South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned Barack Obama of the risk of squandering the goodwill he says the US president’s election has generated.

In an exclusive article for BBC News, Archbishop Tutu compared this goodwill to the outpouring of sympathy that followed 9/11 and which quickly vanished in the light of the allegations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

“Obama, too, could easily squander the goodwill that his election generated if he disappoints,” he says.

He adds: “It would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, Obama apologizes to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.”

Pointing to the inspirational role of the US during the struggle against apartheid, the veteran campaigner for reconciliation asks President Obama to “come down hard” on African dictators.

In an exclusive article for BBC News, the former Archbishop of Cape Town spoke of his joy at watching the US election results coming in.

“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.”

He calls Mr Obama’s election an “epoch-making event that filled the whole world with hope that change is possible.”

He urges the president and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to act quickly to reach out to other countries, to build bridges with them and to listen to what they say.

The archbishop says November’s election has turned America’s image on its head after what he says were seven lean years for those who looked to America for inspiration.

“The Bush Administration managed to rile people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude sadly polarized our world,” he says.

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This is the same Tutu who in a 1984 appearance on Capitol Hill, said that it seemed that the Reagan White House saw “blacks as expendable” in South Africa. Tutu chastised Reagan’s FAKE “constructive engagement” with apartheid South Africa — as an unmitigated disaster, and that apartheid itself was “is evil, is immoral, is un-Christian . . .”

Tutu added: “In my view, the Reagan administration’s support and collaboration with it is equally immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian . . . You are either for or against apartheid and not by rhetoric. You are either in favor of evil or you are in favor of good. You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can’t be neutral.”

Reagan was not moved. Over the remainder of his presidency, at least 3000 people would die, mostly at the hands of the South African police and military. Another 20,000, including 6000 children, according to one estimate by a human rights group, would be arrested under “state of emergency” decrees.

President George W. Bush once said that Reagan believed God was on the side of justice. On South Africa, Reagan was on the side of one of the most demonic governments on the face of the earth. He chose to assist tyranny and ignore brutality. — [ READ MORE HERE ]

Obama has chosen to dismantle these elements of Bush’s criminal legacy, and by extension Ronald Reagan’s MANUFACTURED MYTH — The greatest PR swindle of our age. Reagan rained death on central Americans through the CIA, and Bush followed suit by raining death on Iraqis a.k.a spreading FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY

Both were CRIMINAL ACTS — in Nicaragua and Iraq — war crimes worthy of incarceration.

I know Obama would like to JAIL Bush, but he won’t — It would cause a major hullabaloo, with the “dung bullets” coming out of the extreme RIGHT-FIELD, with a ferocity that would paralyze America, totally.

The demented Republicans would seize the issue like HUNGRY LACTATING HYENA’S scavenging for food…ANY FOOD!

Obama ought to heed Tutu’s words carefully, for a mis-step in Afghanistan would eat away the flood of goodwill flowing to him from all over the world.

The only option left for Obama to “apologize for Bush’s mass killings in Iraq,” is to quickly wind up the war in Afghanistan, followed by a thorough investigation of Bush and his cohorts — lay the truth out there for the world to see — then incarcerate Dick Cheney and fellow neo-con criminal colleagues who master-minded the lies that led to illegal war in Iraq.

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