This Just In: Nelson Mandela Not a Terrorist

I was just looking over the news websites looking for something else when I noted that Nelson Mandela isn't a terrorist anymore.

A bill signed by Bush today "authorizes the Departments of State and Homeland Security to determine that provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that render aliens inadmissible due to terrorist or criminal activities would not apply with respect to activities undertaken in association with the African National Congress in opposition to apartheid rule in South Africa." To give you a bit of a time frame, Apartheid ended in 1994, the same year that Mandela became President of South Africa. He won the Nobel Prize the previous year. He retired from the Presidency in 1999. It is now 2008.

My point in bringing this to your attention? I don't really have one. Though I suppose I should point out that by most definitions, the militant wing of the ANC does technically qualify as a terrorist qualification. Of course, if terrorism is taken to mean acts of violence committed against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological ends, then most governments should probably add themselves to their terrorism watch lists.