Say no to Kony 2012

What interest does America have with Joseph Kony in 2012?  Joseph Kony is an African warlord and leader of the Lords Resistance Army in the African nations of Congo, Sudan, and Uganda.  Kony’s LRA army is said to be composed mostly of children.  There is a video on Youtube made by the charity group Invisible Children that has millions of views from people demanding that Americans take action against Joseph Kony and the LRA.  Invisible Children is asking their supporters to pressure influential celebrities and policy makers to promote the cause of Kony 2012.  Celebrities such as Tim Tebow, Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and several others were targeted in a campaign designed to rally American public support to Invisible Children’s cause of Kony 2012.  Their ultimate goal is to bring public pressure to ensure that the U.S. military advisers support the Ugandan army until Kony has been captured and the LRA has been completely disarmed.  Invisible Children says that the United States needs to follow through all the way to the finish with what they have started. 

Ugandan Blogger says that Kony 2012 doesn't tell the whole story 

Thank goodness that our foreign policy is not based on the Oprah Winfrey Show and the number of thumbs up on a Youtube video.   There are plenty of warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan and we need to get out of those countries, not get into more countries.  We probably will not leave the middle-east any better than we found it over a decade ago when we first decided to take on this task of nation building.  These Middle Eastern and African countries need to change internally.  We can not build their culture and that is what needs to change.  The capture of one man, whether it is Kony or Bin Laden, will only cause a different leader to rise up and lead the various rebel groups around the world.      

Black Hawk super64 before it was shot down in the
battle of Mogadishu

Something just didn’t smell right to me about this whole Kony 2012 story.  Why was America suddenly involved in African police actions again?  Doesn’t anyone remember Black hawk down?  If you don't remember that event, it was when U.S. soldiers were attacked by rebels during an African peace keeping mission.  America lost 19 army rangers and 73 more were wounded.  Two black hawk's were shot down and the dead bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets.  That was in Mogadishu, Somalia 1993, so shouldn’t the region be stabilized by now since we were getting Americans killed over there twenty years ago?   No, well how much blood do we have to shed in African civil wars?  Will America be allowed to rule these countries and profit from them?  Heaven forbid such exploitation and --dare I say-- colonization of these “independent” nations.  No, America is simply expected to come in clean up the mess and turn the nations over to a different warlord. 

America will hand over tons of American tax payer money to build schools and train their army and police forces of African nations before we leave the region in failure after ten years.  The problems of these nations are NEVER solved through American intervention; the only change that we ever seem to impose is a change in leadership.  How is Afghan President Karzai working out for us?  Karzai already told his nation that he would fight against America if we had a war with Pakistan. We continue to prop up the Karzai government in Afghanistan, even though that nation makes it clear that we are not welcome there.  The same was true in Iraq, and it will be true in any African nation.  If we want to capture Kony in 2012, it will take significant investment and military intervention.  The cost to stop the LRA is not in America's interests. 

Are the nations of Africa independent nations or are they ruled by the United Nations?  If they are independent nations, then perhaps they need to step up and stomp out their own insurgencies.  We do not need to be involved in every civil war in the world.  If we do capture Kony in 2012 and somehow we miraculously disarm the LRA, someone else will step up and lead the next insurgency.  That is how the history of Africa has been for thousands of years.    This is why there are hot spots all over the continent of Africa.  

America funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
After the Cold war they transformed into Al Qaeda.  

 If we arm a group to kill Kony in 2012, then will we be blamed for arming that group when they go crazy?  If the Ugandan army invades South Sudan or the Congo do we have to get involved in those conflicts as well?   Remember when we sided with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union?  Every liberal in the world does, and they tell us that the CIA funded Osama Bin Laden.  I don’t want to fund any more Bin Ladens especially in a country that does not effect me at all.

We need to learn from our nation building mistakes.  We have spent enough blood and treasure fighting the wars of other nations.  How did our war in Libya go?  Kaddafi is not bombing his own people, but now the Muslim extremists are getting their revenge on former supporters of the state.  Just because some group puts together a propaganda video like Kony 2012, it doesn’t mean that America needs to get involved.  Last week someone had us sending troops to Syria, new week it will be Iran, there are floods in Pakistan so we should be there as well?  No, this is an American military that has constitutional restrictions to protect America.  Our military is not a world police force.  Do you remember how long it took America to capture Bin Laden?  Do you want to see another ten years of wasted American lives and billions of wasted American dollars sent over to the Government of Uganda to slaughter the children that are fighting for Kony and the LRA? 

There are reports that the Ugandan government has committed similar atrocities as Kony and the LRA.  We do not know the whole story, so do not allow one video on Youtube form your opinion for you.  Look at the big picture and in the end you should side with America, not Uganda.   This war in Uganda has been going on for twenty years, and Kony is not fighting himself.  The Invisible Children charity is not a unbiased source of information either.  They stand to raise millions of dollars with this campaign.  Only 38% of that money will go to the people in danger if they follow their current business model.  The rest of the money is used by the organization to promote itself and pay it's employees large salaries.  

Is the International criminal court (ICC) really an organization that we should be supporting?  The video above says no.  They claim that the ICC has muddied the situation and caused Kony to fight for his life rather than fight for his cause.  Uganda has been relatively safe for a few years, so this whole cause of Kony 2012 is designed to find a force that has been exiled to the bush of the Congo.  Do we want peace or justice, and why would we want to give legitimacy to the ICC?  The ICC is a court that has a filing on record accusing President George Bush of war crimes.  Do we really want to empower this body and give them legitimacy to punish American soldiers?  

Another strange thing is the timing of Kony 2012.  What happens at the end of 2012?  An election!  Isn't is funny how the production Kony 2012 also shows its supporters painting Obama Hope posters?  It makes me wonder what is really behind this propaganda video.  We will soon find out if Kony 2012 is being used as a political tool.  Until we know for sure, I will continue to say no to Kony 2012 and any American involvement in the region.  

Kony 2012 poster

ICC logo

© American Wing 2012