Kony 2012 and Invisible Children

[Magda Hassan]

You may have seen this in the last couple of days:
[video=vimeo;37119711]http://vimeo.com/37119711[/video]

And while Kony is an evil warlord who definitely deserves to be brought to justice by his people the whole campaign thing felt contrived to me. It seems other feel the same way as well. This is a multi million dollar PR campaign not a grass roots movement.

Here is their website: http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/
Instant wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012

It's even been all over the mainstream media here today. But even voices in the MSM are leery of it.

Looks more like this to me:

The truth about the K0NY movement.

[Magda Hassan]

It seems some Ugandans aren't too happy about it either. My bolding below.

A Peace of my mind: Respect my agency 2012!

by TMS RUGE | March 8, 2012 | Filed in : International Development,Uganda | 134 comments

I have had roughly 24 hours to gather my thoughts about the latest fund-raising stunt undertaken by the long-in-the-tooth Invisible Children (IC) organization. In that time, I have had an opportunity to think and ruminate over exactly what to say, what the right order of the words should be coming out of my soul to address yet another travesty in shepherd's clothing befalling my country and my continent. Usually I would fly off the handle and let passion fly, but I have grown a little since thisand this and this. Addressing the complexity that is Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)'s reign of terror in northern Uganda; what with the sheer volume of victims, the survivors, the horrific examples of humanity at its worst, and the lingering ghosts of family members behind the survivors' eyes begs a momentary pause, if but to respect the gravity of it all. I do that. I pause. I reflect and I toil with the thought that something is not right in the world that IC is still grasping at relevancy all these years after their "night walkers" campaign.
There is no easy way of saying what I feel right now, except a deep hurt and gnawing urgency to bang my head against my desk as a prescriptive to make the dumb-assery stop. Sure, Joseph Kony and his counterpart of yesteryear, Idi Amin, have largely been responsible for the single story of Uganda. I have a hard time shaking it from the lips of strangers I meet. That's all they know or seem to want to listen to. They dismissively glaze over my breathless exultations of the great promise in our youth, our technology, our agriculture, and our women.
"Sooo, Idi Amin, huh? That was terrible. Is he still alive?"
It is a slap in the face to so many of us who want to rise from the ashes of our tumultuous past and the noose of benevolent, paternalistic, aid-driven development memes. We, Africans, are sandwiched between our historically factual imperfections and well-intentioned, road-to-hell-building-do-gooders. It is a suffocating state of existence. To be properly heard, we must ride the coattails of self-righteous idiocy train. Even then, we have to fight for our voices to be respected.
The latest IC fund-raising cum "awareness-raising" is an insult to my identity and my intellectual capacity to reasonably defend its existence as beneficial to any Ugandan. The video project is so devoid of nuance, utility and respect for agency that it is appallingly hard to contextualize. I won't even try. Katrin Skaya said all that could have been said, "rarely seen something this stunningly, insidiously, clever crazy. Amazing case study."

@tmsruge @texasinafrica @lksriv. Have rarely seen something this stunningly, insidiously, clever crazy. Amazing case study. #Kony2012
Elasti Girl (@Katrinskaya) March 7, 2012

Indeed it is. But not for the reasons you would think. This IC campaign is a perfect example of how fund-sucking NGO's survive. "Raising awareness" (as vapid an exercise as it is) on the level that IC does, costs money. Loads and loads of money. Someone has to pay for the executive staff, fancy offices, and well, that 30-minute grand-savior, self-crowning exercise in ego strokingin HDwasn't free. In all this kerfuffle, I am afraid everyone is missing the true aim of IC's brilliant marketing strategy. They are not selling justice, democracy, or restoration of anyone's dignity. This is a self-aware machine that must continually find a reason to be relevant. They are, in actuality, selling themselves as the issue, as the subject, as the panacea for everything that ails me as the agency-devoid African. All I have to do is show up in my broken English, look pathetic and wanting. You, my dear social media savvy click-activist, will shed a tear, exhaust Facebook's like button, mobilize your cadre of equally ill-uninformed netizens to throw money at the problem.

Cause, you know, that works so well in the first world.
I would love nothing more than to be telling you the small victories we experience working with the very scarred survivors of Kony's atrocities. The Women of Kireka are the most resilient group of individuals that I know. Spend a day with them and you will wonder how they manage to so calmly describe to you watching their entire families burned alive, their husbands and children hacked to death, in front of them. They do it so calmly, methodically, with such articulate prose that it leaves your soul victimized for it's privilege. Yet they don't pause from rolling a perfectly crafted paper bead for a beautiful necklace. They don't waste their time lamenting the lack of justice for the fallen or the abducted. Why? Because it doesn't bring back the dead, it doesn't dissolve the horrific images of their huts burning, or ease the scars borne of running scared into the night.
Instead, they want work and respect and business to be able to make decisions that move their lives along. They want desperately to forget and rebuild anew; thankful for their lives. They want radios and cell phones and grasp at any semblance of normalcy. They cuddle and nurse their newborns like delicate, cherished gifts. What they don't talk about is justice. They talk about how to forgive and move on.
But I can't tell you their story. Why? Someone else has taken over their part in this complex saga, simplified it, branded it, packaged it and is reselling it as an Action Kit. For as little as $30 and up to $500, you get your very own pimplicious t-shirt (that was made somewhere other than Uganda or Africa) and various assortments of SWEDOW you won't care about in a month. But hey! At least you did something!
The academics have weighed in on this debate here, and here, and here and will continue to do elsewhere in the coming days. The click-activists, denied context and nuance, have spewed their ignorance all over the comments section in self-righteous indignation for all the world to see. They have whipped out their wallets and bought their very own Super Hero activist action kits. They have bombarded their friend's Facebook wall with ignominious updates.
"You must watch this! I already ordered my action kit!"
If we all start from the premise that Kony's actions over the last 25 years in East and Central Africa are atrocious and he should be stopped, we would be cut of the same moral cloth. Evil is something that is easy to point out from afar. But if we conclude that any one individual/organization/group has the right to hijack the voice of so many in the name of good, then I have a common sense pill to sell you.
Let me be honest. Africa is not short of problems, epidemics and atrocities. But it is also true that it is not short of miracles, ingenuity, and a proclivity to surprise. We as Africans, especially the Diaspora, are waking to the idea that our agency has been hijacked for far too long by well-meaning Western do-gooders with a guilty conscious, sold on the idea that Africa's ills are their responsibility. This particular affliction is called "white man's burden" in some circles. Please don't buy into this. Africa's problems are our own. I asserted as much almost 5 years ago when I started Project Diaspora.

