Burn, Burn – Africa’s Afghanistan

LONDON – One’s got to love the sound of a Frenchman’s Mirage 2000 fighter jet in the morning. Smells like… a delicious neo-colonial breakfast in Hollandaise sauce. Make it quagmire sauce.

Apparently, it’s a no-brainer. Mali holds 15.8 million people – with a per capita gross domestic product of only around US$1,000 a year and average life expectancy of only 51 years – in a territory twice the size of France (per capital GDP $35,000 and upwards). Now almost two-thirds of this territory is occupied by heavily weaponized Islamist outfits. What next? Bomb, baby, bomb.

So welcome to the latest African war; Chad-based French Mirages and Gazelle helicopters, plus a smatter of France-based

Rafales bombing evil Islamist jihadis in northern Mali. Business is good; French president Francois Hollande spent this past Tuesday in Abu Dhabi clinching the sale of up to 60 Rafales to that Gulf paragon of democracy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The formerly wimpy Hollande – now enjoying his “resolute”, “determined”, tough guy image reconversion – has cleverly sold all this as incinerating Islamists in the savannah before they take a one-way Bamako-Paris flight to bomb the Eiffel Tower.

French Special Forces have been on the ground in Mali since early 2012.

The Tuareg-led NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), via one of its leaders, now says it’s “ready to help” the former colonial power, billing itself as more knowledgeable about the culture and the terrain than future intervening forces from the CEDEAO (the acronym in French for the Economic Community of Western African States).

Salafi-jihadis in Mali have got a huge problem: they chose the wrong battlefield. If this was Syria, they would have been showered by now with weapons, logistical bases, a London-based “observatory”, hours of YouTube videos and all-out diplomatic support by the usual suspects of US, Britain, Turkey, the Gulf petromonarchies and – oui, monsieur – France itself.

Instead, they were slammed by the UN Security Council – faster than a collection of Marvel heroes – duly authorizing a war against them. Their West African neighbors – part of the ECOWAS regional bloc – were given a deadline (late November) to come up with a war plan. This being Africa, nothing happened – and the Islamists kept advancing until a week ago Paris decided to apply some Hollandaise sauce.

Not even a football stadium filled with the best West African shamans can conjure a bunch of disparate – and impoverished – countries to organize an intervening army in short notice, even if the adventure will be fully paid by the West just like the Uganda-led army fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia.

To top it all, this is no cakewalk. The Salafi-jihadis are flush, courtesy of booming cocaine smuggling from South America to Europe via Mali, plus human trafficking. According to the UN Office of Drugs Control, 60% of Europe’s cocaine transits Mali. At Paris street prices, that is worth over $11 billion.

Turbulence ahead 

General Carter Ham, the commander of the Pentagon’s AFRICOM, has been warning about a major crisis for months. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what’s really going on in what the New York Times quaintly describes as those “vast and turbulent stretches of the Sahara”?

It all started with a military coup in March 2012, only one month before Mali would hold a presidential election, ousting then president Amadou Toumani Toure. The coup plotters justified it as a response to the government’s incompetence in fighting the Tuareg.

The coup leader was one Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, who happened to have been very cozy with the Pentagon; that included his four-month infantry officer basic training course in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2010. Essentially, Sanogo was also groomed by AFRICOM, under a regional scheme mixing the State Department’s Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership program and the Pentagon’s Operation Enduring Freedom. It goes without saying that in all this “freedom” business Mali has been the proverbial “steady ally” – as in counterterrorism partner – fighting (at least in thesis) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Over the last few years, Washington’s game has elevated flip-flopping to high art. During the second George W Bush administration, Special Forces were very active side by side with the Tuaregs and the Algerians. During the first Obama administration, they started backing the Mali government against the Tuareg.

An unsuspecting public may pore over Rupert Murdoch’s papers – for instance, The Times of London – and its so-called defense correspondent will be pontificating at will on Mali without ever talking about blowback from the Libya war.

Muammar Gaddafi always supported the Tuaregs’ independence drive; since the 1960s the NMLA agenda has been to liberate Azawad (North Mali) from the central government in Bamako.

After the March 2012 coup, the NMLA seemed to be on top. They planted their own flag on quite a few government buildings, and on April 5 announced the creation of a new, independent Tuareg country. The “international community” spurned them, only for a few months later to have the NMLA for all practical purposes marginalized, even in their own region, by three other – Islamist – groups; Ansar ed-Dine (“Defenders of the Faith”); the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO); and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Meet the players

The NMLA is a secular Tuareg movement, created in October 2011. It claims that the liberation of Azawad will allow better integration – and development – for all the peoples in the region. Its hardcore fighters are Tuaregs who were former members of Gaddafi’s army. But there are also rebels who had not laid down their arms after the 2007-2008 Tuareg rebellion, and some that defected from the Malian army. Those who came back to Mali after Gaddafi was executed by the NATO rebels in Libya carried plenty of weapons. Yet most heavy weapons actually ended up with the NATO rebels themselves, the Islamists supported by the West.

AQIM is the Northern African branch of al-Qaeda, pledging allegiance to “The Doctor”, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Its two crucial characters are Abu Zaid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, former members of the ultra-hardcore Algerian Islamist outfit Salafist Group for Predication and Combat (SGPC). Belmokhtar was already a jihadi in 1980s Afghanistan.

Abu Zaid poses as a sort of North African “Geronimo”, aka Osama bin Laden, with the requisite black flag and a strategically positioned Kalashnikov featuring prominently in his videos. The historical leader, though, is Belmokhtar. The problem is that Belmokhtar, known by French intelligence as “The Uncatchable”, has recently joined MUJAO.

MUJAO fighters are all former AQIM. In June 2012, MUJAO expelled the NMLA and took over the city of Gao, when it immediately applied the worst aspects of Sharia law. It’s the MUJAO base that has been bombed by the French Rafales this week. One of its spokesmen has duly threatened, “in the name of Allah”, to respond by attacking “the heart of France”.

