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.

[archy]

Nigerian Colonel Emeka Onwuama is carried by Liberians on arrival at the international airport in Monrovia...

Ho! So these fine Liberian chaps are taking me to a barbecue dinner...how hospitable of them!

[archy]

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

I wouldn't put too much stock in Liberians with U.S. flags...that ain't all some of them have.

[nmh]

Can't you hear the BBC now ... "this was staged" ... "the girl was rescued by the militia from the American soldiers ...". ;)

[archy]

I agree that Somalia was different. There is a big difference between Moslem countries and Christian ones, and we should stick out noses more readily and willingly into the Christian ones instead of leaving them prey to Moslem interference.

Turn about is fair play, however, and abandoning Africam nations to the nonexistant mercies of the muslum nations is no wise policy to be followed.

Liberia: Arms cache seized

07/08/2003 20:42 - (SA)

Monrovia - West African peacekeepers in war-torn Liberia on Thursday blocked a cache of arms apparently ordered by the government of President Charles Taylor, who is under a UN arms embargo, a military source said.

The source who requested anonymity said the soldiers apprehended two trucks at Robertsfield International Airport filled with arms including rocket launchers, automatic weapons and ammunition.

They arrived on a Boeing 707 plane bearing the number 9G-LAD flown by an Arab crew, according to witnesses at the airport.

Defence Minister Daniel Chea had come to the airport to inspect the cache.

According to several websites consulted by AFP, the number of the plane corresponds to one owned by Johnsons Air, a Ghana-based company which has links with First International Airlines, a Belgium-based firm.

The two firms and the plane in questions have been cited in several Internet reports for trafficking in arms from the Belgian city of Ostend.

The west African peacekeepers have been positioned at the airport since Monday when a vanguard force arrived to help end Liberia's ruinous war which has been dragging on for nearly five years.

Taylor, who has been indicted by a UN-backed court in neighbouring Sierra Leone for his role in that country's barbaric 10-year civil war, has been under an arms embargo and other sanctions since May 2001.

[ChemistCat]

Hmmm. I'd say it took only a few years for the US to become as democratic and civilized as it ever was. (We never were a pure democracy; of course--that depends upon an educated and moral culture that has never truly existed. All the struggles we have had within ourselves yet stem from the fact that our population has never lived up to the requirements of a free and moral society. We owned other people, killed innocent natives, lied to go to war, etc etc etc.)

In the last 50 years, the civilization we DID possess has substantially eroded. We no longer educate children even to be able to work; we permit them to be indoctrinated in great social experiments that leave them largely unfit to produce. The ideals you rightly venerate are no longer in play here. They enjoy lip service and little more by more than half of the population; let us say nearly all Gore voters, and a significant share of W's lukewarm supporters. A substantial fraction of the core patriots who are left permit themselves to be distracted by this and that, side issues that they think matter. It's rather like watching people in a sinking life raft arguing about macrame techniques for patching holes with jute, while the sharks circle. Gay marriage! Zero tolerance policies! Whether cell phones may be used while driving! Good grief. We cannot see the forest for the trees any longer. In England, laws are being passed to prevent homeowners from attempting to hurt burglars in any way. We're not so far from that extreme.

You honestly think that we enjoy the liberty our Founding Fathers intended? Please note that when our Constitution was drafted, it was not possible for a government to possess weaponry superior to that owned by individuals. Now, there are many places where many law-abiding citizens cannot possess weapons at all, even simple bladed weapons.

I worry about my government intruding upon me in small ways every day, and about its stranglehold over the economy through a micromanaging and punitive tax code. I need a permit to hold a yard sale, cannot hold more than one a year, and my town expects part of the take. I doubt the Iraqis are so closely controlled.

I lock myself in day and night because the criminals have all the rights here. Corruption at the upper levels is not on Saddam's level, but tell me Grey Davis isn't the same sort of man! We're working hard on becoming Iraq-of-Christmas-Past, trust me.

I am not sure we're equipped to give anyone else democratic ideals. To me, it's almost a wonder that we can give them a government that isn't lining children up at the edges of pits and gunning them down. But perhaps legal abortion-for-convenience is not morally very different.

Iraq has enjoyed a vast improvement in a few months. The more of their rascals we can gun down, the happier a place Iraq will be when it all shakes down. They may have a better democracy than ours by the time we're done, because we just keep briefly cycling OUR criminals through our wonderful cable-TV-equipped academies of crime...and theirs, by and large, are too reckless to keep their heads down while the US Army is in town.

In short, we cannot give Iraq, or Liberia, or anyone else a share of what we USED to possess. When we were a Christian nation tolerant of religious minorities, we came close--and still committed plenty of uncivilized atrocities of our own.

