My niece was kind enough to send me a link to the Kony2012 video that's become so popular (I haven't and probably won't watch it, being able to spot a propaganda campaign from a mile away). I was impressed that she was able to recognize this on an instinctual level - "Regardless of whether or not this video is a "scam"...". Although she was touched on an emotional level she knew something was not kosher, and I'm so happy she is developing the jaundiced view of human nature that is going to become so necessary to Americans in the future. If you know you're going to have to walk through the cattle yard, put on your high boots. As I explained as best I could,
"You would be even more upset if you knew why the LRA "child soldiers" came into existence:
basically the Ugandan army massacred all of the adults, the boys escaped into the bush, regrouped, rearmed and took the fight to the army, and WON!* You're right though - it is a huge scam; propaganda designed to generate support for the expansion of "western" neo-colonialism in western Africa, which just coincidently (not) has almost unbelievably huge mineral resources, ripe for the taking except for those pesky Africans. You might wonder where the funding came from to support this giant scam, and you would be on the verge of taking the red pill, (or the blue, I forget which was the one that exposed the matrix.)
My suggestion is to fix America before we straighten out the rest of the world."
p.s. - since it occurred to me that what I knew was from 2002, I did a little more research (haha - wikipedia - the shortcut to knowledge!). Yoweri Museveni is the enemy of the LRA, not a good guy, although there are probably no living good guys in western Africa; typical to turn on the people who put him in power. I've been very focused on this since the Rwandan genocide, literally mountains of skulls - economic and religious warfare on top of tribal warfare, but the friend of my enemy is my enemy as they say.
"His presidency has been marred, however, by invading and occupying Congo during the Second Congo War (the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998) and other conflicts in the Great Lakes region. Rebellion in the north of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army continues to perpetuate one of the world's worst humanitarian crises."
" It was while at high school that he became a born-again Christian"
"he studied economics and political science and became a Marxist, involving himself in radical pan-African politics. While at university, he formed the University Students' African Revolutionary Front activist group and led a student delegation to FRELIMO territory in Portuguese Mozambique, where he received guerrilla training. Studying under the leftist Walter Rodney, among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa."
(born-again communist, THAT can't be good)
"By July 1985, Amnesty International estimated that the Obote regime had been responsible for more than 300,000 civilian deaths across Uganda, although the CIA World Factbook puts the number at over 100,000. The human rights organisation had made several representations to the government to improve its appalling human rights record from 1982. Abuses were particularly conspicuous in an area of central Uganda known as the Luweero Triangle." (that's when he was aligned with the LRA)
" Abandoning his Marxist ideals,[yeah, sure] Museveni embraced the neoliberal structural adjustments advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."
(absolutely damning, especially with this from the world's most evil woman...) "In official briefing papers from Madeleine Albright's December 1997 Africa tour as Secretary of State, Museveni was called a "beacon of hope" who runs a "uni-party democracy," (just like the USA!)
"Troops from Rwanda and Uganda plundered the country's rich mineral deposits and timber. The United States responded to the invasion by suspending all military aid to Uganda, a disappointment to the Clinton administration, which had hoped to make Uganda the centrepiece of the African Crisis Response Initiative."
"Museveni was re-elected on 20 February 2011 with a 68% majority with 59% of registered voters having voted. The election results were disputed by both the European Union and the opposition. "The electoral process was marred with avoidable administrative and logistical failures", according to the European Union election observer team."
In short - call or write your congressperson and urge them to butt the heck out of a complex situation that most of them couldn't understand if they wanted to.
* "That’s the lesson of the 20th century: If you want to kill a few people and get bad press, then go ahead: dress in black, drink blood and talk about how you love torture like Amin, Bokassa and Hitler. But if you’re serious about wiping out whole populations, wear a dove of peace and talk about progress and love. That’s what Stalin and the US did, and between them they killed a dozen for every one Hitler got.
Obote was smart; he knew he needed that “moderate” label if he was going to wipe out all his enemies. So he smiled a lot and wore suits and talked progress…and then went to work. When a densely-populated Bantu zone called the Luwhero crescent gave him trouble, his soldiers went in and killed every **** human being in the place. Ever hear about it? No, you didn’t, because the respectable papers didn’t want to know. Amin was good copy; Obote was too “moderate.”
The survivors of Luwhero, mostly kids too young to be worth killing,
formed up in a kind of bush army and kept fighting, even when their
leader Museveni said “**** it” and hightailed it to London. And to
everybody’s surprise (including Museveni) they won. Obote’s soldiers
fled north still picking people-meat from between their teeth. Museveni
flew home in time to celebrate his victory and resume command. He is now
the official ruler of the land. Ta-da!
A real Cinderella story, Central-Africa style.
The LRA gets backing from Sudan, which uses them to massacre other Christians like the Dinka, who are rebelling against the Arabs of the North. The North/South, Muslim/Christian war in Sudan is another of those meatgrinder wars that just doesn’t interest the Western press. It’s inland, and the reporters don’t like getting too far from the beach hotels; it’s hot and malarial country; the victims are nobody’s poster boys."
A real Cinderella story, Central-Africa style.
The LRA gets backing from Sudan, which uses them to massacre other Christians like the Dinka, who are rebelling against the Arabs of the North. The North/South, Muslim/Christian war in Sudan is another of those meatgrinder wars that just doesn’t interest the Western press. It’s inland, and the reporters don’t like getting too far from the beach hotels; it’s hot and malarial country; the victims are nobody’s poster boys."
