How would you help Liberia?

[Infohawk]

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liberia

First hand accounts of war, squalor, rape, and even cannibalism.

My reaction is that there is really no civilization here. An external force really needs to just come in and enforce some basic laws: only crap in certain designated areas (not on the beach), no killing, no raping, no stealing (aka basic property rights). Let family structures come back along with basic security and maybe something more advanced can develop.


PS I really recommend the video. It's not boring or preachy. It's entertaining. For god's sake, there's a former warlord named "Butt naked" who describes the best parts of human flesh to eat.

 

[cubeless]

sorry, but we're booked for nation building for the next couple years... maybe try china?

 

[yllus]

I couldn't condone a military intervention without hearing what the end goal was. And if the end goal is, "Kill the current psychopaths in power so other psychopaths can take their place," what's in it for anyone?

 

[Infohawk]

sorry, but we're booked for nation building for the next couple years... maybe try china?

I didn't say the US has to do it. And I wouldn't call it nation building. It's something much more basic - basic law and order. Even colonialism has to be better than this.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

There's nothing to fix. Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...

 

[PokerGuy]

Why should someone from the outside go in and "fix" that place? That's just how they want to run that country, leave them be.

 

[Modelworks]

Until the people there decide they are not going to put up with that kind of behavior there is nothing anyone can do. It will not be pleasant and many will die but it is the only way things change in situations like that.

Look at where we helped in Haiti . It only took one week for the politicians and crime bosses to return to their old ways. Water and supplies wasn't making it to the people because it was being intercepted by their corrupt system. Organizations had to pay bribes to get food through.

 

[StageLeft]

Why should someone from the outside go in and "fix" that place? That's just how they want to run that country, leave them be.

You really think people who are raped and eaten want their country run that way?

Until the people there decide they are not going to put up with that kind of behavior there is nothing anyone can do.

People are weak and sometimes, like children, need the right direction.

The US cannot give it unfortunately. Africa is in ruins and quite a hopeless castastrofvck. If I had free reign over a military many times the size of America's I would sick it upon the beasts on that continent who kill and pilage and force children to shoot their parents. But at this time nothing huge can be done that I see.

 

[Sinsear]

Is it possible that they are beyond help?

 

[Infohawk]

Why should someone from the outside go in and "fix" that place? That's just how they want to run that country, leave them be.

Did you watch the video? Watch the video.

 

[Infohawk]

Is it possible that they are beyond help?

It seems possible. I have a hard time believing any child who's eaten human hearts and taken drugs before battle can be fully civilized. But I think this would be multi-generational rehabilitation. Again, you'd start with the basics of punishing violence and rape very strictly and going from there.

Half-way between nuking Liberia off the map and handing out money is would be some mixed (government and private) neo-colonialism. Profit from the natural resources while returning some semblance of civilization to the country.

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't run things so my opinion doesn't matter.

 

[Zebo]

Awesome video. To answer your question civilization doesn't happen overnight... See the social-contract theories, read Hobbes, read Locke, read Rousseau, read our Founders, read right up to Rawls. It's no accident the West is what it is.

Make no mistake, as we jettison the great thinkers of the Enlightenment above as well as Ockham, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Franklin, Paine, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, etc, in a process I call reprimitiveization of the world we would be the exact same, as we once were - watch Braveheart.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

West Africa seems more or less beyond help, unfortunately.

 

[Noobtastic]

As long as Libya remains on the UNHRC and is protected by the pro-Muslim super-majority, Liberia will be a lost cause.

Yes, Liberia is mostly a Christian state, but the war is sponsored by the North African nations (mostly weapons) who sell weapons to the tribal clans and leaders. Libya is allegedly one of the largest benefactors.

 

[werepossum]

I don't think we can really help any African nation as they have severe endemic cultural problems, but we in the US do have a special relationship with Liberia seeing as how we created it from nothing. So perhaps once we are out of Iraq and almost totally out of Afghanistan we should give it a try. My scheme would be:
1. Occupation and governance as a colony, including armed security.
2. Breaking down tribal relationships by building alternate religious and civic chains of authority.
3. Universal and mandatory school for all, including adults, teaching literacy, English, basic mathematics and science, basic medical knowledge and hygiene. No readie, no eatie.
4. Secondary schools in nursing, doctors, and crafts and trades such as modern farming electrical and electronics technicians, welding, construction, HVAC, and other areas important to modern society.
5. Identification of agriculture suitable to each area of the country, with specialized training and provision of seed and/or breeding stock.
6. Identification of low energy industry suitable for the area and the people, with specialized training and provision of required tools.
7. Identification of key resource areas and establishment of a railroad system connecting the areas, with specialized training and provision of rolling stock.
8. Disarming the tribes.
9. Building and training secular security forces and arming them.
10. Provision of solar water purification in key areas without access to clean water.
11. Provision of a solar powered cell phone grid, with nodes in each village and in each school.
12. Widespread vaccinations against common diseases.

