Looking To Liberia

As President Bush counsels with his advisors about what to do, if anything, to aid Liberia in their time of domestic strife we should all pause a moment and reflect of the events that have passed in the recent months. Operation Iraqi Freedom offered an overabundance of differing opinions, some not in the category of flattery, from foreign governments and their citizenry on the involvement of US forces in the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Perhaps we should look at the offerings from this court of world opinion before we go forging ahead to liberate another nation from brutality.

Many reports have the United Nations Security Counsel drawing up plans to insert a peacekeeping force in the region. The interesting thing about this is that they are drawing up the plans using US forces in bulk minus 3000 from other concerned nations. Even France, our great ally when it comes to the US giving them money in trade and aid is “pressuring” the US to use it’s military might in the region. I find it quite arrogant of them to assume that the people of the United States would nonchalantly endorse including our troops in any military action, especially after the way the UN Security Counsel’s support turned to opposition when American interests were at stake not six months ago in Iraq. Through the course of their dissention on the Iraqi problem it became very apparent that blatant self-interest was at work in the security counsel. France and Germany wanted to keep their cash cow and Russia didn’t want the world to know that it had been illegally trading goods with the sanctioned country. The security counsel didn’t “do the right thing” then by chastising the opposition countries for putting their self-interests above those of the Iraqi people. In fact, I am not too sure that any of these countries have been reprimanded for violating the UN sanctions placed against Iraq after the Gulf War. I won’t even comment on the illegal oil pipeline that was found flowing from Iraq to Syria.

As Kofi Annan moves his diplomatic chess pieces we should consider that perhaps this would be a great opportunity for the UN Security Counsel to “cut its teeth” on the task of actually deploying a peace keeping force that doesn’t fail, without the help of the US. Truth be told, the UN has been a colossal failure when it comes to peace keeping. If only one example is to be given then I submit the bungling of the Somalia mission. It could go a long way to re-establish the respect that the United States deserves for all it does around the world to sit this one out and let the world police itself for a change. I have no problem with providing logistical support but with US troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq the prospects of an additional deployment no matter how small the force is not attractive. I am sure that the countries that sat the Iraqi conflict out can handle things just fine seeing as their troops are obviously rested and fresh.

Another point that bears noting is the history of Liberia its correlation to the United States. As most know, freed American slaves founded Liberia back in 1822, long before the Civil War, I might add. These were people whose ancestors, and in rare occasions themselves, were brutally extracted from their homes in a great many African regions only to be designated outcasts by their Continent’s people on their return. If one were to employ the unusual notion of common sense to this relationship it could be argued that even though Liberia was founded by people, ex-slaves from America it stands to bear that the relationship at its root cannot be classified as amicable. After all, those who founded Liberia were running away from the oppressors of The New World. Of course, decades and even centuries have passed since then and relations have matured into something quite different. But it still needs to be said, those who would argue it is our place to be the primary benefactor to Liberia because ex-slaves founded it really need to brush up on their American history to say the least.

No, the United States should order its troops to stand-down on the Liberian issue. We have asked our military and their families to do quite enough in the recent years. It is time to leave them to their lives if only for a while. As previously stated, we should, and always do, offer all the logistical support that the world can use when the fight is right, as this fight is. But there may be no better opportunity to demonstrate to the UN and to those around the world just how compassionate and efficient the US is when we deploy troops in international situations. If the UN is going to “write checks” to cover the hot spots around the world it would be wise for them to make sure that they actually have the “funds in the bank” first. The bounced check charge in this case will be paid in human lives and that is a price that we should continue to view as unacceptable.

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Frank Salvato is a political media consultant, a freelance writer from the Midwest and the Managing Editor for www.TheRant.us. He is a contributing writer to The Washington Dispatch. He has appeared as a guest panelist on The O’Reilly Factor and his pieces are featured at OpinionEditorials.com, Etherzone.com, and Townhall.com.

We should go into Liberia, and annex it as a protectorate or territory.

There's a pretty good argument for that. It is debatable whether Liberia would now be an official American colony or territory if the question of its status had not come up when it did. The American Colonization Society instructed Liberia to proclaim its independence when it did. This had a lot to do with British and French designs on the colony. It also had a lot to do with the fact that the USA refused to acknowledge sovereignty over Liberia or to acknowledge it as a state. The reasons for this are manyfold but one major one is the fact that Southern States simply refused to acknowledge a state that was run by former slaves.

I'm from the South myself. This is in no way a dig on the South. I think any rational person who really looks at it could well imagine why they didn't want to officially acknowledge Liberia's existence. To do so would create certain obvious ramifications. They also didn't want to have a black ambassador in Washington (for likewise the same logical ramifications).

We cannot go back and rewrite history. It happened the way it did. But suppose the whole issue of Liberia and its ties had come up under Lincoln instead of 1847. Lincoln was the first president to acknowledge Liberia as a nation although much of Europe had done so years before. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Lincoln might've acknowledged sovereignty over Liberia if the question were still open at that time. Even if he did it on political grounds- it is still a reasonable supposition.

How might we think about Liberia now if this had been the case? How different might our attitudes towards the country be? In the minds of Liberians, this question is obvious. They clearly feel a tie to us- it is us who (for whatever reason) do not feel the tie to them. I'm not sure they don't have the better perception of events. Their country was clearly founded on American ideals. They clearly connect with the American way of doing things. We can contrast this with the way the Iraqi people perceive us at the moment.

At the end of the day, Liberia was founded by a group of entrepeneurs. If that's not the American way- I don't know what is. Liberia was founded by Americans- black and white. Americans governed it, Americans were elected as its president. Americans have protected it and traded with it over time. There are two capitals in the world named after Americans and Liberia's is one of them. It is closer to America (as a form of government) than any other nation on Earth- this is fact. It gets my vote over the Congo, South Africa, Somalia etc. That's just me and my opinion.

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