Yesterday's Friend & Today's Terrorists

Funny thing terrorism. Nelson Mandela and his ANC party were condemned as terrorists by the USA & UK and he is still officially on the US list of known terrorists but there is a movement to have his name removed.
Whether Mr Mandela was a terrorist or not depends upon your interpretation of exactly what a terrorist is and whether they are supporting the overthrowing of a government you are against.
Fidel Castro waged a campaign to overthrow a corrupt and brutal leader in Batista in Cuba and was rewarded by over 50 years of sanctions and repeated attempts on his life by a Batista friendly USA.
While Saddam Hussein was fighting Iran, he was supported by the West with those famous chemical weapons but as soon as he turned his attentions to the oil fields of Kuwait, he went from hero to terrorist overnight.
Al Queada went from what Ronald Reagan said were 'the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers' when they were trying to remove Russians from an invaded Afghanistan but are now 'the greatest threat to mankind' when it is American soldiers they are trying to remove from an invaded Afghanistan.
In May 2001, the USA handed the Taliban a gift of $43m, in October of the same year they were forcibly removing them.
Hamas and Hizbullah are condemned as terrorist organisations for attacking Israel although it is Israel that are the occupiers and began life itself after a terrorist campaign by the likes of the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvei Leumi.
The IRA went on fund raising trips to New York and Boston and were shaking hands with President Clinton while IRA bombs exploded with deadly effect in England.
Sure does make it difficult to keep up with who exactly are the terrorists and who are fighting for a worthy cause.