Abu Muqawama: Post
Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS. Abu Muqawama retains the right to delete comments that include words that incite violence; are predatory, hateful, or intended to intimidate or harass; or degrade people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. In summary, don't be a jerk.
The Worst Idea on the Internet Today
It's not quite New Coke, and it's not as ill-advised as signing up to be al-Qaeda's #3, but this is a pretty bad idea.
Wrap your head around this one: the executive director of Human Rights Watch, an organization for which I have much respect, has suggested the United States wage a counter-guerrilla campaign in the dense jungles of not one but four central and east African states to defeat the Lord's Resistance Army and arrest Joseph Kony.
What could go wrong, right? I mean, this would surely be one of those in-and-out things. And our efforts to track down and arrest two dudes in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan went off without a hitch in 2001, so we probably don't need to do any contingency planning or anything. This is what we call a fail-safe plan.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Kony and other Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commanders, charging them with war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the court depends on governments to make arrests ... there is no better case for the humanitarian use of force than the urgent need to arrest Joseph Kony, the ruthless leader of the LRA, and protect the civilians who are his prey.
Kenneth Roth is literally suggesting the United States act as the world's policeman here. I have a tremendous amount of respect for both Roth and his organization, but this is a terrible, terrible idea. Roth mentions Bosnia and Kosovo as precedents for humanitarian intervention, but those were massive expeditionary operations supported by tens of thousands of soldiers. What he says is needed in this particular case is for the United States to send "special forces, expert intelligence, and rapid-deployment capacity" to a state in East Africa for humanitarian purposes.
Oh:
And as soon as US forces
And as soon as US forces accidentally killed Civilians, they would just as soon criticize them on their methods.
It's a terrible idea because
It's a terrible idea because it is so open-ended and ignorant of the local dynamics, and would be viewed as an assault on national sovereignty by the African Union.
In contrast, keeping the northern Sudanese from sweeping into southern Sudan when the locals vote for independence would indeed be a in-and-out type thing, rather like blocking Saddam from sweeping into Kuwait, but easier - however, the need for cooperation from China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the African Union, etc. is the same as in Gulf War I.
In contrast, as AbuM correctly notes, the LRA proposal is idiotic - it would be the equivalent of trying to send Special Forces into Khartoum to seize the Sudanese leader (also accused of war crimes, but in Darfur) and bring him to trial - that would lead to all manner of chaos.
This is also why the expulsion of Saddam from Kuwait by the U.S. military in Gulf War I (in collaboration with many other nations) was a good idea, while the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 turned into the biggest debacle since Vietnam.
Kenneth Roth might just be having a Noriega flashback of some kind... but the thinking is fairly typical - get the bad guy, all else will follow.
Massoud, a brilliant tactician and strategic thinker, bluntly criticized such focus by the U.S. on personalities, and he was right - you have to focus on the situational factors which allow such lunatics to come to power, otherwise it's just one lunatic after another - cut one down, another springs up, often more radical than the last.
As far as the LRA, they're just a mobile gang that survives by theft and trade in precious minerals. Once African countries become more developed and independent, they'll deal with such gangs the same way other countries do - put them in their own prisons.
Woke up today and saw
Woke up today and saw this......
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/10/12/mideast.jihadi.magazine/index....
and I thought, Geepers the Boogie man is coming to get me.
Then I had a bright idea. Build gun ranges in all locations across America or open up Police ranges to the public. Start teaching firearm safety and marksmenship. Sort of like we did in the 1940's with the civilian marksmenship program before Clinton and Obama tried to shut it down. Issue national cancealed carry permits. Could teach advanced courses to spot threats.
When Al-Qaeda of Yemen unleashes the "Truck Mower" upon us then we will give them our response......
Give the responsibility of national security to the citizen and keep out noses out of other peoples business.
The human threshing machine
The human threshing machine idea sounds like an (im)practical joke!
Out of Iraq and Into Africa!
Out of Iraq and Into Africa!
Samantha Power and Mia Farrow are creaming their panties at the thought of a "humanitarian" war in Africa.
