July 8, 2003
Liberia:
What American Interest?
by Alan Bock
There
are some in the Beltway who consider that the very fact that the
United States has no particular interest in the outcome of the current
civil war in Liberia – beyond a vague humanitarian desire for the
killing to come to an end – as the best of justifications for sending
American troops to the West African country. It's pretty weird reasoning
as I see it, but here's how it goes, as best I understand it.
If
there were a military, geopolitical or economic reason for the United
States to intervene, you see, a benefit to American well-being or
geostrategic interests, then a U.S. military intervention would
be seen as yet another example of American imperialism, of America
using its military might to advance its own selfish interests. If,
on the other hand, everyone understands that there is no particular
American interest to be gained in Liberia, the military incursion
will be seen as a true, disinterested, purely humanitarian intervention,
done strictly out of the goodness of the big American heart, for
the benefit of the unfortunate people of Liberia. Then the world
will appreciate us and love us.
What's
wrong with that reasoning? Almost everything, beginning with the
fact that we would be putting American lives at stake with no particular
American interest at stake. While some Americans might join the
military strictly for adventure, adrenaline and the chance to prove
themselves in the face of danger, regardless of whether a legitimate
American cause or any cause at all is at stake, not all of them
do.
Those
seeking adrenaline highs would do better to become soldiers of fortune,
That would leave those who thought they enlisted to serve American
interests (or get their lives in order or set themselves up in the
"Army of one" for a college scholarship or a good civilian
job) to face danger mainly when they are convinced (rightly or wrongly)
that American interests are at stake.
That
would leave out Liberia. But we already have a small detachment
on the ground, ostensibly to assess the situation and see if a larger
contingent might actually play a constructive role. And on his current
trip to Africa President Bush will undoubtedly face pressure to
increase the commitment.
INSTANT
MEDIA BUILD-UP
Perhaps
the most fascinating aspect of the push to send American troops
to Liberia is how quickly it has coalesced. A week ago – all right,
a week and a half ago, there was no serious consideration of sending
troops to a country that, depending on how you measure such things,
had been engaged in a brutal civil war for four years or 13 years.
Within days of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan suggesting the United
States might want to consider sending troops, we had troops on the
ground.
Unfortunately,
this initial commitment has come without anything resembling a debate
in the United States except some desultory discussions among the
elite members of government who seem to consider democratic public
opinion and consent something to be manufactured rather than followed.
To be sure, the pressure that was said to exist for the president
to come to a decision before his current trip began did not lead
to the kind of larger-scale commitment many hoped or feared would
ensue.
But
the administration has stuck its toe in West African waters. The
longer even a few troops stay in Liberia the harder it will be not
to keep increasing the commitment without looking as if we have
"cut and run," which seems like the last thing this administration
would want to be accused of, no matter how badly things go in Afghanistan,
Iraq or wherever. It will be increasingly difficult to make a dispassionate
assessment of not even the presence of conceivable American interests,
but of whether a U.S. presence would be constructive or helpful.
EXPANDING
HUMANITARIAN JUSTIFICATIONS
But
apparently when it comes to "humanitarian" interventions,
it's in for a penny, in for a pound. As the likelihood of finding
miscellaneously rather than logically grouped "weapons of mass
destruction" in Iraq recedes, the administration has been adjusting
its rationale. There's still the occasional promise that we'll eventually
stumble across some dread WMDs, but even President Bush has taken
to talking about a weapons "program" (which can presumably
be documented through pieces of paper) rather than actual weapons.
Without
those elusive WMDs in hand, administration spokesmen for weeks and
months now have been talking about rebuilding Iraq, ending torture,
building democracy, restoring order, building a modern economy and
doing good for the formerly oppressed people of Iraq. In other words,
with any evidence of an imminent threat unlikely to appear (and
pleasantly persistent questioning of just how egregiously the administration
and its minions exaggerated the threat Sadism Hussein posed, even
in the face of a full-court press by administration loyalists to
bill such questions as treasonous or kooky), the military campaign
has now become a humanitarian adventure.
Forget
about those nagging doubts about WMDs, ties to al Quid or anything
resembling an imminent threat, is the implicit administration line.
We did it out of the goodness of our hearts, because we really,
really cared about the poor people of Iraq groaning under the yoke
of tyranny. And by the way, if you're buying this, pay no attention
to those reports from Iraq that suggest lots of people might be
worse off than they were before and some are discontented enough
to shoot at American soldiers. These things take time, and our hearts
are pure.
