More On Liberia

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by DanS
The US isn't going to deploy into a situation that we couldn't control, if push came to shove. What happens if Taylor decides he doesn't want to leave the country after all, for instance?

well, when ministers from your own government are publicly saying they can't wait for you to leave office, it should be pretty obvious which way the wind is blowing

as i said, nothing is 100% certain in these situations, but as cinch said, US troops would be there to help impliment a negociated agreement, basically smooth the way and prevent any major disruption. i, personally, would hope that a larger UN force would be going in as well, to keep order in the countryside whilst the new government is being set up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

This isn't sending your boys into an inflammatory situation; this is sending in your boys to *prevent* that situation. You know, that 'pre-emptive action' we're all so fond of.

Very well put .

[DanS]

Here's an article showing how fickle the situation is on the ground...

Liberian Rebels Warn of "Fight"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3060109.stm

[DanS]

And another overview...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48783-2003Jul12.html

[C0ckney]

the BBC article does make for worrying reading, hopefully both sides can be made to see sense before troops go in. the WP article won't load for me (i did register).

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by C0ckney
the WP article won't load for me (i did register).

Liberians Pin Hopes on U.S. Troops
West Africans' Efforts to Keep Peace In 14-Year Conflict Dogged by Failure

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A18

MONROVIA, Liberia, July 12 -- When a U.S. military team arrived by motorcade at Monrovia's commercial port last week, they surveyed the rusting hulls and the collapsed quay. Behind them loomed a two-story building that serves as a reminder of the failure of the last peacekeeping mission that ventured into this West African nation.

Liberians know the bright green port headquarters as the place where invading rebels found then-President Samuel K. Doe one day in 1990. The insurgents slaughtered Doe's bodyguards, broke his leg and dragged him to the camp where his mutilation -- he lost both ears -- was recorded on a videotape later peddled in the capital city's markets.

Standing by were peacekeepers from neighboring African states, dispatched to protect political order in Liberia. The West Africans had disarmed Doe's entourage but somehow missed the rebels, who managed to sneak in.

"We need the Americans," said Christopher Shain, a port worker. "The Americans will do better."

A group of West African states is again sending troops to Liberia. A U.S. contingent may or may not follow.

Liberians hope that the deployment of U.S. troops will finally bring peace. But Liberia's tormented history makes the Bush administration hesitant to send U.S. troops here, and determined to keep them on the ground only a few months if they do come.

This lush coastal nation -- founded by freed slaves who returned to Africa before the American Civil War -- is a country that has been at war with itself or its neighbors for 14 years.

Monrovia residents called the fighting that has erupted here twice in the past month the worst in memory. More than 500 civilians died in house-to-house fighting after the failure of a peace accord signed last month between the government of President Charles Taylor and two rebel groups.

The fresh turmoil brought calls from the United Nations for the United States to send troops to stop the violence here, as Britain did in Sierra Leone to the west and France did in Ivory Coast to the east.

The three conflicts are part of one roiling regional war, a tangle of personal, tribal, class and historical conflicts that analysts say come together in the person of Taylor. The Liberian president faces an indictment by a U.N.-backed court for crimes against humanity for his support of militias that carried out forced amputations, rapes and other war crimes in Sierra Leone.

"We live in a fear psychosis," said Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael K. Francis, who wrote a pastoral letter warning that a "culture of evil" had taken root under Taylor.

Bush made Taylor's departure a condition for dispatching U.S. troops. Analysts said that a force as small as 1,000 U.S. troops would ensure the credibility of an "international stabilization force," made up mostly of Africans, expected within two weeks.

Without promising more than logistical coordination and financial assistance, the Pentagon dispatched a team to Ghana last week to coordinate with the regional force. In addition, a "humanitarian assessment team" arrived by helicopter in Monrovia last Monday to assess the situation on the ground.

Even Taylor's most loyal fighters say they are ready for peace.

"It's a no-winner, no-loser war," said George Lasimeto, who joined Taylor's "Small Boys Unit" in 1991 at age 14. Taylor institutionalized the use of child soldiers.

"It's difficult for either side to obtain military victory, so I'm happy the Americans will come to end it."

