[2:45 PM] So Charles Taylor has stepped down and jetted off to Nigeria. Symbolically, at least for now, U.S. warships moved to within sight of the coast of Liberia. Now the U.S. is serious about peacekeeping there--or so it says. Taylor’s exit was always a condition for Bush to engage in Liberia and help bring peace and eliminate a growing humanitarian disaster. Then shouldn’t the U.S. have helped to force Taylor out with something more than presidential rhetoric?
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posted 2:51 PM
A leader of the rebel group known as LURD declared that as long as Mr. Taylor left the country as planned, the war would end. "For us in LURD, the war is over," Sekou Fofana of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy told Reuters. "Once he leaves Liberia today we are not going to fight. The suffering of Liberians is over."
Who knows if LURD is serious about ending hostilities; but if this is true then it doesn’t provide any cover or justification for the Bush administration’s sit on its hands approach which it frames as setting up pre-conditions (the right time, atmosphere, etc.) for intervention. Taylor at one point said he wouldn't leave until U.S. peacekeepers arrive. Wouldn't it have been worth finding out if he way lying to save the thousand or so people who died in the interim?
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