But NO 'nation building'. Africa is a hopeless case.
Even from the time of its founding, however, the country's political situation was troublesome. The people of the 16 tribes who live in the interior constituted the majority of the population but never enjoyed a political status commensurate with their numbers. Power rested with the few Americo-Liberians whose ancestors had come from the U.S. In 1980, tensions boiled over -- rebel army personnel staged a gruesome predawn coup that left the president dead. Government officials were executed before TV cameras on the orders of Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, who assumed leadership of the country. The new government soon proved little different from the one it had replaced -- repression and corruption continued unabated. Civil war erupted in 1990, and Doe met the same fate as the president he had deposed.
The war was sent nearly half of Liberia's population fleeing to neighboring nations or overseas, from which many still have not returned. The war nominally ended with the election of President Charles Taylor, the most resilient of the rebel warlords. But Taylor's government, too, is notorious for human rights violations and corruption. Western nations have distanced themselves from Taylor, in part because he has allied himself with Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. Meanwhile, unrest and occasional fighting have continued in Liberia, sometimes spilling over the borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
I don't think external nation building works, no matter what century.
I thought we rescued our people out of there a few years ago.
But we are caving into international pressure. It's not like there aren't a bunch of countries around Liberia, nor Europe, around to hel out.