"We're tired of war," said Gen. Eric Goon, a wounded member of Taylor's elite militia, the Anti-Terrorism Unit. He was interviewed at Monrovia's John F. Kennedy Hospital, where the few wards that are open treat only war wounds and cholera.

Both Lasimeto and Goon were wounded pushing back the latest rebel offensive last month. Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, approached from the north, the direction of Guinea, their main patron. Although some call LURD a tribal movement because its ranks are dominated by Mandingos, others see it as a religion-oriented group. A handout circulating in Monrovia calls for jihad against Liberia's Christian establishment.

Analysts say LURD is best understood as a client of the neighboring states, most notably Ivory Coast, that Taylor destabilized by sending rebels into their territory.

"The problem is when it's reduced to the tribal level," said one Liberian academic, who like many prominent residents asked not to be identified, citing fear for their safety. "This is where it will be prolonged and this is where it will be serious."

LURD, though apparently on good behavior last month in Monrovia, where residents say the group shared looted food with ordinary citizens, became notorious for leveling villages in the north.

A second rebel group operates south of the capital. The Movement for Democracy in Liberia, or Model, is sponsored by Ivory Coast and includes many Krahns, the tribe of former president Doe. With only 1,000 fighters, it is one-third the size of LURD. The groups field a combined force that is one-tenth the size of the 40,000 militiamen Taylor commands. By many accounts, however, Taylor has been unable to pay his forces since fighting shuttered the timber operation that provided a large share of his cash.

The lightly armed fighters appear fearsome in the women's wigs and marijuana haze that mark the warrior culture here. When reporters showed up at a key government-held junction last week, 40 minutes outside Monrovia, the child soldiers burst into a song about rape and danced with pieces of a human skeleton.

Liberians expect most of the fighters to give up in the face of American force.

"To fight an American Marine, it's unimaginable," said Philip Moore, editor of the Independent newspaper, whose offices were emptied by the government forces who looted much of the capital after driving out LURD. "Once they see American Marines, everybody will put down their guns and run away."

According to the model that has worked well in Sierra Leone, the arrival of a peacekeeping force must be followed by the disarming of militias, and then by the creation of a professional national army. Diplomats and analysts caution that elections can be held only in an atmosphere of relative security.

Taylor won the presidency in 1997 with his militia threatening to resume fighting if he lost. He got 70 percent of the vote.

The peace accord calls for Taylor to cede power to a transitional government. But few here expect Liberia's next leader to emerge from either of the rebel movements, which are dominated by warlords.

On Friday, LURD alarmed Monrovia residents by threatening new attacks if Taylor remains after peacekeepers arrive. Bush was scheduled to meet with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday to discuss whether the peacekeepers will include Americans. By then he is expected to have the U.S. assessment team's report.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

All that I can say is that someone needs to move in either Americans or UN troops, and in large enough number to settle the two (or more?) sides down, and not in some piss poor number and get their ass kicked by the side that won't like their presence.

Resume the peace, build national army + some kind of functional democracy that this army will protect and leave... 1year to cool them down + 3-5 year effort to sort them out and get the country back on its feet again

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
The US isn't going to deploy into a situation that we couldn't control, if push came to shove. What happens if Taylor decides he doesn't want to leave the country after all, for instance?

We send a platoon of D-boys in Little Birds, supported by four chalks of Rangers to extract him and remove him by force?

[DanS]

Hey, I would support that. The book and movie businesses need the work!

At least they should have IFVs this time!

[MOBIUS]

Given the US' eagerness to 'change the regime' in Iraq because of Saddam's human rights abuses, it would be the ultimate hypocrisy not to intervene in Liberia - especially given the historical ties between both nations...

Get into Monrovia NOW!

[DanS]

OK, MOBIUS is supporting it. I guess that means we shouldn't do it.

[C0ckney]

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by DanS
OK, MOBIUS is supporting it. I guess that means we shouldn't do it.

That settles the issue for me at least.

[Sava]

US involvement in Liberia should be part of an international effort. NATO, UN, I don't care... but we can be playing policeman. The world needs to step up.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Read the bit about the US force being the lead force in a multinational African force.