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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
U.S. shouldn’t
plunge into LiberiaSome people worry about the United States becoming the world's police force.
I worry that we are becoming the world's plumber.
Why else would we even consider plunging into Liberia? The place is a toilet. It's been a toilet for many years. There are those who will say that it's America's fault that Liberia is a toilet because they think that everything wrong in the world is our fault. But they're wrong. When it comes to Liberia, we tried to do the right thing. It just hasn't quite worked out.
Liberia was established 40 years before the Civil War by freed American slaves, thanks to a bunch of religious busybodies who were anti-slavery, but not pro-having-a-black-brother-living-next-door.
The busybodies convinced some tribal chiefs around Sierra Leone on the West African coast to "donate" some land. Well, actually, they ordered them to do it at gunpoint.
Then the busybodies formed the new country and named the capital Christopolis. (Seriously. I guess Jesusville was taken.) Eventually, cooler and less pious heads prevailed and the capital's name was changed to Monrovia, after President James Monroe.
The busybodies then began busily bossing the blacks around until the blacks couldn't take it anymore, declared independence in 1847 and kicked the busybodies out.
Democracy flourished, peace and tranquility reigned, and the people of Liberia thrived. Just kidding. Actually, it's been a series of bloody tribal wars ever since. Liberian presidents came and went, usually with bullet holes. The charming Samuel Doe took control in 1980 after voting the president out of office with automatic gunfire.
The equally charming Charles Taylor and Prince Johnson 86'd Doe in '89, cutting off his ears and torturing him to death while someone videotaped the festivities.
With Doe gone, Prince (That's his name. Really.) and Charlie celebrated by plunging the country into a civil war of surprising barbarity, even by Liberian standards.
A friend of mine, the former head of the federal Bureau of Diplomatic Security in Honolulu, had the misfortune of being assigned to Liberia during the gory Taylor-Johnson feud. His tales of the death and destruction were chilling and yet punctuated by the kind of comic relief found only in pitiful Fourth World backwaters.
He told me about the day Prince Johnson visited the American diplomatic compound in Monrovia. Johnson arrived driving the lead car of a motorcade of stolen Mercedeses, Dolly Parton blaring on a tape player. The car trunks were filled with ice and Budweiser. This while corpses of Taylor supporters lay in the streets.
Taylor eventually won control of the country and continued the mass brutality solo.
Liberia is a cesspool that needs to be drained. But it's not our cesspool. And we aren't the world's plumbers.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com