"Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians???"

Photo: A former abductee of the Lord's Resistance Army


Rush Limbaugh On Lord's Resistance Army

Posted By Blake Hounshell
Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 12:52 PM
Courtesy Of "Foreign Policy Magazine"

Yesterday, when President Obama announced that the United States would be sending 100 special operations forces to help Uganda battle the Lord's Resistance Army, a notorious and brutaldeath cult led by Joseph Kony, a joke went around on Twitter that Michele Bachmann would soon be attacking the president for "targeting Christians."

Of course, to call the LRA "Christians" is to abase the English language. As the Atlantic's Graeme Wood put it in a profile of Kony last year, "An American diplomat in Bangui compared the group to the Manson family, but given that the LRA has killed 12,000 people, the comparison is self-evidently unfair to Manson."

Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth wrote of the group last fall:

Its cadre often descends on a remote village, slaughters every adult in sight, and then kidnaps the children, some shockingly young -- the boys to become soldiers slinging AK-47s, the girls to serve as "bush wives." Over more than two decades, many thousands have fallen victim to these roving mass murderers. 

But Bachmann was too smart to fall into this trap, and instead it was Rush Limbaugh who jumped on the news to attack Obama. Behold:

Lord's Resistance Army are Christians.  They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. ... So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and -- (interruption) no, I'm not kidding.  Jacob Tapper just reported it. ... 

Lord's Resistance Army objectives.  I have them here.  "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people." Now, again Lord's Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out.  The objectives of the Lord's Resistance Army, what they're trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following:  "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology."  Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield. 

Then, after a break, he (sort of) realizes his mistake:

Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.

It takes your breath away, doesn't it?

US Combat Troops Ordered To Africa!

Why Send US Troops Against African Bush Fighters?

By Associated Press,
Published: October 14
Courtesy Of "The Washington Post"

NAIROBI, Kenya — Why is the U.S. sending its troops to finish off a fractured band of bush fighters in the middle of Africa? Political payback for the quiet sacrifices of Uganda’s troops in Somalia could be one reason.

President Barack Obama announced Friday he is dispatching about 100 U.S. troops — mostly special operations forces — to central Africa to advise in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army — a guerrilla group accused of widespread atrocities across several countries. The first U.S. troops arrived Wednesday.

Long considered one of Africa’s most brutal rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago. But the rebels are at their weakest point in 15 years. Their forces are fractured and scattered, and the Ugandan military estimated earlier this year that only 200 to 400 fighters remain. In 2003 the LRA had 3,000 armed troops and 2,000 people in support roles.

But capturing LRA leader Joseph Kony — a ruthless and brutal thug — remains the highest priority for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a 25-year-leader who has committed thousands of troops to the African Union force in Somalia to fight militants from al-Shabab, a group with ties from al-Qaida.

The U.S. has not had forces in Somalia since pulling out shortly after the 1993 Black Hawk Down battle in Mogadishu in which 18 American troops died, raising the possibility that military advisers in Uganda could be payback for U.S.-funded Ugandan troops in Somalia.

“I’ve been hearing that. I don’t know if our group necessarily agrees with that, but it definitely would make sense,” said Matt Brown, a spokesman for the Enough Project, a U.S. group working to end genocide and crimes against humanity, especially in central Africa.

“The U.S. doesn’t have to fight al-Qaida-linked Shabab in Somalia, so we help Uganda take care of their domestic security problems, freeing them up to fight a more dangerous — or a more pressing, perhaps — issue in Somalia. I don’t know if we would necessarily say that but it’s surely a plausible theory,” Brown said.

Col. Felix Kulayigye, Uganda’s military spokesman, told The Associated Press previously that Ugandan forces have long received “invaluable” support from the U.S. military, including intelligence sharing, in the fight against the LRA.

That support got a huge boost this week.

Though the deployment of 100 troops is relatively small, it marks a possible sea-change for Washington in overcoming its reluctance to commit troops to Africa. Even the U.S. Africa Command, which oversees U.S. military operations on the continent, is based in Germany. The U.S. maintains a base in the tiny East African nation of Djibouti, but most troops there are not on combat missions.

