Rush Limbaugh comes out in favour of the Lord's Resistence Army

[Steely Glint]

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20...ets_christians

RUSH: President Obama has deployed troops to another war, in Africa, ladies and gentlemen. Jacob Tapper, ABC News, is reporting that Obama has sent 100 US troops to Uganda to help combat Lord's Resistance Army. Tapper reporting today: "Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces 'remove from the battlefield' -- meaning capture or kill -- Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA." I wonder how the Wall Street crowd is gonna react when they find out that Obama has sent troops to another war? "Mr. Limbaugh, it's just 100 peacekeepers." Yep, yep, yep, that's how Libya started, and, by the way, there's no end in sight for Libya.

"The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo." A hundred people are gonna go to all those places? "The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying 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.'" LRA is Lord's Resistance Army. And it doesn't mean God's resistance army. Lord is some Lord, some guy. A "Defense Department official tells ABC’s Luis Martinez at the Pentagon that the U.S. troops will be in Africa 'for a few months in an advisory role.'" One hundred troops in an advisory role.

So nothing to worry about here, folks, only gonna be for a few months. Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord's Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord's Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord's Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill.

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. Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians? Wouldn't you say that we are? I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn't just Obama that supported that. The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy. Now they've done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place. Now they're criticizing 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.

The government of Uganda claims that Lord's Resistance Army only has 500 or a thousand soldiers in total. So what's the threat? If that's the maximum size of their army, what's the threat? A thousand soldiers? Now, 1100 soldiers because we have sent a hundred. I'm not making this up. This is Jacob Tapper. ABC News had reported that Obama got a letter off to John Boehner a couple days ago announcing this. It's just for a few months until the Lord's Resistance Army is eradicated. That's all. Just a few months. Not much of a threat.

In case you don't know, the LRA is less of a resistance movement and self-perpetuating nightmare of fear, horror, insanity, violence and death. Typical activities for them include hacking people death, child rape, rape, torture, mutilation, abducting children, more rape, more mutilation and general massacres.

GlobalSecurity.org

The LRA continued to kill, torture, maim, rape, and abduct large numbers of civilians, virtually enslaving numerous children. Although its levels of activity diminished somewhat compared with 1997, the area that the LRA targeted grew. The LRA sought to overthrow the Ugandan Government and inflicted brutal violence on the population in northern Uganda. LRA forces also targeted local government officials and employees. The LRA also targeted international humanitarian convoys and local NGO workers.

The LRA abducted large numbers of civilians for training as guerrillas. Most victims were children and young adults. The LRA abducted young girls as sex and labor slaves. Other children, mainly girls, were reported to have been sold, traded, or given as gifts by the LRA to arms dealers in Sudan. While some later escaped or were rescued, the whereabouts of many children remain unknown.

In particular, the LRA abducted numerous children and, at clandestine bases, terrorized them into virtual slavery as guards, concubines, and soldiers. In addition to being beaten, raped, and forced to march until exhausted, abducted children were forced to participate in the killing of other children who had attempted to escape. Amnesty International reported that without child abductions, the LRA would have few combatants. More than 6,000 children were abducted during 1998, although many of those abducted later escaped or were released. Most human rights NGOs placed the number of abducted children held captive by the LRA at around 3,000, although estimates varied substantially.

Civil strife in the north of Uganda led to the violation of the rights of many members of the Acholi tribe, which was largely resident in the northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum. Both government forces and the LRA rebels, who themselves largely are Acholi, committed violations. LRA fighters in particular were implicated in the killing, maiming, and kidnapping of Acholi tribe members, although the number and severity of their attacks decreased somewhat compared with 1997.

The LRA rebels stated that they fought for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments. They were notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines. More than one-half-million people in Uganda's Gulu and Kitgum districts had been displaced by the fighting and lived in temporary camps, protected by the army.

As the years progressed, the LRA lessened their attacks in Uganda and began to attack other regions. They spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR). The LRA continued to move between these 3 regions and evaded capture despite the efforts made by joint military operations of the countries. The LRA continued to plague these regions with their only goal being survival. They performed raids on remote locations to gather food, money, or people which would help sustain their rebellion.

One of the worst things to come out of Africa, basically. Which is going some.

[wiggin]

To be only slightly fair, they did add this to the bottom of the transcript:

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.

But that's kinda ridiculous because anyone with half a brain has known about these LRA goons for years. They are not nice guys.

[Hazir]

I wonder how anybody with half a braincel and some vague knowledge of where Africa is could come out in support of the LRA. Anybody above that level coming out on their side is outright evil. But then again, that is no news when you're talking about Rush Limbaugh.

[Steely Glint]

To be only slightly fair, they did add this to the bottom of the transcript:

But that's kinda ridiculous because anyone with half a brain has known about these LRA goons for years. They are not nice guys.

Well, the point is that if you didn't know who they were literally two minutes with Wikipedia would end your ignorance. Which is something I'd think about doing before making a radio broadcast about a subject I'd only just heard of. In the internet age, there is really no excuse for being misinformed in print.

