Hypocrisy On The World Stage
Lowers America’s Moral Authority

Unable to ‘discover’ the famous Weapons of Mass Destruction it used to primarily justify its invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration has this summer of 2003 spent a great deal of time talking about freeing the Iraqi’s from a brutal, fascistic regime. Details of the outrages perpetuated by Saddam Hussein and his sons, Uday and Qusay, are now part of the nightly news.

Most Americans, even those frustrated with the obfuscations if not outright lies that were told prior to the invasion – America’s first pre-emptive war – don’t quibble with the fact Hussein and his followers deserved to be toppled and brought to justice. In fact, it seems clear that since Bosnia most Americans have reluctantly become aware that this country may have to be the world’s police chief, at least for the immediate future.

But Pres. George Bush and his advisors want it both ways. They are pleased to find acceptance for a police action in Iraq, yet they would prefer to ignore totalitarian horrors in other parts of the globe. This hypocrisy is harmful to America.

Liberia, of course, is an obvious and pressing example of trying to have it both ways, since in truth that nation’s president, Charles Taylor, is no more or less than a monster, and so far America and just about every other power in the international community has either looked the other way or ignored what’s been happening. America certainly hasn’t been wearing its police chief hat when it looks at Liberia.

Taylor, much like the country itself, has early ties to the United States, and this makes the situation all the more embarrassing. Liberia’s Taylor, to everyone who has followed his history, makes Hussein – who has arbitrarily murdered many and gassed thousands of his own Iraqi people – look like a simple hoodlum.

"The despotic president (of Liberia), indicted by a U.N. tribunal for crimes against humanity, came to power by forcibly recruiting young boys and turning them into killers," states Douglas Farah,* a Washington Post reporter who lived in Africa for several years. He goes on to explain that "(Taylor’s) troops manned checkpoints lined with human skulls, where the roadblocks were made out of human intestines, the disemboweled victims left by the roadside. For a decade the despot has systematically pocketed the wealth of his country, leaving his people in abject poverty. He has done millions of dollars’ worth of business with al Queda and Hezbollah…"

Knowing such facts it might be reasonable to wonder why America hasn’t stepped in long ago. But Taylor is apparently more clever as well as more vicious than Saddam Hussein. Taylor has powerful friends.

Taylor, who trained in Libya, joined forces with a Sierra Leone thug named Foday Sankoh, and between them they brought war to a peaceful country in a struggle to capture the famed Sierra Leone diamond fields.

"In the 1990’s, Taylor armed and trained Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front, RUF," Farah* reports, adding that "like Taylor’s troops in Liberia, the RUF thugs didn’t just slaughter civilians. They carried out campaigns of rape across the country. They abducted thousands of children, as young as seven years old, and turned them into killers, fueled by a lethal mixture of cocaine and amphetamines…the signature RUF atrocity was hacking off the hands, legs, lips and ears of civilians who did not support the rebels."

"Taylor was indicted for crimes against humanity on March 7 (2003) by the U.N.- backed Special Court for Sierra Leone," Farah* continues, explaining "the indictment alleges Taylor ‘supported and encouraged all actions of the RUF,’ as part of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’ to reap wealth from the diamond fields. The crimes include murder, abduction, slavery, rape, use of child soldiers and looting."

Further, Farah* points out that "Special Court Prosecutor David Crane, who earlier served as senior inspector general in the Pentagon, and his chief investigator, Alan White, a former cop and Pentagon investigator, have found compelling evidence that al Queda sought to protect its financial assets by buying millions of dollars of diamonds from Taylor. Taylor got money in bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere, while al Queda got its money out of the banking system, where it would have been seized easily in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Diamonds, by contrast, are hard to trace and easy to move."

Farah* also reports that the organization, "Global Witness, (plus) European intelligence sources and the BBC all pursued and verified the terrorist ties…but it was the court investigations, conducted by professionals with broad access to information and sources on the ground, that carried special weight. The evidence includes numerous eye-witness accounts, telephone records of calls to Afghanistan, bank records and other documents. That is far more than any evidence presented on Saddam’s ties to Osama bin Laden. But try as they might, Crane and White have been unable to get the CIA or FBI to undertake a serious investigation of the al Queda ties. Amazingly, their evidence is largely ignored and dismissed. Only a few members of Congress have picked up the cause and demanded action."

So it would seem that America, in its acceptance of its police chief role and in its anger over 9/11, should have put Liberia’s Taylor front and center, right after the Taliban in Afghanistan. What happened? The Post’s Farah provides the needed insight.

"Part of the (Bush) administration’s unwillingness to confront Taylor may be that the dictator still retains powerful and influential friends," Farah* says, observing that "Taylor’s staunchest defender is the Rev. Pat Robertson, the owner of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of ‘The 700 Club.’ Robertson has invested more than $8 million in a gold mine in Liberia under the name of Freedom Gold Limited, registered in the Cayman Islands. In recent weeks Robertson, on his TV show, has been extolling Taylor’s virtues as a ‘fellow Baptist’ and ‘a fine Christian.’ In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Robertson, who has never been to Liberia, said Taylor’s indictment is ‘nonsense and should be quashed.’ And he portrayed Liberia’s civil war as primarily a fight between Muslims and Taylor’s Christians, an analysis not shared by anyone remotely familiar with the country. Taylor ‘definitely has Christian sentiments, although you hear all these rumors that he’s done this and that,’ Robertson said."

Additionally, Farah points out that "other ardent Bush supports have economic interests in Liberia. Richard DeVos, co-founder of the Amway Corp., has invested several million dollars in AmLib United Minerals, a gold exploration company there. DeVos, a billionaire, is one of the Republican Party’s largest individual contributors and a big donor to the Bush campaign. But unlike Freedom Gold and Robertson, AmLib and DeVos have not publicly defended Taylor and are not closely identified with his regime."

Taylor has also courted, at different times, various Democrats, including Jesse Jackson and former Pres. Jimmie Carter, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus, but all of them ultimately turned away from him long ago.

Obviously there are many good reasons for the United States to hesitate before entering another nation’s wars or politics, including in this case the fact that even those opposing Taylor are virtually identical in rapaciousness. Yet given what is known about Taylor’s activities, the fact that Liberia has not been brought forward by the Bush Administration for a public discussion seems much more like pragmatic politics than anything else. And therefore when it is compared with the rhetoric now being used about Iraq, it bears the stench of hypocrisy, which surely is easily detected by the world community’s olfactory senses.

The Bush Administration’s attempt to have it both ways in determining America’s world role will certainly, through the common sense of people everywhere, make it clear that America’s moral authority is not a constant, but rather a commodity whose value moves like the stock market.                                                                         

 M.B.