And so to you we send this solemn pledge. No longer are we satisfied with the status quo. No longer will we look to the West and the East for a saviour to come. We here claim our political struggles as our own; our short comings as our own; our unrest as our own; our dissidence as our own; our broken infrastructure as our own; our diseases as our own; our uneducated as our own; our corruption as our own; our unfed children as our own.
We have to be given due courtesy to at least try to develop capacities adequate enough to address our issues. We will never develop that capacity to do so if IC and others think selling Action Kits delivers utopia. It didn't change our way of life when IC started, and it certainly isn't going to change our reality when the clock expires on December 31[SUP]st[/SUP].

I am coherent enough to realize when someone is trying to genuinely do good. At the surface, there's nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with assuming that the people who you are trying to help 1) need help, 2) want your help, or 3) can't help themselves. IC and this video assumes all the above. Before anyone says why haven't you done anything to stop Kony?', may I point out that it took the world's most sophisticated army over a decade and billions of dollars to catch Osama bin Laden. Kony has been on the run for 25+ years. On a continent 3 times the size of America. Catching & stopping him is not a priority of immediate concern. You know what is? Finding a bed net so that millions of kids don't die every day from malaria. How many of you know that more Ugandans died in road accidents last year (2838) than have died in the past 3 years from LRA attacks in whole of central Africa(2400)? We've picked our battles and we chose to simply try to live. And the world should be helping us live on our own terms, by respecting our agency to choose which battles to put capacity towards.

I've never heard of Germans running NGOs in [the United States of] America to try and fix the economy or Swedish NGOs in America trying to fix the declining standard of living. Africa is our problem, we hereby respectfully request you let us handle our own matters. We will make mistakes here and there, sure. That is expected. But the trade-off of writing our own destiny far outweighs the self-assigned guilt the world assigned to us. If you really want to help, keep the guilt and charity in your backyard. Bring instead, respect, and the humility to let us determine our destiny.

http://projectdiaspora.org/2012/03/08/re...ency-2012/

[Magda Hassan]

NATO, AFRICOM and the New White Man's Burden

Tue, 11/08/2011 - 14:54 Harold Green

• War On Libya |
  
• Special Forces Uganda |
  
• Oil Uganda |
  
• AFRICOM
  

by Harold Green
With the era of formal colonialism only recently ended, and only 125 years after the Europeans and the United States formally divided Africa among themselves, NATO has begun the military reimposition of Euro-American rule of the Continent. The conquest of sovereign Libya has encouraged Washington, London and Paris to escalate their armed incursions under "humanitarian" guises, and with the eager participation of native collaborators. "The imperialist powers are obviously up to their old tricks of using treacherous Africans to help in doing their ''dirty work.'''

