Pressure on the US

 MONROVIA (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) kept up pressure on the United States to lead intervention in Liberia on Monday as troops strengthened defenses around battle-worn Monrovia in fear of another bloody rebel attack. 
 West African countries pledged troops for a peacekeeping force on Sunday, but they want help from the United States to prevent a bloodbath in the capital and end nearly 14 years of violence that have infected the impoverished region.
 "There are lots of expectations that the United States will be able to lead the force," Annan told reporters in Geneva. "But that is a sovereign decision for them to take." 
 There is particular pressure on the United States because of historic ties to a country founded by freed American slaves more than 150 years ago, although President Bush (news - web sites) will keep well away next week on his first tour of Africa.
 The pressure's on the US to send our men overseas once more to end a nightmare in the region that many are afraid will cause a bloodbath if action isnt taken. I'm sorry, wasnt Bush just another Hitler with no consideration for human life? Didnt the World want the US to stop interfering with other countries problems?

 What about France, Germany, Canada? Why not ask THEM for help? They certainly are powerful enough...

 You know France, if you want to be a World leader, you better start leading. You might also find out you will have tremendous ammounts of pressure on you for doing so, just as the US has had with any major conflict - heck even George Washington faced scores of protesters who wanted the war to happen.

I was reading The Limbaugh Letter one day and in the ‘Quotes’ section, there was a quote from Jacques Chirac. It said something like, “In war, the ends does not justify the means of victory.” And after every one of the quotes, Rush has a comment, and his comment for that one was “Too bad you don’t know what its like to win a war.” I laughed my ass off because its so true!

Screw 'em all. Let war rage on. Let the bastards kill each other. If we jump in, we will just have to hear more shit from some liberal assholes. Whoever wants Liberia can have it. It’s up for grabs.

"Screw 'em all. Let war rage on. Let the bastards kill each other. If we jump in, we will just have to hear more shit from some liberal assholes. Whoever wants Liberia can have it. It’s up for grabs. "

Great. Whenever there’s a real need for a intervention, but no oil, just “let the bastards kill each other”. That was great Avoids, just great. It goes to show how much you really care about the lifes of poeple in underdeveloped countries.

Looky, looky. The first asshole has appeared. You sure didn’t say that about Iraq!

“how much you really care about the lifes of poeple”

Restless, I don’t mind the occasional typo, but “the lifes”???

In defense of Restless, since I have been known to go the aid of underdogs before, English is not his first language.

Okay, sorry. I’ve seen Restless around enough and haven’t seen any horrible spelling mistakes to get me thinking that theres a possibility that hes ESL.

Actually, and not to highjack this post or anything, but Restless, Axy, Stella and a few others who frequent the boards all do well enough that you wouldn’t know that they aren’t native speakers if they didn’t tell you. Too bad some of the real native speakers can’t come up to their standards.

And now back to our regularly-scheduled thread…

See, THIS is what we do. We’ve always gone to the rescue of those who needed us (with the rare exception, but since our delayed entry into WW II we learned an important lesson). Watch black hawk down: those are our men dying for them. It’s what we do. We fight for freedom - ours and theirs.

During Mogadishu operation (black hawk down) an Army Ranger whod left the city and arrived at the headquarters was told to get ready - hes going out again and so is the rest of his unit. He saw the blood, the terror in the city. He said ‘I cant go’. His commander had to tell him ‘I know you’re afraid…Im afraid. Iver never been in a situation like this before. These people are counting on us. Its not wether you’re scared but what you do when you’re scared that separates men from cowards’ Some of these men never made it back.

They died for those people just like many others have and like many more will. Because it’s what we do and its what we’ll be doing until there’s no more doing to be done. SO dont tell us that all we do is pick a fight with someone who has oil. Chances are, youll see OUR men over there.

The French are and HAVE been involved in the civil wars taking place in the Ivory Coast - Just south of Liberia, and the British are currently involved with battles in Sierra Leone, which is comprised of some of the same ethnic groups.

Hasn’t the White House been reluctant to send troops so far? I read that many in congress are for it, but not the White house.

And this war has been going on for 14 years, so I think Diesel’s grand statements of “this is what we do” are overstating matters a bit.

Theres no doubt they want to avoid another Mogadishu, seeing as theres an election looming.

Actually we have been ignoring Africa for a long time. Bringing up Iraq is like apples and oranges. Liberia is not the only country in trouble there.

