With Libya secured an American invasion of Africa is under way

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It wouldn't take much intervention by the sounds of it.
And nobody would be regretting his loss
Ok, just Kony and his Kony Cronies, but no more after that please.

 

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He who fights against monsters for too long risks becoming a monster. Let Africa fix Africa.

 

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He who fights against monsters learns all about monsters and how to get rid of them quickly, efficiently and with less collateral damage.

Let's be humane and charitable and use some of our resouces to help Africa fix Africa and end the brutality and suffering that is so rampant on that continent.


http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/
http://www.aidforafrica.org/
http://www.kiva.org/partners/8
http://www.wateraidamerica.org/what_we_do/clean_water_for_africa_and_asia_2.aspx
http://www.impatientoptimists.org/Posts/2011/10/World-Food-Programme-Award
http://www.mercyusa.org/SomaliaDroughtFamineRelief.cfm?gclid=CIm8kZeChKwCFYXrKgod0SQeJw

And of course, where necessary, use force to combat force.

Arthur

 

Many of these despots were setup by western nations. Directly or indirectly. Classic make a problem then fix the problem, look the hero and claim the spoils of phony war.

 

On the other hand, one can help to fix the problems others made and look even more the hero when you don't claim any spoils even if you had to fight a few despots along the way.

 

You are pretty gung ho Arthur. You should try out for special forces.

 

Not really, but I was in the US Coast Guard, you know the guys who go out to help when everyone else is seeking shelter, so while I do appreciate the guys who confront the enemy with force when that is needed, I'm more the type who would rather help save someone, even if there is some danger in doing so.

But maybe you didn't read my links:

Unlike your heartless "let Africa fix Africa" I said let's be humane and charitable and use some of our resouces to help Africa fix Africa and end the brutality and suffering that is so rampant on that continent.

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/
http://www.aidforafrica.org/
http://www.kiva.org/partners/8
http://www.wateraidamerica.org/what_...nd_asia_2.aspx
http://www.impatientoptimists.org/Po...rogramme-Award
http://www.mercyusa.org/SomaliaDroug...FYXrKgod0SQeJw

And only where necessary, use force to combat force.

Arthur

 

Africa is no place for westerners anymore.

Battle of the Black Sea

You will only get dead U.S servicemen and a new despot at best.

 

You don't understand my position, don't assume that you ever could unless you had my professional training. I do know an interest group that influences not only every representative, senator and the President, but every American very heavily. Including you it appears. "In it's pocket?" See? You haven't a clue what you are talking about. :bugeye:

 

No need to go that far Brian:

The LRA has been there for what, 24 years? Good thing that Uganda has a Christian fundamentalist group, otherwise how would they save the children?

 

Wouldn't that fact tend to increase, rather than decrease, the obligation of said Western nations to help fix said problems?

As opposed to... make a problem then sit back and laugh as others suffer for it?

Also, how exactly does this inference work? Great Britain creates a problem, and this makes the USA a hypocrit for trying to help? Because they're both "Western nations?" Real compelling "logic," there. Nevertheless, I'm going to embrace it and lambast Canada for this. Since Canada is a "Western nation," they are apparently as much to blame as anyone, right?

Anyway, all this hand-wavey repetition of stale talking points for opposing anything and everything the USA does is really trite and tired. Fuck the LRA and the horse they rode in on.

 

I can only read what you post.
You claim to know something but don't post it, well then I presume you don't know it.
But you could prove me wrong.

I don't believe you.

 

Abstraction and Practical Reality

There is a difference between the abstract and the practical. That is, while I understand your point in the abstract, the practical effect is that Kony will continue to be empowered to victimize everyone he comes across.

Whether or not the West is responsible for any given problem in Africa—and yes, it is responsible for a good many—Joseph Kony is an extraordinary problem whose effect must be reconciled before Africa can be stabilized. He is a transgenerational evil; that's how long he's been at this game of co-opting children to be his army, killing and torturing so many through the years.

Believe it or not, this is one occasion that a president is sending troops abroad with the direct authorization of the United States Congress:

Today, I signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. The legislation crystallizes the commitment of the United States to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades, and to pursue a future of greater security and hope for the people of central Africa.

The Lord's Resistance Army preys on civilians – killing, raping, and mutilating the people of central Africa; stealing and brutalizing their children; and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Its leadership, indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has no agenda and no purpose other than its own survival. It fills its ranks of fighters with the young boys and girls it abducts. By any measure, its actions are an affront to human dignity.

Of the millions affected by the violence, each had an individual story and voice that we must not forget. In northern Uganda, we recall Angelina Atyam's 14-year old daughter, whom the LRA kidnapped in 1996 and held captive for nearly eight years—one of 139 girls abducted that day from a boarding school. In southern Sudan, we recall John Loboi—a father, a husband, a brother, a local humanitarian assistance worker killed in an ambush while helping others in 2003. Now, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, the people of Dungu and of Obo, too, have their stories of loss and pain.

We mourn those killed. We pray for those abducted to be freed, and for those wounded to heal. We call on the ranks of the LRA to disarm and surrender. We believe that the leadership of the LRA should be brought to justice.

I signed this bill today recognizing that we must all renew our commitments and strengthen our capabilities to protect and assist civilians caught in the LRA's wake, to receive those that surrender, and to support efforts to bring the LRA leadership to justice. The Bill reiterates U.S. policy and our commitment to work toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict in northern Uganda and other affected areas, including northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic. We will do so in partnership with regional governments and multilateral efforts.