Finally, Ansar ed-Dine is an Islamist Tuareg outfit, set up last year and directed by Iyad ag Ghali, a former leader of the NMLA who exiled himself in Libya. He turned to Salafism because of – inevitably – Pakistani proselytizers let loose in Northern Africa, then engaged in valuable face time with plenty of AQIM emirs. It’s interesting to note in 2007 Mali President Toure appointed Ghali as consul in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. He was then duly expelled in 2010 because he got too close to radical Islamists.

Gimme ‘a little more terrorism’ 

No one in the West is asking why the Pentagon-friendly Sanogo’s military coup in the capital ended up with almost two-thirds of Mali in the hands of Islamists who imposed hardcore Sharia law in Azawad – especially in Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, a gruesome catalogue of summary executions, amputations, stonings and the destruction of holy shrines in Timbuktu. How come the latest Tuareg rebellion ended up hijacked by a few hundred hardcore Islamists? It’s useless to ask the question to US drones.

The official “leading from behind” Obama 2.0 administration rhetoric is, in a sense, futuristic; the French bombing “could rally jihadis” around the world and lead to – what else – attacks on the West. Once again the good ol’ Global War on Terror (GWOT) remains the serpent biting its own tail.

There’s no way to understand Mali without examining what Algeria has been up to. The Algerian newspaper El Khabar only scratched the surface, noting that “from categorically refusing an intervention – saying to the people in the region it would be dangerous”, Algiers went to “open Algerian skies to the French Mirages”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Algeria last October, trying to organize some semblance of an intervening West African army. Hollande was there in December. Oh yes, this gets juicier by the month.

So let’s turn to Professor Jeremy Keenan, from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at London University, and author of The Dark Sahara (Pluto Press, 2009) and the upcomingThe Dying Sahara (Pluto Press, 2013).

Writing in the January edition of New African, Keenan stresses, “Libya was the catalyst of the Azawad rebellion, not its underlying cause. Rather, the catastrophe now being played out in Mali is the inevitable outcome of the way in which the ‘Global War on Terror’ has been inserted into the Sahara-Sahel by the US, in concert with Algerian intelligence operatives, since 2002.”

In a nutshell, Bush and the regime in Algiers both needed, as Keenan points out, “a little more terrorism” in the region. Algiers wanted it as the means to get more high-tech weapons. And Bush – or the neo-cons behind him – wanted it to launch the Saharan front of the GWOT, as in the militarization of Africa as the top strategy to control more energy resources, especially oil, thus wining the competition against massive Chinese investment. This is the underlying logic that led to the creation of AFRICOM in 2008.

Algerian intelligence, Washington and the Europeans duly used AQIM, infiltrating its leadership to extract that “little more terrorism”. Meanwhile, Algerian intelligence effectively configured the Tuaregs as “terrorists”; the perfect pretext for Bush’s Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative, as well as the Pentagon’s Operation Flintlock – a trans-Sahara military exercise.

The Tuaregs always scared the hell out of Algerians, who could not even imagine the success of a Tuareg nationalist movement in northern Mali. After all, Algeria always viewed the whole region as its own backyard.

The Tuaregs – the indigenous population of the central Sahara and the Sahel – number up to 3 million. Over 800,000 live in Mali, followed by Niger, with smaller concentrations in Algeria, Burkina Faso and Libya. There have been no less than five Tuareg rebellions in Mali since independence in 1960, plus three others in Niger, and a lot of turbulence in Algeria.

Keenan’s analysis is absolutely correct in identifying what happened all along 2012 as the Algerians meticulously destroying the credibility and the political drive of the NMLA. Follow the money: both Ansar ed-Dine’s Iyad ag Ghaly and MUJAO’s Sultan Ould Badi are very cozy with the DRS, the Algerian intelligence agency. Both groups in the beginning had only a few members.

Then came a tsunami of AQIM fighters. That’s the only explanation for why the NMLA was, after only a few months, neutralized both politically and militarily in their own backyard.

Round up the usual freedom fighters

Washington’s “leading from behind” position is illustrated by this State Department press conference. Essentially, the government in Bamako asked for the French to get down and dirty.

And that’s it.

Not really. Anyone who thinks “bomb al-Qaeda” is all there is to Mali must be living in Oz. To start with, using hardcore Islamists to suffocate an indigenous independence movement comes straight from the historic CIA/Pentagon playbook.

Moreover, Mali is crucial to AFRICOM and to the Pentagon’s overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) outlook. Months before 9/11 I had the privilege to crisscross Mali on the road – and by the (Niger) river – and hang out, especially in Mopti and Timbuktu, with the awesome Tuaregs, who gave me a crash course in Northwest Africa. I saw Wahhabi and Pakistani preachers all over the place. I saw the Tuaregs progressively squeezed out. I saw an Afghanistan in the making. And it was not very hard to follow the money sipping tea in the Sahara. Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Guinea. The spectacular Inner Niger delta is in central Mali – just south of the Sahara. Mali overflows with gold, uranium, bauxite, iron, manganese, tin and copper. And – Pipelineistan beckons! – there’s plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.

As early as February 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T Moeller wassaying that AFRICOM’s mission was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”; yes, he did make the crucial connection to China, pronounced guilty of ” challenging US interests”.

AFRICOM’s spy planes have been “observing” Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara for months, in thesis looking for AQIM fighters; the whole thing is overseen by US Special Forces, part of the classified, code-named Creek Sand operation, based in next-door Burkina Faso. Forget about spotting any Americans; these are – what else – contractors who do not wear military uniforms.

Last month, at Brown University, General Carter Ham, AFRICOM’s commander, once more gave a big push to the “mission to advance US security interests across Africa”. Now it’s all about the – updated – US National Security Strategy in Africa, signed by Obama in June 2012. The (conveniently vague) objectives of this strategy are to “strengthen democratic institutions”; encourage “economic growth, trade and investment”; “advance peace and security”; and “promote opportunity and development.”

