An artist's depiction of an Extended Unit Death
Okay, this is starting to get ridiculous. We have a report feature, so if you have an issue with someone's post not meeting LD's standards,
report it. Otherwise, you should either be contributing to the discussion or not posting at all.
If the Ugandan government asks the USA to come kill him and then go away, and the USA does so and no more, then that would be acceptable. Until then, the assassination of a citizen of a country by a foreign power is both illegal and am act of war and should not be promoted by anyone.
This is actually an interesting point. I can assume the Ugandan government wants U.S. aid, as we've already been working with them by sending one hundred men to help their military. I have no reason to believe the Ugandan government sees us as unwanted, but if you can find a source for this, I'll be happy to weigh the possibility.
Uganda and the Congo don't exactly have the strongest militaries, either. You might think its their responsibility because he's in their countries, but obviously they can't handle taking him out, so they need help.
Also, keep in mind that Kony isn't just an innocent "citizen of another country", like you're saying: he's an internationally indicted war criminal. He's also not in Uganda anymore.
That's true: Kony
isn't in Uganda anymore. We're essentially training an army that will presumably have to invade another country to accomplish this goal (and yes, Invisible Children is advocating support for the Ugandan government).
Don't think the US should police the world? Petition to resign from the UN security council. Sorry, we made it our business when we became permanent members. We need to pay our dues.
I don't think we should be the only acting force, certainly. China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom also are part of the security council, and I'm sure at least one of them is involved in fewer wars than we are at the moment.
What I'm trying to say is that the UNSC doesn't stand for "United States Security Council," and it should be a more collective effort than an individual one. And to answer your question, no, I don't think the US should police the world, but that's another topic.
Here's a snippet from Adam Branch, a senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda:
Kony 2012 and the debate around it are not about Uganda, but about America. Uganda is largely just the stage for a debate over the meaning of political activism in the US today. Likewise, in my view, the Kony 2012 campaign itself is basically irrelevant here in Uganda, and perhaps the best approach might be to just ignore it. This is for a couple reasons.
First, because Invisible Children's campaign 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 militarise Africa, to send more and more weapons and military aid, and to bolster the power of states who are US allies.
The hunt for Joseph Kony is the perfect excuse for this strategy - how 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 militarisation with or without Invisible Children - Kony 2012 just makes it a little easier. Therefore, it is the militarisation we need to worry about, not Invisible Children.
Second, because in northern Uganda, people's lives will be left untouched by this campaign, even if it were to achieve its stated objectives. This is not because all the problems have been resolved in the years since open fighting ended, but because the very serious problems people face today have little to do with Kony.
...
In terms of activism, the first step is to re-think the question: Instead of asking how the US can intervene in order to solve Africa's conflicts, we need to ask what we are already doing to cause those conflicts in the first place. How are we, as consumers, contributing to land grabbing and to the wars ravaging this region? How are we, as US citizens, allowing our government to militarise Africa in the name of the "War on Terror" and its effort to secure oil resources?
A lot of criticism of this movement is that it's not so much about helping others as it is a political move. If we really wanted to help Uganda, there are better things to do than funding a corrupt government.
TL;DR: Good guys helping bad guys wage war on innocent guys to kill a bad guy. Right?
