By Raymond C. Offenheiser and Kenneth H. Bacon
08/11/2003
This article ran in today's edition of the Washington Post

The sight of Nigerian soldiers arriving in Monrovia this week gave Liberia's weary and wounded population a reason to cheer. But the deployment of this initial contingent of peacekeepers should not be interpreted, especially by the White House, as a signal that the humanitarian crisis in Liberia will soon be over. If anything, Liberia's most perilous days lie ahead.

Many Liberians are without food or access to clean water. The spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases is largely unchecked. Forces on all sides of the conflict remain heavily armed and on edge. And the Nigerian soldiers starting patrols in Monrovia have yet to prove they can keep the peace by themselves. While jubilant, the people of Liberia are anything but safe.

The past weeks of waffling in Washington over what role, if any, U.S. forces would play in bringing peace to Liberia has sorely eroded America's credibility in West Africa, a region that is supplying an increasing amount of oil to the United States. Besides calling for Taylor to leave the country and helicoptering in approximately a half-dozen Marines, President Bush has failed to adequately handle a humanitarian crisis in which timely and decisive American action could have saved countless lives.

The establishment of a humanitarian corridor in Monrovia and the funneling of aid supplies and staff to the city will not, by itself, dispel the overwhelming sense among Liberians that they were abandoned by the United States and left to die. Only visible and concerted U.S. leadership on the ground in Liberia can change the perception among the people of West Africa and the rest of the world that the indiscriminate shelling and shooting of civilians was not deemed in America's national interest to stop.

Public and forceful U.S. engagement in international efforts to confront complex humanitarian disasters is more important now than ever before in American history. The poor planning for the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the floundering reconstruction effort underway in Afghanistan call into question the commitment and effectiveness of the United States in responding to civilians trapped in the middle of conflict.

Doubt about the willingness and capability of this country to support and lead missions such as the one underway in Liberia damages U.S. national security -- not to mention further endangering civilians living in war zones.

Time and again, despotic governments and rebel groups have shown that they will murder and maim large numbers of civilians when they think they can get away with it.

Central Asia, the Balkans and West Africa are areas of the world that provide too many examples of what happens when U.S. power is not used proactively. Conflicts in these places that were not confronted head-on rapidly destabilized whole regions when they were left to fester from civil wars into grave threats to America's vital interests.

It is time for the United States, in partnership with the United Nations and its members, to begin in earnest the hard, long-term work of fashioning a stable and secure Liberia from the rubble of nearly a decade of civil war.

An example of peacekeeping success can be found in the neighboring country of Sierra Leone, where fewer than 1,000 British soldiers helped a U.N. force end a brutal civil war that was triggered by Charles Taylor in Liberia. As a result, Sierra Leone has held democratic elections, child soldiers have been demobilized and hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced people have returned home.

The U.S. Marines anchored off Monrovia can play a similar role in Liberia. Though not without dangers, meaningful U.S. involvement faces little risk of the protracted, low-intensity warfare that the United States faces in Afghanistan and Iraq, because of the nature of the mission in Liberia and the absence of anti-American sentiment. President Bush must publicly articulate what specific commitments his administration will make of its considerable military, diplomatic and humanitarian resources to accomplish this crucial mission. Doing so would give everyone, not just the people of Liberia, a reason to cheer.