Zimbabwe has a brutal regime there (I think his name is Mugabe), that originally came in as a force for social change, but instead turned into a dictatorship.

There are also other problem nations, but I am not well-informed enough to address them. However, it is naive to say that “if there is a problem US forces will be there”. We could have stepped in in many situations, decades ago. Africa is not considered a priority by the US government, whether humanitarian intervention is needed or not.

Actually Char, that is a good hijack of this thread. It amazes me the command of the English language that some people have that speak it as a second or third language. I consider myself fluent in Spanish and can speak Portugese and Italian conversationally but not at the level that some of our foreign contributors speak, or should I say write, English on this forum. And, writing English is much more difficult than writing the languages that I have a knowledge of since English is not usually a phonetically spelled language whereas the romance languages are. However, no matter how fluent one is in a certain language, they can rarely be totally fluent without living there since they don’t have the cultural background to understand some of the thinking behind what is said or written. For instance, while Restless could understand what I literally said, he did not have the cultural background to understand that I was talking “toungue in cheek” and actually meant the reverse of what I said. I wonder how difficult it is for you living in Japan to totally understand what the Japanese are really saying since you have to catch the tone in which it is being said to truly understand it. I know, for instance, that in China, the same word in Mandarin can have 5 different meanings depending on the tonation of how it is said and that it takes a cultural knowledge to really understand the true meaning. That is one of the reasons that Asian/Western joint ventures have such a hard time…we really don’t understand each other’s goals.

Anyway, sorry for the distraction Diesel. Let’s get back killing some third world people that might have oil in their back yard.

Avoids Roids - “Defender of the Homeless, Mindless and Restless” (just in case there might be oil in Portugal that we can steal…on to Lisbon).

I apologize for the spelling mistakes, maybe it’s time to start using a word processor since I no longer always have the time to spell check my posts.

Diesel, your comments are so unbelievably naive that there’s no need to adress them. Two words, Mobutu Seseseko.

The situation in many countries in Africa is completely screwed up and as far as I’m concerned most European countries, including mine, have the moral duty to intervine in some way in more than one place. This is one of those situations where a UN peace force would be completely justified, and would also be a good situation for the US to show that they actually have a shred of humanitarian drive behind their actions. Of course, since you are occupying a nation against it’s people will, which obviously isn’t a easy thing to do now would probably be a good time for another military intervention. Couldn’t leave this one out.

I think I’m starting another Iraq thread. Stay tuned.

Well lets not overly simplify the complicated world of Politics. The US has to have some priorities militarily. Right now that is terorists and WMD. If your boy Mobutu gets some WMD and some solid Terorist ties that are aggresive against the US and our alies than … lets just say we’ll be knocking on his door. We have a mission right now. I see no problem with the rest of the world picking up some of the slack in Africa.

WMD’s??

You mean the biggest fiasco of all stated reasons for Iraq’s invasion? Those WMD’s?

Most Americans I’ve seen lately around the internet are now resorting to the “we did it for the sake of Iraquis” excuse. Seems to me you’re a little behind the news.

How many innocent civilians was it that this military action of yours killed in order to save Iraquis lives?? (was that OK now Avoids?) Three thousand?? A bit more? Oh the irony of it all…If it wasn’t so tragic I’d roll laughing on the floor.

Hey, Restless, I’ve got an idea. Why doesn’t Portugal go take care of business? They’ve got to have a military budget of oh, I don’t know, three or four hundred dollars. Apparently the US is incapable of doing the right thing. Why not Portugal? Now is the perfect opportunity! Have fun fighting in the jungle, it’s a bitch!

Well, Japanese isn’t a tonal language like Chinese, so that’s a bit different. But I’ll address the language stuff in more detail over on my Japan thread.

And just to add my two cents’ (which is about all I have) to the Iraq issue: if you’re going to talk about how many people were killed in the US’ Iraq action, I think that you also, in fairness, have to at least try to estimate how many more would have been killed over the next X number of years had Saddam and Co. stayed in power. Not doing so gives you a pretty one-sided view of things.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about Iraq. :wink:

Hey restless,
I can hear the chant getting louder. Portgal, Portugal, PORTUGAL!!! You had better run and hide you little punk.

Really, I thought the chants were saying “IMPEACH BUSH, IMPEACH BUSH”.