Right after the White House admitted fault for including the Iraq/Niger intelligence report into the State of the Union address, all of the top officials were saying how we actually went to war because Saddam was a terrible dictator. However, as the Liberia thing gets more and more heated and reports show that Chuck Taylor isn’t such a nice guy either, the top Administration officials are now stressing that regardless of whether or not Iraq tried to buy Uranium from Niger, Iraq did have a WMD program. This also after Bush has said that no American troops will be sent to Liberia until after Chuck Taylor leaves. Aren’t we or are we not in the business of freeing people from tyrants?
Don’t get revisonist on us…it was always about the mythical WMD.
Re: Liberia…
There is already tremendous pressure on Taylor to step down and leave Liberia. Not a day goes by without rancorous demonstrations in the streets of the capitol.
It is widely believed that by promising US military intervention on the condition that Taylor step down, America can ratchet up the internal pressure immensely. Liberians will demand Taylor’s departure and might well be expected to storm the presidential palace to encourage a sendoff.
At that point, US troops could arrive to deal with the humanitarian situation in Liberia, without first having to remove the Taylor regime by violence. (You’re all opposed to violence, right?)
That’s why we’ve announced our intention to provide troops once Taylor has stepped down. It encourages the most benevolent outcome while hopefully obviating the need for a violent showdown. Get it? It’s pretty basic strategy, and I’d hope it’s a strategy you could all get behind.
P.S. It should go without saying that Liberians are very, very eager to see a US military intervention in their country.
P.P.S. It should also go without saying that the internal pressure Taylor is under had no analogy in Hussein’s Iraq, as it also has no analogy in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, where a dictator infinitely worse than Taylor keeps half of an African nation in a state of terror today. But you do what you can.
Yes, I think we should give UN weapons inspectors more time.