Posted on 10/18/2011 5:36:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
When President Obama announced the deployment of 100 U.S. military advisers to aid in the pursuit of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), reaction was swift. Michele Bachmann criticized "unnecessary foreign entanglements," while admitting, "I do not know enough about it to comment on it." Rush Limbaugh called the LRA "Christians" and accused Obama of sending American troops "to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda," before promising to do some "research on it."
In both cases, it is remarkable that public figures feel no hesitance -- no internal check of propriety or shame -- about offering opinions while admitting ignorance. A few minutes on the Internet would have sufficed.
The LRA is a brutal rebel group headed by a messianic madman. Its victims -- captured boys turned into soldiers, captured girls forced into sexual slavery, villagers put to the machete -- have been the focus of activism by Christian organizations and human rights groups for decades. These advocates suffer a disadvantage. Kony currently operates in the ungoverned vastness of the border region between the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Reports of atrocities generally come out in rumors and human rights reports, not in images that create political urgency. But Kony's crimes are vivid at close hand.
In the region, I talked to a boy forced by LRA rebels to execute his neighbors in order to break his ties with the past and to deaden his sympathy. I met a boy forced to bow in Kony's presence -- the rebel leader claims divinity -- but who dared to look up in curiosity. The LRA soldiers took out one of the boy's eyes in punishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Idi Amin, a Muslim, ruled Uganda despite muslims being a minority in Uganda. We both remember Amin’s brutal rule, and also that it gave rise to the Netanyahus, in that the Entebbe raid took the life of Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan Netanyahu.
IIRC, the Christian population in Uganda is over 80%. However, Obama’s roots in neighboring Kenya are Muslim. His father, Barack Sr, is acknowledged everywhere as having been Muslim. There’s really no disputing it.
Let me suggest that Obama is not concerned about the so-called “Lord’s Army”, but that he is more concerned with the Ugandan government, a Christian government led by a man named Yoweri Usaveni
Museveni is supposedly part of a cult of dominionist Christians called “The Family” (that included Tom Coburn and John Ensign.) http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2009/11/ugandas-president-museveni-named-in-us.html
One charge is that Musaveni is running an anti-homosexual campaign in Uganda. Given the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and that Uganda has one of the better rates in all of Africa, the charge could be based on Uganda’s refusal to accept any behavior linked to AIDS.
Lifenews reports: “Uganda made news in the fight against AIDS over the past decade because President Yoweri Museveni successfully attacked his country’s high HIV/AIDS rate through a program of systematic behavior modification. President Museveni said in 2004 that, “AIDS is mainly a moral, social and economic problem,” and that the best way to fight it is with, “relationships based on love and trust, instead of institutionalized mistrust, which is what the condom is all about.””
The “Watchmanafrica” site quoted above says: “According to journalist, academic and author Jeff Sharlett, who has spent years researching on The Family, its core agenda includes fighting homosexuality and abortion, promoting free-market economics and dictatorship, an idea they once termed “totalitarianism for Christ”. “
From Wiki: “In 2009, many news sources reported on Jeff Sharlet’s investigation regarding ties between Museveni and the American fundamentalist Christian organization The Fellowship (also known as “The Family”).[56][57] Sharlet reports that Douglas Coe, leader of The Fellowship, identified Museveni as the organization’s “key man in Africa.”[57] Further international scrutiny accompanied the 2009 Ugandan efforts to institute the death penalty for homosexuality, with leaders from Canada, the UK, the US, and France expressing concerns for human rights.[58][59] British newspaper, The Guardian, reported that President Museveni “appeared to add his backing” to the legislative effort by, among other things, claiming “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa”, and saying gay relationships were against God’s will.[60] The 2009 effort for harsher penalties for homosexual behavior further strengthens existing laws criminalizing homosexuality.”
The US military in Uganda under Obama’s watch should make us look for signs of instability developing in Uganda’s government.
If we see it, then a wise man will wonder if “The Lord’s Army” really was the target after all.
Rush Limbaugh claims to right 95+ percent of the time.
I was listening the day he spoke of the LRA as Christians. He had me convinced they were the good guys. Later I did my own research and discovered the LRA are Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church crowd are Baptists.
Rush really blew this one.
Rush Limbaugh claims to right 95+ percent of the time.
I was listening the day he spoke of the LRA as Christians. He had me convinced they were the good guys. Later I did my own research and discovered the LRA are Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church crowd are Baptists.
Rush really blew this one.
I agree with the author. It is amazing how authority figures will shoot off their mouths about something about which they know little. Arrogance maybe?
Conservatives in general are by now to the point of, if he’s for it I’m probably against it.
Xzins in the post above yours, has some very interesting observations the townhall article does not explore.
Definitely one to chalk up on the 5% side.