In practice, it’s Western militarization (with Washington “leading from behind”) versus the ongoing Chinese seduction/investment drive in Africa. In Mali, the ideal Washington scenario would be a Sudan remix; just like the recent partition of North and South Sudan, which created an extra logistical headache for Beijing, why not a partition of Mali to better exploit its natural wealth? By the way, Mali was known as Western Sudan until independence in 1960.

Already in early December a “multinational” war in Mali was on the Pentagon cards.

The beauty of it is that even with a Western-financed, Pentagon-supported, “multinational” proxy army about to get into the action, it’s the French who are pouring the lethal Hollandaise sauce (nothing like an ex-colony “in trouble” to whet the appetite of its former masters). The Pentagon can always keep using its discreet P-3 spy planes and Global Hawk drones based in Europe, and later on transport West African troops and give them aerial cover. But all secret, and very hush hush.

Mr Quagmire has already reared its ugly head in record time, even before the 1,400 (and counting) French boots on the ground went into offense.

A MUJAO commando team (and not AQIM, as it’s been reported), led by who else but the “uncatchable” Belmokhtar, hit a gas field in the middle of the Algerian Sahara desert, over 1,000 km south of Algiers but only 100 km from the Libyan border, where they captured a bunch of Western (and some Japanese) hostages; a rescue operation launched on Wednesday by Algerian Special Forces was, to put it mildly, a giant mess, with at least seven foreign hostages and 23 Algerians so far confirmed killed.

The gas field is being exploited by BP, Statoil and Sonatrach. MUJAO has denounced – what else – the new French “crusade” and the fact that French fighter jets now own Algerian airspace.

As blowback goes, this is just the hors d’oeuvres. And it won’t be confined to Mali. It will convulse Algeria and soon Niger, the source of over a third of the uranium in French nuclear power plants, and the whole Sahara-Sahel.

So this new, brewing mega-Afghanistan in Africa will be good for French neoloconial interests (even though Hollande insists this is all about “peace”); good for AFRICOM; a boost for those Jihadis Formerly Known as NATO Rebels; and certainly good for the never-ending Global War on Terror (GWOT), duly renamed “kinetic military operations”.

Django, unchained, would be totally at home. As for the Oscar for Best Song, it goes to the Bush-Obama continuum: There’s no business like terror business. With French subtitles, bien sur.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His most recent book is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

Source: Asia Times Online

Devvy Kidd Is Wrong!

Sharia Law Is Not The Enemy…

Devvy Kidd is an intelligent, incisive, and talented writer who stays at the vanguard in the fight to preserve freedom.  Her articles are well researched and widely read.  She is a lead writer for the NewsWithViews internet page which is and has been a potent force against the cloud of oppression that threatens our nation.

Nevertheless, I take issue with her recent column entitled “Plotting for America to Be Ruled Under Sharia Law is Sedition”.

The NewsWithViews website is theologically Dispensational.   The intention of its owner and its excellent cadre of writers is honorable.  But, like most of our media, there is a dangerous and detrimental side that concentrates on symptoms, omits essentials, and directs our attention away from real danger. 

Islam and Sharia Law are being skillfully used to create conflict and fear.  Fear and strife weaken the ability of a society to resist the despotic intentions of the elite globalists.  Islam is a heretical religion but like all religions it demands exclusivity making it an enemy to the prevailing United States religion of humanism.  The percentage of Muslims in the United States population is tiny compared to professing Christians but because it is a full orbed religion with a legal system and a vibrant world view it is growing rapidly.

Like Christianity, Islam has different theological factions.  Most Muslims are not militant.  They seek to live under Sharia law because they understand that law forms the religious base of society.  If Sharia law can be demonized and forbidden, the entire religion of Islam will quickly follow.   They have seen this occur in United States of America where human law has been allowed to supersede the overarching law of God making us a nation of flaccid professing Christians who live under and support a government controlled by Satanic forces.

The world is engaged in a religious war.  Christianity has been almost defeated in the United States but Islam is still alive and promoting Sharia law rather than the sinful laws of the elite power structure.  Since religion is changed by changing the law, antinomian Christianity was unable to stem the advance of humanism.  It lost the battle without a fight.  Islam’s Sharia law is a strong impediment to the advance of the pagan world order and every effort is being made to destroy it. 

Devvy has fallen for the propaganda that makes Sharia law an enemy and written an article that creates fear and loathing for a religion that is an ally in the fight against the elite globalist agenda.  Christianity and Islam are god centered religions.  Talmudic Judaism is a humanistic religion.  Like the United States, Zionist, neo-Israel has a pagan government that regularly defies God’s Commandments.

Devvy provides a link to Publius Huldah’s Blog.  Ms. Huldah contends that our rights come from God and it is “the purpose of civil government to secure the Rights GOD gave us.”  She lists a number of rights that are God given and before copiously excoriating Muslims asserts that “God means for us to enjoy life!  Healthy food, wine and strong drink (in moderation); attractive dress for women, the marriage relation between man & woman, prosperity, and liberty!”

This is rubbish!  God is not our bartender, He does not furnish blessing at our demand.  We are His servants not He ours.  Peace, freedom, and prosperity are results of obedience to His Law.   The Bible is not a book about human rights; but a documentation of the results of obedience and disobedience.  It is a book about obligation; our obligation to obey the Creator of the Universe.  In response to our obedience God promises us blessings.  Obligation first; blessing second.

Our adversary is a cunning, elite, nihilistic, cabal that is using deception, torture, murder, theft, and mass destruction to gain control of the entire planet.  They have no allegiance to an overarching morality; where their power reins, their word is law.  Their behavior provides an excellent example of human nature in its unrestrained form.  It is not new but another in the thousands of replays that history records.

Attempts to resurrect the United States Constitution are passé.  In 2002, powerful congressman Henry Hyde responded to Ron Paul with this statement:  ”There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time. Declaration of war is one of them…. Inappropriate, anachronistic, it isn’t done anymore.”  Unfortunately, congress began the process and President Obama has finished it.  The civil liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights have been superseded by laws and Executive orders that expose most of our population to false arrest, torture, and extraordinary rendition.