NATO, AFRICOM and the New White Man's Burden
by Harold Green
"Western countries are once again using feigned concern as pretext for invasion and resource theft."
As we watched with bewilderment, NATO's military assault on Libya using "humanitarian intervention" as it's pretext, we are reminded of an earlier period of Western European "civilizing" missions into Africa. Shortly after the Berlin West African Conference of 1884-1885; armed with bibles and bullets, a host of countries: Britain; France; Germany; Belgium; and Portugal, "scrambled" out of Western Europe in a quest to "save Africans from themselves".
With their claim of intellectual and moral superiority echoed by Rudyard Kipling's infamously imperialistic poem, these European powers took full control of the land and lives of their new African subjects. Africa, having not fully recovered from the ravages of both the Trans-Atlantic and the Trans-Saharan Slave Trades, was ill prepared for what was to follow.
With the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, every scare inch of Africa was to come under the control of European imperialist powers. The result: nearly a hundred years of a brutal occupation; further dehumanization; theft of natural resources while subjecting Africans to internal slavery. The resulting loss of life was so high that no serious effort has ever been made to quantify it. But if Belgian, which controlled only 7% of Africa, could murder 10-15 million Congolese during this period, one could get a close estimate through extrapolation, the number of African lives destroyed by Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and later Italy. Given this history, coupled with the horrific results of NATO's incursion into Libya, what then are we to make of NATO's new identity as ''human rights interventionist.''
"Europe was in desperate need of an answer to rescue it."
At the end of the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century, Western Europe was in the middle of an industrial revolution that it could not sustain with the limited resources and markets within it's own borders. Competition for new resources and markets amongst these European powers was high. With the economic challenges resulting from the "Long Depression of 1873-1896''; overpopulation; a high rate of poverty and unemployment, Europe was in desperate need of an answer to rescue it from this malaise. Africa would prove to be the answer a thousand times over.
Today we find Europe, along with the United States, facing serious economic challenges not unlike those faced by Europe in the late 1800s. Like then, Europe and the United States are desperately looking for economic solutions that cannot be found within their national boundaries. With virtually all of the resources required to sustain their economies existing in other parts of the world but particularly in Africa, these Western countries are once again using feigned concern as pretext for invasion and resource theft. With competition now coming from Russia, India and China for these same resources, new and desperate strategies will have to be created in an attempt to justify these invasions. But how new are they?
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a military/security alliance between Western European powers and the United States, was formed shortly after the Second World War in 1949. It came out of the same Atlantic Charter that gave birth to the United Nations. Its stated purpose was to counter what member countries perceived as an expansionist threat coming from the Soviet Union. During it's existence there has never been any direct military engagement with the Soviet Union. Instead, proxy wars, mostly fought in Africa and Latin America, would become the order of the day. While the Soviet Union sought to (at times meekly) aid the various Liberation Movements in Africa and the Americas, the NATO countries on the other hand, were interested in maintaining their sphere of economic influence in these regions.
"New and desperate strategies will have to be created in an attempt to justify these invasions."
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO virtually overnight had become an irrelevant military bureaucracy. Many military and foreign policy experts began to speculate that NATO would soon be relegated to the dustbin of history. To avoid what seemed to be an imminent demise, NATO began looking for new roles to play in world affairs. What has happened as a result, as one foreign policy observer describes, has been "mission creep on a grand scale."
No longer concerned about guarding against the Red Army rushing across its borders, NATO countries have now armed themselves with a host of new missions (pretexts), from: fighting terrorism; saving the environment; crisis management; to "humanitarian intervention (sic)." With a new futuristic $1.38 billion building on a 100 acre site in Brussels, and having expanded from it's original 16 members to 28 (most of the new member states ironically coming from the former Soviet Union), and with the combined military budgets of member states comprising 70 percent of what the world spends on defense, this "new" NATO is riding high with a renewed sense of purpose, anxious to show the world it still has relevance. Africa (and the world) should be worried.
While significantly controlled by the US, which provides 75 percent of it's budget, NATO is headed by the arrogant and opportunistic Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark. With a very aggressive agenda for this made over NATO including offering NATO's services to the United Nations as a "global peacekeeping" force, he has in recent years already overseen NATO's involvement in several conflicts outside of Europe. Most notably, its involvement with the US in Afghanistan where it continues to kill innocent people, and is continuously asked to leave by many distraught and outraged Afghans.
"With the combined military budgets of member states comprising 70 percent of what the world spends on defense, this "new" NATO is riding high with a renewed sense of purpose."
It has also become involved in patrolling the waters off the coast of Somalia to protect foreign vessels from being seajacked by so-called Somali pirates. This campaign has resulted in an avalanche of deaths of Somalis, passengers and crew members of seajacked ships. Keeping in mind, when Somalis started boarding these ships which had illegally begun fishing in their waters seventeen years ago, not one hostage taken by them had ever been killed. All that changed with the Obama administration coming to power in 2009 (the year NATO, with mostly US Naval ships, started patrolling the Somalia coast).
In April of that year, President Obama gave the first orders for snipers to kill Somalis who had boarded the American flagged ship, The Maersk Alabama demanding ransom. France would soon follow with the killing of eight Somalis in another seajacking incident. Now with the U.S. and France with NATO support, seemingly engaged in a full scale war against the Somali nationalist group Al-Shabat, we can only expect the number of dead Somalis to increase even more. This U.S. war in Somalia is also being augmented by troops from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi, with Uganda and Burundi involvement ironically, coming under the auspices of an African Union peace keeping mission. A new U.S. Drone base for this war has just been established in Ethiopia as well. The imperialist powers are obviously up to their old tricks of using treacherous Africans to help in doing their ''dirty work.''
Immediately following the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, Chris Coons, chairmanof the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on African affairs was reported as saying "Muammar Gadhafi's death and the promise of a new Libyan regime are arguments for the measured U.S. military response in central Africa...''. Encouraged by the results in Libya, the U.S. has recently sent roughly 100 troops to Uganda to track down members of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). U.S. troops are also being sent to the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan'.
"This U.S. war in Somalia is also being augmented by troops from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi."
It is obvious Senator Coons made this remark with AFRICOM in mind. This newly created U.S.military command for Africa, conceived by the Heritage Foundation during the Bush administration, could not have come at a more opportunistic time for the imperialistic thinking NATO countries. Working in conjunction with AFRICOM during the Libya campaign, and gloating over it's alledged success, NATO now sees itself as indispensible in this new war to ''save humanity.'' The cooperation between these 2 military packs represent a perilous development for Africa. With the Obama adminstration acknowledging the Libya campaign as AFRICOM's ''first'' undertaking, Africans no longer have to guess what the rest of AFRICOM's endeavors on the Continent will look like.
Like their 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century predecessors in their mission to take on the ''burden'' of spreading the benefits of European ''enlightenment',' this new generation of marauders from the ''North'' are poised to, once again, impose on Africa the coldness of death, destruction and displacement which so characterized their earlier campaigns of human upliftment on the Continent.
Having failed to effectively respond to NATO's and AFRICOM's assault on Libya, Africa must at some point show that it has learned the lessons of the past, and resolve itself to remove this ''white man's burden," once and for all.
Harold Green can be contacted at paclwp@msn.com.
REFERENCES:
The Son of Africa Claims a Continent's Crown Jewels
http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=7635.0
U.S. drone base in Ethi*o*pia is operational
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html
Sole Military Super-Bloc: NATO Issues Daily Reprieves To The World
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27482
http://blackagendareport.com/content/nat...ans-burden

[Magda Hassan]

Invisible Children "Kony 2012" Leader Suggests It's About Jesus and Evangelizing

Is one of the biggest viral video in history Christian fundamentalist propaganda? Invisible Children's founder lays out his agenda at Liberty University.
March 8, 2012 |

