Bangladesh & Namibia Pledge Liberia Troops.

"Bangladesh and Namibia pledged more than 6,000 troops for a U.N. peacekeeping force to replace multinational soldiers now deploying in war-torn Liberia, U.N. officials and diplomats said.

Jacques Paul Klein, the new U.N. special envoy to Liberia who launched Thursday's appeal for troops, has called for a robust U.N. force of between 12,000 and 15,000 troops to stabilize the country so democratic elections can be held for a new government. "

Full story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3002505,00.html

I find it amazing that somewhere as poor as Bangladesh can offer this level of support.........and the US (and for that matter, the richer UN countries) don't seem to be able to manage more than 7 blokes and a small elderly dog between them.

P.

a humanitarian crisis worthy of committing troops and a trumped up scenario. One of the ways Rummyetal tried to sell the need for the war (and now occupation) of Iraq both to the US and to the international community - was as a humanitarian need ("he gassed his people"). OF course there are real instances at this moment of ongoing extreme strife and death - while the cases raised in Iraq on humanitarian reasons kept pointing back to 11 years earlier. The interanational community that is moved to assist Liberia (and earlier the Congo) somehow didn't buy the case made by the US that Iraq was a similar humanitarian crisis.

If Bangladesh is prepared to commit money and people to this cause it does indeed say a lot about how it viewed the "crisis" in Iraq, not to mention how it viewed the US's unilateral decision to invade.

P.