Heretical Dispensational theology is the platform for the NewsWithViews Website and their  Christian writers often produce an aberrant description of the Will of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. NWVs elevates Talmudic Judaism and the neo-Pharisees from enemies of the Faith that Jesus railed against to leaders that are revered and preserved.  It distorts the Christian religion willed to us by the Reformers and by denying the validity of the law destroys the ability of Christianity to impact the social order.

The Talmud is an historic compilation of the thoughts of Rabbi’s; it is humanistic and often conniving.  Zionist Jews place the Talmud in a position similar to that of Mary in the Catholic religion but instead of being the Mother of God the Talmud is the father of the devil.  It puts the opinions of the Rabbis above the Word of God.  It affirms the superiority of the Jewish race.  It condones sinful behavior, allows God’s Law to be broken, and builds the ego of those who revere it.  In “Judaism’s Strange God’s” Michael Hoffman writes “The Talmud is such a heap of rubbish, and Judaism is so harmful to Judaic people, that it is difficult to find any good whatsoever in it.”  He goes on to describe the reverent regard given to Talmudic scholars by the Orthodox Jewish community.

Paul Craig Robert’s recent column contained a 2001 Pakistani interview with Osama bin Laden Bin Laden denied having anything to do with the 9/11 attack. He said, “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people.”  This was a Pakistani interview.  Bin Laden was speaking to fellow Muslims.   We can decide not to believe him but we know our media lies to us and there is a good chance Osama is truthful.  His profession of honesty is far and away better than the rampant prevarication in our society!

The source material for Devvy’s article could have come directly from the propaganda machine of Judaism’s Zionist faction.  The same humanistic Zionists that have debased our morals with filthy movies, destroyed our culture with multi-culturalism, banished Christianity with the ACLU, attacked patriots with the Southern Poverty Law Center, fed us distorted and propagandized news through ownership of television stations, radio stations, newspapers, and book publishers;  the same group that surrounds and controls our government leaders and was the source for the warmongering Project for the New America Century (PNAC).  These are rabid humanists who seek to use our nation to invade Iran and stamp out the Muslim religion.  

It is not a Godly group, not a group that might accept Jesus as the propitiation for their sin.  Not a group that God would bless.  These are Christ haters; men and women who would crucify Jesus again today.  Their prayers cannot be heard by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  His ears are only attuned to the Name of His Son.  He does not hear prayers in the name of another.

No, my Christian friend, Sharia law is not the enemy.  Islam is an ally against humanistic world government.  Talmudic Jews are prominent in the elite cabal that seeks control of the world. Dispensational support for humanistic Judaism is Satanic.

There are few, if any, Christian heads-of-state in today’s world.  I was surprised to read of one such leader and of his eloquent prayer of repentance.  This is the prayer of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on the fiftieth anniversary of their independence from British rule:

“Father God in heaven, today we stand here as Ugandans, to thank you for Uganda. We are proud that we are Ugandans and Africans. We thank you for all your goodness to us.”

“I stand here today to close the evil past and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness.”

“We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation.”

“We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue and betrayal.”

“Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge; sins of injustice, oppression and exploitation; sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife and conflict.”

“These sins and many others have characterised our past leadership, especially the last 50 years of our history. Lord forgive us and give us a new beginning. Give us a heart to love you, to fear you and to seek you. Take away from us all the above sins.”

“We pray for national unity. Unite us as Ugandans and eliminate all forms of conflict, sectarianism and tribalism. Help us to see that we are all your children, children of the same Father. Help us to love and respect one another and to appreciate unity in diversity.”

“We pray for prosperity and transformation. Deliver us from ignorance, poverty and disease. As leaders, give us wisdom to help lead our people into political, social and economic transformation.”

“We want to dedicate this nation to you so that you will be our God and guide. We want Uganda to be known as a nation that fears God and as a nation whose foundations are firmly rooted in righteousness and justice to fulfill what the Bible says in Psalm 33:12: Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord. A people you have chosen as your own.”

“I renounce all the evil foundations and covenants that were laid in idolatry and witchcraft. I renounce all the satanic influence on this nation. And I hereby covenant Uganda to you, to walk in your ways and experience all your blessings forever.”

“I pray for all these in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Are you listening America?

Why Is Obama Silent Over The New Congo War?

The last Congo war that ended in 2003 killed 5.4 million people, the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II. The killing was directly enabled by international silence over the issue; the war was ignored and the causes obscured because governments were backing groups involved in the fighting.  Now a new Congo war has begun and the silence is, again, deafening.

President Obama seems not to have noticed a new war has broken out in the war-scarred Congo; he  appears blind to the refugee crisis and the war crimes committed by the invading M23 militia against the democratically elected government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

But appearances can be deceiving. The U.S. government has their bloody hands all over this conflict, just as they did during the last Congo war when Bill Clinton was President. President Obama’s inaction is a conscious act of encouragement for the invaders, just as Clinton’s was. Instead of Obama denouncing the invasion and the approaching overthrow of a democratically elected government, silence becomes a very powerful action of intentional complicity on the side of the invaders.

Why would Obama do this? The invaders are armed and financed by Rwanda, a “strong ally” and puppet of the United States. The United Nations released a report conclusively proving that the Rwandan government is backing the rebels, but the U.S. government and U.S. media cartoonishly pretend that the issue is debatable.

The last Congo War that killed 5.4 million people was also the result of the U.S.-backed invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda, as explained in the excellently researched book “Africa’s World War,” by French journalist Gerard Prunier.

In fact, many of the same Rwandan war criminals involved in the last Congo War, such as Bosco Ntaganda, are in charge of the M23 militia and wanted for war crimes by the U.N. international criminal court. The current Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, is a “good friend” of the U.S. government and one of the most notorious war criminals on the planet, due to his leading roles in the Rwandan genocide and consequent Congo War.