Photo Credit: Sean Dreilinger

"A lot of people fear Christians, they fear Liberty University, they fear Invisible Children - because they feel like we have an agenda. They see us and they go, "You want me to sign up for something, you want my money. You want, you want me to believe in your God." And it freaks them out." --- Jason Russell, speaking at Liberty University, November 7, 2011Is Invisible Children a nonprofit devoted to human needs, or is it a ministry devoted to bringing souls to Jesus ? Judging by a talk co-founder Jason Russell gave last November at Liberty University, it would seem to be a bit of both.
A few days ago, Russell's Invisible Children nonprofit began to blitz the Internet with posts on social media promoting the nonprofit's new KONY 2012 video, which by now has received over 36 million hits. The media campaign has already provoked a backlash of well informed criticism, from academics and other with expertise concerning Joseph Kony and the LRA, and the conflict in Northern Uganda and the surrounding region (see links and material, below transcript).Foreign Affairs charges Invisible Children with misrepresenting the facts, and Foreign Affairs guest contributor Michael Wilkerson notes the deceptive nature of the KONY 2012 video, narrated by Jason Russell, which mentions only in passing that Joseph Kony is no longer in Northern Uganda (his LRA hasn't operated there for years).
Another common objection of critics has been that Invisible Children's approach is simplistic and neglects the fact that the Ugandan government (whose armed forces now hunting for Joseph Kony are accused of rape and looting) has itself been accused of crimes against humanity that at least rival but may exceed those of Joseph Kony and his LRA (see appended story resource links).
Some, such as Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair author Michael Deibert, warn that Invisible Children's effort, which endorses increased US military involvement in the region, may actually make things worse.
The evangelical magazine Christianity Today has covered the growing controversy over the Invisible Children publicity campaign, and Invisible Children has issued a response to the gathering criticism.
So far few have noticed the decidedly evangelical ties of Invisible Children. But that's not surprising: Judging from the organization's website and promotional material, Invisible Children would seem to be non-religious, purely devoted to the health and well-being of children in Northern Uganda and the surrounding region, to "ending genocide", and to capturing Joseph Kony.

On its face, the effort appears secular, and evangelizing is not mentioned as an objective.
But in a November 7, 2011 appearance at Liberty University, as part of Liberty's Fall Convocation speaker series, Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell hinted that Invisible Children was also an evangelizing effort, and during his talk Russell coached Liberty University students on what could be characterized as extremely low-key, or stealth, evangelism.
Joining Russell onstage during his November 7 Liberty University appearance was Alex Harris, credited with playing a key role in driving Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential bid. At 20:20 into the 39 minute discussion, Harris received a question from the Liberty University student audience - "What is the greatest challenge to the millennial generation, in impacting the world for Christ ?"
Jason Russell fielded the following question from the audience which was, as characterized by Johnnie Moore, Liberty University Vice President of Teaching Projects,"How do you motivate hypocritical, apathetic Christians to, kind of, `get in the fight'? "
What was "the fight"? The message was ambiguous. Earlier in the discussion, Jason Russell had stated his goal of "ending genocide" and capturing Joseph Kony, but that goal seemed framed within the larger project of evangelizing the nations. During the discussion, as a backdrop, hung a blue curtain that proclaimed, "Liberty University: 40 Years of Training Champions For Christ".
The lineup of notables on Liberty's Fall Convocation speaker roster also included Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Christian history revisionist David Barton, and pastor Jim Garlow, who spearheaded the project of organizing evangelical pastors in California, in the 2008 campaign to pass the anti-same sex marriage Proposition Eight (both Barton and Garlow also have ties to the Gingrich presidential campaign effort).
[video, below: Jason Russell, with Alex Harris, at Liberty University, November 7, 2011]

"Liberty University Convocation Discussion, November 7, 2011Jason Russell, co-founder of "Invisible Children"
Question: How do you motivate hypocritical, apathetic Christians to, kind of, `get in the fight'?
Russell: People are scared. Of Liberty University. [Addresses graduating students] You guys know this. They're scared because they see the power and potential in this room, the conviction you have, the connectivity you have. And they look at this arena and they go, "that's scary - if they realized what they could do, it would revolutionize the world." That's why you're here.
And so I think that it is that insecurity or that realizing, "I don't have what it takes" - but you DO. We DO. And, the trick is to not go out into the world and say, "I'm going to baptize you, I'm going to convict you, I have an agenda to win you over."
You agenda is to look into the eyes, as Jesus did, and say, "who are you? And will you be my friend?" - Like he did to the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the fisherman. The biggest mistake that we make is to saying, we make a line and we say, "black, white, are you in or are you out?"
I just, I have a hard time digesting that mentality. And I think that's why a lot of people fear Christians, they fear Liberty University, theyfear Invisible Children because they feel like we have an agenda. They see us and they go, "You want me to sign up for something, you want my money. You want, you want me to believe in your God.
And it freaks them out.
So figure out a way, you know - I have totally been there. I have been there so many times. I'm like, "I wonder if they know?" I wonder if they're in the group." And it's like, "No! That is judgment itself." "

RESOURCES
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/s...nitor.html ( the best summary I've yet seen of conflict in Northern Uganda, 1986 - 2007 )
Critiques of Invisible Children
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-de...27417.html
http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/1...ot-trouble
http://www.wrongingrights.com/2009/03/wo...ever.html/
http://chrisblattman.com/2009/03/04/visible-children/
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1...?page=show
http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/AR...06-02.html ( "How Invisible Children Falsely Marketed The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act" )
http://www.thegauntlet.com/article/1320/...ation.html ( Invisible Children confirms pro-interventionist stance )
Alleged crimes and human rights abuses by Uganda and the Ugandan People's Defense Forces
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=...Itemid=116 ( UPDF, hunting for Kony in DRC, accused of rape, looting )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upITVcXw_Gk ( Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, shot his way into power using child soldiers )
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10521.pdf ( Uganda was indicted, in 2005, by the International Criminal Court for War Crimes in DRC Congo )
Reports, from UN, on Uganda & Rwanda war crimes in DRC Congo
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum...rwanda.htm
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum...uganda.htm
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum..._intro.htm
Wikipedia cover of DRC conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_...civil_wars
Accusations of an Acholi Genocide
[ Yoweri Museveni has been accused of engineering a planned, slow genocide against the Acholi people of Northern Uganda (note: Blackstar News links to web-cached versions of stories - site under heavy traffic load)]
http://www.musevenimemo.org/ ( David Todd Whitmore, of University of Notre Dame, studies traditional Acholi culture, says 1980s memo, allegedly from Yoweri Museveni, indicates plan to depopulate Acholi areas of Northern Uganda, to open up access for fertile farmland. )
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/20..._photos_r/ ( ABC report suggests Ugandan government coverup )
http://www.acholitimes.com/culture/index...&Itemid=23 - ( " Genocide in Uganda: The African Nightmare Christopher Hitchens Missed " )
http://www.independent.co.ug/News/news/3...the-acholi ( Uganda Independent covers accusations of an Acholi genocide )
http://allafrica.com/stories/201101050048.html
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/d...ocide.html ( "Structure and Agency in Acholi Genocide" )
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/i...&Itemid=43 ( "Genocide in Comparative Perspective; the Jewish and Acholi Experience" )
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/columnists/161-the-achol-qfinal-solutionq.html ( "The Acholi Final Solution", 2007, by Milton Allimadi, editor of NYC-based Blackstar News )
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=book...html/10361 ( "Ending Uganda's "Brilliant" Genocide", Allimadi )
http://www.km-net.org.uk/conferences/KM9...causes.htm
http://www.ugandagenocide.info/ ( general source for writings on Acholi conflict & Ugandan gov. )
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us ( report from Dr. Adam Branch, whose research is based in Northern Uganda )
http://www.david-kilgour.com/mp/Ugandan%...ildren.htm ( Canadian parliament member, on Acholi camps )
http://www.blackcommentator.com/93/93_otika_uganda.html ( Ugandan student, studying in US, weighs in )
http://www.alternet.org/visions/154477/invisible_children_%22kony_2012%22_leader_suggests_it's_about_jesus_and_evangelizing?page=entire