—President Barack Obama
—May 24, 2010​

And then, of course, there are the obvious emotional appeals, but they are more than simply vivid. The Pulitzer Center offers a few soul-chilling examples of Kony's evil:

• Marleine Solange Yagasourma, 16: Captive girls give birth in the bush, where many die in childbirth. Newborns will grow up within the LRA, often becoming fighters themselves. "It was my first child, so I didn't know what was happening. I started having pains early in the morning. I was in labor for two days. I thanked God once it was over, but I wondered how I was going to march in the bush with that baby and what I was going to do if there was an attack."

• Marie Mboligele, 31: Abducted and now confined to a hospital ward, Mboligele has been taken from her kids. She says, "They cut off my lips and my ear. All I could do was pray and stay silent." Mutilations are regularly carried out by children."

• Valentine Mbolibirani, 14: Kony keeps dozens of 'wives.' "I thought, 'I'm a little girl, and he's an old man. How could I sleep with him?'" After charring Kony's evening meal, Valentine was put on trial for witchcraft. Facing a death sentence, she escaped into the forest, where she foraged for days.​

The raw emotional impact of such scenes is obvious, but play that out—literally—thousands of times over.

The overall death toll of the LRA's campaign is unknown; estimates, albeit unreliable because the information is sketchy, suggests at least sixty-six thousand children have been abducted by the LRA, 1.6 million Ugandans displaced by Kony's conflict, and between twelve- and thirty-thousand child soldiers dead.

Not Kony. His colonial connection is that he claims to be fighting the Western imperialists, though few grant that claim any credibility; after all, while he claims to fight on behalf of the Acholi, an ethnic group within Uganda, they are also the preferred targets of the LRA's attacks and atrocities.

While I sympathize with your cynicism, I do believe it misplaced on this occasion.
____________________

Notes:

Obama, Barack. "Statement by the President on the Signing of the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009". May 24, 2010. WhiteHouse.gov. October 25, 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press...stance-army-disarmament-and-northern-uganda-r

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. "Kony's Children". February 28, 2011. PulitzerCenter.org. October 25, 2011. http://pulitzercenter.org/slideshows/lords-resistance-army-kidnapping

 

The bottom line is that the motives of the West can not be trusted.

 

Geopolitics isn't about trusting anyone's motives. It's entirely about interest, capability and information. If you have some concrete reason to suggest that something objectionable is actually occurring, then let's hear it. If not, then you're just invoking a conspiracy theory that you haven't even bothered to specify, based on nothing more than your own kneejerk dislike of the USA. And in defence of a the sort of monster that systematically exploits and abuses children, no less. None of which is helping your credibility - we have little reason to trust your motives or insight, given all of that.

 

I'm unclear one why the "West's interest," as such, is something to be generally opposed. Unless said interests are somehow opposed to some other interest that you prefer, then why would the default position be to oppose the advance of such? It's also in the interest of the West for the country you live in - and you yourself - to be stable, prosperous, healthy and secure - do you also oppose such an interest except in dire circumstances wherein the need to stop some child-raping monster compells you to compromise?

I guess I'm just unclear on why people are so up in arms that the USA might help out the government of Uganda. Yeah, it's a dictatorship and, yeah, there are various interests at play. But what is the big downside here? Is this just knee-jerk opposition to any involvement of the US (or "the West") anywhere and everywhere? Or what?

 

They don't look so tough, I think we can take 'em.

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A brief list, and other notes

There are a number of reasons why, and few, if any, speak well of the adherents. A brief sampling:

• Rejection of American imperialism — Pretty much anything Americans do with bullets and bombs is suspect to this group.

• New American Century fatigue — The Bush Adventures pretty much screwed our prestige into the pooch's grave at the desecrated Indian burial ground turned pet cemetery. Many people who would normally hold the anti-imperialists at arm's length just don't have the energy to trust the United States.

• One-world government paranoiacs — My own belief that a one-world government is inevitable if humanity is to survive the next thousand years notwithstanding, there are plenty who would rather see human dignity spoiled around the world, from the junta in Myanmar to the cartels in Mexico to the fundamentalists throughout the Arab world trying to scare their neighbors into a perverse submission, and beyond, as long as it means the one-world government is forestalled. And here arises a question of presuppositions: Can human society only be a miserable endeavor, or can the one-world government be wrought in some manner that makes it useful to the liberty and prosperity of our entire species? In other words, it is too much to ask these folks to help make sure humanity progresses in a constructive manner; they would rather humanity not progress.

• Obamanoiacs — If Obama's for it, these folks figure it must be evil.​

Nowhere near a complete list, I know, but while even I want Kony that badly, I'm aware that this whole thing can go south in the blink of an eye. If we get through a year in Uganda without increasing the deployment, or seeing our soldiers burned alive as a political statement, we're probably going to be doing very well at that point. To the other, it could also be over rather quickly. You know, like saying to the Ugandans, "He's right ... there." And then as the Ugandan troops fail to make headway against a horde of well-armed children blazing on cocaine, hallucinogenic fungi, and paint fumes, there will be a big explosion, and sometime the next day Obama will shrug into the cameras and say, "I told you those hundred troops weren't entering combat. And they didn't. But come on, did you really think NATO was going to let us get that close and not settle this score?"

And as much as I want Kony alive, to stand trial, this is Africa, and he's fucking bonkers, and we all know how this is going to end. And if, in the end, we put this bastard down with a Predator or some other "unexpected" aerial strike ... well, we'll see what comes.

This can be over quickly, or this can get really, really ugly. Most of us hope it's done quickly. But there are those who want it to be ugly, if only so they can continue to complain about the U.S.

Still, though, this is the price we are paying for the Bush Adventures. And, to a certain degree, I don't blame people for being cynical. It's going to take decades worth of genuinely successful "peacekeeping" before people trust our military adventures.