ok. So when is it right to denounce those who helped racist regimes?
It's extremely tiresome to watch actions being justified because the "big bad" communists were out there. And what is this about an existential struggle?
The only real struggle between the two nations was who would dominate the rest of the world. I don't consider this existential. China is doing just fine without wanting to take over the rest of the world.
It's great revisionist history going on right now with Nelson Mandela's death. If you don't know the real history, you would think the States was right there beside Mandela fighting for freedom.
Not by black people.
The US are great inside its border, but outside, until everybody adopted total liberal capitalism (which surprisingly, fit the "I hire you, obey me" manner, and is very effective at buying assets), it will be shitting in every country it can. And that's not wise nor smart.
That's very aggressive, and that's the main reason people are now scared of flying. More and more bad rep, yet american citizens will argue europeans are faggots, that the US is on top or whatever. I don't want to judge too much, but there is a different between a respected leader and a bully.