Liberia: US girl rescued (by Marines)

ITV.com ^ | 9 Aug 2003

[veronica]

US Marines have helped rescue a seven-year-old girl from a rebel-held area of the war-torn Liberian capital Monrovia.

Fighting had trapped American-born Shadya behind front lines with her mother in the US and her father's whereabouts unknown.

But embassy staff in white flack-jackets, flanked by Marines, used a four-day lull in the fighting to cross the front line and rescue the girl.

The rushed her back to the US embassy away from the rebel-held port area along with her 17-year-old sister.

Liberian rebels are fighting to oust President Charles Taylor.

Taylor, a former warlord blamed for 14 years of near-constant war in Liberia and in many of the other conflicts in West Africa, has pledged to resign on Monday and leave Liberia.

But rebel forces are regrouping and there are fears that sporadic outbreaks of violence will develop into the full-scale assaults which have claimed thousands of lives.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[cyborg]

I saw those pictures too. Apparently they didn't move the hearts of many FReepers, as much as the ones coming out of Iraq or did they? Probably not. Bush won't send troops there you're right. But I think we're losing an opportunity to win the hearts of a country NEGLECTED through eight years of Clinton-Gore. The people were overjoyed, overexcited, and imagine the PR mileage out of that one if they were waving US flags. But no... why should we be concerned with Liberia, a country we started, that has a constitution close to ours and even a flag that is modeled after ours? Thankfully a Liberian citizen can serve in our military and obtain citizenship but where does that leave Liberia itself? With a braindrain like Puerto Rico. Until islam completely overruns Liberia, kills the christians, and Osama's flunkies set up shop, then do not expect much. After all, we are not lifting a finger against the Sudan. We nearly bankrupted South Africa and put that country under, but Sudan slaughters millions.

Sorry for the rant, but people need to be reminded that Liberians deserve freedom as much as Iraqis. Liberians have a chance to be more successful than Iraq because there has never been democracy or civilization in Iraq.

[cyborg]

Strangely, there was a day when we could send a few companies of Marines into almost any small country and take control of it. Seems that won't work anymore. Perhaps some should consider why that is.

* The muslim horde invaders? I think people forgot that Mohammed's horde had conquered what we would think were 'civilized' countries. It does not take as much an effort to pound rural, defenseless africans into the sand, as much as fighting the Spanish and Portuguese. They still did it and they managed to slaughter a lot of English too... Seeing as how they can move into a country and turn it back to a dust pit, I'd take notice. Trinidad was being turned into one big muslim terrorist camp while Panday was in office (think Pakistani muslims) and recently British intelligence found a small Al Qaeda cell there. Trinidad was a big beautiful British colony and even afer independence remained so till Panday took office. So... it would do well for us to keep an eye.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Barnacle]

The people were overjoyed, overexcited, and imagine the PR mileage out of that one if they were waving US flags.

Once we're controlling our own boarders and protecting Americans right here in America from criminal invaders (AKA, illegal aliens or whatever politically correct term of the week is), I’ll be more inclined to sending our thinly stretched military forces to far flung corners of the Earth on PR missions.

As far as mobs waving US flags… They waved palms for Jesus one day and screamed for his crucifixion the next.

[Aaron0617]

Africans should help other African nations. Good job by Bush. Hope he keeps the Marines on the ships Nigerian Colonel Emeka Onwuama is carried by Liberians on arrival at the international airport in Monrovia, August 4, 2003. Long-awaited West African peacekeepers arrived as war-weary Liberians danced for joy in ruined streets on hopes of an end to 14 years of bloodshed. Photo by Juda Ngwenya/Reuters

I hope these Nigerian forces don't rob the Liberians blind.

[ChemistCat]

there has never been ... civilization in Iraq.

I went to publik skool too. But I've done a little reading since then....

[Aaron0617]

See Freepers the UN is coming. They don't need those Marines

Bangladesh, Namibia Pledge Liberia Troops

Aug 8,11:36 PM ET AP UNITED NATIONS - Bangladesh and Namibia agreed to contribute more than 5,000 troops for a United Nations peacekeeping force for Liberia (news - web sites), U.N. officials and diplomats said Friday.

The U.N. force will replace a West African force that has already begun deploying to Liberia.

