A Running Diary of Thought

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Wow, the new blogger certainly looks much cooler behind the scenes. Hope it works well.

Anyway, the skeptic been gone for a month now, and needs to apologize to readers. The summer has kept him much more busy than he had hoped.

One of the primary issues has been his recent acceptance of an opportunity to teach in Kenya with the Peace Corps. This has meant that the skeptic finds himself taking care of many loose ends. the skeptic departs on Sept. 14th, and blogging between now and then will be more than spotty.

Another distraction has been a lack of regular Internet access, as well as a desire to do much reading. Right now, the skeptic is charging through Samantha Power's book: A Problem From Hell.

It is a very interesting book that has made the skeptic think a great deal about America's obligation to intervene abroad. the skeptic will post an extensive review of the book here sometime in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile....

U.S. troops are going to be sent to Liberia. (The NYT reports: "A decision in principle to go has been made," said the military official. "There are some people pushing back on the record, saying there's been no final decision by the president, and that's true. But at this point, it's a decision about what it's going to look like.")

TNR has an interesting take:

In short, the world is waiting to see if two things will happen: First, whether the United States will flex its muscle in the service of moral principle when U.S. economic and security interests are not directly at stake; and, second, whether concerted international outcries can spur the United States into multilateral action it would not otherwise take. If the Bush administration meets the test, it could find itself with something it doesn't have much of right now political capital to call upon the next time the United States seeks to address a security threat the world would rather ignore--say, in Iran or North Korea. Leaving aside the compelling human rights issues at stake, that would be quite a bargain for the 2,000 U.S. peacekeepers that ECOWAS is requesting.

Africapundit makes a security claim for U.S. intervention:

The US has plenty of reasons to want Taylor removed from power: Taylor cooperates with terrorists (domestic, regional, and international); Taylor spreads instability in the region and threatens his neighbors; Taylor has been indicted for war crimes by the UN court in Freetown. Besides freeing Liberia, Taylor's removal would improve security throughout West Africa, particularly in neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. In addition, it would give the US an opportunity to reevaluate a rather uneasy alliance with Guinea and could create the conditions for democratic reform in that country.

The much-loathed NRO isn't buying it:

There is not even a peripheral, much less a vital, U.S. interest at stake in Liberia. It might be possible to find a country that is less relevant than Liberia to America's security and well-being, but it would take a major effort.

Writer Irving Kristol had it right more than a decade ago during a previous civil war in Liberia when he observed that the only issue at stake seemed to be a mundane fight between then-dictator Samuel K. Doe and would-be dictator Charles Taylor. Today, the mundane struggle is between Taylor and rebels who would likely replace his odious regime with an equally odious one. America does not have a dog in that fight.
[...]
There is suffering going on in numerous places around the world. Indeed, the scale of human misery is far greater in such places as the Congo, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan than it is in Liberia. From a moral standpoint, how can the Bush administration justify intervening in Liberia while declining to use force in those other cases? Yet if the United States intends to intervene everywhere bad things happen, our military will be busy in perpetuity. Humanitarian intervention is, therefore, an impractical, bankrupt policy.

Even some advocates of intervention in Liberia seem to shy away from the logical implications of their policies. Typically, their arguments include a disclaimer that the United States cannot intervene everywhere, or that America cannot be the world's policeman. But then they blithely go on to suggest making Liberia an exception.

The problem with that approach is that the list of potential exceptions is as numerous as the advocates of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In the early 1990s, proponents made Somalia an exception. A few years later it was Haiti, then Bosnia, and then Kosovo. Now, advocates of intervention in Liberia compete with those who believe America should take action to end the suffering in the Congo or Myanmar.
[...]
It is unsound strategically to send our military personnel in harm's way when there is no vital security interest at stake. Even worse, it is immoral to risk their lives in such ventures. Being a superpower means that the United States has the luxury to say "no" as well as "yes" to suggestions that it engage in military interventions. Liberia is a case where U.S. leaders should have said "no" early and often. (emphasis added)

As much of a fan the skeptic is about trying to bring peace to West Africa--which is in dire need of peace--he can't help but partially agree with this logic. Why should the U.S. intervene in Liberia and not the Congo?

Furthermore, the skeptic can't help but wonder if the military is being overstretched. Would it be better for the additional resources to be sent to Afghanistan (two recent opinions in the NYT: 1 and 2)?

In other news...

Zimbabwe has shown an ability to make friends under the worst of circumstances....

Bush is off to Africa for a bit of a trip, and his speech last week was interesting. Made the skeptic wonder just how involved the U.S. is behind the scenes. Africa policy advocates, by the by, don't seem too pleased.


Random

Umm... no comment.

The Michael Moore of the right...

Update: The White House will provide regular updates on Bush's trip here. The site could use a bit of work.... (it's fixed now)

posted at 2:38 PM |