Tristero

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Liberia

Jeanne d'Arc, as usual, sums up the Liberian fiasco better than just about anyone:

I don't know wtf to do.

I don't think George Bush knows wtf to do either. We're sending troops. We're not sending troops until Charles Taylor leaves. Taylor agrees to leave , but vows to return after a brief "cooling-off period." We won't send American troops until a "sufficient" force of troops from neighboring West African countries is deployed. Nigerian troops are on their way? Great. We'll send 41 Marines to guard our embassy. But only after we've gotten immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

I don't know what to do either, but I can figure out some baby steps.

1. Remove Bush from office.
2. Send in UN peacekeepers immediately, which could or could not include US troops.

Unless both steps are taken, anything the US will do is bound to backfire disastrously and fatally. Why? Because Bush is incompetent.

I am not a purist about intervention. Nevertheless, Bush has demonstrated over and over that his "gut" about both foreign policy and the use of the military is simply wrong. As long as Bush is president, there cannot be a "compassionate" intervention that won't turn out to be a catastrophe for us and will not significantly relieve the terrible suffering in Liberia.

As awful as it sounds, since Bush will never be impeached, an sensible intervention in Liberia will have to wait to January, 2005 at the earliest. Bush cannot be trusted with the power he has to do good.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:06 PM

Monday, July 21, 2003

Torture CNN Now!

Go, go, go!

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:14 PM

Quote Of The Day

The reality of this moment is that unless Bush is defeated, most of the objectives of every [lefty or liberal] group I just mentioned are going to be in the ditch.

Todd Gitlin (you'll have to look at an ad but the entire article is well worth reading, especially because it is unlikely you'll agree with all of it.)

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:31 AM

Tristero
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