The atrocities of Joseph Kony are going viral

[giovannile07]

I think if we use our U.S. military to do this, it just won't end well... It is definitely not the way to do this.

 

[svobody]

Dear god what an absurd piece of garbage propaganda. Self righteous hipsters fighting a warlord - why don't these schmucks pick up an AK, and go out there and stop him themselves? Oh, that's right, they'd rather make edgy videos and lobby the government to send our soldiers to go die fighting some two bit African warlord in a godforsaken backwater that has no relevance to US security interests whatsoever. Raise some money, hire mercenaries, have him killed. Or, form your own volunteer brigade, buy a bunch of weapons in Uganda and go take him out. But don't waste my tax money or friends lives.

 

[Demigod]

What do these counter-LRA forces do once kony is defeated? my guess, they replace the old tyranny with a new. You need to attack the root of the problem not the face of it.

This is completely normal.The one who defeats your master is your new master unless you have no value to him so he lets you go probably to be enslaved by someone else.The only way out of slavery is if you defeat your master your self and by doing so become your own master

 

[giovannile07]

Am I the only one who thinks that they're basically going to start a second War in the Middle East in Africa? These people are not an arranged military, they are like the terrorists in the Middle East or guerrillas in Vietnam... We might end up killing innocent people because how are we to know who is part of the LRA and who isn't? How are we suppose to know where they are? If anything we might kill Kony, but will we actually end the LRA?

 

[squarepusher]

Was I the only one bored out of my mind when he started babling about his kid in the beginning?

lold and yes

Dear god what an absurd piece of garbage propaganda. Self righteous hipsters fighting a warlord - why don't these schmucks pick up an AK, and go out there and stop him themselves? Oh, that's right, they'd rather make edgy videos and lobby the government to send our soldiers to go die fighting some two bit African warlord in a godforsaken backwater that has no relevance to US security interests whatsoever. Raise some money, hire mercenaries, have him killed. Or, form your own volunteer brigade, buy a bunch of weapons in Uganda and go take him out. But don't waste my tax money or friends lives.

couldn't agree more!

turns out INvisible Children and Kony are a scam, well basically

http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/
http://theeducatedfieldnegro.tumblr.com/post/18894846735/we-got-trouble

 

[giovannile07]

lold and yes


couldn't agree more!

turns out INvisible Children and Kony are a scam, well basically

http://ilto.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-visible-problem-with-invisible-children/
http://theeducatedfieldnegro.tumblr.com/post/18894846735/we-got-trouble

A scam, I don't know about that, but here. my friend posted this...

"You do not need to ask my permission to share this. Please link it widely. For those asking what you can do to help, please link to visiblechildren(dot)tumblr(dot)com wherever you see KONY 2012 posts.

I do not doubt for a second that those involved in KONY 2012 have great intentions, nor do I doubt for a second that Joseph Kony is a very evil man. But despite this, I’m strongly opposed to the KONY 2012 campaign.

KONY 2012 is the product of a group called Invisible Children, a controversial activist group and not-for-profit. They’ve released 11 films, most with an accompanying bracelet colour (KONY 2012 is fittingly red), all of which focus on Joseph Kony. When we buy merch from them, when we link to their video, when we put up posters linking to their website, we support the organization. I don’t think that’s a good thing, and I’m not alone.

Invisible Children has been condemned time and time again. As a registered not-for-profit, its finances are public. Last year, the organization spent $8,676,614. Only 31% went to their charity program (page 6)*. This is far from ideal, and Charity Navigator rates their accountability 2/4 stars because they haven’t had their finances externally audited. But it goes way deeper than that.

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money funds the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission.

Still, the bulk of Invisible Children’s spending isn’t on funding African militias, but on awareness and filmmaking. Which can be great, except that Foreign Affairs has claimed that Invisible Children (among others) “manipulates facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating the scale of LRA abductions and murders and emphasizing the LRA’s use of innocent children as soldiers, and portraying Kony — a brutal man, to be sure — as uniquely awful, a Kurtz-like embodiment of evil.” He’s certainly evil, but exaggeration and manipulation to capture the public eye is unproductive, unprofessional and dishonest.

As Christ Blattman, a political scientist at Yale, writes on the topic of IC’s programming, “There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. […] It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming.”

Still, Kony’s a bad guy, and he’s been around a while. Which is why the US has been involved in stopping him for years. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent multiple missions to capture or kill Kony over the years. And they’ve failed time and time again, each provoking a ferocious response and increased retaliative slaughter. The issue with taking out a man who uses a child army is that his bodyguards are children. Any effort to capture or kill him will almost certainly result in many children’s deaths, an impact that needs to be minimized as much as possible. Each attempt brings more retaliation. And yet Invisible Children funds this military intervention. Kony has been involved in peace talks in the past, which have fallen through. But Invisible Children is now focusing on military intervention.

Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re helping fund the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.

Is awareness good? Yes. But these problems are highly complex, not one-dimensional and, frankly, aren’t of the nature that can be solved by postering, film-making and changing your Facebook profile picture, as hard as that is to swallow. Giving your money and public support to Invisible Children so they can spend it on funding ill-advised violent intervention and movie #12 isn’t helping. Do I have a better answer? No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s something. Something isn’t always better than nothing. Sometimes it’s worse.

If you want to write to your Member of Parliament or your Senator or the President or the Prime Minister, by all means, go ahead. If you want to post about Joseph Kony’s crimes on Facebook, go ahead. But let’s keep it about Joseph Kony, not KONY 2012.

~ Grant Oyston, [email protected]

Grant Oyston is a sociology and political science student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. You can help spread the word about this by linking to his blog at visiblechildren(dot)tumblr(dot)com anywhere you see posts about KONY 2012.

*For context, 31% is bad. By contrast, Direct Relief reports 98.8% of its funding goes to programming. American Red Cross reports 92.1% to programming. UNICEF USA is at 90.3%. Invisible Children reports that 80.5% of their funding goes to programming, while I report 31% based on their FY11 fiscal reports, because other NGOs would count film-making as fundraising expenses, not programming expenses."

 

[Nirvikalpa]

A scam, I don't know about that, but here. my friend posted this...

You can tell your friend that his statement is making it's course all over social networking sites. Majority of my followers (mostly anarchist or libertarian, although I do have socialist/communist followers as well) have been spreading this like wildfire. Brilliant write up.

 

[klamath]

So let me get this straight.


Dude in Africa abducts children. Murders, rapes, mames, and militarizes a bunch of kids. The Ugandan Army can't stop him? lolwut

What these activists want is for the U.S. government to deploy troops (err, "advisors") to this place to teach the Ugandan Army how to find a guy in their homeland? lolwut again

What does it take to get a bunch of Humans to *fight* for their freedom?

Already done.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...28jQCw&usg=AFQjCNEjew0IAmGKkyP0rrv1ksVqwrjFhA

They want more.

 

[ctiger2]

under paul's policy he would not intervene in this though? or am i wrong?

No, you're correct. However, if the citizens of the United States feel this is a threat to national security then they would inform the congress, congress would assess the situation and then formally declare a war. Then president Paul as commander-in-chief would carry out the orders as directed by the people thru the congress. Is it really that hard for people to understand this chain of command?

 

[oyarde]

There are over 100 US Army Special Forces troops on the ground , spread over four African Countries , for about six months involved with the Army there searching for the LRA.Which is BS , they need to fix own problem.

 

[jmdrake]

My facebook is blowing up with people posting this video about Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA in Uganda.



I expect this to be a hot topic in the next few days as more people learn about it. I think it's great that more people are becoming aware of it, but I just hope it doesn't turn into clamoring for an invasion (unfortunately I've already read comments like that on youtube).

Calling for an invasion? We already invaded.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...ps-to-uganda-to-combat-lords-resistance-army/

And the NDAA that recently past (the one with optional detention for U.S. citizens and mandatory detention for everyone else) included more money for Africa operations including Uganda.

The fact is that without strict gun control the people of Northern Uganda could defend themselves. They're doing okay with just bows and arrows. (See: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...oting-LRA-rebel-thugs.&highlight=arrow+uganda)

 

[oyarde]

Yep , want to do something ? figure out a way to give one of those kids with a bow a rifle .

 

[pcosmar]

There are over 100 US Army Special Forces troops on the ground , spread over four African Countries , for about six months involved with the Army there searching for the LRA.Which is BS , they need to fix own problem.

This^^
plus the past history of that area leads me to believe that much more is going on than is readily apparent.

 

[oyarde]

This^^
plus the past history of that area leads me to believe that much more is going on than is readily apparent.

Past history is not good .

 

[roderik]

under paul's policy he would not intervene in this though? or am i wrong?

Paul stated repeatedly that reactivation of the Letter of Marque (mark of reprisal) is the most appropriate way to deal
with things like this. And i, for one, completely agree with him on that matter.

 

[jmdrake]

Shocking thought. The whole idea of the "Kony 2012" project is to make this video go viral. By posting it hear at RPF, viewing it so we can comment on it etc are we not helping statists reach their goal? Seriously, sometimes we are our own worst enemies. I'm not saying this to bash the OP. I've posted garbage here before to show "Look how stupid blogger X is" when all I'm doing is giving blogger X exactly what he wants...more traffic. We claim we "own the internet". That's not true. We use the internet....and sometimes we get used by people more savvy then us. Even "breaking the link" is only a partial fix, because every time someone copies and fixes the link in order to view the website they are giving that site traffic.