Remember when Madeline Albright asked Colin Powell what "was the use of having the best armed forces in the world if we never use them"?
Well, what's the use of having AFRICOM if we never use it? USE IT OR LOSE IT! Fuck Yeah!
Fuck Africa, let's go Mexico!
Fuck Africa, let's go Mexico!
I say we do away with
I say we do away with AFRICOM, and stand up MEXICOM.
Hasn't something similar
Hasn't something similar been tried before?
"In 2006, in an unprecedented move, the United Nations mounted a covert operation to capture or kill him. A squad of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers set out into Congo's Garamba National Park, a longtime LRA refuge and the scene of last year's Operation Lightning Thunder. Trained in jungle warfare and accustomed to surviving in the bush for long stretches, the Guatemalans were equipped with M-16s and the latest special-operations technology. But they were no match for Kony and his child warriors. Makassa recalls the day the Guatemalans appeared. He had left Garamba park briefly to pick up food and supplies in southern Sudan, just across the border. On his way back he got a call: "The situation is bad. Unknown soldiers came to fight us. Hurry up and help us." The caller described the unknown soldiers as muzungu—a Swahili word meaning "white man."
By the time Makassa reached the scene, the battle was over. Five LRA soldiers had been killed. But not one of the Guatemalans had survived. The LRA fighters slaughtered them all and, according to one account, beheaded the commander. Some reports put the U.N. dead at eight; others say as many as 40 counterinsurgency troops may have died that morning. The LRA left the corpses in the jungle but took the weapons—including heavy machine guns and grenade launchers."
http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/15/hard-target.print.html
Is he being ironic?
Is he being ironic?
How dare he take the
How dare he take the justification for American intervention overseas at face value!
Andrew, it's not often I
Andrew, it's not often I find that I disagree with your characterisation of a situation, but this is one such occasion. What Roth has (rather loosely) proposed stands in stark contrast with the Afghanistan analogy you've given, and with others (particularly Sudan) in the comments above. We're not talking here about arresting targets with popular local support, government assistance and a well-established supply network. The LRA are criminals, lacking in major popular support, and any intervention would be carried out (Roth implies) with the express consent and support of the government(s) involved.
I certainly think the idea merits some consideration, rather than just being brushed aside.
I agree with
I agree with RogueAdventurer. The local people would be extremely happy if somebody, anybody took care of the LRA. It is a simply a criminal gang that has discovered the advantage of organizing along military lines and is led by an evil genius. Kony is a genius of sorts or he would not have survived all these years. If he were to be killed the organization, what is left of it, would collapse.
Steve C: I was in Kinshasa when the Guats were killed. I asked a British officer who was working for MONUC what happened since the Guats were special forces. He replied "there are special forces...and then there are special forces." Translation-the Guats weren't very good at all.
The LRA are proficient infantry and they have extremely good foot mobility. You have to take them seriously but they are by no means 10 feet tall.
In any event the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF) has been chasing what is left of the LRA around NE Congo and SE Central African Rep. for a year or two. They are supported by AFRICOM already. If we sent our own people in though the LRA would be gone that much quicker and that many fewer innocents would be killed.
If a legitimate case could ever be made for a humanitarian military effort to whack some guys, going after the LRA would be it.
Yeah. As crazy as it sounds
Yeah. As crazy as it sounds a campaign against the LRA might work. It's an extremely top-heavy organization that has been starving itself thin lately. Lost a lot of major fights with the Ugandan government and as far as anyone can tell is down to 300 soldiers. Child abduction has been their only real source of new fighters so they obviously won't get a lot of local support. Not all insurgencies are created equal and Uganda isn't the graveyard of empires.
The LRA is a Maoist-style guerrilla army that places hardline Christianity over ethnic loyalties and steals children to use as slaves. Sending the U.S. in would be less a 'Black Hawk Down' scenario and more the last scene of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'.
Hell with being the World's
Hell with being the World's Policeman. Let's be the World's Mercenary. They want us to take down the LRA? How much is it worth to them?
