you dont know shit about the kony

and no its nothing new

IC has been engaged in this kind of racist neocolonialism for a long time

enlighten me, I don't see the reason for hostility.

here's a primer

http://siena-anstis.com/2012/03/07/on-invisible-childrens-kony-2012-campaign/

and btw this is coming from the forum's resident "hawkish" humanitarian, according to your word use

confused, you are the hawkish humanitarian?

and i still don't understand the hostility.

after 25 f*ing years? there is now a movement?

It's admirable that they're doing something, but in most cases its just going to make things worse. They're building radio stations and to broadcast warnings about an attack. Great, but what will that do if not everyone has a radio? Or if the rebels cut power to the radio station? They got Kony indicted and publicly are searching for him. Even better, so now he has absolutely no reason to show anyone mercy and will kill and rape and steal even more.

My roomate gave me several insights when I asked him about it today. his name is Salifu Kamara, and was a child soldier in Sierra Leone during the 1990s. He's currently a U.N. Peace Ambassador and has spoken with Invisible Children before. He says that when the world announced it was going after a certain rebel commander (he wouldn't give the name) that he went on a killing spree and started butchering and murdering even more than before. This is because he had no incentives to restrain himself anymore.

The best way to fix these problems is to build up the Ugandan economy and government and let them sort it out. As the blog Thucy put up said, Ugandans are already trying to work things out, and we should assist them, not supplant them

they are assisting the Ugandan military not supplanting them, at least according to the group, if you watch the video. And there isn't much evidence that Kony showed any mercy before hand. That being said, I think there is a lot to your suggestion that a response depending on force might be too narrow a solution. Also again, I think the precedent could be dangerous.

http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/

And the other side which seems to be pretty convincing.

I wonder how these people would feel if the intervention to get Kony turns into a Vietnam-Iraq redux in central Africa, but this time without even the strategic interest.

I knew about the LRA for years, and it's a really bad rebel group. But Africa's full of really bad rebel groups. Some of them even run the countries now. How can we do humanitarian intervention for Kony and not go into Equatorial Guinea or Congo?

I'm watching that Kony 2012 movie now and the guy really bugs me. Fine goal, in the abstract, but he bugs me. Not just his voice, but how he uses his adorable son to guilt people into this. and that's assuming this whole thing is on the up and up...

It took ten years to get bin Laden, why expect this monster be caught in a year when he doesn't even threaten the United States? In the likely and but unfortunate event that this fails, it'll just make people all the more cynical.

According to some of the articles I've read, Invisible Children openly and explicitly associates itself with the Ugandan military and government, and do not simply focus on aid activities to the victims of Kony's violence. By these activities, they are pretty much just legitimizing a dictatorial government. I cannot condemn them, because it is obvious they are working with good intentions, but the fact that Kony and the Ugandan situation, which is actually pretty stable because Kony can no longer even enter the country, are getting such publicity in the public domain to the detriment of other more pressing, perhaps more "worthy", causes is a bit frustrating.

"I wonder how these people would feel if the intervention to get Kony turns into a Vietnam-Iraq redux in central Africa, but this time without even the strategic interest."

Please never bring this shit up again.

I am just so fucking tired of arguing with morally bankrupt nationalists.

Let's talk about another aspect of this. The tactics of IC, not the policy of the troop deployment in Uganda, which was already discussed when it was announced months ago on this forum.

IC has a lot of shit to work out. I am glad that this thing has gotten so much attention because it has forced the issue and is making people know more than they would have about LRA and the region. Better a bunch of people misinformed about a topic than totally ignorant of it. At least if you are misinformed you have a platform for further research.

So in that sense I'm glad to see that IC has used its apparently magical propaganda machine to force this to go viral. I am not glad that their campaign is so simplistic and that it is associated with an organization with as mixed a track record as IC.

But yes Santa I am the "humanitarian hawk" on this forum, in that I often advocate for humanitarian military intervention ala Romeo Dallaire.