But
if a military campaign on the scale of the Iraq war can be undertaken
for strictly humanitarian reasons, then what troubled and beleaguered
country is not a candidate for humanitarian intervention? If Liberia
is the next victim/beneficiary, the answer is that no country is
not a candidate. It would be a real challenge to come up with a
country that has less to do with anything resembling U.S. national
interests, or even its geostrategic imperial interests. As Andrew
Bacevich points out in his valuable recent book, "American
Empire," Africa plays no particular role in American imperial
designs, has no resources that can't be better acquired through
a reasonably open market, and has only the occasional incident that
could serve as a plausible threat. It serves mainly as the object
of the occasional symbolic gesture to create the impression for
a moment or two that American leaders are big-hearted.
SYMBOLIC
GESTURE
A
couple of the people I talked to last week suggested that the Bush
administration might just view a modest intervention in Liberia
as a symbolic gesture designed to defuse possible pressures to get
involved in even more unsettled and probably unresolvable (at least
through U.S. intervention) African trouble spots. Zimbabwe's president
Robert Mugabe has created widespread misery and plenty of unnecessary
deaths. The situation in the Congo is much more volatile and has
involved more deaths. We have slavery and a concerted campaign against
Christians and animists in Sudan. Although the genocide finally
ended in Rwanda, the country (if your want to call it a country)
has hardly emerged as a model for freedom and prosperity.
The
administration just might be anticipating a call from the various
members of the international floating crap game of loosely-affiliated
diplomats that most of the media are pleased to dub the "international
community" to do something concrete (probably military, but
perhaps involving an aid package that would dwarf the recently announced
AIDS initiative) about one of these situations. Any of them could
be much more expensive and probably more dangerous than sending
a few thousand U.S. troops to Liberia. If we've sent those troops
to Liberia, some may be hoping, the administration will be able
to argue that we have done our bit in Africa, that we want to be
endlessly helpful but have to match our goals to our resources.
It's
at least as likely, however, that an intervention in Liberia will
serve as a precedent that will make it more difficult, rather than
easier, to resist the siren call of those whose humanitarianism
is expressed by spending the lives and resources of others to intervene
in yet more African crises. Once we've established a policy of being
willing to send troops to an African country in which no conceivable
American interest is at stake, the insistent minions of humanitarian
intervention will argue that we now have experience and expertise
on the continent, and should be not just willing but eager to solve
the next crisis that finds its way to the airwaves of CNN.
HOW
LIKELY IS SUCCESS?
Almost
lost in the discussion is the pesky question of the likelihood of
even a large-scale American intervention actually solving the ongoing
problems in Liberia. Charles Taylor, who may have accepted an offer
of asylum in Nigeria even though he has been indicted by a UN war-crimes
court in Sierra Leone, is certainly a thug of the first order. But
the rebels don't come off as especially attractive either. It appears
(I'm willing to revise my view if I learn new things) that there's
little of ideology or a desire to have a free and prosperous country
involved in the civil war.
The
tussle seems to be mainly about who will control the illicit trade
in "dirty diamonds" that has subsidized governments and
rebellions in Sierra Leone and other African countries. The United
States shows no signs of having area experts available who might
understand some of the ins and outs of what appears to be mainly
an opportunistic approach on all sides. It might well be that the
only way to dampen the ongoing struggle over control of variously
illicit forms of (relative) wealth wold be for the United States
to assume de facto control over the entire country, dictating its
politics for a period of indeterminate length. Even that is likely
to work only if the U.S. finds some diplomats and military administrators
with a lot more detailed knowledge of the region than has been on
display so far.
There
are potentially hopeful signs. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have aid
that America's military leadership would much rather have neighboring
countries take the lead in trying to pacify and control Liberia,
which is hardly surprising considering the extent to which imperial
overstretch in Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention Bosnia, Kosovo,
South Korea, Japan and Western Europe) has made the military worry
about overcommitment. The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee
have expressed the notion that any U.S. military commitment in Liberia
should be preceded by, of all things, congressional approval. And
the Bush administration did resist the temptation to announce an
immediate intervention even in the face of the president's imminent
trip to Africa. Perhaps there were doubts more serious than those
aired in public.
My
guess, however, is that the current contingent will become convinced,
and will convince the leaders in the administration, that more troops
might just be able to save the day. So we will distract the American
people even further from the ongoing failures to capture or kill
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein with a modest little effort to
give the natives a "whiff of the grape" in Liberia. That
effort is likely to be mostly unsuccessful and therefore likely
to grow in scope.
I
wouldn't mind if President Bush were to prove me wrong.
–
Alan Bock
|
comments
on this article?
|
|
|
Please
Support Antiwar.com
Antiwar.com
520 South Murphy Avenue #202 Sunnyvale, CA 94086
or
Contribute Via our Secure Server Credit Card Donation Form
Your
contributions are tax-deductible
|