The LRA poses no known security threat to the United States, and a report from the Enough Project last year said that Kony no longer has complete and direct command and control over each LRA unit.

But the group’s tactics have been widely condemned as vicious. Few are expected to object to Obama’s move to help regional security forces eliminate a group that has slaughtered thousands of civilians and routinely kidnaps children to be child soldiers and sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for his group’s attacks, which now take place in South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic.

Still, Bill Roggio, the managing editor of The Long War Journal, called the Obama administration’s rationale for sending troops “puzzling,” especially since the LRA does not present a national security threat to the U.S. — “despite what President Obama said.”

“The timing of this deployment is odd, especially given the administration’s desire to disengage from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Roggio said. “It is unclear why the issue has resurfaced, but the administration may be rewarding Uganda” for its military contributions in Somalia, he said.

Obama said that although the U.S. troops will be combat equipped, they will not engage LRA forces unless it is in self-defense.

In recent months, the administration has stepped up its support for Uganda. In June, the Pentagon moved to send nearly $45 million in military equipment to Uganda and Burundi, another country contributing in Somalia. The aid included four small drones, body armor and night-vision and communications gear and is being used in the fight against al-Shabab.

Last November, the U.S. announced a new strategy to counter the LRA’s attacks on civilians. U.S. legislation passed last year with huge bipartisian support calling for the coordination of U.S. diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military efforts against the LRA. That’s one reason, Brown said, Obama may be sending in advisers. He said that regional stability is also good for U.S. interests.

“It really doesn’t take that many U.S. resources,” Brown said. “You’ve got 100 troops to go in and take care of the LRA problem once and for all.”

__

Jason Straziuso has been AP’s bureau chief in East Africa since 2009.

Only 6 Percent Of Terrorists Are Muslim

By SABRINA PARK
Published: September 13, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Daily Titan"

Okay, let’s get one thing straight: not all terrorists are Muslim. Yes, I said it and it’s completely true. Why people continue to generalize all terrorists as being Muslim is beyond me- perhaps it has to do with their lack of knowledge on the topic and laziness to find out the legitimacy of the claim. It is also possible that since people are so quick to believe what they are told, they are able to easily adopt someone else’s views as their own. I wouldn’t doubt it- I mean; we all know hardly anyone can think for themselves these days anyway.

A frequent saying goes: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.” This was recently said by Reverend Flip Benham on Aug. 11 during Anderson Cooper’s 360 show on CNN.

Benham argued, “Anderson, I understand exactly what you’re saying. You need to ask yourself the question why are all terrorists Muslim? Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim, and that’s just pretty-” Benham is quickly interrupted by Cooper who says, “Well, that’s just not completely true because, in fact, the guy who blew up the Oklahoma City-” Only to be interrupted again by the all-too-confident Benham who claims that, “Islam is a lie from the pit of hell.” Talk about being ignorant and close-minded.

What an unfortunate and pessimistic attitude for one to have on the subject, especially if one does not have all their facts straight. For some reason, this quote remains attached to the people of Islamic faith and continues to label them at such a low standard- it is utterly nauseating.

So, that being said, let’s think for ourselves and do some research: exactly what percent of Muslims are terrorists? Well, according to FBI files, which can be accessed through fbi.gov, only 6 percent of terrorists are Muslim. The remaining percentage of terrorist attacks on U.S. territory includes: Latinos at 42 percent, extreme Left Wing groups at 24 percent, Jewish extremists at 7 percent, Communists at 5 percent, and other terrorist organizations at 16 percent.

If only 6 percent of terrorists are Muslim, then why does the media only cover the attacks by Islamic extremists? It doesn’t make sense and the way it is being portrayed is entirely deceptive and misleading.

This leaves me perplexed beyond explanation. How is it that FBI files have record that Latinos are responsible for the highest percentage of terrorism toward the U.S., yet we still live in constant fear of being attacked by Muslims?