A group of Congolese and Rwandan activists have been demanding that Kagame be tried for his key role in the Rwandan genocide.

As Prunier’s book explains, the Rwandan genocide was sparked by Kagame’s invasion of Rwanda — from U.S. ally Uganda. After Kagame took power in post-genocide Rwanda, he then informed the U.S. — during a trip to Washington D.C. — that he would be invading the Congo. Prunier quotes Kagame in Africa’s World War:

“I delivered a veiled warning [to the U.S.]: the failure of the international community to take action [against the Congo] would mean that Rwanda would take action… But their [the Clinton Administration’s] response was really no response at all”  (pg 68).

In international diplomacy speak, such a lack of response — to a threat of military invasion — acts as a glaring diplomatic green light.

The same blinding green light is now being offered by Obama to the exact same war criminals as they again invade the Congo.

But why again? The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s current President, Joseph Kabila, helped lead the military invasion during the last Congo war. As a good stooge, he delivered Congo’s immense mining and oil wealth to multi-national corporations. But then his puppet strings started to fray.

Kabila later distanced himself from U.S. puppets Rwanda and Uganda, not to mention the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The IMF, for example, warned Kabila against a strategic infrastructural and development aid package with China, but Kabila shrugged them off. The Economist explains:

“…[The Congo] appears to have gained the upper hand in a row with foreign donors over a mining and infrastructure package worth $9 billion that was agreed a year ago with China. The IMF objected to it, on the ground that it would saddle Congo with a massive new debt, so [the IMF] is delaying forgiveness of most of the $10 billion-plus that Congo already owes.”

This act instantly transformed Kabila from an unreliable friend to an enemy. The U.S. and China have been madly scrambling for Africa’s immense wealth of raw materials, and Kabila’s new alliance with China was too much for the U.S. to bear.

Kabila further inflamed his former allies by demanding that the international corporations exploiting the Congo’s precious metals have their super-profit contracts re-negotiated, so that the country might actually receive some benefit from its riches.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, an extremely precious mineral needed to construct many modern technologies, including weaponry, cell phones, and computers. The DRC is possibly the most mineral/resource rich country in the world — overflowing with everything from diamonds to oil — though its people are among the world’s poorest, due to generations of corporate plunder of its wealth.

Now, a new war is underway and the U.N. is literally sitting on their hands. There are 17,500 U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, not to mention U.S. Special Forces. The invading M23 militia has 3,000 fighters. What was the U.N.’s response to the invasion? The New York Times reports:

“United Nations officials have said that they did not have the numbers to beat back the rebels and that they were worried about collateral damage, but many Congolese have rendered their own verdict. On Wednesday, rioters in Bunia, north of Goma, ransacked the houses of United Nations’ personnel.”

If Obama and/or the U.N. made one public statement about militarily defending the elected Congolese government against invasion, the M23 militia would have never acted.

Human Rights Watch and other groups have correctly labeled the M23’s commanders as responsible for “ethnic massacres, recruitment of children, mass rape, killings, abductions and torture.”

But at the U.N. the Obama administration has been actively protecting this group. The New York Times continues:

“Some human rights groups say that Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations and a leading contender to be President Obama’s next secretary of state, has been far too soft on Rwanda, which is a close American ally and whose president, Paul Kagame, has known Ms. Rice for years. The activists have accused her of watering down language in a Security Council resolution that would have mentioned Rwanda’s links to the [M23] rebels and say she also tried to block the publication of part of a [U.N.] report that detailed Rwanda’s covert support for the M23.”

It’s likely that the Obama administration will jump into action as soon as his M23 allies complete their military objective of regime change, and re-open the Congo’s mineral wealth to U.S. corporations to profit from. There are currently talks occurring in U.S.-puppet Uganda between the M23 and the Congo government. It is unlikely that these talks will produce much of a result unless Kabila stands down and allows the M23 and its Rwandan backers to take over the country. The M23 knows it’s in an excellent bargaining position, given the silence of the U.N. and the United States government.

If the war drags on, expect more international silence. Expect more massacres and ethnic cleansing too, and expect the still-recovering people of the Congo to be re-tossed into massive refugee camps where they can again expect militia-sponsored killings, rape, starvation, and the various barbarisms that have accompanied this especially brutal war, a brutality that grows most viciously in environments of silence.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/17/opposition-groups-want-rwandan-president-paul-kagame-investigated-for-war-crimes/

http://www.economist.com/node/13496903?zid=309ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/africa/congo-rebels-in-goma-vow-to-take-kinshasha.html

Rick Warren Once Again Caught Up In Controversy, Part 2

Plastic pastors transparent enough to see through, like Joel Osteen, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Modalistic moguls of the painfully-obvious-money-hungry prosperity movement, like T.D. Jakes, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Self-serving sorcerers of the false signs and wonders movement, like Todd Bentley, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. No. None of the before-mentioned personalities or groups are all that dangerous because what you see is what you get. They all lack the ability to change their appearance to accommodate a change in environment. They lack the chameleon-like ability, the self-serving ability, to say what needs to be said in order to keep people in every camp liking them.—Tony Miano

In part 1 I brought you up to speed on what some “watchbloggers” refer to as “Kingsway-gate.”  I’m guessing we haven’t heard the end of this mess.  However, this matter and many others commented on in part 1 have helped to earn Rick Warren the title: Teflon Pastor.  So we shall see what happens with Kingsway-gate.

Common ground in the love of God…or god?

Most likely Saddleback Church congregants are unaware that their pastor signed a controversial document produced by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture titled Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You.  In July 2008 Christian and Muslim leaders gathered at Yale University for a conference to promote understanding and peace between Christians and Muslims. The letter urged the two faiths to find “common ground” in the love of God.   Since Christians and Muslims do not believe in the same God, one wonders which God we’re to find common ground with.

The Christian Post reported that Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “disagreed with key points raised in the letter because he felt they compromised the Christian faith [and] amid calls for love in a common God, the letter ‘failed to clearly define the Christian understanding of God as the trinity.’”

