Not trying to sound smug or like a jerk but people bitch and moan about Americans being the world police but then when they need help they call us. Just put special forces on the ground and koni is dead in a week
Yeah, because the Americans found Osama in a week.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to puckluck For This Useful Post:
It's no longer about Uganda, this is about Kony and what he's done and continues to do. It's now become eerily similar to Osama Bin Laden in that he's deep within unfamiliar country and territory.
All I'm saying is the most important thing here is that an innocent child should not be in danger of this happening, don't care where it is.
I agree with you, Kony should be jailed and kids should never have to deal with this stuff. Everybody agrees with that.
The question is whether or not this group is helping or harming. Why are they backing the Ugandan army right now instead of the DRC army? This whole thing just feels like they had the best intentions, but lacked the knowledge and the know-how to actually put a plan in action that helped out in the most positive way.
I agree with you, Kony should be jailed and kids should never have to deal with this stuff. Everybody agrees with that.
The question is whether or not this group is helping or harming. Why are they backing the Ugandan army right now instead of the DRC army? This whole thing just feels like they had the best intentions, but lacked the knowledge and the know-how to actually put a plan in action that helped out in the most positive way.
The fact alone that people, including myself, now know who Kony is tells me they are helping. I'm assuming if Kony was captured, there wouldn't be some other psycho stepping in and doing the same things. Alas, the vast majority of us here thousands of miles away, most likely have very little real knowledge of what's going on.
The fact alone that people, including myself, now know who Kony is tells me they are helping. I'm assuming if Kony was captured, there wouldn't be some other psycho stepping in and doing the same things. Alas, the vast majority of us here thousands of miles away, most likely have very little real knowledge of what's going on.
I don't mean to call you out, but seriously? IMO that's exactly the problem with this #kony2012 campaign. You knock one down and another will rise in his place.
I disagree. I think you are underestimating the value of technological superiority and tactical expertise. Public pressure is not the only element involved.
Killing him is not the stated goal, although I would think that basically everybody is aware of the possibility of that outcome. The goal is to capture him and have him tried as a war criminal. (Is everyone discussing this video/movement sure that they have actually watched the video?)
I'm sure that I am misunderstanding you here (bold print), but shouldn't saving children from sex slavery and forced involvement as soldiers be enough reason? Even beyond saving children, shouldn't he be held to account for the crimes already committed that he is the most responsible for?
I really don't think that IC or anyone else is arguing that killing Kony is a magic bullet for peace (although with tens of millions of people discussing it there is bound to be plenty of strange arguments).
Even if Kony's capture does not ensure peace for Uganda, isn't it worth pursuing? What about the people being terrorized by the LRA in the Democratic Republic of the Congo now?
this may sound cold-hearted, but in a world with finite resources, you have to pick your battles. is capturing kony a noble goal? absolutely. however, many people would argue that there are bigger problems that need to be attended to in africa. also, history has shown us that simply supplying corrupt regimes (like the one in uganda) with funds usually ends up being a very bad thing. furthermore, the lack of transparency that IC has is a little concerning.
That depends on your perspective, I suppose. If the LRA regroups and another 10 000 children are abducted and turned into sex slaves or a child infantry, then perhaps the issue will appear more urgent in retrospect.
Yeah, because the Americans found Osama in a week.
maybe not in a week, but I'd be willing to bet that they had a strong idea of where he was at. Our "allies" were hiding him.
I would also be willing to bet that the network that OBL had was better than Kony's by tenfold.
__________________
Thank you for everything CP. Good memories and thankful for everything that has been done to help me out. I will no longer take part on these boards. Take care, Go Flames Go.
maybe not in a week, but I'd be willing to bet that they had a strong idea of where he was at. Our "allies" were hiding him.
I would also be willing to bet that the network that OBL had was better than Kony's by tenfold.
It would be fairly easy to track Kony down, but getting the cooperation of three goverments in order to actually go in and capture Kony is a whole other matter, then there is the small matter of juristiction which 'the west' doesn't have, and it may amaze some to realize that most africans are a little sensitive to white westerners sending thousands of troops into their countries, can't think why!
DISCLAIMER FOR LIBERALS: We at DemandNothing do not support the actions of the LRA or Joseph Kony. We have no objection to the principle of highlighting the activities of groups such as these, which are often overlooked in the western media.
Invisible Children released a video, , that called for the raising of awareness of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda across the world. In their video they seek donations so that they can continue their project to bring US advisors in to work with the Ugandan military in finding and apprehending Joseph Kony. Their ultimate wish is for their supporters to agitate for an armed military intervention to stop Kony by raising awareness and confronting policymakers. The US has already deployed a small contingent of armed forces to advise and assist the Ugandan military but Invisible Children would like to see more pressure put on governments to give the Ugandan military more money, technology and foreign military advisers to push the fight on. They are effectively calling for an armed intervention in Uganda.
