Tamdhu
9th July 2003, 16:07
I'm posting here two articles, one in support of sending US troops to Liberia and one against. I've read others taking the opposite view that I found equally compelling.
Is sending US troops to help 'stabilize' Liberia a good thing to do?
Is it a bad thing to do?
Would it just be another insane expression of the fascistic Bush Regime's forcing it's New World Order of Doom on a hapless world powerless to stop him?
Sound off here!
Bear in mind that both of these articles are from writers with a basically conservative mindset. Clearly there are going to be many variations either for or against beyond the two shown here.
PRO:
Destination: Liberia
It is imperative we send troops in.
By Roger Carstens
n his piece on Liberia, Ted Galen Carpenter argued that should President Bush intervene in Liberia, he would be violating a campaign 2000 pledge to conduct such interventions only when vital national interests are at stake. He further stated, "There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, national interest at stake in Liberia."
He went on to say that there is far greater misery in "such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and the Sudan" than there is in Liberia, and that "from a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases?"
Carpenter is correct on all accounts. And yet he has reached the wrong conclusions. The United States should intervene in Liberia — and consider the others, too.
In 1994, I stood in an aircraft hanger in Stuttgart, Germany, loading ammunition into my weapon's magazines, conducting communications rehearsals, and incorporating the latest intelligence data into our plan. The mission: to send a special-forces unit to Rwanda to seize the national airport, secure American citizens and foreign nationals, and prepare the area for follow-on forces that would attempt to stabilize the situation. Despite the danger of landing in a country that was in the process of slaughtering over a half million of its citizens, we were ready and committed — and we all believed in the importance of stopping the genocide at the potential cost of our lives.
Imagine, then, the twisting feelings in the pits of our stomachs when the mission was scratched.
I still remember the tension that I felt going home to watch the news reports filtering in to CNN International — the bodies floating down the river, the corpses stacked up in the churches. I was not alone. We all felt it.
So now, faced with a decision of whether or not to intervene in the crisis in Liberia and not wanting to feel like I did on that day in 1994, I say we go. And here is why.
First of all, it is a human-rights imperative. Liberia stands on the edge of a humanitarian crisis, and it is clear that it will not dig itself out. The regional African nations are unable to mount an effective effort to end the crisis and our European allies are unwilling to go it alone. U.S. leadership is required to end the bloodshed and suffering.
Second, the introduction of U.S. troops and the removal of the current president of Liberia Charles Taylor will promote regional stability. Taylor, who has just been indicted for War Crimes relating to Sierra Leone, has sponsored rebel groups in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Removing Taylor from power and fostering good government in Liberia will go a long way towards reducing instability in West Africa.
Third, the timing is right. The U.N., Britain, France, and several West African nations support U.S. intervention. Additionally, the two rebel factions that are closing in on Monrovia — the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) — agree that a U.S.-led intervention would be welcome. And based on Taylor's recent military demise, one can argue that Libya's Khadafi must no longer be offering support to Monrovia, isolating the government and providing a window of opportunity to effect "regime change." The stars and moons are aligning.
Fourth, a U.S.-led intervention would announce a fundamental alteration of U.S. policy towards Africa. The president has made monumental changes to American policy in Africa, as shown by the establishment of the Millennium Challenge Account and his recent $15 billion AIDS initiative. A commitment to a stabilized Liberia might have positive second- and third-order effects with regards to Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and regional stability in general.
Fifth, a U.S. operation in Liberia will be a continuation of the global war on terror. As pointed out in James S. Robbins's NRO piece this week, "Liberia has direct and indirect links to the war on terrorism." President Taylor has helped finance international terror networks (to include al Qaeda) by way of the region's illegal diamond trade, and knows network operatives from his days training in Libya's terrorist camps. Removal of Taylor and the stability of Liberia will deny terrorists money, facilities, and safe haven.
Lastly, and perhaps most important to understand, a U.S. intervention is in line with President Bush's 2001 National Security Strategy. The strategy — the document that defines U.S. national interests — states that the United States has arrived at a place of "unprecedented and unequaled strength and influence," creating "a time of opportunity for America. We will work to translate this moment of influence into decades of peace, prosperity, and liberty. The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better."
CON:
July 3, 2003, 12:45 p.m.
Liberia Folly
No role for U.S. troops.
By Ted Galen Carpenter
During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush emphasized that a vital national interest ought to be at stake before the United States launches a military intervention. Unfortunately, the president is about to violate his own standard by sending American troops to Liberia at the head of an international peacekeeping force.
There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, U.S. interest at stake in Liberia. It might be possible to find a country that is less relevant than Liberia to America's security and well-being, but it would take a major effort.