So why would any serious Christian sign a document that did not clearly define the Trinity?

Rick Warren claims he believes in the Trinity and we must take him at his word on this.  But to what extent does his belief in the Trinity come through in his ministry to Muslims?  Does he keep his Trinitarian belief close to the vest so as not to offend them?  Or is he forthcoming in his belief that there is one true God who exists in three co-equal, co-eternal, and co-existent Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  If his Muslim friends cannot understand his view of the Godhead, perhaps he’s not bothering to explain it to them.

The Christian Post report revealed some of the notable leaders at the conference:

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi of Sudan; Geoff Tunnicliffe, CEO and international director of World Evangelical Alliance; Leith Anderson, president of NAE; and Antonios Kireopoulos of the National Council of Churches. A handful of Jewish leaders will also attend the conference.

Scroll through the list of signatories and you’ll discover several other notable leaders (theological liberals) such as Emerging church proponents Brian McLaren, Tony Jones and Scot McKnight; prosperity evangelist David Yonggi Cho; one of the “seeker-sensitive” architects, Bill Hybles; Richard Mouw, President, Fuller Theological Seminary; David Neff, Editor in Chief, Christianity Today; gospel of self-esteem sageRobert Schuller; Marxist sympathizer Jim Wallis (mentioned in part 1); and of course Rick Warren.

Certainly biblical unity can be a good thing, but as Phil Johnson reminds us:

The concept of “unity”  commonly touted today has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘being in full accord and of one mind’ (Philippians 2:2). Instead, it is a broad, visible, ecumenical homogeneity without boundaries.  And that is nothing like the biblical concept of unity.

What did Jesus say regarding unity?  “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

Global peace, at last

April 17, 2005 speaking before 30,000 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Rick Warren breathlessly proclaimed his plan:

The bottom line is that we intend to reinvent mission strategy in the 21st century.  As I stated, this will be a new Reformation.  The First Reformation returned us to the message of the original church.  It was a reformation of doctrine – what the church BELIEVES.  This Second Reformation will return us to the mission of the original church.  It will be a reformation of PURPOSE – what the church DOES in the world.

Our goal will be to enlist one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God, who will permanently change the face of international missions to take on these five ‘global giants’ for which the church can become the ultimate distribution and change agent to overcome Spiritual emptiness, Self-serving Leadership, Poverty, disease and ignorance . (Online source)

Warren put forth his program for global Christian dominion.  He also encouraged the crowd, the majority of them Christians, to adopt the same sort of dedication shown by followers of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.

The New Apostolic Purpose Driven Reformation

As Rick Warren reveals the details of his global agenda, more and more Christians are expressing concern over it.  And so are liberals.  In fact liberals are so uneasy over what he and other dominionists are doing that the New Apostolic Research Group was formed.  Far-left blogger Bruce Wilson is part of it.  In a 2009 column Wilson declared:

Both C. Peter Wagner and Rick Warren want to transform the world, and both [1,2] have proclaimed the advent of a second Reformation. Wagner calls it the New Apostolic Reformation, while for Rick Warren this is a “purpose driven” effort powered by Warren’s global P.E.A.C.E. Plan. In Uganda both visions for societal transformation appear to include the categorical elimination of homosexuality – by any means.

By any means?  Hyperbole, I presume. As a committed lefty, Bruce Wilson fully supports the radical homosexual agenda to normalize sodomy and other aberrant behavior.

Wilson continues:

Rick Warren wrote his 1993 dissertation for a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminar, under Wagner’s supervision. It is titled New Churches For a New Generation: Church Planting to Reach Baby Boomers. In his 2008 book “Dominion”, C. Peter Wagner describes the process through which this brand of Christianity can take dominion over government and society, and Wagner claims that this can be done within a democratic framework. Wagner clearly states that Rick Warren’s global P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an example of “stage one”: 

Wagner is the Convening Apostle in a movement of charismatic “relational networks” which has extended its reach from the United States to Uganda, and worldwide. Under its umbrella of authority are virulently anti-gay apostles in the United States and Uganda including Lou Engle of TheCall, who led thousands of young people in a twelve hour November 1, 2008 stadium rally in support of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight. The San Diego event closed with Engle, a member of Wagner’s inner circle of “prophets,” calling for Christian martyrs. Wagner’s plans include reorganizing charismatic Christianity under the authority of these apostles and prophets. (links in original) (Online source)  

Wilson has done his homework on the NAR.  Unbelievably, most Christians have not taken this movement seriously even though these false teachers have united with the Christian Right, politicians, rock-star pastors, entertainers, radio personalities, and a host of Christian leaders.  Likewise, New Age Mormon Glenn Beck has weaseled his way into these groups.  (Learn more about the NAR here.)

Growing a church

In Break Through These 3 Barriers to Growth “Coach” Warren outlines three essentials for breaking through the barriers to church growth. Following is barrier #2:

You must change the primary role of the pastor from minister to leader.

What’s the difference? In leadership, you take the initiative; in ministry, you respond to the needs of others. When someone calls and you pick up the phone, that’s ministry. When you pick up the phone and call someone, that’s leadership. Typically, you learn ministry skills in seminary, but you learn leadership skills in seminars. Pastoring is a balance. Here are five skills you must learn if your church is going to grow:

…Learn to communicate your vision.

…Learn the ability to motivate through messages.

…Learn how to equip for ministry. If you don’t learn how to coach, you will not be able to equip. And, if you do not equip, you will burn out in ministry.

…Learn how to raise money. Those who write the agenda must also be able to underwrite it.

…Learn the skill of managing your time and energy.

What about Rick Warren’s view of growing a church?  In Ordinary Pastors, part 2: A Biblical Definition of Ministry C. J. Mahaney defines pastoral ministry thusly:

Pastoral ministry that is pleasing to God is not ultimately about gifting, influence, or even fruitfulness. It is not about how many books you have written, which conferences invite you to speak, or how many of your sermons are downloaded on iTunes. It is not even about whether your church membership numbers grow or shrink. Pastoral ministry that is pleasing to God is about faithfulness to the charge of 2 Timothy 4. You and I are called to be faithful to this charge.