Probably not more than a 10% chance of success though, and we'd have to get our financial house in order first. I'm guessing that Afghanistan may well be our last hurray.

 

[Infohawk]

I don't think we can really help any African nation as they have severe endemic cultural problems, but we in the US do have a special relationship with Liberia seeing as how we created it from nothing.

True, the video suggests that the black Americans who went back enslaved the "natives." I didn't see this on Wikipedia and I admit that I don't know much about Liberian history besides that it was created by the US. I wonder if this is true. I wonder if the founding fathers would have thought when hearing about child soldiers and cannibals. "Glad we sent them back to Africa" or "We made a big mistake"?

 

[Schadenfroh]

I feel sorry for Liberia, since it was founded by Americans, I do have more sympathy for them than many countries. However, I do not believe that we can "reduce" the problems of Liberia without occupying them and that leads down a path that is best left alone.

True, the video suggests that the black Americans who went back enslaved the "natives." I didn't see this on Wikipedia and I admit that I don't know much about Liberian history besides that it was created by the US.

There is a part on the wiki article that hints at that, but does not say that they enslaved them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia#Settlers_from_the_United_States

Mutual mistrust and hostility between the "Americans" along the coast and the "Natives" of the interior was a recurrent theme in the country's history, along with (usually successful) attempts by the Americo-Liberian minority to dominate what they identified as savage native peoples.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Sadly there is nothing we can do. Enforce laws? Have a few thousand trials a day then what?

If you really wanted to change things you could insert a half million man army with orders to kill anyone seen committing a list of crimes. When a hundred thousand or so die, then they might get the message.

In other words the only thing that will fix this is to be as barbaric as needed until they fear the consequences of their actions.

Do I endorse that? No, but nevertheless you aren't going to educate them.

 

[Infohawk]

Sadly there is nothing we can do. Enforce laws? Have a few thousand trials a day then what?

If you really wanted to change things you could insert a half million man army with orders to kill anyone seen committing a list of crimes. When a hundred thousand or so die, then they might get the message.

In other words the only thing that will fix this is to be as barbaric as needed until they fear the consequences of their actions.

Do I endorse that? No, but nevertheless you aren't going to educate them.

No that's pretty what what I'm talking about. I would give general amnesty except maybe for the biggest and most heinous warlords that the Hague wanted to deal with. Then you impose something closer to martial law and a centralized economy that has people farming or mining. Surprisingly, the literacy rate in Liberia is as high as 50%. So I would imagine literacy could rise sharply if some measure of stability is introduced. It would be a long road to a fully-developed civil society but I think the colonial style administrators could profit off it.

(And yes I concede neo-colonialism would never happen in today's current climate. But I think there are some cases where it's better than the dark ages that exist.)

 

[Moonbeam]

Sadly there is nothing we can do. Enforce laws? Have a few thousand trials a day then what?

If you really wanted to change things you could insert a half million man army with orders to kill anyone seen committing a list of crimes. When a hundred thousand or so die, then they might get the message.

In other words the only thing that will fix this is to be as barbaric as needed until they fear the consequences of their actions.

Do I endorse that? No, but nevertheless you aren't going to educate them.

We are all the same. We are all created in the Image of God. We all want the same thing. We all want love.

You don't need to teach folk anything. You have to help them unlearn the hate they have learned.

 

[Ozoned]

We are all the same. We are all created in the Image of God. We all want the same thing. We all want love.

You don't need to teach folk anything. You have to help them unlearn the hate they have learned.

How would you do that in Liberia?

 

[werepossum]

How would you do that in Liberia?

With a gun, of course.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Pay the Foreign Legion to return. They did a pretty good job back in the 60's and 70's.

 

[Moonbeam]

How would you do that in Liberia?

When I was a little boy playing cowboys and Indians, I shot a man driving by my house in a car. He fell over his wheel and sped away dead.

That was years ago and I have traveled thousands of miles, but I still remember and now you know the story too. You will do something kind for somebody somewhere, enter into their world and touch them and it will bounce and bounce and bounce all the way to Liberia.