[Magda Hassan]

See also this thread https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sho...tance-Army

[Lauren Johnson]

Updated | Saturday | 12:13 p.m. As my colleagues David Goodman and Jennifer Preston explain, a viral marketing campaign to raise awareness of the suffering inflicted on African children by the warlord Joseph Kony has dominated social media conversations this week, despite concerns that the young Americans behind it might be spreading factual inaccuracies and wasting donors' money.
While much of the backlash reported in the American news media this week cited objections raised by development experts in the United States and Europe, several African bloggers and activists have objected to what they see as more fundamental problems. Among them, the possibility that the "Kony 2012″ campaign reinforces the old idea, once used to justify colonial exploitation, that Africans are helpless and need to be saved by Westerners.
Many African critics of the new effort to make Mr. Kony, the brutal leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a household name in the United States five months after President Obama pleased Human Rights Watch and annoyed Rush Limbaugh by dispatching military advisers to aid in his capture said it echoed the ideas in Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden," written in 1899 to urge Americans to embrace their imperial destiny and rule over the "new-caught, sullen peoples," of the Philippines even though the typical native was "half-devil and half-child."
In a critique of the campaign posted on YouTube, Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan blogger, observed that the filmmaker behind the "Kony 2012″ viral video calling for action "plays so much on the idea that this war has been going on because millions of Americans" and other Westerners, "have been ignorant about it."
Speaking directly to the camera, Ms. Kagumire added:
this is another video where I see an outsider trying to be a hero rescuing African children. We have seen these stories a lot in Ethiopia, celebrities coming in Somalia, you know, it does not end the problem. I think we need to have kind of sound, intelligent campaigns that are geared towards real policy shifts, rather than a very sensationalized story that is out to make one person cry, and at the end of the day, we forget about it.

I think it's all about trying to make a difference, but how do you tell the story of Africans? It's much more important what the story is, actually, because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless… you shouldn't be telling my story if you don't believe that I also have the power to change what is going on. And this video seems to say that the power lies in America, and it does not lie with my government, it does not lie with local initiatives on the ground, that aspect is lacking. And this is the problem, it is furthering that narrative about Africans: totally unable to help themselves and needing outside help all the time.
A Ugandan journalist, Angelo Izama, took up the same theme, arguing that all such campaigns aimed at "saving hapless Africans," were problematic because, "the simplicity of the good versus evil,'" narrative, "where good is inevitably white/Western and bad is black or African, is also reminiscent of some of the worst excesses of the colonial-era interventions."
In an angry blog post, dismissing the Kony campaign as a "fund-raising stunt," the Ugandan-American activist TMS Ruge wrote: "We as Africans, especially the diaspora, are waking to the idea that our agency has been hijacked for far too long by well-meaning Western do-gooders with a guilty conscience, sold on the idea that Africa's ills are their responsibility." He added:

Africa is our problem, we hereby respectfully request you let us handle our own matters. We will make mistakes here and there, sure. That is expected. But the trade-off of writing our own destiny far outweighs the self-assigned guilt the world assigned to us. If you really want to help, keep the guilt and charity in your backyard. Bring instead, respect, and the humility to let us determine our destiny.

As Max Fisher reported for The Atlantic, the Nigerian-American novelist Teju Cole, responded to the Kony campaign on Twitter with "Seven thoughts on the banality of sentimentality." In his biting critique, Mr. Cole wrote that the American charity behind the Kony campaign, Invisible Children, was part of what he called the "White Savior Industrial Complex," along with the economist Jeffrey Sachs, The Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and the organizers of the TED conferences on technology, entertainment and design.

responses to this post:
D conferences on technology, entertainment and design.

Teju Cole @tejucole
1- From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
2- The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
3- The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
4- This world exists simply to satisfy the needsincluding, importantly, the sentimental needsof white people and Oprah.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
6- Feverish worry over that awful African warlord. But close to 1.5 million Iraqis died from an American war of choice. Worry about that.

8 Mar 12

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Teju Cole @tejucole
7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.

8 Mar 12

Watching the viral hubbub over the campaign build from North Africa, the Egyptian activist Mosa'ab Elshamy was distinctly unimpressed. Mr. Elshamy, who took part in the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last year, and documented it on Twitter, told The Lede: "I felt awkward about the whole thing without even reading the tons of critiques on the Internet. It just doesn't make sense: the whole exploiting teenagers to buy bracelets and paint graffiti just to make them feel they've done something."
On the brighter side, he observed, the campaign did at least generate some inspired comedy, in the form of an online photo book imagining how the entire thing might have been dreamed up at the White House to justify President Obama's deployment of troops to Africa.