Dumbest idea I've heard in a long time.
I have to laugh. It is
I have to laugh. It is always Joe, you got some candy? Joe, you build good house for me? Joe, you give me good job. Name the place...Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, India, Vietnam, Haiti, Anywhere Africa. America even gave hand outs to Russia. You can not buy lasting peace.
All I have to say to people in Africa, don't like 'em take care of your own problems. Think about it, Africa has been the center of war after war and now all of a sudden they can not take care of their own problems? Next person to stand up on a soap box and tells America who to arrest, tell them to buy a gun or sharpen a stick and tell them to have at it.....when you get'em you can jail 'em too.
Hotel Gitmo is full. ( Have you noted that closing Gitmo has gotten quiet. What happened?)
American is already the worlds cop, finacial officer, and welfare agent. American politians feed on the world's attention (why else would a person want to be in politics unless they like attention). Wanna be a Rock Star in the world? Stand on the street corner with a stack of crisp US tax payer $100 bills, it ain't your money but the politian gets the perk (US taxpayer even pays the travel cost for this bull shit).
US is giving 100's of millions in flood aid to Pakistan, plus BILLIONS in on going AID. Pakistain, for as much as they bitch about needing money help, still has money left over to build more NUKES. American are fucking stupid and complete morons and fools.
It has to stop.
Read this, America get a grip you are making you're own bed. That is your future that your wasting. Soluton is at your finger tips, BUY THE AMERICAN LABEL.(Keep politics, energy policy, enviromental, money issues, national security local. If Corporations want to manufacture and develope markets in TEN-BUCK-TOO then let them pay for the security and pleasure of being there and not be subsidized by the American taxpayer).
American government is talking about cutting your Social Security which you have been paying into all your life while the government has spent the SS surplus for years. Get a brain, government is telling you that the money is not there....but you have been paying into it all this time. They will tell you that your current money is paying for today's retiree, there is no surplus. That is BULLSHIT. There are a heck of a lot more workers in the system than retirees, where is the surplus? How is it being invested? US can pay interest to CHINA on a 900 BILLION debt, but not on the SS surplus money? Remember, SS is not a government pension, the pension money comes from a different budget. Once a government employee gets their 30 years they receive a large percentage of their salary for the rest of their life, plus health care. The pension starts at ANY age, the government worker does not have to wait until age 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, or 70. SS is not government pension and nobody has suggested cutting the pension money or changing the governement worker retirement age....wonder why.
Joe, wake up you're being taken for a ride to make someone else look good.
America, it is your future. You can spend it or save it.
If small wars ops can be
If small wars ops can be thought of as a continuum, going after the LRA would be on the opposite end of the scale from Iraq, fighting the VC, El Salvador, Japanese ops against Filipino guerrillas and all the other conflicts that come to mind when people think "counter-insurgency" or "guerrilla". There is no matter of convincing the people to tell you things. It is much more a matter of "Thery're over there. Please go and kill them!" I don't believe there is any matter of follow up ops to preserve the gains made. The gain is dead LRA bodies. There is no need to post somebody over the corpses to make sure they don't come back to life. The people in the affected areas are shockingly poor now and they will not expect to be anything but shockingly poor after the LRA was destroyed and Kony killed. They would just be relieved of the additional terror of being killed, mutilated and having their children stolen from them. And they would be grateful. If the LRA were four legged man-eating canines instead of men, bringing in more proficient hunters to hunt down the pack would not be so shocking. That is what the LRA are and that is essentially what Mr. Roth is proposing.
One of the reasons Mr. Roth suggests this is most African armies are beyond inept and bumbling. The military forces of the Central African Republic and the DRC just can't handle, even a little bit, the LRA. The Ugandans are better but they need help. Mr. Roth quotes Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni as telling him " ...Uganda lacks the special forces, expert intelligence, and rapid-deployment capacity needed to stamp out this enemy." Those are things our forces can bring. This thing would be an end game and the helos, sigint and very proficient hunters our forces could bring would end it much more quickly.
