Obama's new African adventure: Hunting LRA

[Joey McGee]

The real reason this is happening now is that it was planned to coincide with the release of the Hollywood movie starring Gerald Butler "Machine Gun Preacher" based on a true story about a hardcore biker enforcer turned gun-toting mercenary evangelist who builds an orphanage and rescues children from the LRA.

trailer

the real dude's channel

Well ok fine but it's just as likely a theory as some of these other ones...

 

[SezMe]

The scenario I've got in my head is that the military personnel are there to locate Joseph Kony. At which point some military personnel in, perhaps, Nevada will do the drone thing.

What's the range of our weaponized drones? Where is the nearest base to this action?

 

[Virus]

western imperialism had nothing to do with africa's problems?
wow....really??

Many African countries were better off under colonialism. You can't blame the West for the brutal rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Mengistu's Red Terror in Ethiopia.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Geni: You could well be right. I hadto lookup even their historical areas of operation, I wasso behind,and saw northern Uganda mentioned as the main one. I'm not sure which country/countries this mission is intended to work in, or where Kony's believed to be.

Not really, they can do it themselves. Leaders in those countries are just pansies who make poor decisions and have their nations gripped by the balls. Whenever western nations help to build anything we end up with more massive debts we can’t pay back and it makes the problem worse. Direly needed national projects are often delayed because we have to pay back debts we can’t possibly dream of paying back. Either the indigenous stop this cycle of dependency and tell western nations to **** off or we continue to be in a perpetual state of servitude and debt to the west.

Thanks for sharing that. Especially with thebolded, you've conveyed, from a position of greater knowledge, some of the vague concerns I have with things like this. Africa in particular shouldn't have to be so "backwards" as to "require" near-constant Euro-American "leadership" and "assistance." But somehow it comes out that way, or at least seeming that way, all the time. "If only we could do more," we're left feeling, "to help lead and heal and develop Africa, they could be more independent." But it keeps not happening, and one can't be blamed for wondering if that's the idea.

Libya, for example, maintained zero IMF debt, remained independent, and was using its surplus money to help Africa develop without racking up their own bills to Washington any further. Both of those things are over with now.

 

[JihadJane]

'The Agribusiness Sector and its Support Institutions'

'The myths surrounding the global rush for farmland'

 

[Darat]

...snip.... Either the indigenous stop this cycle of dependency and tell western nations to **** off or we continue to be in a perpetual state of servitude and debt to the west.

Isn't there a difference between aid and loans? Also why single out "western nations"?

 

[Virus]

'The Agribusiness Sector and its Support Institutions'

'The myths surrounding the global rush for farmland'

What's this got to do with 100 special forces helping the government fight the LRA?

Have you considered the possibility that it's just 100 special forces helping the government fight the LRA and not some big conspiracy to be decoded from mundane policy papers?

 

[egslim]

Not bad, considering the LRA is **** of the highest degree.

Are the people they fight really any better? Or do they just have better PR?
I'd be careful siding with anyone in that part of the world, chances are both sides are complete ****.

The Libyan debacle? You mean the ousting of a brutal and ruthless dictator and the establishment of a pro-democracy transitional government?

You're entitled to your fantasies.

But if you look closer at the situation in Libya (and not just the black & white picture painted by the mainstream media, who were more interested in a good story than in reporting reality) then it becomes clear that a) there's already a lot of conflict between the Berbers who actually did the fighting to take Tripoli and the Cyrenaicans who have been the face of the revolution, and b) the rebels (I won't say the provisional government, because that assumes they're actually in charge) have been busy committing warcrimes of their own.

Not to mention the casualties from six months of protracted fighting until the fall of Tripoli, and in Sirte the fighting continues.

The situation in Libya might improve somewhat, but at the moment the intervention is well on its way to become a debacle. Of course, without the mainstream media's attention Libya could become an even bigger hellhole than it was before, and most in the West wouldn't even realize it. They only remember the ouster of a brutal and ruthless dictator, and pay no attention to the sequel.

It still baffles me that in lieu of how far we've come as a society, they're still fundamental problems like genocide and famine in the world. Shouldn't developed societies, like those we live in, act as the basis to lead underdeveloped countries? Why should sit in complacency as people are committing the most inhumane atrocities that we shouldn't even be able to fathom just a plane ride away?

