Word: liberia
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...would be hard to design a more tragically absurd war than the one raging in Liberia. Battles are fought mainly by untrained, doped-up kids from the countryside, and no one on either side has effective command of the ragtag militias. The majority of casualties are civilian. Most combatants avoid fighting, preferring to spray bullets at the other side and then run. The rebels' only stated goal is the ouster of President Charles Taylor, a recently indicted war criminal who insists he is willing to step down and go into exile in Nigeria but keeps creating excuses to postpone...
Unfortunately, the insanity of the situation on the ground is matched--and perhaps exacerbated--by the diplomatic dithering over how to bring the war to an end. Almost every day, it seems, Liberia's neighbors hold another planning meeting in Senegal and pledge to send in several thousand peacekeeping troops, only to put off decisions on the specifics of the mission for a few more days. The Bush Administration says the Africans must take the lead in any such operation and that President Taylor must go into exile before U.S. troops will play any role. But Taylor insists he will...
Will the U.S., which has historical ties to Liberia, get involved? The Bush Administration took a tentative step in that direction late last week, saying it would send ships to the waters off Liberia and contribute $10 million to help fund the logistics of moving West African peacekeepers into the country. The announcement followed by several days an order from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to move the ships into the Mediterranean Sea, where they could reach Liberia more quickly if called upon. The Administration's language was so tortured that it could mean almost anything--or nothing. The "appropriate military...
With the U.S. military stretched by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is not surprising that the Pentagon and many members of the Administration have resisted an active peacekeeping role in Liberia. Bush has always made a point of saying he would not let American armed forces become a global police force. Only Secretary of State Colin Powell has been a relatively outspoken advocate of intervention in Liberia. He admitted to the Washington Times last week that the Administration could have done a better job of rallying a peacekeeping force and argued that "we do have an interest in making...
...President Bush sent U.S. troops into Africa. To this day, the military is haunted by the memory of the 18 soldiers who were killed in the 1993 mission to stabilize Somalia. General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing last week that Liberia "is not a pretty situation, and it's not going to give way to any instant...