Liberia: What should we do

[Whaleboy]

Whatever "we" do will be wrong, so all the bellyachers need to plan for every scenario

Everything "you" do in the international context that is motivated by money or power will be wrong in the eyes of the "bellyachers", and that is the way it should be. It so happens that many people in the world dont like the idea of a unilateralist, money-oriented, overpowered, adolescent national beast controlling international affairs.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by elijah
Military action in another country.

I wouldn't worry about us sending troops to this pointless enterprise considering the size of our commitments thus far.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm still waiting for a real reason why we need to go in at all.

To put our money were our mouths are, at leats as far as this admin. goes. As MtG said, this admin. is the on selling that it cares about freedom and peace. Besides the US does have historic ties to Liberia, like France has historic ties to its ex colonies, and thus when problems arise they are the ones to go.

[Whaleboy]

True, and of course the fact that there is very little to gain economically from such an action.

[Sava]

Why should we (meaning the US) do anything?

I thought we were liberators?

Anyways... I would agree with some US military involvement. But I would rather see UN peacekeepers. The US shouldn't shoulder the entire burden.

[johncmcleod]

Why should we (meaning the US) do anything?

True, and of course the fact that there is very little to gain economically from such an action.

Is this all you care about, whether or not an action hurts the US? There are children being MURDERED in Liberia. Open up your eyes! Don't you care about helping other people? While we sit here on our computers with our fancy cars other people are living in a hellhole and all you think of is yourself? We are the ones with the power to help the oppressed, we must do something.

I'm not talking about the US deciding to play policeman and tell the world what is right and what is wrong. The UN must go in. The nations of the world must get together and decide to solve this terrible problem. If we do it that way all of the resources of the world will be put together and it will be possible to keep the peace there.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Is this all you care about, whether or not an action hurts the US?

Yes.

[Whaleboy]

johncmcleod: Wow. I havent seen quite so much unjustified absolutism since ...something very absolutist

We should treat such emotive stuff with a pinch of salt, and a large helping of cultural relativism. Different cultures, different activities, different practises, different situation, objectively, we have no right of interference, whatever we think as individuals or as a society, forcing that on others is a completely different proposition. I know that many people will find that abhorrent, but your views are as subjective as anyone elses, not to be forced on others.

Now I do agree that if (and thats a big if, for me its defined by the Mill Limit) we do go in, it has to be via the UN. The illogical nature of one state acting as policeman is obvious as best, and idiotic at worst, and downright damaging currently.

[DanS]

we have no right of interference

Bull****. We just don't have the responsibility.

[Whaleboy]

Bull****

How do you have a right of interference then? Enlighten me as to how that is possible in any consistent philosophical or moral way that is consistent with a logical way of running a nationstate.

The responsibility is yet to be seen of course, but that does lie with the UN, not the US. And with the UN, its very specific.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course we should go in. Send a few troops, do a joint thing with the French, just for peacekeeping, while working to broker a deal. It'd buy a lot of political capital. Good PR and a stepping stone in West Africa if we play our cards right.

And yes, we can intervene whenever we wish. We are the US. That's all that needs to be said, really . And it ain't like Kofi is going to be against it... especially if it is done in a peacekeeping role (we'd probably get praised for it).

[Sava]

STATEMENT FROM HOWARD DEAN ON WORSENING CRISIS IN LIBERIA
Wednesday July 2, 2003
By: Press Office
(July 2, 2003)

Dubuque, IA - "Today, the world community looks to the United States for leadership in addressing the worsening crisis in Liberia. One week ago, I called for a foreign policy under which our nation reclaimed its role as the inspirational leader of the world and the beacon of hope and justice in the interests of humankind. I said that American military force should be committed only when American security interests are imminently threatened or in the face of imminent humanitarian catastrophe. And I argued that, in such cases, we must always strive to act multilaterally not unilaterally.


"Currently, we face a challenge to our long-term security interests in West Africa, and the world faces an emerging humanitarian crisis. The situation in Liberia is unfolding in the context of increasing instability throughout West Africa - Sierra Leone is still going through a difficult transition, and more recently Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) collapsed into conflict. We can ill afford a swath of instability stretching across that region. There are also credible reports that terrorist networks, including Al Qaeda, have begun to exploit that instability by, for example, trading in illegal "conflict diamonds" to finance their operations.


"As a member of the international community, and the world's leading power, we share responsibility for helping to resolve such conflicts throughout the world. Our British allies stepped up to the plate when they intervened in Sierra Leone three years ago to stabilize that situation. The French have gone into Cote d'Ivoire; and French and British troops are now doing duty in the eastern Congo. African governments have sent peacekeepers into Burundi, and West African leaders have pledged to again send thousands of peacekeepers to Liberia. Now, the British, French, UN Secretary General and our West African partners are all calling on the U.S. to assist Liberia. I believe that the US must do its share.


"We must do this not only to defend our interests, but to act as force for good in a country that has been an ally to the US for decades. The Bush administration claims to prize "moral clarity" in their conduct of foreign policy. I can think of no better way for the Administration to demonstrate this quality than to step in to assist the people of Liberia, which have long been oppressed by vicious dictators, most recently Charles Taylor. We have the power to help the people of Liberia put themselves on a path to security and eventual democracy by helping resolve a crisis. We must never again stand idly by as we did in Rwanda in the face of humanitarian crisis. That inaction remains a terrible stain on our record.


"For all of these reasons, I urge the President to act by sending U.S. troops to be a part of a multinational peacekeeping force under U.S. command to enforce a cease-fire and ensure the safety of the civilian population.


