November 21, 2002
WHY NOT ERITREA?:
Eritrea Pushes to Get U.S. Base (Judy Sarasohn, November 21, 2002, Washington Post)"Why Not Eritrea?" That's what the government of Eritrea, a poor African country, wants to know and what it has its lobbyists asking in Washington.The issue paper "Why Not Eritrea?" pushes the country's plan for the United States to take advantage of its strategic location in the Horn of Africa as a military staging ground in the buildup toward a looming war with Iraq. After all, the surrounding nations are members of the Arab League and not what one would call very supportive of U.S. interests, the paper says. Even Djibouti, already host to about 3,200 U.S. troops who are being trained in desert warfare, has voiced reservations about U.S. intentions.
Eritrea notes that it is pro-American and half Christian, half Muslim.
U.S. officials are considering Eritrea's offer, and Gen. Tommy Franks has visited the country.
Thus do nations increasingly clamor to join the Axis of Good. We should welcome them. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 21, 2002 1:10 PM
It's the muslim half of the country that would concern me. If we set up camp there, would they soon be plunged into a civil war with us right in the middle?
Posted by: NKR at November 21, 2002 4:09 PMNot necessarily. Most Bosnian and Albanian Muslims are quite pro-American, as are non-Pashto Afghan Muslims, Indonesian Muslims, Iranian Muslims...
As long as we keep those darn Wahabi's away from Eritrean mosques we should be all right.
Isn't Eritrea at war with Ethiopia?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at November 21, 2002 8:06 PMI don't think we should welcome anybody who
was conducting a genocidal war just a few
months ago into the Axis of Good.
You guys should read up on Eritrea, in a sea of barbarism it is a light of hope. The Eritrean leadership, despite being forced into decades of horrific war with the marxist killers who ran Ethiopia, have actually managed to build a semblance of democracy. That's some kind of miracle.
They deserve support