Where have I heard this before?

[--Pete]

Hi,

President Bush suggested Wednesday that any U.S. military help in ending brutal civil unrest in Liberia might consist mostly of advisers and trainers to avoid stretching American forces too thinly around the globe. (Emphasis mine).

From http://www.comcast.net/News/INTERNATIONAL/...abdb4da250.html (don't know if this is publicly available).

Seems that I remember what might be arguably the biggest military debacle in USA history starting with "just advisers".

I sorta like the idea of having tangible objectives and a time table before committing troops, but then I'm old fashioned.

--Pete

[Guest]

I think sending in troops is the right thing. Hopefully we can get some other countries to help though.

We saved ourselves a lot of pain staying out of Rawanda, but I think we made the wrong choice that time. I dont think this is as bad a Rawanda was, but they need help and they are actually asking for us to come in the streets here.

Also this is Liberia, in a sense the world will always see Liberia as our responsibility to a degree.

[Occhidiangela]

Check the news for the past 10 years . . . American Marines and Soldiers, they have been there. WAU, and a number of UN nations have also been in and out.

We can go in and out again. That probably solves nothing.

Unlike Rwanda, Liberia is in the littoral, which means logistically supporting an operation is much simpler: it is also a smaller place. There is also a political/cultural link due to how Monrovia was founded, the resettling of freed slaves back in Africa after a generation or two, or more, in chains in America. If there was ever an African nation we ought to help work through the rough spots, from a moral standpoint, Liberia is the place.

An in and out band aid fix won't solve some rather deep rooted social problems not atypical to much of West Africa. Read Kaplan's "The Coming Anarchy" to get a sense of what one is dealing with, or McMaster's piece on "The New Warrior Class."

What is being proposed is, I think, more than the usual "OK, go in for a bit, get a good headline, leave when CNN points the camera elsewhere." SUbstantial help will require a long term commitment that for many reasons, will take spending quite a bit of political capital.

I wonder of Pres Bush has it to spend.

[Guest]

Bush might or might not be burning political capital in Liberia, but helping out there would most likely replenish our some what depleted capital in international good will.

[Occhidiangela]

Played correctly, could be good will both internationally and domestically. However, the track record on how positively "nation building" has been received by US taxpayers is mixed. Plenty of "hey, we got problems back here, spend here first" gets tossed out.

America has developed, as I see it, a real critical eye about why blood and treasure is spent across the seas ever since Viet Nam. The Somaila mess reinforced the skepticism at the expense of the UN, which IMO was the real defeat in Mogadishu, from the political angle: the UN took too much blame domestically for that mess.

All in all, the skepticism, consistent with what Pete expresses, is to the good insofar as to accoutability, but on the international political stage, that creates costs.

Heck, if this crap was easy, anyone could do it. :)