A number of European and American opinion leaders have encouraged the US to take military action in Liberia, even though they opposed military action in Iraq. Why do they prefer Liberian intervention?
When one outlines the key aspects, intervening in Liberia does not look more advantageous:[ol][li]Both interventions could be justified on humanitarian grounds. Both countries suffered from dreadful governments, although Saddam had caused a much greater number of deaths.[]Both interventions are risky, open-ended, and potentially expensive. Iraq is likely to have a considerably greater cost.[]Iraq was a big potential threat to much of the world, due to Saddam’s desire to acquire and use WMDs. It was important that Iraq’s oil resources not be controlled by the evil Saddam.[/ol]So, it seems that military action in Iraq has more potential benefit than military action in Liberia. Therefore, I give higher priority to the war in Iraq.[/li]
However, maybe that’s the very reason some prefer Liberian action. Is Liberian intervention considered better because, it can’t do America any good? Do these opinion leaders consider pure altruism a better motive than a mixture of altruism and realpolitik?
Iraq didn’t actually have any WMDs, and didn’t have the ability to acquire them. The desire was completely irrelevant, and didn’t constitute a real threat to anyone.
And how exactly does the U.S. benefit by spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds to wrest control away from the “evil Saddam”? Lots of individuals associated with U.S. oil companies may benefit, but lots of other U.S. citizens (i.e. soldiers) have been killed.
Uh, but how does that address Liberia? December’s question presumes that you would have been opposed to intervention in Iraq. I think the reasons for opposition have been blathered upon endlessly.
But do you support intervention in Liberia, but opposed it in Iraq? If so, why?
I am all for setting up a long-term presence in Liberia. We will be getting more involved in Africa over the coming decades. Liberia is nicely situated for exerting force in western Africa. Then again, I was/am all for a long-term presence in Iraq, so I do not have a contradictory position on these two countries.
Nobody knows how likely it was that Saddam would again acquire and use WMDs. Because we don’t know, there was some degree of risk. But, there’s no risk at all that Charles Taylor will use WMDs.
There is a difference between a peace-keeping force and an invasion force. I doubt that if soldiers went into Liberia they would be going in with “Shock and Awe” tactics.
There are several reasons for American intervention in Liberia. After having observed Dubya for a few years, I refuse to believe that he would do anything whatsoever for purely altruistic reasons. However, the problem with Liberia and Charles Taylor is that it wields a highly destabilising influence on that region of West Africa. Liberia is partly to blame for the current mess in Cote d’Ivoire since it backs at least one of the rebel factions, and the French have stepped in militarily to try and sort things out. The whole region is something of a disaster area, and is the top place for displays of large scale inhuman atrocities in the world. However, preventing massacres and genocides is a side effect of the main reason for intervening there which is the fact that Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea are swimming in oil. The US is trying to diversify it’s sources of oil to reduce dependance on the Middle-East, and already imports 15% of its oil from West Africa. Now the US doesn’t want Liberia making even more of a mess of the area than it already is and getting in the way of developing the oil industry.
In addition, it’s a PR stunt. The majority of the world is pretty peeved at the US right now for the self-serving way it handles foreign policy. So it looks good to be helping out the Africans. Only they’re a bit late on this bandwagon: the French have been in and out of Cote d’Ivoire for decades, the Brits in Sierra Leone for a few years now, and now extra French troops under an EU flag are in the seriously nasty place that is the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Charles Taylor is however a proper and absolutely real threat to neighbouring countries. And of course, the US were asked to intervene there on humanitarian grounds, and didn’t just act unilaterally, which makes a world of difference.
Wasn’t there another small coastal African country that we went to on a UN-approved ‘peace keeping’ mission? IIRC, that one turned rather hot. Some ‘shock and awe’ could have saved that mission, if the political will (not likely at time) existed in Washington.
Nice try Brutus.
As you correctly point out it was the U.S. that prevented substantial forces from being deployed. And “shock and awe” would have been effective in Rwanda? Now you are being silly.
Really you should leave attempts at spin to December, he’s much better at it
These three points make a lot of sense to me, as reasons for Bush to intervene in Liberia. They explain Bush’s motivations. But, they don’t explain why, e.g., many European leaders, the New York Times and Howard Dean support Liberian intervention.
– Why is blood for oil OK in Liberia, but wrong in Iraq?
– Why do Bush’s political opponents support a PR stunt that will help him win the next election?
– It’s true that the US was asked to intervene in Liberia by certain Europeans. But, why did they ask us to intervene in the first place – particularly those who asked us *not *to intervene in Iraq?
The Europeans and others called for US intervention in Liberia primarily for humanitarian reasons, as they’re already engaged in Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo. It just happens that this suits the US just fine so they’re doing it. And of course the Europeans aren’t fools, they know this.
Iraq was a different case. It wasn’t actively threatening anyone else (OK, Saddam supported Palestinian terrorrists but so does everyone else in the Arab world), and there wasn’t a dirty great civil war going on with the attendant massacres and so on.
Err, I was referring to Somalia. I don’t think we ever sent troops to Rawanda, did we?
Lets rehash some of the anti-War in Iraq arguments, and apply them here:
[ul]
[li]Liberia poses no threat to America. [/li]
[li]The real threat is Osama Bin Laden, not Charles Taylor. Osama who? This is just a misdirection ploy by the administration.[/li]
[li]The CIA World Factbook lists Liberia’s natural resources as being: “…iron ore, timber, diamonds, gold, hydropower.” Obviously, this is just a ploy by Big-Hydropower to line their pockets, courtesy of Dubya. No blood for timber![/li]
[li]There are no WMD in Liberia, either.[/li]
[li]So what if Taylor is a brutal dictator? What, are we going to start taking out all of the brutal dictators?[/li]
[li]Liberia will turn into another Vietnam. [/li]
[li]America has no nation-building plan for Liberia. It will be a mess.[/li]
[li]We can apply pressure in other ways. There is no need to resort to the warmongers toolchest, and send in the Army.[/li]
[li]There is no UN resolution authorizing the deployment of troops to Liberia. If we send troops in there, we will become international pariahs.[/li]
[li]We should certainly not go in alone! We need to build an extensive coaltion before we even consider to use of the military![/li]
[li]Our military is already stretched too thin, fighting terrorism. Sending troops to Liberia will take away from the troops hunting Al Queda.[/li]
[li]It wasn’t Liberians flying those planes on 9/11![/li][/ul]
Brutus, that’s quite a hodge-podge of random stuff you’ve just brought up. I’ll just pick up on one of them, when you say that there are other ways of applying pressure.
What or whom so you intend to pressure? There is no functioning government, there are no effective institutions (which is another way in which this is different from Iraq). This isn’t a war, it’s a peacekeeping mission.
(If it isn’t sufficiently clear: I do think we should intervene in Liberia. I am just arguing the other side since nobody else is. I take my inspiration from those opposed to the war in Iraq.)
We can apply pressure on the warring parties in Liberia. LURD and MODEL can be better brought to the peace-table with economic carrots, not military sticks.
As the ‘Blackhawk Down’ incident shows, peace keeping can quickly turn to something resembling war. Why risk the danger of conflict (which would harm the innocent Liberians most of all), when we haven’t exhausted all other means yet?