Real Time with Bill Maher

Bill Maher: But, you know, I read an interesting thing about Liberia. It was founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. And you'd think when they got back to Africa they would not have carried the same sort of baggage that they found in America. But they actually lorded it over the natives there. They were almost as bad to the natives in Africa as they had been treated in America. Which to me says that slavery is not about race but about power.

D.L. Hughley: I think I finally understand our foreign policy. We will attack no country Halliburton Oil can't make money off of. That's the deal.

Bill Maher: But Reverend, you know - you know what people are saying here, which is, we tried this in Africa before, in Somalia, and look what happened there. We didn't accomplish the mission and we lost troops. Why is it going to work in Liberia if it didn't in Somalia? Al Sharpton: Well, I think, first of all, you have a situation here where all of the parties are asking us to come in. Second, it's not working not going in. You have people stacking dead bodies in front of the U.S. Embassy two days ago while we were in Ghana, begging for us to come in. Third, we have responsibility in Liberia. Let's not forget the United States backed Samuel Kado [sp]. We made arrangements with Taylor. We have businesses that have used the rubber and the timber. We can't act like we don't have a reason to be involved. We use Liberia for a strategic base. So you can't help a country go down and then say we're not going to do anything to make it come up. We have troops surrounding Liberia. We can take 500 of them, have them join the West African nations - not go ahead of them, join them as a peace-keeping force, to go in and make sure food and medical supplies come through.