Also, why is it that they continue to get racially profiled for being terrorists? I’m pretty sure that no one stops Latinos or Jews at the airport for suspicion of intentions to hijack a plane. Let’s be clear though, I am in no way saying that they should be stopped- I don’t think anyone should be stopped just because they “look” skeptical. Latinos and Jews certainly have had their fair share of being discriminated against and that, in itself, is another unjust situation we can talk about some other time.

But the point here is, Muslims are being targeted unfairly for terrorism when Islamic extremists carried out only 6 percent of the attacks. According to SFGate.com, “if only 10 percent of Muslim Americans were sympathetic toward Islamic extremism, they would constitute a force greater in number than the Coalition forces used to invade Iraq. I submit that if a force that large was in the United States, New York would look a lot more like Baghdad. It doesn’t, because the number of Islamic extremists is actually only a tiny percentage of the Muslim-American population.”

Granted, 9/11 certainly produced a greater number of casualties than other terrorist attacks, but they are still not grounds for picking out Muslims and blaming them for all the attacks on the U.S.- not to mention, accusing them of all being terrorists.

A study completed by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said, “The terrorist threat posed by radicalized Muslim-Americans has been exaggerated.”

Obviously. After seeing the actual percentage of terrorist attacks executed by Islamic extremists, it could not be more transparent- not all terrorists are Muslim and not all Muslims are terrorists!

What's The Ideology Of Christian Fundamentalist LRA?

Christian Extremist Fanatics Cite Biblical Texts As They Commit Worse Atrocities In South Sudan.

First Published 2009-09-30
Courtesy Of Middle-East-Online



Among the many victims of the LRA

LONDON - The Christian extremist Ugandan rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army are reappearing in the news with their brutal methods of murder, rape and enslavement but in recent news coverage little is mentioned of the ideology that drives the bible-bashing fanatics.

The extremist group was founded by a former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda who - like most extremists of all faiths - turned against fellow believers for not adhering to his particular interpretation of the religion.

This explains his attacks on rival churches, although sectarian fighting is not something exclusive to one brand of Christian (or even non-Christian) extremists.

He uses biblical references to explain why it is necessary to kill his own people, since they have - in his view - failed to support his cause.

LRA: 'It is there in the Bible'

"When you go to fight you make the sign of the cross first. If you fail to do this, you will be killed," one young fighter who escaped from the LRA told Human Rights Watch.

"You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit."

His Christian extremist group is notorious for abducting thousands of children, forcing them to become either soldiers for his radical views or sex slaves.

The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

He is described as a self-styled prophet who believes in Jesus, son of God.

One of Kony’s aides, Moses, was quoted as saying: “Kony is a messenger from God! We follow the commands of the Holy Spirit!”

Moses continues to explain Kony’s reasoning: “If someone has done something bad to you, you have to kill them!”

LRA: 'We follow the commands of the Holy Spirit'

“Go and read in Matthew, chapter what and what, it is stated that if your right hand causes trouble, cut if off! It is there in the Bible!”

“He taught us how to pray,” one of Kony’s wives said. He had named was of his sons George Bush. And like the former US president, he also claims to receive personal visions from God.

In an interview with Vincent Otti, who was LRA second in command at the time, the Christian fanatic was asked about the group's name and its ideal system of government.

Otti's response was: Lord’s Resistance Army is just the name of the movement, because we are fighting in the name of God. God is the one helping us in the bush. That’s why we created this name, Lord’s Resistance Army. And people always ask us, are we fighting for the [biblical] Ten Commandments of God. That is true – because the Ten Commandments of God is the constitution that God has given to the people of the world. All people. If you go to the constitution, nobody will accept people who steal, nobody could accept to go and take somebody’s wife, nobody could accept to innocently kill, or whatever. The Ten Commandments carries all this.

LRA leaders appear to regard violence as a way of purging society of impurity; those who die, whether civilians, government troops or LRA child soldiers, are those who are believed to have broken religious commands.

