As the Sudan heats up, so does the Kony Distraction

No one uses misdirection more than the Obama administration and when it comes to an evil, evil man named Joseph Kony, misdirection is in full swing. However, in this case, Kony is the object of the administration's spotlight, not Sudan, where it should be.

As Omar al-Bashir, the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president of Sudan is beating the drums of war louder, almost by the day, against Christian South Sudan, reports about the search for Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), are distracting attention from them. By nearly all accounts, Kony is far less of a factor than he was years ago. Most suspect he's not even in Uganda anymore, the country where he perpetrated the most evil. Many wonder whether Kony is even alive.

Bashir's propaganda machine is in full gear; it is whipping the Muslim masses up into a frenzy by pointing to South Sudan's withdrawal from Heglig, an oil rich border region. South Sudan claims it took over that area because Bashir's forces were launching attacks from there. Bashir is pointing to South Sudan's exit as a major victory and is fanning the flames of hate against South Sudan.

The Arab League has publicly condemned South Sudan:

The Arab League on Thursday condemned South Sudan's "military aggression" against an oil-rich border region claimed by Sudan while also supporting Sudan's right to defend itself. The statement came as some fear growing disputes between the two countries may soon lead to an all-out war.

South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year after a referendum held as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war, but unresolved issues such as the sharing of oil revenues and demarcation of the border have led to tensions and clashes.

Earlier this month, South Sudanese troops attacked and captured the oil-rich Heglig area. Sudan says it has since recaptured it. Earlier this week, after South Sudan said it was withdrawing its troops from Heglig, Sudan dropped bombs on the South. The U.N. said the bombs killed 16 civilians.

Sudan is a member of the Arab League, whose foreign ministers were meeting in Cairo. Their statement called on South Sudan to respect the borders between the two nations and to stop supporting rebel movements in Sudan's western Darfur region, south Kordofan and Blue Nile.

More rhetoric that should be garnering the attention of the international community is coming from Sudan's governing party, the National Congress Party (NCP). The political secretary says that South Sudan's exit from Heglig is spawning a "Sudanese Spring."

Via Sudan Times:

State media broadcast footages of massive crowds pouring to the streets in celebration of Heglig takeover by the Sudanese army on Friday, 20 April.

According to the NCP’s political secretary, Hasabu Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, the scenes were evidence of a “Sudanese spring” that silenced voices of internal dissent.

Meanwhile, though Barack Obama has publicly encouraged Sudan and South Sudan to do everything possible to avoid war, he only seems to be using one of the Alinsky tactics on Kony, and not al-Bashir. That would be Rule #11:

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

Obama has obviously picked a target in Joseph Kony. He has chosen to shift and spread the blame when it comes to al-Bashir and South Sudan. Why?

Sam Childers, a man who has fought for the safety of Ugandan and South Sudanese children for nearly a decade and a half, argues that Kony has been funded by al-Bashir for years. Yet, Obama seems to be more interested in pursuing the path of moral equivalency between Sudan and South Sudan instead of identifying al-Bashir as the real problem.

Here is Childers in a video message that came out when Invisible Children's Kony 2012 went viral back in March:

Obama invokes the name Joseph Kony as Sudan inches closer to war

The fervor surrounding the viral YouTube video, Kony 2012, died down several weeks ago but at the Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday, Barack Obama brought up the name Joseph Kony again. The timing and the place of his doing this is interesting because it comes at a time when Sudan and South Sudan are on the brink of all out war and genocide at the hands of the man who has funded Kony for many years - Sudan's Omar al-Bashir.

Via USA Today:

President Obama made his strongest vow yet to track down African warlord Joseph Kony, pledging today to "bring this madman to justice."

Obama told listeners at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that U.S. advisers will continue helping Uganda and other governments pursue all members of the Lord's Resistance Army led by Kony.

"It's part of our regional strategy to end the scourge that is the LRA and help realize a future where no African child is stolen from their family and no girl is raped and no boy is turned into a child soldier," Obama said.

Kony is an evil guy; there's no disputing that. The problem is the disproportionate attention he's getting relative to the extremely volatile situation between Sudan and South Sudan. The man responsible for funding Kony's atrocities is not only a Muslim Brotherhood guy but he's the president of Sudan.