Mosa'ab Elshamy @mosaaberizing
But the greatest thing about stupid campaigns like KONY is that it always brings out the best comedy. Like this. i.imgur.com/K3mgn.jpg

8 Mar 12

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Updated: After this post was originally published, the blogger Rosebell Kagumire pointed to an outraged open letter to Jason Russell, the American filmmaker behind Invisible Children and the "Kony2012″ video, written by Amber Ha, a student at Columbia University. Ms. Ha wrote: "Last year I went to Gulu, Uganda, where Invisible Children is based, and interviewed over 50 locals. Every single person questioned Invisible Children's legitimacy and intention."
On her blog, Ms. Ha also posted a link to a response to the video from Adam Branch, an American expert on "the politics of human rights intervention," who currently lives and works in Kampala, Uganda. Writing on the Web site of Uganda's Makerere Institute of Social Research, Mr. Branch observed: "As someone who has worked in and done research on the war in northern Uganda for over a decade, much of it with a local human rights organization based in Gulu, the Invisible Children organization and their videos have infuriated me to no end." He added:

My frustration with the group has largely reflected the concerns expressed so eloquently by those individuals who have been willing to bring the fury of Invisible Children's true believers down upon themselves in order to point out what is wrong with what this group of young Americans is doing: the warmongering, the self-indulgence, the commercialization, the reductive and one-sided story they tell, their portrayal of Africans as helpless children in need of rescue by white Americans, and the fact that civilians in Uganda and central Africa may have to pay a steep price in their own lives so that a lot of young Americans can feel good about themselves, and a few can make good money. This, of course, is sickening, and I think that Kony 2012 is a case of Invisible Children having finally gone too far. They are now facing a backlash from people of conscience who refuse to abandon their capacity to think for themselves….
Invisible Children is a symptom, not a cause. It is an excuse that the US government has gladly adopted in order to help justify the expansion of their military presence in central Africa. Invisible Children are "useful idiots," being used by those in the US government who seek to militarize Africa, to send more and more weapons and military aid, and to build the power of military rulers who are US allies. The hunt for Joseph Kony is the perfect excuse for this strategyhow often does the US government find millions of young Americans pleading that they intervene militarily in a place rich in oil and other resources? The US government would be pursuing this militarization with or without Invisible ChildrenKony 2012 just makes it a bit easier. Therefore, it is the militarization we need to worry about, not Invisible Children.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03...&seid=auto

[Lauren Johnson]

Barf Warning: step back from your computer after clicking.

http://stopkony20120.spreadshirt.com/

[Magda Hassan]

[Magda Hassan]

Invisible Children Funded By Antigay, Creationist Christian Right

[update: Why does it matter, if Invisible Children was funded by controversial donors? Two reasons - one, we can assume those donors thought IC aligned with their agenda - which is antagonistic to LGBT rights. Two, it fits an emerging pattern in which Invisible Children appears selectively concerned about crimes committed by Joseph Kony but indifferent to crimes, perhaps on a bigger scale, committed by their provisional partner, the government of Uganda - whose president shot his way into power using child soldiers, before Joseph Kony began using child soldiers. Like Kony, the government of Uganda was also indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005, for human rights abuses and looting in the DRC Congo (PDF file of ICC ruling against Uganda). Like Kony, the Ugandan army preys upon civilians and is currently accused, by Western human rights groups, with raping and looting in the DRC Congo, where it is hunting for Kony. In the late 1990s, Uganda helped spark a conflict in DRC Congo that, by the middle of the next decade it is estimated, had killed up to 5.4 million civilians, more than any conflict since World War Two. See appended "Resource" section for more information. For a very different perspective on IC, Kony, and Northern Uganda, see this editorial by Milton Allimadi, of the NYC-based Blackstar news service]
What does Invisible Children share in common with the Discovery Institute, the leading organization promoting "Intelligent Design", a pseudo-scientific theory created to insinuate creationist ideas into public schools or with The Call, whose leader Lou Engle claims homosexuals are possessed by demons, callsGod an "avenger of blood" and a "terrorist", and in May 2010 staged a rally in Kampala, Uganda, at which Engle warned of a gay menace to society and shared a stage with one of the authors of Uganda's notorious Anti Homosexuality Bill ?
990 IRS tax forms and yearly reports from Invisible Children, and 990s from its major donors, tell a story that's jarringly at odds with the secular, airbrushed, feelgood image the nonprofit has cultivated.
Among the tens of millions of people who have watched Invisible Children's KONY 2012 viral video, including Oprah Winfrey a dedicated supporter of LGBT rights who also has given $2 million dollars to Invisible Children, how many were aware of IC's extensive financial ties to far-right fundamentalism, including major funders of the mounting global war on gay rights ? IC doesn't go out of its way to advertise these things.
But Invisible Children's first yearly report, from 2006, gives "special thanks" to the "Caster Family Foundation" and IC's 2007 report is more specific, thanking Terry and Barbara Caster. In the lead up to the 2008 election, the California-based Caster family was identified as one of the biggest financial backers of the push for California's anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8.
Capping the pro-Prop 8 push was a November 1, 2008 San Diego stadium rally held by The Call, whose leader Lou Engle warned that same sex marriage couldunleash a "sexual insanity" that would be "more demonic than Islam" and suggested believers should carry out acts of martyrdom to stop gay marriage and legal abortion, which Engle predicts will lead to a second American civil war.
One of The Call's major donors in 2008 also gave, that same year, over 400,000 dollars to Invisible Children. These links weren't anomalies. They were part of a pattern.
What does Invisible Children share in common with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council (pegged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group"), or the Fellowship Foundation one of the nonprofit entities of the Washington-based evangelical organization also known as "The Family" (covered in two books by journalist Jeff Sharlet) whose leader Doug Coe has been captured on video celebrating the dedication inspired by Hitler, Lenin, and Mao ?
What does IC have in common with the ministry of California evangelist Ed Silvoso, who works directly with leading Ugandan author and promoter of the Anti Homosexuality Bill (also called the "kill the gays bill") Julius Oyet who claimsthat "even animals are wiser than homosexuals"?
The answer? all of these ministries the Discovery Institute, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, The Fellowship Foundation, The Call, Ed Silvoso's Harvest Evangelism, and Invisible Children received at least $100,000 in 2008 from what has emerged in the last decade as the biggest funder of the hard, antigay, creationist Christian right: the National Christian Foundation.

