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Old 10-14-2011, 01:10 PM
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Exclamation Obama Sends 100 US Troops to Uganda to Help Combat Lord’s Resistance Army

Obama Sends 100 US Troops to Uganda to Help Combat Lord’s Resistance Army


Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA.

The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries.

The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.”

He said that “although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.”

The president said that for more than two decades the LRA has been responsible for having “murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa” and continues to “commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report:

The president in his letter noted that Congress passed “the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,” signed into law on May 24, 2010, in which, the president said, “the Congress also expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.”

When the president signed that letter in May 2010, he said the bill “crystallizes the commitment of the United States to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades, and to pursue a future of greater security and hope for the people of central Africa. The Lord’s Resistance Army preys on civilians – killing, raping, and mutilating the people of central Africa; stealing and brutalizing their children; and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Its leadership, indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has no agenda and no purpose other than its own survival. It fills its ranks of fighters with the young boys and girls it abducts. By any measure, its actions are an affront to human dignity.”

Human Rights Watch has a great deal of information about the infamous LRA.

Update: A Defense Department official tells ABC’s Luis Martinez at the Pentagon that the U.S. troops will be in Africa “for a few months in an advisory role.”

- Jake Tapper

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...sistance-army/
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Old 10-14-2011, 02:12 PM
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Good news: Obama sending 100 U.S. combat troops to Uganda for some reason

posted at 4:53 pm on October 14, 2011 by Allahpundit



Here’s one sentence I never imagined myself writing on election night 2008: I think this guy might be too hawkish for me.
US President Barack Obama said Friday he is sending 100 combat troops to central Africa to help and advise forces battling Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army rebels accused of rape, murder and kidnapping…

“These forces will act as advisors to partner forces that have the goal of removing from the battlefield Joseph Kony and other senior leadership of the LRA,” Obama said, but warned they would not lead the fighting themselves.

“Although the US forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces.

“They will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense. All appropriate precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of US military personnel during their deployment.”
They’re not just going to Uganda, either. Because the LRA is known to operate in several African countries, including Congo, South Sudan, and the C.A.R., our guys will be operating in those countries too. If you’re wondering why this is a matter of U.S. concern, look no further than “The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009.” It passed the Senate in March 2010 by unanimous consent and passed the House two months later by a voice vote. Bipartisan support! You can read the full text of the statute here (or, in PDF format, here). A key excerpt:




Note the references to “military” support and using “military elements” to dislodge the LRA. Betcha Congress never thought The One would take them up on that when this law was passed. A year later, after one zero-casualty American intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds, he’s evidently hungry for more. Think this statute would have passed in this same form if it came to the floor of Congress today?

As with all nonessential U.S. military operations, the public will shrug unless and until a man in the field spills blood for it, and then there’ll be hell to pay. (Remember when Bush sent a few hundred U.S. peacekeepers to Liberia not long after the invasion of Iraq?) Meanwhile, a word to the wise: I’ve already seen some people on Twitter trying to spin this as Obama targeting “Christians,” which is pure insanity as a narrative frame if you know the history of the LRA. For one thing, Uganda’s
president/dictator, a.k.a. our new ally against the LRA, is himself an Yoweri_Museveni Yoweri_Museveni. Beyond that, though, read Global Security’s entry about the group to see what kind of tactics they’re known for. LRA LRA has a serviceable summary of the organization’s cult aspects, too. They sound like a cross between the Branch Davidians and the Khmer Rouge, with a special fondness for killing families and then impressing the surviving children into service as soldiers. If Obama’s detractors want to welcome them under the banner of Christianity in order to try to score a cheap point on him, it’s no skin off my atheist nose. But it’s guaranteed to backfire as Americans learn more about our newest enemy.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/1...r-some-reason/
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Old 10-15-2011, 05:47 AM
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Obama Sending Troops to Aid Africa Anti-Insurgency

Posted by Sun Tzu Oct 14th 2011 at 3:23 pm in Africa, Foreign Policy | Comments (62)

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama said Friday he’s dispatching roughly 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to help battle the Lord’s Resistance Army, which the administration accuses of a campaign of murder, rape and kidnapping children that spans two decades.
In a letter to Congress, Obama said the troops will act as advisers in efforts to hunt down rebel leader Joseph Kony but will not engage in combat except in self-defense.

Lord’s Resistance Army members

Pentagon officials said the bulk of the U.S. contingent will be special operations troops, who will provide security and combat training to African units.

The White House said the first troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday. Ultimately, they’ll also deploy in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Long considered one of Africa’s most brutal rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago but has been pushing westward.

The administration and human rights groups say its atrocities have left thousands dead and have put as many as 300,000 Africans to flight. They have charged the group with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court under a 2005 warrant for crimes against humanity in his native Uganda.

Obama’s announcement came in low-key fashion — a letter to House Speaker John Boehner in which he said the deployment “furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.”

The deployment drew support from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who has visited the region.

“I have witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by the LRA, and this will help end Kony’s heinous acts that have created a human rights crisis in Africa,” he said in a statement. “I have been fervently involved in trying to prevent further abductions and murders of Ugandan children, and today’s action offers hope that the end of the LRA is in sight.”