But I don't expect it to happen, because of the war weariness of the US public that is very clearly reflected in the original post and comments.
Daver: An attempted humorous smart ass comment like that falls a little flat when you realize how really, really poor the victims of the LRA are.
...although I think I agree
...although I think I agree with you in principle, Andrew, I am left unsettled with the derisive snort of this post. The LRA are, I think, up there with the worst of the worst. Is the best U.S. policy to ignore them, or at best condemn them and do nothing? It may be the position of Mencius and his ilk that 'the savages should be left to devour the savages' (please correct me if I am wrong to put those words in your mouth, Mr. Moldbug); but I feel that this is not a morally acceptable position, nor can I believe that, given the universal unpopularity and small scale of the LRA that any form of intervention is necessarily doomed to failure.
So what I want to hear from you, Andrew, is an explanation and justification for what is (or is not) to be done. If the answer is, 'nothing,' I want to be convinced of it.
Vistor....10:20am My point
Vistor....10:20am
My point is, and I will extrapolate from Andrew's point..........
Not sure what your nationality is....
Why is it that Americans have to be convinced of anything? It ain't our business.
Don't go righteous and spew responsibility.....were is the responibility of the people in these countries?
Ever since WW2, America has put the "good guy" hat on time and time again. The world has grown up, it is time that they work it out themselves. I am American and I am fucking tired being the world's welfare daddy.
David Axe said something
David Axe said something along the same lines, saying that going after the LRA would be the perfect mission for US sof.
Let the Chinese deal with
Let the Chinese deal with them, they love Africans.
We got more stuff to worry about like foreclosure issues and unemployment.
Plus we also have to worry about the Chinese.
If we're going to use US
If we're going to use US SOF, let's use them in Mexico.
That's right you yanqui
That's right you yanqui scum! Come down here baby!
Potus gets about $400,000/yr
Potus gets about $400,000/yr plus heath care, plus secret service, plus speaking fees......for retirement.
Most Senators are millionares before they get to office......they don't need a retirement.
Representatives that hang around long enough get all the perks.......for their retirement (some will get 10's of $1,000s in social security pay outs)
All these bone heads have made what we have today. American public put them in office.
The future bone heads of America are going to tell me my Social Security and Medicare has to be cut. Is any one talking about cutting the salaries of politicians?
WHY?
Because Americans....
cured AIDS in Africa.... Hello. AIDS is 100% avoidable....send them a condem.
gave Democracy to Iraq.....The religions were still pissing on each other, where is the peace.
gave a government to Afghans.....Do they care, all they care about is how many beans they have in their bean pot.
made Columbia almost FARCless......Cheaper to do random drug testing on welfare and food stamp recipients.
have relations with China......Huh? I had to give them my JOB for that? Then pay them interest on the debt?
gave $30B in foriegn aid to Israel.....What so the middle east would be in an uproar so that gasoline is $3.00/gal.
purchased GM......Whow, do I get a get a Company owner discount? Will they make my car in America? NO.
saved the banking industry....Gee they paid the taxpayer back. Did they give me back my home value?
made homes available to all......Gee, how is Fannie and Freddie doing? Broke.
gave 1 in 8 Americans food stamps.......Do they need it? Are they buying COKE?
made a place in the military for gays........hope they can shoot STRAIGHT. Can we ask them to use condems too?
forclosed on 1 in 10 homes........good thing the paperwork is correct. Who has been in charge for the last two years?
paided for a stimlus package......hope that Chinese enjoyed the money to manufacture all that stuff Americans purchased.
write in your own silly excuse here.......".............................".
We pay our Representatives $175,000 /per year, give them better health care then we get........
We pay our Senators about the same....same health benefits.......
We pay the POTUS $400, 000/ year......same health benefits........
For this bullshit.
Are you happy?
Do you remember why America declared its Independence? It ain't a Democrat or Republican problem, it is an American one.
