“Exactly how does this further U.S. national security interests.”
There are untapped oil reserves there and removal of oil producers that don't want to play nice,economically speaking. Namely Iran who now accepts euros as well as rupees for their oil instead of only dollars. Israel will move on Iran soon and the ME will get very hot for awhile so we are looking to cultivate other sources of oil for the future and hopefully displace China in the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Sudan#Oilhttp://www.economist.com/node/15825780In that case, can we just deploy our armed forces to all the places in this country where we are not allowed to drill? It will be a lot cheaper and none of the boys in uniform will get killed doing the mission.