Columnist Charley Reese: Stay Out of Liberia

King Features Syndicate ^ | 07-14-03 | Reese, Charley

[Theodore R.]

Stay Out Of Liberia

By the time you read this, the president will probably have made the decision to send or not send troops to Liberia. I hope he has chosen not to send the troops.

Let's clear the intellectual debris away from this subject. The fact that the American government played some role in establishing Liberia in the 19th century does not in any way obligate America in the 21st century to clean up the mess the Liberians have made in their own country.

There are no foreign invaders in Liberia. The people who have been killing, mutilating and brutalizing Liberians are Liberians. President Bush will not have any problem finding bad guys. His problem will be finding good guys. The people opposed to the present president, Charles Taylor, are just as bad as he is.

So just what will our troops do? Shoot Liberians on a random basis? Disarm all the factions? Stay in the country indefinitely to keep the Liberians from cutting each other's throats? Install a new dictator more to our liking? That's probably what will happen if we get involved. Furthermore, no matter how much we spend, no matter how many lives we lose, none of it will benefit the American people one iota.

The Constitution, the supreme law of our land, does not authorize the federal government to create a global police force to respond to so-called humanitarian situations. Sorry, it only authorizes a military force for the common defense of these United States. That we have forces spread all over the globe in peacetime ought to outrage Americans, but sadly the Constitution has been so loosely interpreted as to become almost meaningless.

But for those of you not interested in Constitutional questions, let's approach this on a practical level. Our forces are already spread thin. There is no exit strategy for American troops in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Sinai. We don't know how to "fix" Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding Liberia to the already-existing problems simply doesn't make sense.

It is a nice dream to imagine that we can send our troops around the world as a sort of a global 911 service to rescue people in distress from their own governments. But it's only a dream. We don't have that capability. We would inevitably be highly selective, and almost as surely there would be some hidden motive that has nothing to do with humanitarianism. Besides, making war for humanitarian purposes is a contradiction. War is by its nature inhumane. Our forces in Iraq made an honest effort to avoid civilian casualties, but by some counts we killed about 6,000 innocent people anyway. Being in the vicinity of a war conducted with high explosives is inherently dangerous.

Americans are a compassionate people, and when we see people suffering there is a natural tendency to want to help. Suffering, however, is universal, and, as blessed as we are, we have much to do in our country.

Africa was colonized by Europeans, and if anyone has a responsibility to help Africans it is Europeans, not Americans. It's true that in the Cold War we dirtied our hands by backing certain dictators, but even that pales compared with the decades Europe exploited the continent.

Forgive my cynicism, but I do not believe that President Bush has been suddenly struck with a deeply passionate concern for Africa and Africans. He is probably trying to counter the bad image he created when he scornfully ignored the United Nations and went to war against Iraq despite worldwide opposition. The United Nations — nothing but a convenient tool or an annoyance to us — is the only forum smaller countries have. They resent the administration's cavalier attitude toward the world body.

But creating photo opportunities and tossing money at AIDS isn't going to repair that damage. The people of Africa are not stupid. They can recognize indifference masked behind a smile as well as anyone. And trying to solve Liberia's problem is more likely to reinforce the image of an American bully than to mitigate it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Joe Boucher]

Let's put this another way,
If the french were devided into two groups say the Muslims and Christians and were killing each other off at enormous casualties would the U.S. even think of sending our brave soldiers to stop it? HELL NO. Let them kill one another off.

[Support Free Republic]

See that good looking dude on the left? He's got FAR BETTER THINGS to do than conduct Freepathons! Come on, let's get this thing over with.

[genefromjersey]

I don't always agree with Charley, but I think meddling in Liberia is insane: a real "lose-lose" scenario.