Not all jungles are Vietnam,
Not all jungles are Vietnam, not all guerrillas are mujahideen, not all foriegn civilians are anti-American and not all counterinsurgencies are decade-long quagmires. Don't assume the next war will go down like the last one and that any time U.S. boots touch the ground we've somehow screwed up.
It's a good idea.
I have no brief for the LRA,
I have no brief for the LRA, any more than for the Aryan Brotherhood, and I do think there's a difference between savages and savages. Yoweri Museveni isn't an African savage - he's an African king. My feeling is that the king should catch and kill the savages, preferably in a stylish and ornamental way that would have impressed Burton and Speke. I wouldn't be at all offended if he chose to eat them as well. And note that Youtube works in Africa, too.
If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach him to fish, etc. The same is true of security. When USG solves the security problems of other "sovereign" nations, it makes them dependents. What Africa needs is strong, confident, indigenous leaders, like Museveni and Kagame. The less help they get in rooting out bandits, the less they'll need. Eventually, perhaps we could disband AFRICOM entirely. Isn't that the goal? If not, why not?
Imagine how many (savage) lives would have been saved if we'd allowed Museveni and/or Kagame to turn the Congo into their own private black-on-black empire. But no - it had, and has, to remain a wasteland of anarchy, savagery and death. Otherwise, what would the development experts do?
Here, from Foreign Policy (2009), are some international development experts gloating over their brilliant successes in turning the Congo into Long Island. Here, from TIME Magazine (1955), is the sordid colonial mess they started with. (In case satire is not your thing, or you're too busy to click, the 2009 article is titled "There Is No Congo," and the 1955 article "Congo: Boom in the Jungle." But you really should read them both. "The Congo, under hard-working capitalism, has become a tropical cornucopia in the heart of a poverty-stricken continent." No shit.)
A doctor who produced these results would be a murderer. A car mechanic who produced these results would be a saboteur. A carpenter who produced these results would be a vandal. An international development expert who produces these results is... an international development expert. Sorry, I think my country's armed forces should spend less time working as State Department mercenaries and more on fortifying the Rio Grande. If they really need to blow something up, why is the Truman Building still there? The LRA are no doubt the scum of the earth, but in morality one must consider the big picture. Joseph Kony had nothing on Dean Acheson.
Why, sho', Boss. The poor,
Why, sho', Boss. The poor, poor civilians would be super grateful for EVAH once we got rid of the LRA. Which, presumably, just landed there from Mars yesterday and is totally not an organic part of the local landscape. Our guys would get in there and clean house without being hamstrung by retaaahded ROE. There would be no accidental civilian casualties to be blown out of all proportion and used as propaganda by the LRA and the American liberal establishment. And our bases would totally not fuel corruption in those parts of the local population getting the contracts and resentment in the rest. Everybody would be so thankful to America for its beneficence that they would get in line from Cairo to Durban to suck our kyaxxx. And, best of all? We're so flush with money from stimulating our own economy until it's throbbing and veiny by dumping money down the throats of our own dysfunctional retards that we can afford to dump some more into Africa, which is global dysfunctional retard central. I'm sure this investment would pay for itself 100-fold.
Seriously, is Dr. Zoidberg now OIC of the Good Idea Factory?
Ex, you're a smart guy, but
Ex, you're a smart guy, but this is a stupid post. Your historic parallels are laughably inappropriate, and to invoke Somalia just hammers home that you don't know this region, this conflict, or the recent record of UPDF operations across DRC and CAR. Seriously - hold yourself to the same standard you used to criticize the Afghanistan Study Group.
And Mencius, you continue to
And Mencius, you continue to be a half-baked idiot. Your shallow reading and selective quotation of history speaks for itself. Or rather, mumbles incoherently.
All you all needs to get
All you all needs to get laid.
"Mencius, you continue to be
"Mencius, you continue to be a half-baked idiot. Your shallow reading and selective quotation of history speaks for itself. Or rather, mumbles incoherently."