The Sudan Tribune is reporting that Bashir has instructed his forces to "purge" the borders of South Sudanese, which is predominantly Christian. The rhetoric from Sudan's leader comes across as being more than just saber rattling.

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir has given his army a carte blanche to use “the language of the gun” against neighboring South Sudan in retaliation of the latter’s occupation of Heglig disputed region two weeks ago.

“I direct the army to restore [our] rights and repulse any aggression from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army [SPLA] of the south on any inch of the country and at any time” Bashir declared while addressing dozens of ululating Sudanese troopers at the station of Martyr Al-Fadil in Heglig on Monday.

Heglig was occupied almost two weeks ago by the SPLA before being liberated on Friday by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), according to Khartoum, whereas Juba said it voluntarily withdrew troops in response to international pressure.

The fighting around Heglig, which contains oilfields accounting for almost half of Sudan’s daily output of 115,000 barrels, sparked fears of a full-scale war between the two neighbors as well as heightened war rhetoric, especially on the part of Khartoum.

Al-Bashir, who arrived in Heglig unannounced to inspect the damage Khartoum accused Juba of inflicting on the town’s oil facilities, reiterated that there will be no return to talking with South Sudan unless its ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is gone.


"One of us has to go" he said before adding that our “dialogue with these people will be through the gun because they only understand the language of the gun.”

Regarding Heglig, South Sudan also maintains that the reason for taking control of the region in the first place was because Bashir's forces were launching attacks from there.

Giving the capture of Kony more attention than what's going on in neighboring Sudan comes across as a distraction, especially in light of the fact that Kony's genocidal war has been funded by Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, a Muslim Brotherhood guy. Moreover, Kony's effectiveness has been greatly reduced over the years. Addressing Kony's genocide at the Holocaust museum seems like a natural fit but a much better fit would be addressing the Brotherhood's Bashir, the guy who is both responsible for funding Kony and threatening to slaughter a countless number of South Sudanese right now.

For more on the Kony / Sudan connection, go here, here, here, and here.

South Sudan bombed by Muslim north, Boy killed

Tensions between Sudan and South Sudan have been rapidly increasing over the last few months. South Sudan, which isn't even one year old, is led by a devout Christian man named Salva Kiir. To the north, Sudan is run by the Muslim Brotherhood's Omar al-Bashir. South Sudan, which holds the majority of the oil reserves between the two countries, shut off the spigot going to the Port of Sudan, saying that Bashir's men were stealing much of it.

South Sudan then took control of the Heglig region - just north of its border with Sudan - after saying that Bashir's SLA was launching attacks from there. Naturally, Bashir painted South Sudan's actions as aggressive and threatened to declare war. Kiir's SPLA pulled out of Heglig to prevent war and Bashir exploited the situation, saying that his forces drove the SPLA out of Heglig.

Two very significant events transpired this weekend. First, a Catholic church in Khartoum, was torched by a Muslim Mob. Via the AP:

A Muslim mob has set ablaze a Catholic church frequented by Southern Sudanese in the capital Khartoum, witnesses and media reports said on Sunday.

The church in Khartoum's Al-Jiraif district was built on a disputed plot of land but the Saturday night incident appeared to be part of the fallout from ongoing hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan over control of an oil town on their ill-defined border.

Last week, South Sudanese troops seized Heglig, which the southerners call Panthou, sending Sudanese troops fleeing. The Khartoum government later claimed to have regained the town.

One day later, Bashir's forces bombed the capital city of Unity State (Bentiu), which sits just south of the border that separates the two countries.

Via Sudan Tribune:

Sudan Armed Force (SAF) warplanes carried out an intensive bombardment of the Unity state capital town of Bentiu and neighboring Rubkotna, Sudan Tribune reporter says.

The attacks by Mig 29 fighters started at 8:50 am.

A Reuters reporters at the scene, outside the oil town of Bentiu, said he saw a fighter aircraft drop two bombs near a river bridge between Bentiu and Rubkona.

"I can see market stalls burning in Rubkona in the background and the body of a small child burning," he said.

Presumably, this is a photo of the dead boy.

More photos here.