PS Goldfiner your roommate sounds like the true Most Interesting Man in the World

He is quite an interesting man, that is for sure. He gives me a new perspective on a lot of things, and is friends with what seems like a whole upcoming generation of African leaders. He keeps talking about going to Sierra Leone and running for President and getting rid of the corruption. It get real weird when he predicts how long it will take the rest of the government to assassinate him...

yeah. thats real shit. you see now why i love africa.

or perhaps you dont. i guess what im saying is its so... it has so much potential.

No, I see it Thucy. It has so much potential. If only the corruption was dealt with, then it could really begin to bloom.

there are more problems than just the corruption, but yeah. totally.

the story of how i got interested in africa is simple - in high school i stumbled across data telling just HOW FUCKING MUCH of the world's resources are in Africa EVEN AFTER the place was raped for 100 someodd years and is still being exploited at a lightning pace.

it was then that i realized - people talk about China being next up now, but who is after China? India, maybe, who knows.

But what I realized then is that when the game is finally over and the dust settles - Africa will be sitting pretty.

They'll have the last laugh, mark my words.

Oh for sure. But when the dust settles is going to be a century from now, so we won't have to worry about them laughing at us in our lifetime...

But indeed there is so much potential in sub-saharan africa with natural reasources
Also, on a side note, its a shame that poaching has picked up pace now with all the Asians demanding magic horns

Haha truth.

Indeed I would estimate 300-500 years, but yeah.

So I have a question. I was doing some research on Kony and the LRA and it sounds like this is practically a dead issue. It sounded like the Invisible Children charity is actually 'embezzling' most of the money, and that the LRA only has 100 members/soldiers. Is this information true? Does anybody know?

Not saying I'm condoning the actions of the LRA or labeling the charity as fraudulent, but from what I have heard, the whole situation is a bit sketch at the moment.

@^ http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/07/guest_post_joseph_kony_is_not_in_uganda_and_other_complicated_things

Sorry, that got truncated - http://bit.ly/wdTji7

Thanks, that's honestly kind of what I figured was the case.

"
Please never bring this shit up again.

I am just so fucking tired of arguing with morally bankrupt nationalists."

Don't try and silence me, Thucydides. The people running this charity cheered as Obama sent soldiers into Uganda to, well, do something about the LRA. If we really wanted to do this we'd need a significant military commitment in the heart of Africa across four different countries, including such basket cases as Congo and South Sudan. It doesn't take a genius to see how that could spiral out of control. I mean, look no further than Black Hawk Down to see what can happen if you intervene in a country without a legitimate strategic interest.

It isn't morally bankrupt to not want American soldiers to die in a distant land just to fight some rebel movement which, while dreadful, poses no threat to the United States. None. Kony is a lunatic cult leader who deserves to be brought to justice, but the efforts by this group are misguided at best.

And did you ever stop to think that perhaps Kony hasn't been caught because it's useful for the Ugandan government that a clear enemy like that exists? Yoweri Museveni has been president for almost thirty years, after all.

Very good link, as Foreign Policy articles usually are.

An excerpt from Jason Russell's bio on the Invisible Children website.

"He admires Oprah, Bono, Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Baz Luhrmann, and Dan Eldon and believes wholeheartedly in magic and the impossible."

Magic and the impossible? Once again, it's a good cause, but the kind of people who would say something like that inspire a visceral hatred within me.

i do not know what to think of the situation. While i see its horrible and all, and agree it should be stopped it seems so fishy to me. Its been such a long time and this is just suddenly coming out now? Ic has been around a while. why not create this 2012 cause earlier?

what happens when they do not reach their 2012 or bust goal. they don;t just give up, but i feel like they dug themselves a hole. When they don;t reach that 2012 goal (as stated it takes time) they will lose so many followers of this cause.

this may have been posted already, but here is IC's response to the skeptics http://invisible.tumblr.com/post/18929372614/invisible-childrens-official-response.