Those who can't attack the facts attack the speaker. Thus we see every Leftist, confronted with the obvious catastrophes that result when people attempt to put Leftist dogma into action, reduced to screaming that anyone who disagrees with him is a stupid, evil, corrupt racist.
Mr. Moldbug, I am sensitive
Mr. Moldbug,
I am sensitive to both the message and the satire. What I find lacking is that second option, the one between 'giving a man a fish,' and 'allowing him to starve.' I take it you believe that adjudicating that second option is tantamount to squaring the circle. Is that a fair reading?
Over at the Foreign Policy
Over at the Foreign Policy website the story we are talking about was in their "Featured Today" section. There, I read this headline.
"The Human Rights Case for Going Into Uganda"
I found it interesting in that the people responsible for the headline either didn't bother to read the story or know nothing about what is happening over there or both. Nobody would be going into Uganda, just the CAR, the DRC and maybe South Sudan. Who writes the headlines over there?
I think I can confidently
I think I can confidently say, 99.9 percent of Americans don't give a fuck about shit going down in Africa.
It doesn't affect us.
But it does affect China, so let them handle it.
Mr. X: Perhaps 99.9% of
Mr. X:
Perhaps 99.9% of Americans do not care because they don't know what the LRA is and what it does. Its' butchery isn't exactly the stuff of breathless reports on the local news. If most people did know they may or may not consider it wise to intervene but I doubt they would affect an air of macho callous dismissiveness.
China cares about the natural resources they can extract from Africa. Beyond that, they care not a whit about the suffering of the people.
"And Mencius, you continue
"And Mencius, you continue to be a half-baked idiot. Your shallow reading and selective quotation of history speaks for itself. Or rather, mumbles incoherently."
Mencius > half-baked idiot > MK
I suggest Kenneth Roth get his Mike Hoare on and do his own senseless crusading, with his own blood and treasure.
What I find lacking is that
What I find lacking is that second option, the one between 'giving a man a fish,' and 'allowing him to starve.' I take it you believe that adjudicating that second option is tantamount to squaring the circle. Is that a fair reading?
Well, it follows quite naturally from the classical theory of sovereignty. Either the regime in Kampala is responsible for Uganda, or the Africa desk is responsible for Uganda. Delicate judgment and Washington bureaucracy just don't go together. So, yes, the choice between isolationism and interventionism is just as stark and binary as extremists on either side would have you believe - like the choice between being a heroin addict, and not being a heroin addict.
Quite concretely, how hard is it to shut down any program in Washington? If USG sends forces to East Goatistan, it creates an Office of East Goatistan Operations which has a vested interest in continuing itself. Killing Joe Kony seems very closed-end and concrete, not to mention doable, but one reckons not lightly with the forces of PowerPoint.
And come on, Uganda isn't starving, literally or metaphorically. It's incredibly functional by African standards, and Rwanda is even more so. What's dysfunctional are its borderlands, a problem easily solved by allowing Uganda and Rwanda to conquer them. So again, less turns out to be more. It's State's reflexive opposition to independent "strongmen" that is the real problem here. Would there be any LRA if Kagame had founded his Tutsi Empire 10 years ago?
Carl: "Nobody would be going
Carl: "Nobody would be going into Uganda, just the CAR, the DRC and maybe South Sudan. Who writes the headlines over there?"
Just??? JUST???
Carl's comment at 10:10
Carl's comment at 10:10 pretty much sums it up.
Here is a relatively low-cost, low-risk way to do some good in the world. These are the sorts of ops you WANT: not just sanctioned, but requested by the host government. It's not playing as the world's 'policeman' so much as an older brother. It's a good mission profile fit for special ops forces as well and, as Carl notes above, there's no prolonged deployment, no hearts and minds necessary (though no loss in helping out, if you wanted to), and no long/high risk deployments to cause political tension back home.
The UGPDF is already being supported by AFRICOM in their endeavours against the LRA. Reports issued on the LRA early last year, were almost unanimous in their insistence that the key to destroying the LRA was in taking out its leadership, and Joseph Kony in particular.