Here's an idea.

1) Everybody in the Ron Paul internet movement needs to be a blogger.
2) When you see something you disagree with, write a blog post or make your own opposition video.
3) Post a link to your blog post and/or opposition video.

Then when people on Ron Paul websites click on the link to learn about the subject they aren't giving more traffic to our enemies but rather to a fellow supporter. That's really an idea who's time has come.

 

[jmdrake]

Paul stated repeatedly that reactivation of the Letter of Marque (mark of reprisal) is the most appropriate way to deal
with things like this. And i, for one, completely agree with him on that matter.

Not sure how that applies. The Letter of Marque was used by a sovereign state to give legal cover to citizens of its nation to attack ships of another nation who were attacking it. Basically it was legal piracy. Spain is attacking you and you don't have a real Navy? Give Sir Francis Drake Letters of Marque to attack Spanish Galleons and if he gets caught he's supposed to be treated as a prisoner of war instead of as a pirate and hung. If he captures a Spanish ship filled with gold, he gets to keep the gold so you don't have to pay him. Make no mistake about it, Letters of Marque were acts of war. It makes sense in the Somali piracy scenario (kinda) since they are pirates and have attacked U.S. ships, even though they aren't state actors. But in the Uganda sense? I'm sure if mercenaries can get permission from the Ugandan government to fight Joseph Koney they can do that without a Letter of Marque. And if they don't have permission of the Ugandan government what good does a Letter of Marque do them?

 

[roderik]

A "letter of marque and reprisal" would involve permission to cross an international border to effect a reprisal (take some action against an attack or injury) authorized by an issuing jurisdiction to conduct reprisal operations outside its borders.

I think it applies when properly authorized.
Sure, no american citizens got hurt, but i doubt it's morally good to ignore the abduction, enslavement and killing of 40.000 children or more.
And without getting involved in a war-like manner (aka send in drones and/or boots), with the proper authoriy an instrument along the lines of a Letter of Marquee would be an appropriate way to deal with it. At least in my book.

Not THE Letter of Marquee, but rather a modern version of it.
And since the target objective is to capture an internationally recognized criminal (like bin laden), i think the issuing jurisdiction
could be anyone, not just Uganda.

 

[pcosmar]

A "letter of marque and reprisal" would involve permission to cross an international border to effect a reprisal (take some action against an attack or injury) authorized by an issuing jurisdiction to conduct reprisal operations outside its borders.

I think it applies when properly authorized.
Sure, no american citizens got hurt, but i doubt it's morally good to ignore the abduction, enslavement and killing of 40.000 children or more.
And without getting involved in a war-like manner (aka send in drones and/or boots), with the proper authoriy an instrument along the lines of a Letter of Marquee would be an appropriate way to deal with it. At least in my book.

Not THE Letter of Marquee, but rather a modern version of it.
And since the target objective is to capture an internationally recognized criminal (like bin laden), i think the issuing jurisdiction
could be anyone, not just Uganda.

Letters of Marque don't work that way.

 

[jmdrake]

A "letter of marque and reprisal" would involve permission to cross an international border to effect a reprisal (take some action against an attack or injury) authorized by an issuing jurisdiction to conduct reprisal operations outside its borders.

I think it applies when properly authorized.
Sure, no american citizens got hurt, but i doubt it's morally good to ignore the abduction, enslavement and killing of 40.000 children or more.
And without getting involved in a war-like manner (aka send in drones and/or boots), with the proper authoriy an instrument along the lines of a Letter of Marquee would be an appropriate way to deal with it. At least in my book.

Not THE Letter of Marquee, but rather a modern version of it.
And since the target objective is to capture an internationally recognized criminal (like bin laden), i think the issuing jurisdiction
could be anyone, not just Uganda.

Letters of Marque don't work that way.

^What pcosmar said. But to expound a bit, let's say for arguments sake the "modern" L.O.M. did work that way. Then what? So Blackwater (excuse me "XSE") comes to the Obama/Romney (same diff) administration asking for "permission" to go into Uganda and kick Koney's butt. And then what? Say if Uganda says "Thanks but no thanks. We're handling Koney." Does XSE still have "permission" to go into Uganda? And what is the result of that "permission"? And if they do really have permission, then why can't they have permission to go into North Korea and take out their launch facilities? Now, say if the Ugandan government is like "Sure XSE! We could use the help!" Do they (XSE) really need "permission" from the U.S. government for the operation? And if hiring mercs is the "silver bullet" then did Obama "solve" or Iraq problem by replacing soldiers on the ground in Iraq with mercs?