The madman who launched the Taiping Rebellion in China, roughly at the time of our own civil war, also claimed to be Christian.
When did the United States become the judge, jury and executioner for the rest of the planet?
What benefits have we received from this work?
Recall the many benefits of the European welfare systems, the thirteen and sometimes fourteen monthly checks paid in a twelve month year?
The American taxpayers have been subsidizing them for many years.
Let the Euros take out the trash and clean the mess.
The Chinese are more then willing, perhaps a bit too much?
If you want to be informed about LRA, take the time to read this PDF report.
Or you can jump on the media band wagon. These guys, while likely bad actors, are NOT what is portrayed in the press. Like Obama picking the wrong horse to ride in Honduras, he likely is doing the same thing here. The difference is that NO ONE will stand up for the LRA (sounds like IRA). Everyone just “KNOWS” about the atrocities the LRA has committed. The trouble is, if you read the report, there is no credible proof.
Again, it is likely these are bad actors, but the situation in this region is anarchy. A Christian people the Acholi, fight for their existence as a people.
“Active LRA fighters have said that they do not fight the war for the chairman. They see themselves as fighters for their people, the Acholi, whom they believe to be marginalized, abused, and excluded from Uganda’s development by an oppressive regime.”
“Box 1 The LRA manifestos
The LRA/M has published political manifestos at regular intervals over the course of the
war. While this is well-known in northern Uganda, where frustration is often expressed
over the successful silencing of the LRA/M as a political movement, the war has been
continuously presented in the global media as having no political agenda. Much of the
LRA/M’s political energy has therefore been spent trying to counter the view that they are
solely a religiously-motivated terrorist group. For example, a 1999 manifesto signed by
Joseph Kony stated that while many members of the LRA are practising Christians, they
did not intend to become fundamentalist Christians (Finnstrom, 2003).
In addition to countering the official discourse on the LRA, which represented the
movement as driven by a desire for a rule of law based on the Ten Commandments, the
manifestos over the years have called for the restoration of multi-party politics and the
introduction of constitutional federalism. They have also called for support for human
rights, and the need to develop a nationwide socio-economic balance while promoting
peace and security and ending corruption. The manifestos routinely call for free and fair
elections, the separation of the judiciary and executive from the military, and a reform of
parliament to tackle those issues. Often, the political practices of Museveni are questioned
and analyzed in detail, especially the concentration of military, legislative, and executive
power in his hands. Other manifestos have outlined LRA/M programmes on health, agriculture,
education, infrastructure, and even defence (Finnstrom, 2003).”
“There is no doubt that the LRA has used horrific methods, both in Uganda
and in Sudan, in pursuit of its aims. In July 2006, the leadership publicly
acknowledged and even apologized for its tactics, at least to representatives
of southern Sudanese communities.8 Kony himself has stated that, ‘I cannot
say that we are fighting clean war [or that] Museveni is fighting dirty war, that
one is difficult to say. Because a clean war is known by God only.’9
Misleading information, however, often based solely on government sources,
has led to an oversimplified, one-sided view of the conflict and of the LRA
itself. The media, too, has given a one-sided portrayal of the war. Government
information policy has driven public opinion. As a result, it is commonly
believed that the LRA is an army of child soldiers and the sole perpetrator of
war crimes, even though the UPDF has also been found guilty by the International
Court of Justice of training and sending children off to fight.10 One international
security expert, summing up the general government information
policy on the LRA, confirmed that, ‘Most people still think the LRA is a bunch
of children and old guys due to 20 years of propaganda.”
“While the emphasis on child abductions accurately captures the brutality
of the war, it glosses over the fact that the LRA is a well-trained armed group
answering to a very strong, centralized command. Many members of the
LRA are well beyond childhood and remain with the LRA out of conviction,
a sense of adventure, or a belief in the cause (Allen and Schomerus, 2006).
Studies have revealed an array of reasons for people joining and staying with
the LRA: for many, life at home offers little while the group provides a sense
of power and loyalty; for others, the fear of reprisal makes them afraid to
leave. While thousands of children were abducted by the LRA, the fighting
forces usually comprise men and women in their late teens or early twenties.
A large number would have been with the LRA for many years, but only
started fighting when they reached their teens and were no longer considered
children in the Acholi community. Youth in Acholi society are generally defined
as people of 13 to 30 years of age—or those who are not yet married
(Annan and Blattmann, 2006). Thus the most active members of the LRA are
more likely to be considered as youth than as children by the local community.
Furthermore, patterns of abduction show that the LRA does not usually
abduct very young children and that many abductees are released after having
done duty as porters (Allen and Schomerus, 2006)”
It's a long report well worth the read if you want to be informed.
www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/pdfs/HSBA-SWP-8-LRA.pdf
Well, of course, those moslems are way better. They always say “Bless you” before they hack off your arm.
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