I'm not saying jump in head first, but surely - Ex - you can agree this merits some consideration?
MM: Your comment of 21:20
MM: Your comment of 21:20 only mentions Uganda. The LRA isn't in Uganda anymore. It is in the DRC, the CAR and occasionally South Sudan.
Nathan: "Just??? JUST???" Yes. Yes. Those several hundred killers whom all the locals hate are operating in small groups on foot. They are good at walking long distances in order to prey and flee and it takes them to those three places.
oops. visitor of 23:35 was
oops. visitor of 23:35 was me.
@ carl, We need to follow
@ carl,
We need to follow China's example in Africa. Care less about these HIV carrying lot, and keep our eye on the prize like China. That's a foreign policy worth emulating.
As for the LRA, how many Americans have they killed? How many Americans has the Sinaloan, Zeta, and other Mexican drug cartels killed? Answer: more than the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the LRA combined.
Man, you hom0s have been
Man, you hom0s have been watching Bruce Willis' "Tears of the Sun" way too much.
Here's a great 'big brother' scene from that movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLK-Af9WjM
If you want to save Africa, why not follow Angelina Jolie and Madonna's example and adopt yourselves some little furry black kids.
And while we're at it, why not send Michelle Rhee to Africa?
http://dcist.com/attachments/Armsmasher/2008_1130_time_cover.jpg
Dear Carl, you're missing
Dear Carl, you're missing the point. Look at it this way. The quality of self-sabotaged counterinsurgencies we've been fighting has been on a steadily downward trajectory from the soldiers' point of view. Korean chicks are hot, kalbi and kimchi are awesome and so is soju. Vietnamese chicks have smaller chesticles but are still smoking, and Vietnamese food and booze are alright, too. Some Iraqi chicks are alright until they hit twenty two, and even then they're wrapped up in those goddamn ninja suits, and you can't even sneak off a FOB to hit it; the kebabs are sometimes OK if you can resign yourself to the fact that your liver's going to be leaking out of your ass the whole time you're there, and the booze is illegal; what there is is rotgut like Five Kings (whiskeyish in soda cans,) or White Horse (better than Five Kings...I guess.) Uganda? The chicks have AIDS, facial scarification, filed-down teef and National Geographic titties, the food is probably flyblown monkey face souffle, malarial mosquitoes are in the air and they chug formaldehyde.
From the national perspective, once we're done with our strictly limited mission in Africa fighting the LRA, they'll probably own the whole fucking continent, and we'll have like ten million refugees who'll live on welfare and hunt down albinos in our cities 'cause their flesh cures the hiv and gives you a rock-hard boner. So, not much to be gained there.
But I suppose that if you're an expert on the LRA, you've got a bit to gain from us going after them, since once we fuck that up via war by committee, your opinion (which currently nobody gives a shit about) will be heavily funded, and you'll be put in charge of something, get to make speeches and presentations all over the place, etc. Good times!
Yeaaaahhhh!!! Let's go
Yeaaaahhhh!!! Let's go "Tears of the Sun" on their ass. Send some hard charging Navy SEALs to save little kids.
We'll call it Operation Peter Pan, save 'em, then we'll airdrop these little African kids straight into the Hollywood Hills, where all the actors and actresses stand ready to adopt them.
Then these Hollywood yuppies can send these African kids straight to Harvard Law School.
After they graduate, they can all return to Africa and clean the place up and airdrop unicorns, and fairies, and rainbows, and elves.
Carl, What's in it for us?
Carl,
What's in it for us? Besides all the moral mumbo jumbo and the suffering of the people, what's in it for us. What do they have that's worth saving and risking our necks?
Your comment of 21:20 only
Your comment of 21:20 only mentions Uganda. The LRA isn't in Uganda anymore. It is in the DRC, the CAR and occasionally South Sudan.
I wrote: "What's dysfunctional are [Tutsistan's] borderlands, a problem easily solved by allowing Uganda and Rwanda to conquer them."