For the record, here’s what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

Peace + unity = universalism

In part 1, I pointed out that Rick Warren serves on the advisory board of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and that the foundation’s goal is to unify the world’s major religions.  Following is Warren’s explanation for serving:

The vision and values of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation are desperately needed today…. In any effort to help people learn to live and work together, we must engage the vast networks, resources, wisdom, and influence of the faith communities. My friends, [Roman Catholic] Tony Blair is uniquely prepared with the gifts of temperament, knowledge, experience, leadership, and global respect essential for a task this great. I honestly don’t know of anyone better suited for this challenge. It’s why I agreed to serve on the Advisory Board. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s potential for doing good is staggering.

What is staggering is that a Protestant pastor has no problem with a Catholic’s plan to unite all religious faiths.  In a piece I wrote titled Damnable heresies invading the church I touched on the push for unity:

What Warren is purporting is ecumenicism. Actually, we are moving beyond ecumenicism intointerspirituality (interfaith spirituality) or interdenominational cooperation.  “In the name of peace and unity,” says Ray Yungen, “the world’s religions are more and more joining together. And with that joining together will come a consensus that it is narrow minded and even hateful to say there is only one way to salvation.”

Peace and unity has a nice ring to it. But traditional, historic, evangelical Christianity holds that there is only one path to God, one door to enter through. Peter left no doubt when he said, “Salvation is found in no one else” (Acts 4:10). (Also see John 3:16, John 6:66-68, John 14:6, Acts 16:30-31, 1 Tim 2:3-6, 1 John 2:1)  The Bible clearly teaches that all paths do not lead to God.  Those who take a different path will spend eternity in hell.  So the loving thing for a committed Christian to do is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost.  In fact, Jesus commanded His followers to go out into the world and spread the good news.   Those who keep the good news to themselves fail to understand that God gives no second chances.  Jesus said, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat. 7:22).

My reason for this article (part 1&2) is to highlight some very concerning issues related to Rick Warren.  Each of the concerns that were identified could have been substantially expanded upon and if that is the readers’ desire there are links and references that will help one to do that.  My purpose has been to urge his followers and supporters to be like the Bereans who “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

In these dark days ahead, God’s people must be watchful and discerning. We must “Prove [test] all things; hold fast that which is good” (1Thes 5:21).

Recommended articles and videos:

Read Part 1
Articles by Joseph Farah of Worldnet Daily:
The purpose-driven lie—11/16/06
Rick Warren on Syria: ‘A moderate country’–11/26/06
Listen to what Rick Warren said about Syria in an audio version of the video message his church pulled down from YouTube after it was exposed by Farah
There you go again, Rick Warren–12/26/06
Rick Warren’s distortions of reality—12/13/07
“One wonders if Pastor Warren’s discussions with President Assad about peace included a presentation of the Gospel of peace through Jesus Christ, as promoted in the author’s new P.E.A.C.E. Plan. The opportunity for an evangelical leader to meet with the head of a terror regime is rare.” –Lawrence E. Ford, Sr., Institute for Creation Research
Videos
John MacArthur on the Purpose Driven Life
Who’s Driving the Purpose Driven Church
Rick Warren’s SHAPE acronym is explained
Articles
Articles on the New Apostolic Reformation—On Solid Rock Resources

Palestinian Children: Born In Captivity

Suppose that you are a cute little baby panda or an adorable newborn lion cub that has been born inside a zoo.  What happens to you next?  Most likely, you will grow up in a zoo and die in a zoo.

But human babies are different from animal babies.  It is against the law to keep human babies caged up in a zoo.

Even homeless poverty-stricken American pregnant women who have been sent to jail for whatever — after giving birth behind bars, even their children aren’t forced to remain in captivity and caged up like their moms.  Americans are much more humane than that.

Even the poor Sudanese refugee Lost Boys weren’t allowed to be caged.  Thousands of them were given good educational opportunities and offered good homes in the United States.

Even the approximately seven million Afghan and Iraqi orphans created by Bush, Cheney and Obama are still being allowed a modicum of freedom once in a while http://www.afceco.org/.

But Palestinian children?  No such luck.  They are born in captivity, they grow up in captivity and they die in captivity — just because someone else wants their land.

But even sadder still is the fact that most zoo animals are treated more humanely than Palestinian children.  Palestinian children’s keepers think nothing of shooting, bombing, starving and siccing dogs on these captive kids, housed in open-air prisons such as Gaza and Ni’lin.  Captive baby lions and pandas never have to endure anything even remotely as horrible as this.

A lot of folks in America are currently very upset right now because of Joseph Kony’s war crimes against children in mineral-rich Uganda http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-12-2012/my-little-kony – but am I the only person on FaceBook today who also gets upset when Bush, Obama, AIPAC, the U.S. Congress and Netanyahu commit war crime after war crime against the captive children of Palestine?

Perhaps we should make a viral video that will make Bush, Obama, AIPAC, the U.S. Congress and Netanyahu famous for their war crimes against children as well.

DARPA Director Leaves Pentagon, Moves to Google

Darpa director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon’s premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was “offered and accepted at senior executive position” with the internet giant, according to Darpa spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she couldn’t say no to such an “innovative company,” he adds.

Dugan’s emphasis on cybersecurity and next-generation manufacturing earned her strong support from the White House, winning her praise from the President and maintaining the agency’s budget even during a period of relative austerity at the Pentagon. Her push into crowdsourcing and outreach to the hacker community were eye-openers in the often-closed world of military R&D. Dugan also won over some military commanders by diverting some of her research cash from long-term, blue-sky projects to immediate battlefield concerns.

“There is a time and a place for daydreaming. But it is not at Darpa,” she told a congressional panel in March 2011 (.pdf). “Darpa is not the place of dreamlike musings or fantasies, not a place for self-indulging in wishes and hopes. Darpa is a place of doing.” For an agency that spent millions of dollars on shape-shifting robots, Mach 20 missiles, and mind-controlled limbs, it was something of a revolutionary statement.