But Obama’s letter stressed the limited nature of the deployment.

“Our forces will provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nation forces,” it said. “Although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will … not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.”

Most of the troops will deploy to regional capitals to work with government officials and military commanders on countering the rebels and protecting civilians, Pentagon officials said.

State Department officials portrayed the deployment as part of a larger strategy to combat the group that dates to the Bush administration but also includes legislation passed by Congress this year.

Victoria Nuland, a department spokeswoman, said the U.S. troops will aid in “pursuing the LRA and seeking to bring top commanders to justice.” The broader effort includes encouraging rebel fighters to defect, disarm and return to their homes, she said.

The administration briefed human rights activists ahead of the announcement, and their officials were encouraged.

“These advisers can make a positive difference on the ground by keeping civilians safe and improving military operations to apprehend the LRA’s top commanders,” said Paul Ronan, director of the group Advocacy at Resolve.
Col. Felix Kulayigye, Uganda’s military spokesman, said of the troops: “We are aware that they are coming. We are happy about it. We look forward to working with them and eliminating Kony and his fighters.”
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor and Donna Cassata contributed to this report from Washington, AP writer Godfrey Olukya from Kampala Uganda.

http://bigpeace.com/stzu/2011/10/14/...y/#more-169656
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Old 10-16-2011, 11:02 AM
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Uganda, LRA, And The ‘Christian’ Lie

Posted by Ben Barrack Oct 16th 2011 at 4:50 am

Joseph Kony, the monstrous leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, a group possibly more despicable than Hitler’s nazis, has apparently been targeted by the Obama administration. News broke on October 14th that 100 US troops were being sent to track Kony down.

The meme that is being floated in the liberal media is that Kony is a radical Christian protestant. Obama’s apparatchiks might attempt to advance that meme as much as possible for political advantage against the Christian right.

There’s a small problem with it. It’s a lie.

Late last month, a movie – Machine Gun Preacher – was released about a man named Sam Childers, whose character is played by Hollywood A-lister Gerard Butler. Childers, a former heroin addict and bad guy himself, converted to Christianity; he was inspired to help the children of southern Sudan and northern Uganda after hearing a guest speaker at his church.


Childers knows the truth about Kony; he’s witnessed the evil from a front row seat. The Machine Gun preacher built an orphanage for Sudanese children, replete with a playground, in a war zone and has defended it against Kony’s LRA by fighting alongside Sudanese freedom fighters with guns. Childers has put his life at risk countless times while protecting children from capture, torture, rape, and perhaps the most despicable fate enslaved boys can endure – being ordered to kill their own brethren by fighting as soldiers in Kony’s LRA.

In 2007, I had the opportuntiy to interview Childers on my radio show. The subject of Kony came up multiple times. Here is a portion of what Childers told me:
“Our area is almost all Christian people and the LRA is financed by the Arabs of the north… so the Arabs are the Muslims so it’s basically a holy war inside of our area. This man (Kony) is just out to kill every Christian he can kill in south Sudan and also in Northern Uganda… He’s being financed… it’s been proved for many, many years that the Arabs of the northern Sudan ok, which is Muslims, they have been financing this man for many, many years.”
Kony is a very, very bad guy who needs to go. That point is granted.

What cannot and should not be allowed to happen is the politization of his motives to push a narrative that says he is a Christian. The truth is that he is an insane madman whose evil is sanctioned by northern Sudan’s Arab Muslims. Childers went on to explain that Kony claims to have added an eleventh Commandment to the Judeo-Christian ten. It says, “Thou shalt not ride a bicycle.” Childers also said Kony reportedly had “160 some spirits that speak to him.” These are NOT Christian tenets, nor is killing children. Islamists, however, do believe in killing non-Muslim children; Kony does that for them while being paid to do so.


In some respects, this comes back to the Islamic problem the west simply refuses to identify. Kony is evil, for sure, but Childers indicated to me in 2007 that the root of the problem is Arab Muslim money:
“The north gives truckloads after truckloads of guns and ammunition and money and food so if somebody’s not financing a war, no, I don’t believe it would be going on.”
The reality is that if Kony isn’t a Muslim, he’s certainly doing the will of the Arab Islamists while taking their money to do it. If he is removed, Islamist money will find a new proxy.

The Arab Spring meme has been serving Islamists well for months now. The Muslim Brotherhood waits in the wings for dictators to fall in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria; it then fills the vacuum left behind after the Obama administration either runs interference or does its dirty work.

The situation in Uganda is similar in some ways with the potential for an added twist. Look for western media to paint the picture of a radical Christian named Joseph Kony who is slaughtering children in the name of Christianity so it can convey moral equivalency between religions. If it is successful, know that the Obama adminstration will have approved such a portrayal.

Meanwhile, the Arabic Islamists will hide behind the Joseph-Kony-is-a-Christian narrative just like they are hiding behind the Arab Spring moniker.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at benbarrack.com

http://bigpeace.com/bbarrack/2011/10...e/#more-169816
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