But then again, that's just hippie talk.

I think you mean very well, and I'm therefore sorry to say it, but that position is both stupid and dangerous.

For the simple reason that it's beyond our power to make the changes in underdeveloped nations you advocate.

These problems are about attitude - the attitude people have towards their position in society, and the attitudes between different groups. Military intervention can be used to kick ass very effectively, but it simply does not change attitudes in a positive way - though it can create additional hate. Likewise for economic intervention.* Ultimately, change can only come from the people themselves.

Another problem is that outsiders rarely understand the complexities of local problems. It's hard to solve issues we don't even really understand.

 

[geni]

What's this got to do with 100 special forces helping the government fight the LRA?

Have you considered the possibility that it's just 100 special forces helping the government fight the LRA and not some big conspiracy to be decoded from mundane policy papers?

Possible but makes no real sense. Okey I suppose in theory if you already know where Joseph Kony is it might be worthwhile but otherwise you've just sent a bunch of fighters out to get into firefights with kids from time to time. All very worthy I'm sure but not really worth doing.

At best it's a play for influence. Sure the ugandan goverment may be a bunch of corrupt biggots but it would be useful to have them being pro-western rather than pro-chinese.

At worse well no shortage of options there. At least uganda doesn't boarder russsia so another georgia is unlikely.

 

[geni]

Are the people they fight really any better? Or do they just have better PR?

Best we can tell the current ugandan goverment isn't too bad. Previous ones had more issues.

Within the DRC? Who knows (well the french might I suppose)?

I'd be careful siding with anyone in that part of the world, chances are both sides are complete ****.

When has that mattered?

 

[L.Y.S.]

Isn't there a difference between aid and loans? Also why single out "western nations"?

You are right, thanks for making that distinction. But again, most of the money we get are from loans not aid. Oh, and yeah, China should have some blame in this too, but they haven't gotten as far as they want to yet. This is the part where I said “African leaders are foolish and put their nations in the position of being gripped by the balls” remember?

 

[L.Y.S.]

Many African countries were better off under colonialism. You can't blame the West for the brutal rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Mengistu's Red Terror in Ethiopia.

Yeah you pretty much can. If western nations had allowed Africans to elect their own governments, we wouldn't be having the problems we have now (I guess Africa did make a good cold war playgroud for you guys) . What is happening to Africa right now is a process of "decolonization". Former colonial nations that were set up by westerners are being dismantled.

Most ethnic groups want their own countries and are only now getting the balls to do anything about it (i.e. fight the tyrannical dictators that came to power after the west left). My people tried to get their own nation back in the 70s and nearly got eradicated. The old western borders don't work and make things worse. It's like putting 16th French in the same country with 16th century Germans. Or better yet, 14th century British with the French. It's a foolish idea and wouldn't work slightly. Westerners had no concept of this when they drew their maps. “Intervention” only perpetuates the border issue.

This is why nations in Africa are beginning to splinter. I'm not putting all the blame on the west, but you deserve your fair share of the blame. You guys have “helped” enough. Same goes to the imperially reaching hands of China. Current government regimes of Africa are of course to corrupt and incompetent to understand this.

 

[Darth Rotor]

At best it's a play for influence. Sure the ugandan goverment may be a bunch of corrupt biggots but it would be useful to have them being pro-western rather than pro-chinese.

Yep. That's how I read it.

 

[Travis]

So is Rush Limbaugh really claiming this is evidence of an Obama war on Christianity?

Because that is the rumor.

 

[SezMe]

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/14/obama_invades_uganda_targets_christiansWe report. You decide.

 

[Joey McGee]

The end is priceless...

Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.

Oops too late!

 

[Eddie Dane]

Let me let you in on a little secret Virus. Those "projects" that the west are so eager to help us out with keep us in debt and in perpetual servitude. Here is a small example of that.

The World Bank’s Global Finance Development 1999 publication tracked the annual movement of international capital flows to developing countries, presenting new information about the scale of the debt crisis. It showed that total debt continues to rise, despite ever-increasing payments, while aid is falling. The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants, as summarized by the Jubilee 2000 campaign.

Source, I'm sure you'll find something wrong with it, but there is plenty more where that came from.

Where are you from LYS?

For some reason I assumed that you're an American.
Must have been the Bachmann avatar you had for a while.

