Posted on 11/21/2003 1:17:32 PM PST by dead
Early last week, the nation woke up to the shocking and embarrassing news that the United States of America's Congress, in the course of approving a presidential bill sent to it, had appended a clause placing a ransom of $2 million on former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Bounty hunters are expected to be motivated by that handsome ransom to apprehend and deliver Mr. Taylor to the International War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone to answer to charges of crimes against humanity following his role in the Sierra Leonean Civil War.
The feeling of shock, anger and outrage by Nigerians at the audacity of the US congressmen is justified. That move by the US lawmakers is an affront on the sovereignty of Nigeria.
The State Department statement a few days later that the American government was strongly opposed to any violent or other illegal actions against Nigerian authorities aimed at apprehending Charles Taylor is cold comfort. It was a futile effort at damage contract and a periled exercise in double-speak.
That an arm of the US government could consider such an ill-considered, insensitive and illegal move in the first place, is shocking and beyond comprehension.
What Nigerians and other seasonable members of the human family cannot quite understand is what right, whether legal or moral, does America have to begin to seek the arrest of a citizen of another country who has not committed a crime against its laws?
Mr. Taylor is being sought for alleged crimes against humanity. Who has made the United States the international policeman? If the USA policy-makers were not shameless, brazen and arrogant, could they not have realised the irony in the fact that their country refused to recognise the International Criminal Court (ICC) yet they are the ones seeking to arrest "international criminals."
In this particular case of Taylor and several other cases before this, the US has carried its arrogance and disregard for the feelings of others too far. The US is arrogating to itself, powers, rights and privileges which by its conduct over the years, it does not deserve. America has not carried itself as a responsible member of the international community.
It disregards the United Nations at will and invades other countries at the slightest provocation, killing and maiming citizens of those nations and destroying their socio-economic infrastructures as we see in Iraq today and saw in Afghanistan, Grenada and Panama a few years back.
What the ransom incident has shown very clearly is that the US is not yet ready to shed its image as an international bully which believes in the power politics of might is right.
The latest American affront also shows that in that country's quest for world dominance and its desire to do as it pleases, it has no regard whatsoever for the feelings of so-called friends. President Olusegun Obasanjo and other African and Third World leaders who do so much to please America should please note this.
If America had any regard for our country, it would have thought twice before taking that action on Taylor whom it knew was on asylum in Nigeria.
Why Nigerians find the American move particularly galling is that President Bush and his advisers knew and even endorsed the Nigerian initiative to take out Taylor from Liberia in order to bring peace to that war- devastated country.
Taylor is certainly not a saint. But the decision to bring him to Nigeria was a well-reasoned political solution to a thorny political problem. Every reasonable person ought to recognise this fact and allow peace to reign in Liberia rather than seek to stoke the fire of war in that country again.
Plus, the subsequent denials from the State Department ("It's not really a bounty, it's just money we'll give to the people who capture him.") were non-sensical at best, though a better term might be Clintonian.
Can anybody tell me what the upside was?
Probably somebody needs to be beat upside their head.
Charles Taylor is a dirtbag scum who, never the less, voluntarily stepped down and went into exile with our approval.
Not only is it Constitutional, but sure is a lot cheaper than spending hundred of billions of dollars chasing down a Saddam or an Osama.
Yeah, we saved a lot of money and death by negotiating Taylor’s stepping down and exile in Nigeria.
Thanks to this asinine bounty, that you support, the only way we’ll be able to remove other dictators is through war. We are proving that we cannot be trusted to make deals with.
Your shortsightedness is astonishing.
And it was certainly better than sending in our troops to stop him.
It's a card we need to keep in our deck for future problems.
That said, if the State Department renegged on its offer, that rather defeats your point on its own.
Talk about weak.
First of all, the State Department did not renege. Congress and Bush approved the bounty.
Secondly, my point is that this bounty is an awful idea. The idea that my point about the bounty is negated by the very existence of the bounty is linguistically and logically asinine, though certainly consistent with other posts I’ve seen from you.
The bounty was approved after Charles Taylor went into exile.
It had nothing to do with the negotiations or the American troops on Liberian soil.
Your faith in the media's interpretation of events is self-serving to your predetermined point.
Absolutely comical. The bounty exists, even if the media happens to notice it (though I had to go to a Nigerian newspaper to find some media willing to note it.) My opinion of the bounty is based on that fact. Are you saying the bounty doesn’t exist?
If I was to use your style of debating I would ask, why do hate the Constitution so much?
My “style of debating” is to make arguments based on actual facts. Your’s is to introduce extraneous points everytime you (correctly) sense that you are making no points on the actual subject of the debate.
No, he's referring to one of the Hague Conventions. (Most nations outlawed privateering under the 1856 Declaration of Paris; the United States declined to sign on because it had a very small navy at the time.)
Why doesn't the govt extend that ransom to include a few others like the Zimbabwe head of state and araRATfink?
I would be totally in favor of that.
The point is that this bounty was offered after the dictator stepped down and voluntarily went into exile with our blessing.
Nigeria is rightfully outraged that we would encourage mercenary military missions in their country after they stepped in to help us diffuse the situation and save lives in Liberia.
How will we ever be able to persuade any other dictator to accept such a deal?
How will we expect any other country to take risks, as Nigeria certainly did, and accept exiled leaders to bring peace to another war torn nation?
The time for a bounty has long since passed. Taylor won, in effect, by accepting this deal, but so did all the people that weren't subsequently killed in a battle to remove him.
Any one of those people are free to take up arms and go hunt down Taylor in Nigeria. It would be quite noble of them if they did. But our government should absolutely not offer people cash to do it after negotiating his stepping down.
Republican Charles Taylor
11th Congressional District, North Carolina
Republican, Years of Service: 12
| ACU Ratings for Representative Taylor: | |
| Year 2002 | 96 |
| Year 2001 | 92 |
| Lifetime | 94 |
Fortunately, it was the "other" Charles Taylor. IMHO, the Democrats prefer the African Taylor to the North Carolina Taylor!
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