2008 grants from National Christian Foundation, and subsidiaries
Focus on The Family: $4,268,000
Family Research Council: $2,387,000
The Fellowship Foundation (AKA "The Family" or the "International Foundation"): $515,000
Lou Engle's The Call: $166,000
Ed Silvoso's Harvest Evangelism: $817,000
The Discovery Institute: $702,000*
Invisible Children: $414,000*
*NCF's 2008 990 lists $139,000 to IC; NCF subsidiary ProVision Foundation's 2008 990 lists a $150,000 grant to IC; NCF subsidiary ProVision Trust's 2008 990 lists a $125,000 grant to IC.
*Answers in Genesis, which directly promotes "Young Earth" creationism,received over $35,000 from the NCF in 2008.

Since it came into existence in 1982, cooked up by canny tax lawyers, the National Christian Foundationcovered in a story by journalist Michael Reynolds published in the December 2005 issue of Mother Jones (extended version of story available here) has swollen into a financial behemoth that disperses over 1/2 a billion dollars a year to Christian charities. But not just any Christian charities.
The NCF, which counts billionaire, controversial Rick Santorum-backer Foster Friess among its donors, funds nonprofits that advance its agenda which, as stated on the NCF website, is to "enable followers of Christ to give wisely to advance His Kingdom".
(Joining with Foster Friess, as one of the top 2 donors to Rick Santorum's Red, White, and Blue Fund Super-PAC, was Templeton Foundation head Dr. John Templeton, Jr. who donated $35,000 to Invisible Children in 2007 according to the group's 2007 990.)
The National Christian Foundation's statement of belief is solidly fundamentalist: "We believe that the entire Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God; the only infallible rule of faith and practice." Also stated on NCF's website:

"Our board members know they are charged with a great responsibility. Their goal is to make certain every dollar that comes to us is ultimately distributed according to our Christian mission"

2008 wasn't the first year Invisible Children benefited from National Christian Foundation largesse IC's 2007 990 tax form lists three grants, totaling $350,000, from NCF subsidiary the ProVision Foundation (which is also specifically thanked in IC's 2007 and 2008 annual reports).
Invisible Children's first filed 990 tax form, for the calender year running from mid 2005 to mid 2006, listed a $30,000 cash donation, IC's biggest cash gift that year, from another fundamentalist granting organization, based in Colorado Springs, called the Christian Community Foundation, Inc. (also known as "Waterstone")
In 2009, CCF assets surpassed $138,000,000 and the foundation made over $20,000,000 in grants, including $365,000 to the Family Research Council and $297,000 to Focus on The Family, as well as small grants to Answers in Genesis and the Fellowship Foundation.
The membership of the Christian Community Foundation, Inc.'s board of directors overlaps with board membership of National Christian Foundation subsidiaries; what this suggests is that, from its first calendar year, Invisible Children had appeared on the radar screen of some of the world's largest Christian fundamentalist grant-making organizationswhich apparently deemed Invisible Children to be a worthy investment that would help advance particular visions for establishing God's kingdom on Earth.
IC was also on the radar screen, judging by his $5,218 donation listed on the Invisible Children 2006 990 tax form, of Philip Anschutz the reclusive, Colorado-based devout Christian billionaire, dubbed the "stealth media mogul", who was in 2007 worth an estimated $6.7 billion dollars.
According to journalist Bill Berkowitz, Anschutz has helped fund the Discovery Institute and supported Colorado's 1992 anti-gay marriage Amendment 2. In 2005 Anschutz co-produced, in conjunction with Walt Disney Pictures, the Christian-themed fantasy film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe."
Along with the pro-Proposition 8 Caster Family, another backer specifically thanked in Invisible Children's first yearly report was the Circle Family Foundation, also known as "Malachi 3″, a small foundation which funds a stable of ministries including Campus Crusade For Christ, whose founder the late Bill Bright patterned his ministry along the lines of revolutionary communist cell groups.
Bright, who once declared himself to be "involved in a conspiracy with thousands of others to overthrow the world' ", also helped birth the dominionist "Seven Mountains" mandate, which instructs believers to take control of significant sectors of society and culture including: media, arts and entertainment, government, business and finance, the family, religion, and education.
[note: this story explores almost wholly overlooked ties between the Invisible Children nonprofit and the politicized fundamentalist right. It is not intended as a dedicated critique of Invisible Children's effort to publicize Joseph Kony and the LRA, or the nonprofit's conduct generally. Subsequent installments will address those issues. For a very different profile of American evangelical involvement in Uganda, see my 20-minute documentary video Transforming Uganda, cited in 2010 testimony before Congress.]
RESOURCES
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/s...nitor.html ( the best summary I've yet seen of conflict in Northern Uganda, 1986 2007 )
Critiques of Invisible Children
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-de...27417.html
http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/1...ot-trouble
http://www.wrongingrights.com/2009/03/wo...ever.html/
http://chrisblattman.com/2009/03/04/visible-children/
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1...?page=show
http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/AR...06-02.html ( "How Invisible Children Falsely Marketed The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act" )
http://www.thegauntlet.com/article/1320/...ation.html ( Invisible Children confirms pro-interventionist stance )
Alleged crimes and human rights abuses by Uganda and the Ugandan People's Defense Forces
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=...Itemid=116 ( UPDF, hunting for Kony in DRC, accused of rape, looting )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upITVcXw_Gk ( Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, shot his way into power using child soldiers )
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10521.pdf ( Uganda was indicted, in 2005, by the International Criminal Court for War Crimes in DRC Congo )
Reports, from UN, on Uganda & Rwanda war crimes in DRC Congo
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum...rwanda.htm
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum...uganda.htm
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/DRC/docum..._intro.htm
Wikipedia cover of DRC conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_...civil_wars
Accusations of an Acholi Genocide
[ Yoweri Museveni has been accused of engineering a planned, slow genocide against the Acholi people of Northern Uganda (note: Blackstar News links to web-cached versions of stories - site under heavy traffic load)]
http://www.musevenimemo.org/ ( David Todd Whitmore, of University of Notre Dame, studies traditional Acholi culture, says 1980s memo, allegedly from Yoweri Museveni, indicates plan to depopulate Acholi areas of Northern Uganda, to open up access for fertile farmland. )
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/20..._photos_r/ ( ABC report suggests Ugandan government coverup )
http://www.acholitimes.com/culture/index...&Itemid=23 ( " Genocide in Uganda: The African Nightmare Christopher Hitchens Missed " )
http://www.independent.co.ug/News/news/3...the-acholi ( Uganda Independent covers accusations of an Acholi genocide )
http://allafrica.com/stories/201101050048.html
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/d...ocide.html ( "Structure and Agency in Acholi Genocide" )
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/i...&Itemid=43 ( "Genocide in Comparative Perspective; the Jewish and Acholi Experience" )
http://www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org/columnists/161-the-achol-qfinal-solutionq.html ( "The Acholi Final Solution", 2007, by Milton Allimadi, editor of NYC-based Blackstar News )
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=book...html/10361 ( "Ending Uganda's "Brilliant" Genocide", Allimadi )
http://www.km-net.org.uk/conferences/KM9...causes.htm
http://www.ugandagenocide.info/ ( general source for writings on Acholi conflict & Ugandan gov. )
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us ( report from Dr. Adam Branch, whose research is based in Northern Uganda )
http://www.david-kilgour.com/mp/Ugandan%...ildren.htm ( Canadian parliament member, on Acholi camps )
http://www.blackcommentator.com/93/93_otika_uganda.html ( Ugandan student, studying in US, weighs in )
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2012...ian-right/