Those several hundred killers whom all the locals hate are operating in small groups on foot. They are good at walking long distances in order to prey and flee and it takes them to those three places.
Right. So the problem is: the bandits operate in non-governed country where foreign armies are themselves marauders. Thus, at least in the sense of international law, the conflict consists of one gang of bandits chasing another.
The logical solution is: the Truman Building, in its capacity as World Government, relaxes its butt-cheeks slightly and allows Museveni and Kagame, these black Napoleons of Central Africa, to adjust their borders at the expense of sundry shambolic neighbors, once functional but since decolonialized into Ebola soup. No, the Hima-Tutsis aren't Belgians. But they can herd cattle and kick ass. As working sovereigns who seized and hold their thrones by the sword, they have no problem suppressing bandits on their own territory, which is why the LRA is in Sudan, etc, to begin with. In short, bad-ass mf'ers who should be making rap videos. Bet on the strong horse.
Cost of this solution: $0, or whatever our insurance charges for space-rated gluteal relaxants. Also, the entire staff of the Carnegie Endowment, 47,000 and counting, will erupt in a grand Communist rage at the idea that war isn't outlawed and history isn't over, and probably storm the State Department in keffiyehs with Molotov cocktails. The DC police will have to restrain them with big nets. And 47,000 nets aren't free, so this is definitely a cost. But still.
The Washington solution is: the Truman Building, not wanting anyone else to even think about ruling even the tiniest, most worthless ass-scrap of the planet, reaches out across the river through the interagency process, and hires the world's best bandits, at prodigious expense, to chase these wackjobs around the lawless colon of the Nile. Let's presume our brave heroes are successful, and return with the skull of Joseph Kony, which is bronzed and set in the Oval Office where the Churchill bust used to be. Late at night when Rahm has gone home and the security cameras are off, B.H. Obama fills it with palm-wine to toast his Luo forefathers. Priceless!
Cost: $75 million, counting the skull-bronzing and throwing in some palm-wine. Result: the political niche now occupied by the LRA is vacant, summoning some new, probably even more diabolical horde of bandits. Also, there are more Africans with a taste for Washington baksheesh and more Washington bureaucrats with a taste for Africa. And this is the best-case scenario - the worst case being as "B" describes.
And Americans should finance this, why? I can think of one good reason: live-ammo training for our bad-ass warriors. Unfortunately, this need is already more than well-served by the colon of Central Asia. I realize that the terrain is very different, bad-ass warriors also requiring jungle training, and there is no jungle in the Hindu Kush. But at a certain point you're gilding the lily. As a student of history I can say confidently that our bad-ass warriors are as bad as ever. It's not for lack of bad-ass warriors that USG keeps losing wars, it's higher in the chain of command.
USG is constituted as a government of consent which serves the interests of its citizens. If it can disserve those interests, even for the sake of serving some other subset of humanity, it can operate ultra vires and disserve those interests for any stupid reason whatsoever. At some point, either the rest of the world will have to be granted US citizenship (ample precedent in Roman history), or USG will have to stop governing it. Since the rest of the world has anything but blossomed under its "older brother" in the Truman Building, and since it does not strike me that central Ohio is suffering from a grave shortage of Somalis, again the answer here seems quite clear.
My feeling is that the king
My feeling is that the king should catch and kill the savages, preferably in a stylish and ornamental way that would have impressed Burton and Speke. I wouldn't be at all offended if he chose to eat them as well. And note that Youtube works in Africa, too.
Is there any problem that you don't think can be solved by conducting yourself like a Nazi? Seriously? I've been reading this since 2006 and I can't think of any contribution of yours that couldn't be summarised as "moar extermination camps on youtube".
I have to agree with MK,
I have to agree with MK, Carl and others on this one. AM, this post shows how little you know about the region, the LRA, how it works etc. It's a good idea.
I've watched "Tears of the
I've watched "Tears of the Sun" a half dozen times, and I too think that we should use our Special Operations Forces to save people who are suffering.
There's that hammer, looking
There's that hammer, looking for a nail.
Add your comment