There is the Platonic ideal of America, and you and I hold that close in our hearts, but when we begin to expect the poor imitation of it that actually rules over us to achieve things as if it was the ideal....we will be disappointed. Let's just settle for no more mass graves of civilians dating from under our rule of Iraq, okay? Let us help them protect their treasures, and get a government in place that is reasonably well-behaved, steps down when it's not wanted anymore, and won't help terrorists kill us. That's basically all I expect from OUR government anymore. More than that will take a miracle, and that's what I'm REALLY holding out for.

[cyborg]

BTTT... for when I get home from work!

[Bigg Red]

...there has never been democracy or civilization in Iraq.

&&

Well, yeah, no democracy, but no civilization? Surely, you cannot be that ignorant of ancient history!

[duckln]

It's a pity we don't stay out. It's a loser as is the whole of Africa. It's something they will have to sort out. Involvement will cost Bush the election.

All the technology that was poured in by major powers such as the USA, Germany, France and others is being trashed.

Examples of once successful countries that are going and gone downhill are South Africa and Zimbalway. I don't know of one country in Africa that is progressing under their engrained 'tribal' systems.

We should not be putting our 'hated whites' in lawless countries to be chopped up. It's certainly not why I pay taxes.

[radiohead]

I agree with both of you. The words 'peacekeeper' and 'Nigerian' just don't jibe. I had some real concerns when I heard they were going in.

Going off on a tangent here - I met a lot of Nigerians when I was in college (1970s). One fella offered me sex in return for cleaning his apartment every week. Still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

[ChemistCat]

Well, one is inclined in this country to use a very narrow definition of "civilization" when our way of life is being threatened. BUT: we in general don't qualify as civilized, ourselves, if the definition is that narrow.

[cyborg]

Whoops you're right. Sorry. It's the British colonialist in me, too many years of eating my mother's black pudding

[cyborg]

The British wanted to give more landholding rights to black farmers (which the white farmers were not willing to give), and they did not agree with the terms of commonwealth. Ian Smith, although controversial, I probably would have sided more with him than the black marxists like Mugabe. I think Smith realized he was not going to win, and then tried to be diplomatic. People who are under systematic (I hate to use this term!) but... disenfranchisement? no matter what the good that may have come out of it, are hell bent on revenge. Although not every black Rhodesian was against Ian Smith as many fought in his army as Selous Scouts and spies. I am not sure what many of the white farmers expected after years of land grabbing and underpaying laborers. Of course Rhodesia would tumble into a mess because educating blacks was not high on the list, and to turn over a first world African country to the undereducated masses oh well... Too bad. Africans were not really prepared for independence as well as many British holdings in the West Indies.

Same situation with South Africa. South Africa though has way more problems than Rhodesia-Zim, too many different tribal interests, the ANC vs. Inkatha vs. the twelve other dominant tribes in SA.

[cyborg]

awesome post... my response would be underwhelming though... excellent nothing to add here

[ChemistCat]

I'm in "I'm supposed to be writing an article for pay, and I'm totally blocked" mode. Think of it as a warm up. ;-)

[RightOnline]

"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."

That's the root of the problem, isn't it? There are no 'good guys' in this one.

Liberia is yet another African sh*thole where natives slaughter natives. Let me hear Jackson, Mfume, Sharpton, et al wax rhapsodic over "The Motherland". These people deserve each other.........and the quicker Africa is depopulated, the better off the world will be.

Sound harsh? History is on my side in this one.

[cyborg]

I feel for you... I know that feeling!

[JustPiper]

Bump, are there pictures?

[cyborg]

I meant to say actually in that quote that Africa didn't turn out as well as many West Indian countries. That is because the West Indian countries retained (many of them) either commonwealth status OR retained the English system of government/education. I need to reread some of my posts because those are very important facts (can't believe I didn't say them!). It's for the reason you pointed out, about people sitting on it. It was in a farmer's best interests to have an 'underclass' because who works the farms? Hey an educated African isn't going to want to pick fruit trees for 20 zim a day or 100R a day in South Africa. Actually, my criticism about British colonists was that the people most worthy of education/civilization were the 'upper class' because an Irishman and black African, Aboriginie, Indian, they were all the same to many BC's. But oh well... Trinidad was originall named by Christopher Colombus for the three mountains (holy trinity) but I'm glad that the Spanish didn't start and finish in Trinidad. They were pretty good at hustling slaves, not much else. Either way, in the end, English colonialism was basically a good thing.

Also, you are right about the literacy rates in the South. Do you think a Civil War without slavery (illiterate slaves, uneducated slaves forming a gross underclass) would have turned out differently? Not to mention the uneducated poor whites? I don't want to say that confederate soldiers were uneducated! How much more developed would America have been had we not created a black/white underclass anyway? Not that I'm making excuses for people, but I think some FReepers fail to realize that the slave mentality is very entrenched. Even with AA programs and all that, you still have the idea that being educated is 'acting white'. This is the same reason that South Africa lagges behind the ANC doesn't want one national language, because the only logical choice would be afrikaans.