[Magda Hassan]

The Kony 2012 Scam: Funded by Chase Bank; Big Oil

Political scandals have slowed Tullow Oil's goal to pump 200k barrels of oil per day.

You have probably seen or heard about the Kony 2012 campaign. The professionally produced advertising campaignfrom Invisible Children has gone viral to demand that a Ugandan rebel leader, Joseph Kony, turn himself in for war crimes.The video makes a compelling, emotional appeal based on a simplified, yet reasonably accurate history of child soldiers in Kony's "The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).Invisible Children would like the US to be more involved in bringing Joseph Kony to justice.Let's look at the context. As with most politics, it's a bit complex. It gets exciting near the end, I promise.The British established a colony in Uganda, and entrusted the Acholi tribe with the military power to keep the peace.In 1986, Ugandan President Tito Okello, a member of the Acholi tribe was overthrown in a violent revolution by Yoweri Museveni, a corrupt Marxist dictator who quickly outlawed political opposition. Religion is also a factor: the Acholis are Catholic, and Museveni is a born-again Christian.

In Uganda, peaceful political parties and protests are illegal.

Without any ability to form an opposing political party, manyAcholis initially supported Joseph Konys rebellion. But Kony's popularity failed when he began to brutally enforce his own strict version of Catholicism on his tribe to create a new government based on his interpretation of the 10 Commandments.When his popularity dissipated, Kony turned to forced recruitments. It's estimated that Kony's forces have kidnapped between 60 to 100,000 children since 1986, often killing their parents in the process.Uganda (a Catholic and born-again Christian country) has sided with South Sudan(also Christian) in their struggle for freedom against Northern Sudan (predominantly Muslim). In retaliation, Northern Sudan began funding Joseph Kony in the mid-1990′s.Now, the war in Sudan has reached an unstable truce. After the International Criminal Court issued an indictment against Joseph Kony, Northern Sudan cut off his funding. Joseph Kony has disappeared, and is probably no longer in Uganda. Many believe he is hiding in the African bush, probably in Congo. The fact is Kony is no longer leading an army or kidnapping child soldiers.So, here's the big question: Why does Invisible Children want the United States and the United Kingdom focused on a retired rebel leader, Joseph Kony, when there are still many other active child armies in other countries?Joseph Kony has been kidnapping children since 1986 (over 26 years) why should we care now? What has changed?OIL.In 2005, oil was discovered in Uganda. Tullow Oil has been planning to pump 200,000 barrels of oil per day, but the Marxist President Yoweri Museveni's administration is now very unstable and reeling from bribery scandals. The political instability and existence of the Lord's Resistance Army, has slowed the plans to produce oil.In 2008, the United States military assisted financially and logistically during the unsuccessful Operation Lightning Thunder to stop Kony.In May 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act that made it American policy to kill or capture Joseph Kony and to crush his rebellion.In October 2011, Obama authorized the deployment of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa.Their goal is to help regional forces remove Kony and senior LRA leaders from the battlefield.JP Morgan Chase BankChase Bank contributed $1 million to Invisible Children to help them produce the KONY 2012 campaign, among other programs. AND JP Morgan Chase is also a major investmest banker of Tullow Oil.. That's right, the oil company that needs US military help to pump oil out of Uganda.ConclusionInvisible Children may be a legitimate charity interested in helping the people of Uganda, but they are being used by oil companies and banks to encourage American military intervention in Uganda.Before you donate to a cause, or even forward a video, learn about the real issues. The underlying cause of Joseph Kony's rise to power is the Marxist President Yoweri Museveni's ban on legitimate politcal opposition, and the support by foreign governments like Sudan. Arresting Joseph Kony may help encourage peace, but the real answer is political and economic reform inside Uganda.Sending US military troops is not the answer to every political problem in the world.Short URL: http://occupythe99percent.com/?p=12577