Jewish World Review August 14, 2003 / 16 Menachem-Av, 5763

Joseph L. Galloway

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U.S. ignoring Liberia's justified plea for help


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | The Bush administration demanded that Charles Taylor resign as president of Liberia and leave the country he has drenched in blood for the last 14 years before we would consider participating in the peacekeeping mission there. This week Taylor departed.

But three U.S. Navy ships with more than 2,000 U.S. Marines aboard are still floating along the horizon off the port of Monrovia with no orders or intentions to do anything it seems but wait and watch.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recently forwarded to President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell a memo written by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers detailing Myers' arguments against any commitment of American troops in Liberia.

A senior administration official who asked that his name be withheld describes the document. He says that the key Myers arguments against landing the Marines to do what the Marines do best are as follows:

  • We have no exit strategy

  • We might lose people killed and wounded

  • It is a dangerous place

The official said as an exercise he took the Myers memorandum and substituted the word "Iraq" for the word "Liberia" and found that the arguments against getting involved in Liberia were about the same as the arguments that could have been made against getting involved in Iraq.

But, the official says, there is an even better argument for landing the Marines and helping the West Africans enforce the peace and disarm the child soldiers running amok on the streets of Monrovia than there was for going into Iraq.

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Liberia is NOT Somalia. Liberia is an American creation, born nearly two centuries ago with the transport and resettlement of freed American slaves on the African continent. Liberia is not Somalia. Monrovia is not Mogadishu. There is a good chance that the arrival of American forces would be all that is needed to tip the scales toward peace and disarmament.

But if those who were most emphatic in demanding an invasion of Iraq - and were so totally wrong in their predictions of what would happen when the war ended - have their way, the Marines will stay aboard their ships and, except perhaps for landing some food and relief supplies, eventually sail home.

It might also be noted that the British in the north and the French in the south have stepped up to the challenge of trying to make and keep the peace in nations where once they were colonial rulers. Sierra Leone in the north and Cote d'Ivoire are Liberia's neighbors. They are watching what happens in Liberia; they and others are watching to see whether the United States really cares about Africa.

Unless peace is brought or imposed, there is a good chance that this part of Africa could explode. The potential is there, from Sierra Leone to Nigeria, for a major clash of tribes and religions and nations. There is a large Moslem population trending toward fundamentalism. Radical Islam is on the rise in the region and the consequences and fallout could be dangerous indeed.

Secretary Rumsfeld is dead set against any U.S. military intervention in Liberia. He says it could prove to be a slippery slope that might lead us into conducting similar peacekeeping missions all over the world for years to come. As if that wasn't precisely what we have been doing for years, intervening with our troops to restore and keep the peace from the Sinai Desert to Grenada to Panama to Iraq to Bosnia to Haiti to Kosovo and Serbia and, yes, to Afghanistan and, once more with feeling, to Iraq.

So what's new and frightening about intervention in Liberia? It can be argued that we have a moral obligation to lend a hand in that beleaguered country which is of our making.

If we are going to join a few other nations in policing a dangerous world, then we have got to be prepared to answer our fair share of the 911 calls for help. Liberia is one of those calls.

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Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." Comment by clicking here.

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