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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (103796)	7/2/2003 4:21:13 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This Blogger sums up my thoughts on Liberia. You know, when I hear about people pleading for us to help out somewhere like Liberia, I think back to the build-up to the war in Iraq. Back then we were called Nazis, hegemons, imperialists, & Fascists. The American people & our President were impugned daily by nations that we had helped over and over again for decades. We were told that America was rabidly unpopular and that many people thought we were a bigger threat to the world that Al Qaeda. But now a few short months later when Europe & the UN have started to get skittish about going into the middle of a civil war it's, "Hey Uncle Sam old buddy, could help us get rid of this dictator who's causing problems in Liberia?" Let me ask the obvious question, "Why the Hell should we get involved in Liberia?" We have no national interest at stake there, right? And let's be completely honest, no one is going to genuinely appreciate our help. Not the Western Europeans who could care less that we helped liberate them from the Nazis and then defended them from the Soviets, not Africans who show zero gratitude for the billions we give them, & not even the Liberians themselves who will care for no more than a few years at best. Moreover, by even getting involved it's likely we'll get all sorts of grief from the "I hate America crowd" on the left in America & Europe. We'll have international lawyers trying to figure out how to charge our men with war crimes when we accidentally kill civilians, NGOs complaining that we're not doing enough for the people of Liberia, the press painting the whole thing as a disaster & a "quagmire" until we win the day, paranoid libs & Paleocons claiming we're acting like imperialists again, & ungrateful allies complaining about how we're conducting the military campaign -- as if they could do better. Why should we put ourselves through that for Liberia or for any country that has no strategic relevance to us? Were it up to me, we wouldn't. In fact, we wouldn't go to place like Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, & Bosnia again. We get no benefits from those sorts of missions other than the opportunity to pat ourselves on the backs and tell ourselves we're good people even if the rest of the world refuses to see it. So instead of America getting involved, why don't we send Kofi Annan down to Liberia and let him demand that Charles Taylor step down in the name of the UN and international law? That could work right? Then there are the Canadians -- don't some of them claim to be a "moral superpower"? Let them go down to Liberia and see what they can do. Even the French could help -- just look at the bang-up job they've doing down on the Ivory Coast -- OK, maybe the French aren't such a good idea. But in the end, it doesn't really matter to me who goes to Liberia as long as it isn't us. America has done enough good deeds for the world in the last century to last for the rest of human history. If America has no stake in the fight, we should let some other nation or power get involved... John Hawkins \| 08:29 PM rightwingnews.com

To: KLP who wrote (103796)	7/2/2003 9:57:52 AM
From: aladin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Karen, I know. The problem is that it doesn't fit the preconceived notions of either side in our local debating society. Our liberals want to ignore it because if we go in it obviates a lot of their opinions. Our right wing will view it as outside of our national interest (since their is no oil or minerals that we must get from there). The fact is most of the African insurgencies involve small arms or light infantry and at worst maybe some small armored units. With no great powers playing against each other - these problems are solvable. We should go in here and the French, Belgians and other Euro's should clean up their colonial messes in the DNC and surrounding states. John