USA: air force and Cheney honour racist Strom Thurmond

From an article on the visit of US Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan:

Cheney did not fly on his usual jet, Air Force Two, which was left behind at a US base in Oman, instead boarding a C-17 cargo plane maintained by the South Carolina Air National Guard, named the Spirit of Strom Thurmond, which carried him to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Cheney was accompanied on his visit to both countries by Stephen Kappes, deputy director of the CIA and a veteran of the agency since the days when it first mobilized Osama bin Laden, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other Islamic fundamentalists to wage war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Republican Senator Strom Thurmond is one of the most racist bigots in US history.