4,500 U.S. Troops Might Head to Liberia

The Washington Post | July 21, 2003 | Pauline Jelinek

[Nephi]

WASHINGTON - Some 4,500 more American sailors and Marines have been ordered to position themselves closer to Liberia to be ready for possible duty in the embattled West African nation, officials said Monday.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a deployment order over the weekend sending a three-ship amphibious ready group from its position off the Horn of Africa into the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said. That would put the group in a position to get to the west coast of Africa faster, if needed for an evacuation of Americans, peacekeeping or some other mission.

[Nephi]

Forget the constitution, Bush is a good man...let's just make him King. Oh yeah, some freerepublicans already have.

Protect anyone and everyone but our OWN borders. Oh and for fun grow the government like Clinton with a Democrat congress.

Kool-Aid drinkers, we return you to your previously scheduled countdown to victory in 2004.

[gaijin]

Goodie!

We'll save 'em, just like we saved Haiti!

They were soooooo grateful!

[dvan]

Liberia is soooo vital to our National security!!! Sorry that Bush appears to be caving in on this. Soon I expect we'll have troops scattered all over the globe just like Rome did in its final years. Oh yeah we do now don't we? South Korea, Bosnia, Afghanistan,Haiti, Japan, Germany, England, Iraq, Israel and....?

[LibWhacker]

She Goes Not Abroad In Search of Monsters To Destroy
John Quincy Adams 1821

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

[Coleus]

We will not be the 911 of the World
-George W. Bush

[Archangelsk]

Kool-Aid drinkers, we return you to your previously scheduled countdown to victory in 2004.

Will the drinkers drink the Jim Jones brew if they don't get their victory?

[Sir Gawain]

I doubt the war hawks in the admin are pushing this strategy. Probably a shakedown by Jesse and Al. You're making a big mistake here, Mr. President.

[Grut]

You're making a big mistake here, Mr. President.

Well, he's a 'pubby.

[wretchard]

The breaking news is that the US embassy compound has just been shelled. Seventy people (probably Liberians) have been killed. An amphibious ready group will not be able to prevent shelling unless the rebels are driven out of range, and then maybe Taylor's forces will start shelling. That's Africa.

If the US pulls out, there will be a massacre of tens of thousands in Monrovia. That's Africa.

Tough choices all around.

[wretchard]

The breaking news is that the US embassy compound has just been shelled. Seventy people (probably Liberians) have been killed. An amphibious ready group will not be able to prevent shelling unless the rebels are driven out of range, and then maybe Taylor's forces will start shelling. That's Africa.

If the US pulls out, there will be a massacre of tens of thousands in Monrovia. That's Africa.

Tough choices all around.

[GranpaVet]

Very tough choices. But...we must help out our own here. I think we have no choice. God bless those who have to go and pray for those there and those who have to make the choices.

[neb52]

Bush is probably just waiting for the Embassy to be shelled again and one of the American workers to get killed. then he will move the targets eeerrrr troops in.

[TSgt]

This is going to be Mogadishu redux.

God Speed the troops.

Mr. President...We differ on this one. Don't send our boys to be slaughtered in the streets.

[McGavin999]

So then you vote to abandon the Americans at the embassy who have just been shelled? These are American citizens and you want to just leave them to die? You're not worth a pail of cold spit, and you better hope you never need help.

What kind of American leaves other Americans to die?

[grania]

We will not be the 911 of the World

-George W. Bush

When did he say that?

[Coleus]

During his campaign or one of his state of the union messages, I can't remember. I think it was during his campaign.

[Nephi]

Will the drinkers drink the Jim Jones brew if they don't get their victory?

Fair question. They're drinking it now as they ignore/cheer on Bush's betrayal of conservatism.

[Nephi]

What kind of American leaves other Americans to die?

What kind of American puts American lives in jeopardy as fodder for war?

What kind of American is too stupid to ask that question, originally?

(I would be surprised if were are any Americans in that embassy.)