Writer Irving Kristol had it right more than a decade ago during a previous civil war in Liberia when he observed that the only issue at stake seemed to be a mundane fight between then-dictator Samuel K. Doe and would-be dictator Charles Taylor. Today, the mundane struggle is between Taylor and rebels who would likely replace his odious regime with an equally odious one. America does not have a dog in that fight.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other lobbyists for a U.S.-led peacekeeping mission argue that intervention is justified because considerable suffering is taking place in the Liberian civil war. That is undoubtedly tragic for the people of Liberia. But the existence of suffering in another country is not sufficient reason for the United States to commit its military personnel.
There is suffering going on in numerous places around the world. Indeed, the scale of human misery is far greater in such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan than it is in Liberia. From a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases? Yet if the United States intends to intervene everywhere bad things happen, our military will be busy in perpetuity. Humanitarian intervention is, therefore, an impractical, bankrupt policy.
Even some advocates of intervention in Liberia seem to shy away from the logical implications of their policies. Typically, their arguments include a disclaimer that the United States cannot intervene everywhere, or that America cannot be the world's policeman. But then they blithely go on to suggest making Liberia an exception.
The problem with that approach is that the list of potential exceptions is as numerous as the advocates of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In the early 1990s, proponents made Somalia an exception. A few years later it was Haiti, then Bosnia, and then Kosovo. Now, advocates of intervention in Liberia compete with those who believe America should take action to end the suffering in the Congo or Myanmar.
Given all the potential "exceptions" to the rule that the United States should not try to be the world's policeman, America would end up in that role by default. Indeed, if the Bush administration follows the advice of the lobbyists for humanitarian intervention, the United States will not only be the world's policeman, it will be the world's armed social worker.
Some supporters of intervention in Liberia contend that the country is a special case because it was founded by freed American slaves in the 1800s. Of all the justifications for the use of military force, that one is the silliest. The circumstances of the founding of a country more than 150 years ago has no relevance whatsoever to the question of whether the United States ought to take action in the 21st century. When interventionists resort to that kind of argument, they are grasping at straws.
It is unsound strategically to send our military personnel in harm's way when there is no vital security interest at stake. Even worse, it is immoral to risk their lives in such ventures. Being a superpower means that the United States has the luxury to say "no" as well as "yes" to suggestions that it engage in military interventions. Liberia is a case where U.S. leaders should have said "no" early and often.
Is sending US troops to help 'stabilize' Liberia a good thing to do?
Is it a bad thing to do?
Would it just be another insane expression of the fascistic Bush Regime's forcing it's New World Order of Doom on a hapless world powerless to stop him?
Sound off here!
Bear in mind that both of these articles are from writers with a basically conservative mindset. Clearly there are going to be many variations either for or against beyond the two shown here.
PRO:
Destination: Liberia
It is imperative we send troops in.
By Roger Carstens
n his piece on Liberia, Ted Galen Carpenter argued that should President Bush intervene in Liberia, he would be violating a campaign 2000 pledge to conduct such interventions only when vital national interests are at stake. He further stated, "There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, national interest at stake in Liberia."
He went on to say that there is far greater misery in "such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and the Sudan" than there is in Liberia, and that "from a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases?"
Carpenter is correct on all accounts. And yet he has reached the wrong conclusions. The United States should intervene in Liberia — and consider the others, too.
In 1994, I stood in an aircraft hanger in Stuttgart, Germany, loading ammunition into my weapon's magazines, conducting communications rehearsals, and incorporating the latest intelligence data into our plan. The mission: to send a special-forces unit to Rwanda to seize the national airport, secure American citizens and foreign nationals, and prepare the area for follow-on forces that would attempt to stabilize the situation. Despite the danger of landing in a country that was in the process of slaughtering over a half million of its citizens, we were ready and committed — and we all believed in the importance of stopping the genocide at the potential cost of our lives.
Imagine, then, the twisting feelings in the pits of our stomachs when the mission was scratched.
I still remember the tension that I felt going home to watch the news reports filtering in to CNN International — the bodies floating down the river, the corpses stacked up in the churches. I was not alone. We all felt it.
So now, faced with a decision of whether or not to intervene in the crisis in Liberia and not wanting to feel like I did on that day in 1994, I say we go. And here is why.
First of all, it is a human-rights imperative. Liberia stands on the edge of a humanitarian crisis, and it is clear that it will not dig itself out. The regional African nations are unable to mount an effective effort to end the crisis and our European allies are unwilling to go it alone. U.S. leadership is required to end the bloodshed and suffering.
