Ok, I'm still trying to figure out how an "exhausted" and "dehydrated" man remedies those problems by running through the streets of San Diego, naked with the midday sun beating down on him, but I digress. Kony 2012 producer Jason Russell did all of that and was shockingly not even arrested for the behavior.
The video message at the bottom of this post, from Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey, attempts to shed additional light on the reasons for Russell's outburst while assuring viewers that the Kony 2012 campaign has not ended.
Keesey starts out by saying that "these last two weeks have been.. really tough." That's a bit ironic considering what the victims shown in the Kony 2012 video have gone through; he probably should have left that part out. Nonetheless, the position from Keesey is that Invisible Children was hoping to get a half a million sets of eyeballs to watch their video and that they weren't prepared for what they got - 100 Million. He then points to all of that attention bearing down on Russell, who didn't know how to handle it. His way of doing so was apparently to call even more attention to himself by running naked through the streets of San Diego. I'm sorry, I'm having a tough time buying this.
These guys are well-intentioned but they have no clue what they're dealing with. Joseph Kony - the guy they're after - is a Muslim Brotherhood pawn. Until they're able to see the bigger picture, they could do far more harm than good. They've already set out to make Joseph Kony famous by selling merchandise that bears his likeness. This too is dangerous because it very well could lead to the Che Guevara effect, where people like Carlos Santana wear t-shirts that make a mass murderer iconic.
Mr. Keesey, instead of blindly pressing forward, perhaps you should take Russell's behavior as a sign that you're in over your heads, however well-intentioned you may be.
Yesterday, I wrote about Machine Gun Preacher Sam Childers and his reaction to the Kony 2012 video. In essence, he said the effort is nice but that Joseph Kony is only a small part of the problem. If people were serious about dealing with the real problem, attention should be focused on Northern Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir.
Now, here is Daniel Hoffman, Associate Professor of African Studies at the University of Washington. He basically says that Kony is nowhere near as important as he was five to ten years ago and that he isn't even in Uganda anymore. While he tries not to be critical of Kony 2012, he clearly is when asked to compare Kony to other problems in the region, though he doesn't mention Bashir.
Pay particularly close attention at the 6:00 mark. Hoffman says that if Kony is removed from power, it could take international attention off the region. Again, this is what Childers warned about when he implied that Bashir could commit further genocide against the Christian south if attention is diverted away from it. Bashir is already getting significant pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood to implement stricter forms of Sharia law.
In short, if the Kony 2012 campaign is successful, it could leave the brand new Republic of South Sudan in even more vulnerable, which is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants.
Back in October of 2011, the Obama administration made news by announcing that it would be sending one hundred military advisors to Uganda to deal with one of the most evil men in the world - Joseph Kony. It was a puzzling decision when we were already engaged in military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya at the time.
Here is an excerpt from the White House letter on the subject, written to Speaker John Boehner:
In furtherance of the Congress's stated policy, I have authorized a small number of combat equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield. I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter LRA efforts in central Africa.
More than anything else, the move and subsequent announcement seemed bizarre.
Less than six months later, a YouTube video pops up called Kony 2012 by a charity that goes by the moniker, "Invisible Children." After just two days, the video garnered more than 25 million views. Some sources are asking questions about the group's funding.
At first blush, the video comes off as extremely noble and calls for a mass, international movement to remove Kony by December of 2012 while leveraging the new social media in order to do it. As you watch though, other questions arise. Who or what is really behind the success of this video? What made this one take off so quickly? Who are the producers of the video? Is it wise for them to be touting the International Criminal Court as the final authority? Is there a political agenda that involves arresting Kony at around the same time as the elections? Is there any connection between the Obama administration's sending troops there and the timing of this video's release? Was there any communication or coordination between those troops and the producers of this film? Part of the video features what appears to be members of "Invisible Children" in the Uganda war zone. Were U.S. troops nearby?
This is clearly a concerted effort to use social media in much the same way as it was used in the Arab Spring uprisings and the OWS protests. In this particular case, it's being used against a very evil man but what if it works? Is it a model that could be used against political enemies instead of just evil men? Also, what's up with the circular peace sign used by these protesters? It's a left wing symbol, which indicates a left wing movement, potentially. Video of young people raising clenched fists can be seen as well. Again, that too is a symbol of left wing unity and solidarity.
Another interesting aspect to Kony is that he is not a Muslim. With the increase in persecution of Christians all over the Middle East taking place at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, why this monumental effort to focus on Joseph Kony? Again, I cannot stress enough that this guy is one evil dude but what is going on here? Is this international community organizing? Is this a civilian international security force?
If this movement is an attempt solely to remove Kony, it'd be a very good thing. If it's an attempt to use his arrest as a political springboard, it quickly becomes something else entirely. If mobilizing millions of people all over the world results in granting the ICC more power, the long-term consequences could be quite dangerous.
Is this an attempt to open Pandora's box by doing so in the name of a good cause?
Coincidentally, at about the same time the Obama administration's letter to Boehner was issued, a film about the heroic story of Sam Childers - starring Gerard Butler - was released. Childers, a man with an ugly past, made saving the children of Sudan and Uganda his life's work. The courage of Childers is beyond immeasurable. Known as the Machine Gun Preacher, he converted to Christianity and built orphanages for Kony's victims. The work he's done in the region is the stuff of legend. I wrote about it at the time here and here.