The U.N. Security Council ordered the U.N. force to replace the multinational contingent by Oct. 1, but the proposal given to potential troop-contributing nations at a closed-door meeting Thursday calls for U.N. peacekeepers to start deploying on Nov. 1.

[cyborg]

as far as civilization that would be receptive to democratic ideals... people on the left think that three months is enough time for Iraq to become democratic and civilized, when it has taken the US two hundred years?

[Aaron0617]

...But those UN forces better hurry.

Rape Surges Amid Anarchy in Liberia

AP MONROVIA, Liberia - Clutching her daughter's photograph to her breast, Rebecca throws back her head and wails. Gunmen burst into her home and raped the child on her 10th birthday, leaving her lying in a pool of blood and vomit — dead.

Every time fighting surges in Liberia (news - web sites), women are raped, aid workers say. But this time, the scale is incalculable. Wild-eyed men are going door to door, ransacking homes, beating and killing people, and raping any women — or girls — they find.

Both sides in the battle are implicated — the fighters of warlord President Charles Taylor, as well as the rebels trying to overthrow him. Women used to be most at risk fleeing through the bush, aid workers say. Now they are not safe in their homes either.

[archy]

I hope these Nigerian forces don't rob the Liberians blind.

Robbery is the least of the worries for the liberians.

On February 12th, the UN released a report on human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, a western African nation that has been convulsed with civil war for much of the last decade. While attributing the overwhelming majority of atrocities to anti-government insurgents, the report acknowledged that a Nigerian-led West African regional "peacekeeping" force working with the UN has been "summarily executing detainees who were allegedly either rebels or rebel sympathizers," reported the BBC on February 14th. An earlier BBC report quoted sources in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, who described a January 13th massacre of 22 suspected rebel sympathizers by "peacekeepers." Other witnesses quoted in the February 12th New York Times accused UN personnel of executing children suspected of being rebels and a score of patients at Connaught Hospital in Freetown on January 12th. Other reports described the summary detention of civilians, brutal body searches, "whipping, beating, varying types of public humiliation" of detainees ­ including children ­ and acts of sexual assault committed by "peacekeepers."

"Nigerian officers say quite openly that they shoot rebel suspects on sight," observed BBC reporter Mark Doyle. "One Nigerian officer told me his forces were advancing against the rebels because the Nigerian army had adopted the rebels' own tough guerilla tactics." Those tactics include using civilians as "human shields," the arbitrary slaughter of non-combatants, and the mutilation of victims with machetes. The Nigerian-led "peacekeepers" have matched the rebels' ruthlessness by conducting indiscriminate aerial bombardment of neighborhoods in Freetown and pitilessly mowing down the hapless civilians used as "human shields." Over a two-week stretch in January, the rebels and "peacekeepers" collaborated in the deaths of thousands of civilians; estimated casualty counts run as high as 5,000 killed.

[Barnacle]

Marines. Strangely, there was a day when we could send a few companies of Marines into almost any small country and take control of it. Seems that won't work anymore. Perhaps some should consider why that is.

Beirut, Lebanon 1986 for one... A disastrous policy implemented by none other than our beloved President Ronald Reagan. Then of course, there was Blackhawk down, courtesy of Bill Clinton and Les Aspen.

If there’s one thing that W has done right, it has been immediate use of overwhelming military force in Afghanistan and Iraq. Any other approach leads to Vietnam / Korea scenarios.

Let’s get the hell out of the Balkans! How many months were we going to be there? Just till Christmas. Christmas of what year?

[archy]

Every time fighting surges in Liberia (news - web sites), women are raped, aid workers say. But this time, the scale is incalculable.

The fighting appears a bit more intense than usual for the region, too.

[cyborg]

Once we're controlling our own boarders and protecting Americans right here in America from criminal invaders (AKA, illegal aliens or whatever politically correct term of the week is), I’ll be more inclined to sending our thinly stretched military forces to far flung corners of the Earth on PR missions.

* I agree with the part about protecting our borders. When I went to inquire about a South African visa, I was grilled about my character, and what I had to contribute to SA society. When I was in France, they asked for papers on the train and God help you if you had no passport.
:sigh: My mother was one of the few last immigrants to America that were asked questions like that.
She still has her citizenship book printed by the DAR.

As far as mobs waving US flags… They waved palms for Jesus one day and screamed for his crucifixion the next.

* I would not say that really. Iraqi citizens are still happy we are there (for the most part).