Kony uses passages from the Pentateuch to justify mutilation and murder.

Kony launched his rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda in 1987, tapping into political grievances among the northern Acholi people, and infused by a belief he was destined to rule the country according to the biblical Ten Commandments, after establishing a theocratic state.

LRA: 'You must make a cross in oil on your gun'

LRA fighters soon achieved notoriety by turning on the Acholis they claimed to represent, hacking off lips, ears and noses, killing thousands and abducting more than 20,000 civilians, mostly children.

The children who have been abducted were often forced to kill their own parents so they have no way back.

Congo had no part in the war until 2005, when the LRA sought sanctuary in the remote Garamba national park after being forced out of northern Uganda and South Sudan.

During two years of subsequent peace negotiations, the rebels were largely quiet, cultivating land and accepting food aid. After talks collapsed in 2008 due to Kony's refusal to sign a final deal, he ordered his fighters back into action.

Association with the LRA had taken on a new acceptability to the extent that politicians, lawyers, church and civic leaders from Uganda can openly attend the talks as observers or delegates.

Occasionally he became animated – a sudden wide smile and an extended hand – when greeted in Acholi by Ugandan observers from the church and the northern constituencies.

Amnesty International reported that without child abductions, the LRA would have few combatants.

"Men, women, girls, babies, killed with machetes, knives and hoes," said one witness. "In one village they made mothers put their small children inside grain mortars and pound them."

People who were abducted into Kony's forces and later escaped describe him as a crazed religious leader.

But extremists of any faith do not operate in a vacuum and the LRA is said to have had an unlikely alliance with the Sudanese government in Khartoum, who wished to retaliate against the Uganda government for supporting rebels in south Sudan.

The alleged Sudan-LRA cooperation based on mutual interest appears to be reminiscent of America's alliance to Al-Qaeda during the war against the soviets in Afghanistan.

But the government in Khartoum, though not a 100% US-backed dictatorship like the majority of Arab governments, was nevertheless keen on improving soaring ties with the US, who sided with the south Sudan rebels.

This meant there would be less tolerance of LRA by Sudan.

LRA: 'We fighting for the Ten Commandments of God'

Kony’s options narrowed further in 2005 when Khartoum signed a peace deal with the southern rebels to end their long civil war. Both sides agreed foreign forces – including the LRA – must leave. Kony fled across the border into Congo’s Garamba National Park.

But - ironically - some LRA forces remained in or returned to the areas controlled by mainly Christian south Sudan.

Human Rights Watch accused the mainly Christian regional government of southern Sudan of ignoring an International Criminal Court’s warrants for the arrest of four top Ugandan rebel leaders.

In one occasion, Kony, who was in southern Sudan, had even met the Christian region's Vice-President, Riek Machar.

Kony had asked the government of southern Sudan to facilitate talks between him and President Museveni of Uganda.

The LRA has killed more people than many other terrorist groups, yet few Americans or Europeans have ever heard of it.

Attacks attributed to LRA have killed at least 188 civilians and displaced 68,000 in Southern Sudan since January 2009, with 137 abductions also reported, according to the UN.

Currently, LRA continue to lunch attacks in south Sudan, whose mainly Christian civilian population is itself preoccupied with brutal internal killings.

The violence there has surpassed that in the western region of Darfur, yet again little media attention has focused on that part of the conflict where it is mainly Christian civilians killing each other.

Christian Extremist LRA 'Still A Threat'

LRA want to form a Christian government based on the Bible

UN Forces Over-Stretched Amid String Of Violent Inter-Ethnic Clashes In Southern Sudan.

First Published 2009-09-25
Courtesy Of Middle-East-Online

KINSHASA - Ugandan Christian extremist rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have been weakened by recent attacks but remain a threat, a UN military source said Thursday.

"The LRA are weakened but still remain active. They're still a threat," the military spokesman of the UN mission in Congo (MONUC), Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said.

