March 10, 2012
Zooey Deschanel
Most importantly, says Deibert, the Lord’s Resistance Army is no longer in Uganda, and it hasn”t been for at least six years.
The Ugandan government under Yoweri Museveni is no better now. It has been using the classic door-in-the-face technique to crush basic liberties under the guise of civil progress.
In early February, Uganda’s parliament revived an anti-gay bill that promised death sentences to those engaging in homosexual behaviors. A new version of the bill dropped references to the death penalty for “serial offenders,” but there are still mandatory prison sentences for homosexuals. More likely than not, this is all the Ugandan government wanted in the first place”a false display of willingness to negotiate.
Human Rights Watch depicts further corruption within Ugandan police forces:
…officers routinely use unlawful force during arrests, including beating suspects, using torture during interrogations to extract confessions, and the alleged extrajudicial killings of at least six individuals in 2010 alone.
And this is whom Invisible Children wants the US government to train? Are they also proud that for the past two years, the Obama Administration has waived almost every penalty against foreign governments using child soldiers to give them more of our tax money in military aid?
US military training often goes awry. Six years ago we trained Guatemalan soldiers to fight against the LRA. Kony’s group, according to David Axe at Wired, “wiped out the entire eight-man commando force and beheaded their commander.” We also trained Osama bin Laden to fight against the Soviet Union, which was then deemed the greater of two evils.
We see how that turned out.
Despite how mismanaged Invisible Children’s funds may be, it’s good that they”ve helped build schools, but the organization should be ashamed that it promotes firepower to solve these complex conflicts. Charity and guns don”t mix.