The shift was only one of the reasons why Dugan was a highly polarizing figure within her agency, and in the larger defense research community. The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is also actively investigating hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of contracts that Darpa gave out to RedX Defense — a bomb-detection firm that Dugan co-founded, and still partially owns. A separate audit is examining a sample of the 2,000 other research contracts Darpa has signed during Dugan’s tenure, to “determine the adequacy of Darpa’s selection, award, and administration of contracts and grants,” according to a military memorandum.

Results of the inspector general’s work haven’t been released. And the work had “no impact” on Dugan’s decision, according to her spokesman, Mazzacone. “The only reason” she decided to leave the Pentagon was the allure of working at Google.

“Dr. Dugan’s departure is not related to an OIG investigation,” Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, adds in a statement. “The OIG conducts regular audits of Defense agency contracts and ethics programs; as a Defense agency, this includes Darpa.”

“In the spring, questions were raised over whether it was appropriate for Darpa to have funded a proposal submitted by RedXDefense, particularly in light of the Director’s continuing interest in this closely held small business,” Morgan says. “In response, the Department reviewed the processes in place at Darpa to ensure that those processes would ensure integrity and public confidence.” That review — separate from the OIG’s ongoing audits — found that Darpa and its chief’s actions “were consistent with the letter and spirit of relevant laws, regulations, and policies governing conflict of interest.”

Dugan is expected to depart “sometime in the next few weeks,” Mazzacone notes in an email. Darpa deputy director Kaigham “Ken” Gabriel, who has overseen the agency’s day-to-day operations since mid-2009, will serve as the acting Darpa chief. He’ll certainly be a strong contender for the permanent position, as will Lisa Porter, the head of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity — Darpa’s counterpart in the intelligence community.

In the meantime, the Pentagon’s leadership are hailing the first female director of its most important research agency. “Regina Dugan’s leadership at Darpa has been extraordinary and she will be missed throughout the Department,” Frank Kendall, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, says in a statement. “We are all very grateful for the many contributions she has made in advancing the technologies that our war fighters depend on. She leaves for an exciting new opportunity and we wish her every success.”

Source: Noah Shachtman | DangerRoom

Is Kony 2012 The Right Thing To Do?

By now, most people who pay attention to the news are likely aware of the Kony 2012 film and campaign. Launched by the non-profit organization Invisible Children (IC), the campaign shines a light on Joseph Kony, a leader of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group that has terrorized Uganda since 1986. The LRA kidnapped children from their homes, and turned the girls into sex slaves and the boys into child soldiers. According to Wikipedia, “[a]n estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986″ under Kony’s brutal reign in Uganda.

In 2005, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Kony for war crimes, but he has yet to be captured. Kony is believed to currently reside in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, or Southern Sudan.

Through the Kony 2012 campaign, IC hopes to raise Kony’s profile worldwide in hopes of finding him and bringing him to justice. And opinions on this tactic are diverse.

Some are criticizing the campaign as being another case of the white man trying to save black people. (The filmmaker and narrator is a white man, with his prominently featured little blond-haired boy.) IC addresses this by pointing out that 95% of IC’s leadership and staff on the ground are Ugandans, not white people from America.

Raising other issues is Victor Ochen, director for the African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET) – Uganda, and himself a survivor of the LRA’s war in Uganda. In a recent article, Ochen suggests that the problem is not as straightforward as IC’s film might imply. He says that “much more needs to be done.”

“In particular,” says Ochen, “there is a need for much greater protection of civilians in South Sudan and the DRC and Central African Republic where the LRA is now active. Furthermore, many of the devastating effects of the war between the LRA and the Government of Uganda have still not been addressed in northern Uganda, even though the LRA has not been active here since 2006. These include the most serious physical and mental health effects, the weakening of key social and protective services, the nearly complete absence of remedy for harms suffered, and an utter lack of accountability.”

“Second,” Ochen continues, “as someone whose brother and cousin were abducted and who are among the thousands of disappeared whose fate is unknown, I join with other Ugandans who hope our relatives are still in captivity and will come back home alive. Any advocacy aimed at military bombardment of the LRA rebels remains therefore very sensitive throughout northern Uganda, and I imagine the DRC and South Sudan and Central African Republic as well, because thousands of children and adults have been abducted and have still not come home yet. My own father is deeply traumatized due to my brother and cousin’s abduction, and every time he hears about any report of killing LRA rebels he is not sure whom they have killed and wonders if people are celebrating his beloved son’s death. These are the feelings many families have. I agree that Kony must be stopped as soon as possible. However, it must be done in a way that avoids further civilian casualties and the loss of the lives of innocent children. Raising potentially false expectation such as arresting Kony in 2012 will not rebuild the lives of the people in northern Uganda. Rebuilding communities and rehabilitating victims is what we need. The stronger survivors become, the less Kony remains an issue. Restoration of communities devastated by Kony is a greater priority than catching or even killing him.”

On the other hand, Human Rights Watch makes the point that “[a]rresting Kony and other LRA leaders would reaffirm that those who commit mass atrocities will face justice, and it would end the scourge of one of Africa’s most brutal groups.”

Amnesty International has addressed one of Ochen’s concerns by stating that any efforts to arrest Kony must respect human rights. “Anyone joining the Kony 2012 campaign should insist that efforts to arrest Joseph Kony must respect human rights,” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty’s Africa director. “It is also vital to make sure that any action ensures the protection of civilians in the surrounding areas.”

So clearly there is more to the problem than just finding Kony by making him famous, as IC hopes to do. But, if finding him and bringing him to justice are done carefully and properly, supported by recovery efforts to aid his victims, it would be a huge step forward for the people of central Africa who have suffered long enough.

Is Kony 2012 FRAUD? Just Asking Questions!
Kony 2012 Video is Misleading
KONY 2012 ~ A Powerful SCAM?