Violence in Liberia, Imagine That

Fox News reported, Friday, on an outbreak of "violence" in Monrovia, the capital of the West-African country of Liberia.

This story comes with a measure of irony to me because just a few weeks back I was watching a documentary on the History Channel about the DSS and the story took place in Liberia during the 1989 "uprising". Liberia is so volatile and dangerous that US government agents are required to leave their families behind if they are assigned to Liberia. Let me be the first to say that it was not an uprising. It was vicious gang warfare except everybody was running around with AK-47s, RPGs, anti-aircraft guns... You name it, they were using it. Mutilations and cannibalism were common practices done by the local populace. There was nothing sane about their actions. That documentary was one of the most graphic things I have ever seen in my entire life. It totally blew away "Saving Private Ryan", "Windtalkers", everything. The part that disturbed me the most was that it was real and those were only movies. There were shrunken heads on tables, intestines used at road blocks (which were controlled by the gangs)... I cannot accurately describe some of things I saw on that film. There was this one image, one I will never forget... It was taken from the middle of the street, looking down the street which lead to the city. Every inch of that street was covered in bullet shells. I don't mean 9mm shells; I mean 30 caliber and up bullet shells - COVERING the street. You could not take one step and have not stepped on a shell. This place made Mogadishu look like a walk in the park. And I guarantee you the fighting is just as bad, if not worse, today.

Now, to explain the strike of irony I had referred to at the very beginning of this post... Through the entire documentary, they had been interviewing all of the key personnel involved in the incident, ie: some of the warlords who were, more or less, running the warfare, the DSS agents, and various members of the government. At the very end of the documentary, a man expressed his thoughts that the fighting would start up again very soon because some of the more powerful warlords that had fled the country had started to return. Apparently, he was right.

With all that being said, the Fox News article does not give the fighting justice. It is much worse than you could ever put into words. When you go to sleep tonight, thank God that you live in America and say a prayer of protection for the Americans who are assigned to work in Liberia.

Crispy