Only one issue with this scheme - Charlie does not play nice, and I don't know of a neighboring country that would let him in! Trouble with a capital T, and that stands for TAYLOR. How about we shoot for Belgium? A War Crimes Court would be about the best shot he's got for stayin' alive IMHO.

Venomous Kate! Could you, like, do something about the hot metal on this page? I can't bold or italicize or nothin'... I mean, you don't fuckin' care, but I like to shout occasionally. I've tried it on a number of threads, and it seems to be limited to this one...

this is a bonehead maneuver. Unless we are going to fish out our people, we should not get involved in this. I agree with the sentiments that I've seen that we need to do what we can to ensure that there are no more failed states tyring to get nuclear weapons etc, but sending our troops over there doesn't serve a compelling interest, and only fuels the paranoid nobodies of the world that already think our goal is world domination.

Let me see, the current politically correct thinking is that it is MANDATORY to engage in military intervention whenever there is a situation which is characterized as a massive humanitarian catastrophe such as the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans (Molosovic) or Liberia's decade long civil war in which millions have been slaughtered. Critical to all this is (1) the UN suggests it, and (2) there can be no US interest protected. Fortunately no one has claimed Liberia has significant oil reserves or WMD or there would be a big problem with the US intervening.

"Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a prominent opponent of the war in Iraq, called Wednesday for dispatching U.S. troops to Liberia to head off a human rights crisis."

I am getting confused. War never accomplishes anything, the US armed forces are incompetent, and countries can have their populaces hoodwinked into committing troops by high officials.

What does Frances think about this? Do they need more proof?

Limpet! I see your Franc, and raise you a Euro. I say whisper in Charlie's ear, tell him to meet us at the airport in Monrovia, and put him on a MAC flight nonstop, no layovers, direct to Brussels. That's close to France, right? Close enough? Does that work for you?

Dube-Dube-Do

I've got enough time on C-130's to do that on a frequent flyer discount and my Uncle Sam paid me to wrest wrongdoers (infrastructure used to be the fashionable term) from places of comfort in both RVN and AFG. Do we have to land in Belgium? Couldn't we just give him an umbrella and help him do a Mary Poppins? Let him be subject to the international law of gravity and let international physics decide his guilt or innocence.

Personally I don't want to dignify the Belgian process. Let the sands of time and inactivity cause it to crumble under the weight of accumulated cobwebs.

LIMPET! Stand him on the 'ramp' whilst over Pari for all I care! LOL. Good go... I like you, already. Promises, promises, Charlie. Sorry. I wonder if Charlie the Tuna would fall for that one? Curious.

Have a better one for ye. Put 'em on a cigarette boat headed in the direction of Brazil. Launch 'em like a torpedo as soon as the boat gets into International waters. No more, no less. If he makes it back to within 100 yards of the beach, sink 'em, and consider it a sorry excuse for an invasion.

Brazil? Paris? He's a lowlife, but not a threat to the entire world.

I think this is a fantastic opportunity for our President to ask the opposition "What's it gonna be?"

If I intervene am I establishing an empire? Am I taking us into quagmiredom? Will we have to protect the museums? Will I be accused of being both dumb and a mastermind? Will our troops be characterized as baby killers? Will we have to bolt after a few casualties a la Mogadishu? When they run the count of service deaths on the news will they combine the daily deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Liberia?

Why is the UN coming to us? Aren't we bad persons? Why aren't the French and the Germans and the Canadians taking care of this? It they try, can we veto their intervention at a security counsel meeting?

Agreed, Limpet. This is a great opportunity for Bush to declare the hypocrisy of those who didn't want to move against Iraq. Now all of a sudden, they're coming out of the woodwork to help a backwater country like Liberia, where we have utterly no interest. This doesn't even count, as I have seen on this site, as "our" territory. The african slaves left because they wanted nothing to do with America, and who could blame them. We bear no special responsibilty toward them. The thing is, the American public sees this behavior for what it is.

Bush should drag his heels and let the recent naysayers to go on record as hawks.

I've several decades active and reserve military service and I'll gladly go where some wrong needs rghting, but...

1) I don't want my good intentions used against me dand those who think like me,

2) I don't want the rug pulled out from under me halfway through the job because some people forgot about things like the costs
a) in monetary terms,
b) in lives,
c) in domestic turmoil, and
d) in the overall diplomatic mix.

There are people like DeGenova at Columbia who'd work to send us over there just so we'd endure 1,000 Mogadishus. Yeah, Americans go get 'em, you racist imperialist oppressors of the masses.

FYI - SOME are 180+ years removed, some not so long, and some from Caribbean territories. I've been watching this one for awhile, and I don't like the idea of putting anyone in there for any length of time. Charlie's 'big guns' are kids. Literally. You think we got problems with troops shootin' young ones now, wait 'til they get to Monrovia, and his 'loyal' kids melt into the woodwork... GWB is tellin' Taylor he has to leave, but note that he ain't tellin' him where to go. I say, mull this one over for as long as it takes for him to get dead. Preferably without our 'help'.

Limpet

Your post (1036) would be the perfect question for GWB to pose to the EU, specifically targeting the main weasel column(France, Germany, Russia, Belgium).
Excellent!!!!

Jesse Jackson was asked a similar question on MSNBC this afternoon. He basically said that the difference between Liberia and Iraq is that this is a humanitarian action, not a preemptive military strike and this has the support of the international community, wheras Iraq did not.

And Jesse Jackson, as many know, is full of shirt.
Oooops! Did I do a typo, there?

When it comes to actually going on the firing line, by the "International Community" we no doubt mean the Axis of Weasel approves, while the people in harm's way are the U.S., the Brits, the Aussies and, under normal internal political circumstances, the Canadians.