Second, the introduction of U.S. troops and the removal of the current president of Liberia Charles Taylor will promote regional stability. Taylor, who has just been indicted for War Crimes relating to Sierra Leone, has sponsored rebel groups in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Removing Taylor from power and fostering good government in Liberia will go a long way towards reducing instability in West Africa.
Third, the timing is right. The U.N., Britain, France, and several West African nations support U.S. intervention. Additionally, the two rebel factions that are closing in on Monrovia — the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) — agree that a U.S.-led intervention would be welcome. And based on Taylor's recent military demise, one can argue that Libya's Khadafi must no longer be offering support to Monrovia, isolating the government and providing a window of opportunity to effect "regime change." The stars and moons are aligning.
Fourth, a U.S.-led intervention would announce a fundamental alteration of U.S. policy towards Africa. The president has made monumental changes to American policy in Africa, as shown by the establishment of the Millennium Challenge Account and his recent $15 billion AIDS initiative. A commitment to a stabilized Liberia might have positive second- and third-order effects with regards to Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and regional stability in general.
Fifth, a U.S. operation in Liberia will be a continuation of the global war on terror. As pointed out in James S. Robbins's NRO piece this week, "Liberia has direct and indirect links to the war on terrorism." President Taylor has helped finance international terror networks (to include al Qaeda) by way of the region's illegal diamond trade, and knows network operatives from his days training in Libya's terrorist camps. Removal of Taylor and the stability of Liberia will deny terrorists money, facilities, and safe haven.
Lastly, and perhaps most important to understand, a U.S. intervention is in line with President Bush's 2001 National Security Strategy. The strategy — the document that defines U.S. national interests — states that the United States has arrived at a place of "unprecedented and unequaled strength and influence," creating "a time of opportunity for America. We will work to translate this moment of influence into decades of peace, prosperity, and liberty. The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better."
CON:
July 3, 2003, 12:45 p.m.
Liberia Folly
No role for U.S. troops.
By Ted Galen Carpenter
During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush emphasized that a vital national interest ought to be at stake before the United States launches a military intervention. Unfortunately, the president is about to violate his own standard by sending American troops to Liberia at the head of an international peacekeeping force.
There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, U.S. interest at stake in Liberia. It might be possible to find a country that is less relevant than Liberia to America's security and well-being, but it would take a major effort.
Writer Irving Kristol had it right more than a decade ago during a previous civil war in Liberia when he observed that the only issue at stake seemed to be a mundane fight between then-dictator Samuel K. Doe and would-be dictator Charles Taylor. Today, the mundane struggle is between Taylor and rebels who would likely replace his odious regime with an equally odious one. America does not have a dog in that fight.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other lobbyists for a U.S.-led peacekeeping mission argue that intervention is justified because considerable suffering is taking place in the Liberian civil war. That is undoubtedly tragic for the people of Liberia. But the existence of suffering in another country is not sufficient reason for the United States to commit its military personnel.
There is suffering going on in numerous places around the world. Indeed, the scale of human misery is far greater in such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan than it is in Liberia. From a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases? Yet if the United States intends to intervene everywhere bad things happen, our military will be busy in perpetuity. Humanitarian intervention is, therefore, an impractical, bankrupt policy.
Even some advocates of intervention in Liberia seem to shy away from the logical implications of their policies. Typically, their arguments include a disclaimer that the United States cannot intervene everywhere, or that America cannot be the world's policeman. But then they blithely go on to suggest making Liberia an exception.
The problem with that approach is that the list of potential exceptions is as numerous as the advocates of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In the early 1990s, proponents made Somalia an exception. A few years later it was Haiti, then Bosnia, and then Kosovo. Now, advocates of intervention in Liberia compete with those who believe America should take action to end the suffering in the Congo or Myanmar.
Given all the potential "exceptions" to the rule that the United States should not try to be the world's policeman, America would end up in that role by default. Indeed, if the Bush administration follows the advice of the lobbyists for humanitarian intervention, the United States will not only be the world's policeman, it will be the world's armed social worker.
Some supporters of intervention in Liberia contend that the country is a special case because it was founded by freed American slaves in the 1800s. Of all the justifications for the use of military force, that one is the silliest. The circumstances of the founding of a country more than 150 years ago has no relevance whatsoever to the question of whether the United States ought to take action in the 21st century. When interventionists resort to that kind of argument, they are grasping at straws.
It is unsound strategically to send our military personnel in harm's way when there is no vital security interest at stake. Even worse, it is immoral to risk their lives in such ventures. Being a superpower means that the United States has the luxury to say "no" as well as "yes" to suggestions that it engage in military interventions. Liberia is a case where U.S. leaders should have said "no" early and often.