All over the world (including, and especially in, the United States proper), people love criticizing American foreign policy with an ironic smile while pointing out their double standards, real or alleged, with a cynical line of queries: "Why are the Americans obsessed with such-and-such a dictator and not the dictator of this other country?!" or, worse, "If they are taking on so-and-so, why, then, do they remain the allies of such-and-such son of a bitch?!"
It's an exercise that such people are much less inclined to hold vis-à-vis their own heroes, such as leftist icons. It's alright to sneer caustically about an American (even a leftist like Franklin Delano Roosevelt) for a cynical statement such as saying Such-and-Such "may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch", but heaven forbid that the Left do that the same with distasteful allies on their own side.
All of which is witnessed by the Che Guevara-like T-shirts worn by ANC members in
a Jerôme Delay (AFP) photo illustrating the Le Monde article of Christophe Châtelot: one of the greatest supporters of Nelson Mandela — thanked publicly by the South African leader on numerous occasions — was Muammar Gaddafi.(Then again, the "Brotherly Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" — himself in the process of becoming for some an icon of the Left — seems to have had a history of supporting the Left's most lionized paragons…)
