Thursday
(2)Do you remember Liberia? There was a big fuss about it awhile back. Yeah, that one, the place in West Africa. The one with the bridge surface scattered with enough brass to build a Napoleonic cannon. The one with the guys who couldn't hit a barn door at point blank range with a full AK47 clip.
It seems the post-Taylor era is working out as well as could have been expected. The violence has subsided, bands of marauding 'rebels' are disarming, loads of aid is flowing in and the new government is in place. Unknown to most of us, due to lack of media interest, US President Bush found time to keep on top of the affair and meet with Liberians.
Colin Powell says the former 'President' of Liberia will eventually pay for his crimes.
You can catch up on it here. You have not been hearing much because without doom and gloom, where is the story?
If you believed the media you would think there were no place in the world without a dead body or two casually laying about.
It is strange yet at the same time obvious that since there are no (or much less) problems in Liberia, the story has just slipped out of the mainstream news media.
I think that this does have good side-effects, since it leaves the Liberians to get on with life and rebulding their country.
Posted by Inscrutable American at February 12, 2004 07:27 PM
And in the Ivory Coast? That story seems to have died for complementary reasons.
Posted by Richard A. Heddleson at February 13, 2004 05:26 PM
A very productive meeting:
U.S. Given Right to Search Liberian Ships
By EDWARD HARRIS
Associated Press Writer
February 13, 2004, 12:27 PM EST
DAKAR, Senegal -- U.S. Navy forces can board thousands of commercial ships in international waters to search for weapons of mass destruction under a landmark deal signed this week between the United States and Liberia, the world's No. 2 shipping registry.
The accord comes amid persistent fears that terror networks would use ships for attacks, and effectively hands oversight of vessels under the Liberian flag to the U.S. military, industry analysts say.
"All your ships belong to us!"
Posted by Steve at February 13, 2004 05:34 PM
a full AK47 clip.
Ahem, it's a magazine.
A magazine feeds rounds into the action.
A clip is something that holds rounds to be fed into the magazine.
[This concludes today's episode of utterly pointless gun nut nitpicking]
Posted by Noah Yetter at February 16, 2004 10:11 PM
