I'm very much a proponent of intervention on humanitarian grounds / R2P. I'd like to see someone step up and do something in this case, because like most of the rest of the dog's breakfast that is Africa, this seems to have serious potential to quickly explode into a humanitarian catastrophe.

I'm concerned that there may be no parties with all three of the requisites of *efficacy*; the will, means, and credibility to do this. Most of the Anglophone countries won't give a fart about C. d'I. France typically is very self interested in these instances, and I doubt their intervention will extend much past protecting their own citizens. France is increasingly unstable politically, and any domestic perception that France is again engaging in colonial games (accurate or not) will inflame other problems they have.

A coterie of other African nations would likely have the greatest *credibility* in intervening, but frankly I've no trust that a sufficient proportion of them would be operating in good faith, and the professionalism of those forces is in doubt. I've no doubt that they would be willing to use violence to get their way, but probably to such an extreme that the credibility of the intervention would be affected- the other side of the pendulum swing from our (colective western) failure in Rwanda.

It would be great to see Africans sorting out Africa with some westerners helping out (comms, logistics, some boots on the ground, etc), but frankly I've lost most of my optimism about the continent's ability to handle its own affairs effectively... I fear that we're going to get to sit on the sidelines of something awful again, and our respective governments will collectively wring their hands and ask imploringly why somebody doesn't do something?

When people are fleeing *to* Liberia, things are pretty bad.