« No Suprise Here | Main | Intelligence »

July 17, 2003

Mark Steyn on Liberia

Note: this is a post recovered from my old blog, before it died of an insufficient backup. Any comments/trackbacks on it have not been brought over, but can be seen with the original. The date is that of the original posting.

This is why Mark Steyn gets paid to write out opinions, and I don't:

With Iraq, there was no agreement on what the thing was about: it's all about oil, said the anti-war crowd; it's about the threat Saddam represents to the world, said the pro-crowd. But with Liberia there's virtually unanimous agreement: the US has no vital national interest in the country; its tinpot tyrant is no threat to anybody beyond his backyard; the three warring parties are all disgusting and none has the makings of even a halfway civilised government. For many on the Right, these are reasons for steering clear of the place. For the Left, they're why we need to send the Marines in right now.

It's precisely the lack of any national interest that makes it appealing to the progressive mind. By intervening in Liberia, you're demonstrating your moral purity. That's why all the folks most vehemently opposed to American intervention in Iraq — from Kofi Annan to the Congressional Black Caucus — are suddenly demanding American intervention in Liberia. The New York Times is itching to get in: "Three weeks have passed since President Bush called on the Liberian President, Charles Taylor, to step aside, and pledged American assistance in restoring security. But there has been no definitive word here on how or when. "

...

Three weeks! And Bush is still just talking! The Times spent 14 months deploring the "rush to war" in Iraq, but mulling over Liberia for three weeks is the worst kind of irresponsible dithering.

Posted by jeff at July 17, 2003 12:00 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/1392