US going to Liberia

About 4,500 marines have been ordered to the Mediterranean to be ready to intervene in Liberia.

President George W Bush said the US was monitoring the situation very carefully.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3084771.stm


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A tough call, there isnt even a local administration to help them if they go in, and the place is bristling with guns

At least the UK had a bit of local help and support when we went into Sierra Leone.

Without that, and UN help to legitimise the military, Its very risky.

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Sierra Leone success

"The intervention in Sierra Leone has worked," says Josephine Hazely of the BBC World Service's Africa section.

"The Sierra Leoneans, for some reason, warmed to the British and think the British saved them from the rebels.


British intervention in Sierra Leone was seen as a success

"I don't know if it was euphoria, but some people were even saying 'we should be re-colonised'." The rebels who moved into parts of Freetown in 1999 killed many civilians.

They raped women and girls and cut off the hands and feet of children.

Britain decided to send in a military force in May 2000 and, along with UN peacekeepers have managed to bring security to the country and put rebel leaders in jail.

"It worked because they went there in numbers," Ms Hazely says.

"There was a peace agreement, there was already a legitimately elected government which didn't have to be cobbled together, there was acceptance from the people and the political elite and there was also a clear mandate."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3026384.stm

Where's the outrage, where's the debate. what is bush thinking?

"Where's the outrage, where's the debate. what is bush thinking?"

Well out,
While I haven't read a whole lot on the situation this seems to actually be a humanitarian issue, why would there be outrage to that?

There's no such thing as an "humanitarian war." What is happening in Liberia -- and several other African nations -- is the natural result of the choices their people have made. They have chosen to stand idly by while one corrupt politician after another drives the country into misery and ruin. If they will choose to live like that, how can anyone seriously expect them to suddenly buck up and take responsibility for themselves once the Marines are done bathing the streets of Monrovia in blood?

The average life expectancy in Liberia is just over 50. There is a huge percentage of the population infected with HIV. The infant mortality rate is over 13% and the net migration has been negative every year since 1989. You leave Liberia alone, and in a couple of more years this problem will solve itself, because there won't be any Liberians left -- the good, decent citizens will have all left for greenr pastures and the rest will be dead, and the world will be no poorer for having lost a few deadbeats that won't stick up for themselves or look for constructive solutions to their problems.


Phaedrus

Phaedrus,

I think you have a valid point.
As I mentioned, I'm not well enough informed on the situation so I don't really have an opinion as to getting involved or not. I agree that there is no such thing as a humanitarian war. However at face value it seems to me that humanitarian sentiment is the motive behind the call for action, as opposed to Iraq were there were other interests involved.

I would just like to make one clarification on my above point, since it was so strongly worded: I do believe in helping people who cannot help themselves, and in making an assist to those who are putting out sincere effort in getting their situation, whatever it might be, resolved. I just don't believe in helping people who will not help themselves, whose entire existence goes from one reality-evading handout to another. And that former description, based on what you see in many African countries today, pretty well sums up the whole southern half of the continent.

There are no doubt many hard-working, intelligent and decent people in Liberia. I just wish they'd all leave and go somewhere that their talents and values would make a positive difference in their lives, here in America or in practically any other G-8 nation, as well as lesser-developed countries that have a yen for talent and drive, instead of letting themselves be deluded by patriotic or cultural bromide and allowing their hopes to rot in a degenerate hellhole.


Phaedrus

The US has ZERO business in Liberia.

What is Bush thinking? Phaedrus maybe you have a clue. There's everything to lose and nothing to gain by sending troops into a no win situation.