On Thursday, October 13th, I went to see the latest Gerard Butler film entitled 'Machine Gun Preacher.' It is a film based on the true story of a former heroin addict who became a born again Christian. Sam Childers was subsequently inspired to go to Sudan to help Christian children who were being terrorized by a man named Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). On Friday, October 14th, news broke that Obama was sending troops in to Uganda to target Kony. Look for a narrative to develop over the coming days from the Obama administration's apparatchiks that says Kony is an extreme Christian. That's an outright lie I wrote about over at Breitbart's Big Peace site:
Joseph Kony, the monstrous leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, a group possibly more despicable than Hitler’s nazis, has apparently been targeted by the Obama administration. News broke on October 14th that 100 US troops were being sent to track Kony down. The meme that is being floated in the liberal media is that Kony is a radical Christian protestant. Obama’s apparatchiks might attempt to advance that meme as much as possible for political advantage against the Christian right.
There’s a small problem with it. It’s a lie.
Late last month, a movie – Machine Gun Preacher – was released about a man named Sam Childers, whose character is played by Hollywood A-lister Gerard Butler. Childers, a former heroin addict and bad guy himself, converted to Christianity; he was inspired to help the children of southern Sudan and northern Uganda after hearing a guest speaker at his church.
Childers knows the truth about Kony; he’s witnessed the evil from a front row seat. The Machine Gun preacher built an orphanage for Sudanese children, replete with a playground, in a war zone and has defended it against Kony’s LRA by fighting alongside Sudanese freedom fighters with guns. Childers has put his life at risk countless times while protecting children from capture, torture, rape, and perhaps the most despicable fate enslaved boys can endure – being ordered to kill their own brethren by fighting as soldiers in Kony’s LRA.
In 2007, I had the opportuntiy to interview Childers on my radio show. The subject of Kony came up multiple times. Here is a portion of what Childers told me:
“Our area is almost all Christian people and the LRA is financed by the Arabs of the north… so the Arabs are the Muslims so it’s basically a holy war inside of our area. This man (Kony) is just out to kill every Christian he can kill in south Sudan and also in Northern Uganda… He’s being financed… it’s been proved for many, many years that the Arabs of the northern Sudan ok, which is Muslims, they have been financing this man for many, many years.”
Kony is a very, very bad guy who needs to go. That point is granted. What cannot and should not be allowed to happen is the politization of his motives to push a narrative that says he is a Christian. The truth is that he is an insane madman whose evil is sanctioned by northern Sudan’s Arab Muslims. Childers went on to explain that Kony claims to have added an eleventh Commandment to the Judeo-Christian ten. It says, “Thou shalt not ride a bicycle.” Childers also said Kony reportedly had “160 some spirits that speak to him.” These are NOT Christian tenets, nor is killing children. Islamists, however, do believe in killing non-Muslim children; Kony does that for them while being paid to do so.
In some respects, this comes back to the Islamic problem the west simply refuses to identify. Kony is evil, for sure, but Childers indicated to me in 2007 that the root of the problem is Arab Muslim money:
“The north gives truckloads after truckloads of guns and ammunition and money and food so if somebody’s not financing a war, no, I don’t believe it would be going on.”
The reality is that if Kony isn’t a Muslim, he’s certainly doing the will of the Arab Islamists while taking their money to do it. If he is removed, Islamist money will find a new proxy.
The Arab Spring meme has been serving Islamists well for months now. The Muslim Brotherhood waits in the wings for dictators to fall in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria; it then fills the vacuum left behind after the Obama administration either runs interference or does its dirty work.
The situation in Uganda is similar in some ways with the potential for an added twist. Look for western media to paint the picture of a radical Christian named Joseph Kony who is slaughtering children in the name of Christianity so it can convey moral equivalency between religions. If it is successful, know that the Obama adminstration will have approved such a portrayal.
Meanwhile, the Arabic Islamists will hide behind the Joseph-Kony-is-a-Christian narrative just like they are hiding behind the Arab Spring moniker.
The conservative media must not allow this administration to establish the narrative that Kony is Christian; it's a lie.
When Obama commenced his 'kinetic military action' in Libya two months ago, he did so without the approval of Congress. Thanks to the War Powers Act of 1973, the clock began ticking relative to that operation. From that point, he had 60 days before he had to get the approval of Congress to continue those operations. Those 60 days expired yesterday. Today, there is no congressional approval and the kinetic military action has not ceased. Yes, Obama blew the deadline.
Interestingly, the Act was passed on Nixon's watch as a result of the Vietnam War. Congress even overrode Nixon's veto to pass it. The irony is palpable. Barack Obama is siding with a vetoed Nixon.
His argument for not pulling out of Libya? Well, it's not really a military action, it's only a kinetic one.
In an effort to satisfy those arguing he needs to seek congressional authorization to continue US military activity in accordance with the War Powers Resolution, President Obama wrote a letter to congressional leaders this afternoon suggesting that the role is now so “limited” he does not need to seek congressional approval.
“Since April 4,” the president wrote, “U.S. participation has consisted of: (1) non-kinetic support to the NATO-led operation, including intelligence, logistical support, and search and rescue assistance; (2) aircraft that have assisted in the suppression and destruction of air defenses in support of the no-fly zone; and (3) since April 23, precision strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles against a limited set of clearly defined targets in support of the NATO-led coalition's efforts.”
A senior administration official told ABC News that the letter is intended to describe “a narrow US effort that is intermittent and principally an effort to support to support the ongoing NATO-led and UN-authorized civilian support mission and no fly zone.”
“The US role is one of support,” the official said, “and the kinetic pieces of that are intermittent.”
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the war in Vietnam labeled a 'police action' and not a war?
Congress should not stand by and let this happen. Then again, the most powerful Republican in Congress does cry a lot.