Armed interventions in Uganda to find and kill Joseph Kony have been tried repeatedly over the decades with no success. Each push scatters the LRA to civilian areas with terrible costs to those who live in those areas. For example, Operation Lightning Thunder, which was a joint operation with the involvement of the US, resulted in the abduction of 700 people and the deaths of 1, 000 civilians.
One of their partners and donators is Chase Community Giving who awarded them $1million as a prize for winning a contest that was mired in controversy and accusations of fraud. This organisation is part of JP Morgan Chase Foundation who are also listed as one of Invisible Children’s network of supporters. This organisation is also owner of Chase Military, an organisation that offers loans, mortgages and insurance to soldiers that are to be deployed abroad. JP Morgan have also used foreign military interventions in the past to secure investment opportunities such as in Afghanistan with the full support of the US Government. Further ties with Uganda include their recent investment in Ugandan agribusiness and their ties as broker and adviser to Heritage Oil, whose operations are expanding into the border of Uganda and the Congo where the LRA are currently based. You’d be forgiven for thinking that, when situating these operations with their support of Invisible Children in the past year, JP Morgan are very interested in Uganda’s assets and are looking for means to foster business-friendly awareness of Uganda’s problems for their own benefit. Military intervention would do nothing but bolster JP Morgan’s profitmaking opportunities in the region.
This increase in funding from JP Morgan also coincided with Invisible Children’s “Fourth Estate” program. This program was designed to foster a youth-oriented grassroots movement by the controlled manipulation of youth culture, social media, and youth activism. It is to this end that their video was released, which ties into their ventures with the music industry, which concentrates specifically on popular youth bands like Mumford & Sons and Frightened Rabbit, and their Fourth Estate activism education conference in August 2011. Between 2010 and 2011, resources spent on media creation rose from $463, 666 to $699, 617. Similarly, the amount of money that they spent on media awareness rose from $133, 600 to $301, 000 in the same span of time. At the same time, only a little over a third of the money that they raise is spent on their programs. The rest goes to awareness, management, and their product line. In fact, spending on programs went down from $3, 752, 435 to $3, 303, 218 in spite of their overall increase in funding.
Invisible Children’s actions are tied heavily into the promotion of a false consciousness type of activism that glosses over the complex history of the region that they purport to support and ignores the myriad of crimes the Museveni government is embroiled in or the Ugandan People’s Defence Force’s (UPDF) checkered history with profiteering, the use of child soldiers, and rape. The LRA is not even based in Uganda anymore and this has been the case for many years now. Their business-friendly awareness campaign is exemplified by their championing of predatory microfinance initiatives in Uganda, which are offered by CARE International, a charity that is also sponsored by JP Morgan.
It should come as no surprise that the US government and an investment firm like JP Morgan would show such interest in the work of an otherwise unknown charity. If crowd-sourcing activism in this way was always so successful then we would expect larger movements such as Occupy to have also made similar headway into governments. That is simply not the case though, as the interests of corporations and government run explicitly counter to those in Occupy. This is not to say that Invisible Children and its members are out there to explicitly profiteer or that this is some kind of shadow conspiracy. What they are is an effective propaganda-making organisation whose interests have happened to coincide with the rich and powerful who are seeking to exploit the massive mineral wealth in Uganda, and the conflicts in the country, for their own profit. It’s a lot easier to make a video viral when you have millions of dollars worth of resources at your disposal.
Pushing this rhetoric through the sponsoring of charities such as Invisible Children helps people to believe that what they are doing is for some nebulous “good“ when, in reality, they are sponsoring those who aim to exploit the people of Uganda and armed intervention against child soldiers . The last thing that is needed is well-meaning, energised students committed to action without any real understanding of where their money is going and what their actions are committing them to.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Grimbl420 For This Useful Post:
A local charity, the African Youth Initiative Network, thought that the communities worst affected by the LRA, when it operated in Uganda, also deserved an opportunity to see what all the fuss was about, and so organized the event.... Having heard so many great things about the film, the crowd’s expectations were high.
People I spoke to anticipated seeing a video that showed the world the terrible atrocities that they had suffered during the conflict, and the ongoing struggles they still face trying to rebuild their lives after two lost decades.
...
Towards the end of the film, the mood turned more to anger at what many people saw as a foreign, inaccurate account that belittled and commercialised their suffering, as the film promotes Kony bracelets and other fundraising merchandise, with the aim of making Kony infamous.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Resolute 14 For This Useful Post:
One woman I spoke to made the comparison of selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11 – likely to be highly offensive to many Americans, however well intentioned the campaign behind it.