"They attack any target, including military ones, capable of providing them with some supplies," he stressed.

From the end of 2008 until March, the Ugandan and South Sudanese armies joined the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) in an offensive aimed at crushing the rebels and their leader, Joseph Kony.

The LRA, which has been active in DR Congo for more than a decade, was then estimated at about 100 men within the country and in neighbouring South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

They have the reputation of being among the most brutal rebel forces in the world.

The FARDC has been given logistical support from MONUC to fight the LRA since April. The Congolese army has killed 344 rebels and captured 82 more, including two of Kony's wives, according to the latest FARDC figures.

On September 14, the Ugandan army said it had killed Lieutenant-Colonel Arit Santos, an LRA commander, during a clash in the Central African Republic.

Attacks attributed to LRA have killed at least 188 civilians and displaced 68,000 in southern Sudan since January 2009, with 137 abductions also reported, according to the UN.

"Many innocent people are losing their lives every week, and the United Nations is very concerned about the killing, abduction, maiming and displacement of innocent civilians," said Ameerah Haq, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.

"During the last six weeks alone, 11 incidents of LRA attacks have been reported, seven of them in the first week of September," Haq told reporters on 11 September during a visit to Yambio, the state capital of Western Equatoria.

"There is not much coming from the [Sudanese] state, they are not able to provide the security that they [people] need," said the UN’s Haq. "While the humanitarian community is providing food and other non-food items, the food itself is becoming a magnet for LRA attacks… The answer to that is really how we can provide security around a perimeter."

Extra troops from the south’s military, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), have been sent to the region, according to spokesman Maj-Gen Kuol Diem Kuol.

"We are working hard and doing all we can to ensure the safety of civilians in the region," he explained.

The Ugandan-led LRA began its campaign of brutal guerrilla raids two decades ago, but has launched a fresh wave of attacks terrorising a vast swathe of land across several nations.

The guerrilla group aims to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments.

Their ferocious extremist attacks, with Christian rebels chopping off the limbs and lips of their victims, were often aimed more at the civilians they said they fought for than at the military.

The LRA's top Christian extremist leaders -- fugitives from the International Criminal Court -- are accused of having forcibly enlisted child soldiers and sex slaves, and of slaughtering tens of thousands of people.

The radical Christian group is still enslaving children.

The main military force are Ugandan troops, whose soldiers have established camps in Sudan to try and hunt down the now mobile LRA units in southern Sudan, DRC and CAR.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has just 200 blue helmets based in the sprawling region of Western Equatoria.

Officials said the force has been stretched by a string of recent violent inter-ethnic clashes elsewhere in southern Sudan.

Its mandate, one official added, needed to be beefed up by the UN Security Council to allow active military engagement against the LRA.

"We need an integrated approach to really provide security to these people, [and] that will require the support of the UN and UNMIS," said Jemma Nunu Kumba, the governor of Western Equatoria.

"UNMIS needs to get involved just like MONUC [the UN peacekeeping mission] in Congo [DRC], to be able to repulse the rebels when they are attacking the civilians," he added.

Those displaced by the LRA say more effort is needed, not simply to hunt the rebels, but to provide security that would allow people to return to their homes.

"The LRA have killed our people, and they took two of my children," said Karina Zeferino, who fled after attacks in August on her hometown of Ezo, close to Sudan’s border with CAR.

She trekked the 155km to Yambio town with her remaining young daughter.

After the attacks, peacekeepers airlifted UN staff and aid workers from Ezo by helicopter, shutting down international humanitarian work in that area.

"People are suffering, but we cannot go home because the LRA will attack again," added Zeferino, holding her child tightly to her side. "There is no help for us there, so that is why we have come to Yambio, but it is hard here too."

"The LRA will remain a problem and we will be unable to go home until pressure is really put on them by all sides," said Gaaniko Bate, a leader of the ever-growing Makpandu camp in southern Sudan, which hosts some 2,530 refugees from DRC.

"These people will not be easily stopped," he added.