 

[Eddie Dane]

As for Joseph Kony, someone needs to bust a cap in his bottom.

 

[DarthFishy]

Yeah you pretty much can. If western nations had allowed Africans to elect their own governments, we wouldn't be having the problems we have now (I guess Africa did make a good cold war playgroud for you guys) . What is happening to Africa right now is a process of "decolonization". Former colonial nations that were set up by westerners are being dismantled.

Most ethnic groups want their own countries and are only now getting the balls to do anything about it (i.e. fight the tyrannical dictators that came to power after the west left). My people tried to get their own nation back in the 70s and nearly got eradicated. The old western borders don't work and make things worse. It's like putting 16th French in the same country with 16th century Germans. Or better yet, 14th century British with the French. It's a foolish idea and wouldn't work slightly. Westerners had no concept of this when they drew their maps. “Intervention” only perpetuates the border issue.

This is why nations in Africa are beginning to splinter. I'm not putting all the blame on the west, but you deserve your fair share of the blame. You guys have “helped” enough. Same goes to the imperially reaching hands of China. Current government regimes of Africa are of course to corrupt and incompetent to understand this.

I cannot agree more. It's trivially easy to see how arbitrarily national boundaries were drawn up throughout Africa's colonial history. Straight line here, straight line there and occasionally some lines following geographical but not ethnic features.

This whole idea that without the Western colonization Africans would never have gotten anywhere is patently ridiculous. I'll take my own country as an example (South Africa). While Western powers had brought all the wonders of the modern world to South Africa, until 1994 it was all in the hands of the White minority here. Similar stories are repeated throughout Africa, with the all the modern technology merely being hand-me-downs that the colonial powers left behind when they left or where kicked out.

If we were to assume that Africa had not been colonized at all, but that in, say 1950, the current inhabitants of Africa were given access to the education, technology and other advances of the West, it seems pretty obvious that this hypothetical Africa would be much better off than the actual Africa, with more than 300 years of Western influence.

Sure there are problems that are uniquely African in origin, and the longer African nations are free of Western rule the less can be blamed on colonization, but to ignore the major negative impact that Western colonization has had on Africa is to ignore reality.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Where are you from LYS?

For some reason I assumed that you're an American.
Must have been the Bachmann avatar you had for a while.

I am American, but I have a lot of family in Nigeria. Mostly Bini and Igbo

I cannot agree more. It's trivially easy to see how arbitrarily national boundaries were drawn up throughout Africa's colonial history. Straight line here, straight line there and occasionally some lines following geographical but not ethnic features.

This whole idea that without the Western colonization Africans would never have gotten anywhere is patently ridiculous. I'll take my own country as an example (South Africa). While Western powers had brought all the wonders of the modern world to South Africa, until 1994 it was all in the hands of the White minority here. Similar stories are repeated throughout Africa, with the all the modern technology merely being hand-me-downs that the colonial powers left behind when they left or where kicked out.

If we were to assume that Africa had not been colonized at all, but that in, say 1950, the current inhabitants of Africa were given access to the education, technology and other advances of the West, it seems pretty obvious that this hypothetical Africa would be much better off than the actual Africa, with more than 300 years of Western influence.

Sure there are problems that are uniquely African in origin, and the longer African nations are free of Western rule the less can be blamed on colonization, but to ignore the major negative impact that Western colonization has had on Africa is to ignore reality.

Great points, I think the best thing that could happen, is for ethnic groups to break into smaller individual nations. That would resolve most of the conflicts itself. There is a lot of tension in Nigeria right now between the north and the south, mostly the Muslims and the Christians. The Southeast has wanted to break away for decades, but now the southwest is even considering breaking away.

It would be much easier if there were separate lands for the Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba. It would prevent a lot of the sectarian violence that is occurring. While Nigeria is more stable than most nations in Africa, most of the fighting that is occurring is either for ethnic reasons or financial ones (one group dominates a resource the other one wants and or needs). It would be more beneficial for Africa to break into these small nations and do a sort of EU style federation. That would have a lot more benefit than the “pseudo” nations that currently exist here.

Nigeria has considered the prospect for quite some time now. I don’t have any clue about South Africa. I suspect since most South African blacks have had to unite in the struggle against apartheid that many of the ethnic issues which plague most of Africa would’ve subsided long ago in South Africa. This of course is a general assumption.