"Specifically, we should participate in a short term deployment as requested by the United Nations, the United Kingdom, France and the West Africans in which our troops comprise a significant, but not majority, portion of the force. ECOWAS (the regional organization of West Africa) has committed to sending 3000 troops. I believe that if the U.S. provided troops in the range of 2000, cooperating with ECOWAS troops but with a U.S. command, we could stabilize the situation and remain in Liberia for no more than several months, at which time a UN peacekeeping mission could be deployed to oversee a period of transition.


"Our presence is vital to securing the peace until a UN transitional authority, backed by a UN peacekeeping force, can facilitate a democratic transition and allow a reconstitution of civil society. Once our peacekeeping role has been transferred to the UN, it is imperative that we continue to support the process logistically and financially.


"I would urge the President to tie our commitment to assist in this multilateral effort to an appeal to the world to join us in the work that remains to be done in Iraq stabilizing the security situation and building a democracy.


"As for Charles Taylor, he should turn himself over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone to answer charges that he is one of a handful of war criminals bearing the "greatest responsibility" for crimes against humanity committed in that neighboring country.


The situation in Liberia is significantly different from the situation in Iraq. In Iraq, the Bush administration failed to prove either a credible imminent threat to American interests or an impending humanitarian catastrophe. It also failed to gather the multilateral support necessary to legitimize our actions in the eyes of the world.


"The situation in Liberia is exactly the opposite. There is an imminent threat of serious humanitarian catastrophe and the world community is asking the United States to exercise its leadership.


"Saddam Hussein's was an extraordinarily brutal regime. The Iraqi people and the world are better off without him. But that was not the justification the Bush administration presented for the invasion of Iraq. We based the war on the argument that we faced an imminent threat to our interests from weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi support for Al-Qaeda neither of which have been proven to date. The world community did not buy our rationale for war or the evidence we presented and it looks like their skepticism was justified.


"I stated clearly at the time that our approach to Iraq needed to be multilateral and based on humanitarian grounds. If we had done so, the entire situation might have played out differently and today we might have the broad international backing we need for the nationbuilding efforts that are now failing.


"I opposed the war in Iraq because it was the wrong war at the wrong time, not because I believe American force should never be used. I laid out my position clearly in my address to the Council on Foreign Relations last week. Military intervention in Liberia represents an appropriate use of American power.


"I will not apply a one-size fits all approach to American foreign policy. We bear a special responsibility in world affairs as the world's only superpower. There is a time and a place for military action. In Iraq, we launched a war at the wrong time. In Liberia, we are called on to keep the peace, and the time to act is now."

(Press Release)

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6568&news_iv_ctrl=1301

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Sava

... I would agree with some US military involvement. But I would rather see UN peacekeepers. The US shouldn't shoulder the entire burden.

That is my view too. Doing nothing (let everybody carries the can) broadens the divide between "peacekeeping" and "peacekeeping in the interests of the US".

Any country going in alone is not a good plan... a few countries have expressed a desire to get involved, but only if there's a consensus and at least US backup, if not actual troops on the ground.

Think about it; if the US does nothing except where it wants to, everybody else sees it as an excuse to go colonizing. If the US went where it is MOST NEEDED, that creates a certain precdent for intervention.

Getting a consensus on ENDING war (14 years in Liberia?) would do the US' image a power of good... and it might actually do something good to stabilise West Africa.

[C0ckney]

i can't help but think that a lot of the people who have posted so far don't really know very much at all about what is happening in liberia (lo elijah and dino).

i think the US would do very well to do pretty much what we did in sierra leone, that is to send a small force (we sent about 500 combat troops and a couple of royal navy destroyers) to keep a minimum of order the capital, protect foreign nationals and to oversee the hand-over of power to a new transitional government. they could perhaps also help to make sure that president taylor (who is, for the record, an utter scumbag) keeps his promise to resign and that his supporters are dis-armed. any force should include people to train a new national army and perhaps police force, as we did in sierra leone and i would hope britain would provide some assistance on this front. this small US force could act as backup to a larger UN peacekeeping force, made up of troops from west africa, and possibly further afield, which would ensure security in the rest of the country and oversee the dis-armerment of the rebels. the new national army could take over this role, gradually, after they are trained.

such a force would cost very little in terms of both money and lives (we have lost 1 soldier in sierra leone in the entire time we've been there), and in my opinion achieve an awful lot in helping to oversee the peace process and a better future for liberia.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Now you're just being cruel. We might as well kill the Liberians ourselves for all the good the French would do in stopping the bloodshed. You want another Rwanda?

We have learned from Rwanda. That's precisely Ivory Coast didn't experience a genocide this year.

However, the French army won't be efficient outside of the usual French influence zone. The "success" of the Ivory Coast operation ("success" in comparison of the Rwanda 2 it could have been) comes from the fact that some influent people have a very extensive network of connections in the French influence zone, which eases discussions and consensus building. Force alone would have never avoided the carnage. In Liberia, we don't have such a dense network of "friends" we could try to reason. Our force would either be some colonialist massacrer, or a useless UN-like buffer, depending on the amount of force we'd use.

The US should lead an international peacekeeping force in Liberia, for it wouldn't cost much, and could do great help to US' diplomatic image. Besides, the US could look at the Ivorian example to defuse the potential major crisis, and to have it cheaper in the long run (by using African armies to do the grunt job in the end).

I think the US should lead, because the US seems to be the only major power having enough links with Liberia to have developed the much needed informal networks there.

Otherwise, the US should back some important eighbour trying to stabilize the mess (however, chances are such an intervention will make things even messier, except if the intervening country is significantly bribed into not plundering Liberia for its own profit)