Salih Booker United Quotations

Pressure from the British because they are playing a similar role in neighboring Sierra Leone, pressure from the French because they are also heading a peacekeeping operation in the Ivory Coast -- and also they are involved in the Congo. So there is a sense that the United States should provide leadership and share some of the international peacekeeping burdens, and Liberia is most appropriately a case for U.S. leadership.

When President Bush's father was in office, an almost identical scenario faced the United States. There was fighting by rebel forces trying to overthrow then-President Samuel Doe. U.S. ships were off the coast of Monrovia, they were evacuating Americans and Europeans, but refusing to intervene with a humanitarian force aimed at making peace.