[wiggin]

Oh, I absolutely agree. The guy doesn't even bother looking things up, he just routinely makes shit up to fit some internal narrative, and damn the facts.

[Flixy]

What an idiot. But that's not really news, is it?

edit: he says he got it from ABC news, and the ABC news report specifically states what the guy is responsible for. So he can't really feign ignorance on this one.

[Steely Glint]

Limbaugh being an idiot is hardly news, but in spite of that this was still a WTF moment for me. It's like someone said on a major national radio show "Well, Charles Manson was an upstanding family man who is being kept down by the government". It's just like... what

[CitizenCain]

Limbaugh being an idiot is hardly news, but in spite of that this was still a WTF moment for me. It's like someone said on a major national radio show "Well, Charles Manson was an upstanding family man who is being kept down by the government". It's just like... what

Sounds more to me like "reasons the USA shouldn't be involving itself in another war." And he's got a point, what with Obama being the peace candidate who's got us embroiled in 3 wars simultaneously, and looks to be working on war #4. (You wanna kill the leader, you send in some special ops squads and an air wing... which could be what this is, but you generally don't wanna tell the press about your covert ops, particularly not before they're over, so... ) Granted, Rush is latching onto the whole allegedly "Christian" thing, but so what? "Government bad, rebels worse," and that's the whole history of Africa sine they overthrew their colonial oppressors. We're deploying these troops to take out these guys (that have been causing mayhem since before 1997) right now for what possible reason?

Is this supposed to be Obama's nod to the black community, to show he's not a race-traitor Uncle-Tom nigger or something? Seems like a useless waste of [hopefully relatively few] resources at best.

[Flixy]

We're deploying these troops to take out these guys (that have been causing mayhem since before 1997) right now for what possible reason?

I'm assuming because, since South-Sudan became independent, the LRA is cut off from their support in Sudan. Makes it a good time, I suppose.

Also I don't really see this as a war, it's 'advisors', from special forces, helping the local army hunt them down. Sounds more like what you guys are doing in plenty of places, including the Philippines, Columbia, etc., which is hardly a new thing for the US to do.

Also, what three wars did Obama get the US embroiled into? Libya, sure, though the US has a very limited role there, and what else? The drone attacks in Yemen?

[Loki]

Also, what three wars did Obama get the US embroiled into? Libya, sure, though the US has a very limited role there, and what else? The drone attacks in Yemen?

Somalia and Pakistan (greatly expanded since Bush left office) as well. Expanded the war in Afghanistan. Quite an accomplishment in 3 years. Definitely deserves that peace prize.

[Flixy]

Somalia and Pakistan (greatly expanded since Bush left office) as well. Expanded the war in Afghanistan. Quite an accomplishment in 3 years. Definitely deserves that peace prize.

Oops, missed about Somalia, what exactly are you guys doing there?

Peace prize is a joke anyway, especially when you give it to someone for something they have promised to do.

[Loki]

Oops, missed about Somalia, what exactly are you guys doing there?

Peace prize is a joke anyway, especially when you give it to someone for something they have promised to do.

Randomly going after people who claim to be in al-Qaeda.

At least historically it was given to people who resolved some dispute, even if they had blood on their hands. Obama seems to be far better at starting new conflicts than at resolving old ones. I note that we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Flixy]

Randomly going after people who claim to be in al-Qaeda.

At least historically it was given to people who resolved some dispute, even if they had blood on their hands. Obama seems to be far better at starting new conflicts than at resolving old ones. I note that we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Special forces or airstrikes? I was under the impression troops in Somalia were African Union. I do assume you guys have navy ships patrolling, as well.

Well, that's what you get for giving one to someone's promises, instead of actions, isn't it.

[wiggin]

Limbaugh's response to a Republican Senator who ripped him a new one for this mess:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201110180013

As far as I can tell, pretty much every informed Republican in the country has stated in no uncertain terms that the LRA are vicious thugs.

[Loki]

Special forces or airstrikes? I was under the impression troops in Somalia were African Union. I do assume you guys have navy ships patrolling, as well.

Well, that's what you get for giving one to someone's promises, instead of actions, isn't it.

Air strikes/drones/cruise missiles (not 100% on the last one).

[wiggin]

...Of course, we've been involved in that capacity in Somalia since GWB (in 2007 and 2008 we carried out airstrikes there; probably earlier as well, though I don't remember). In case of the LRA, GWB also pushed for an expansion of our role there - in 2006, we trained and equipped some Spec Ops guys (not ours) who tried to take out Kony; in 2008/early 2009, we had some advisers coordinate a series of attacks by Ugandan troops to try to eliminate the LRA once and for all (back by US training and funding). This is a logical escalation, and to be honest it's long overdue. I heard an interview from Bush's former undersecretary of state for African affairs (uh, rough title, don't remember it exactly) who was firmly in favor of the intervention and felt it was long overdue. It's unanimously supported in Congress. I'd say one of Obama's less-controversial decisions in the foreign policy arena.

Obama's main military initiatives were the expansion/strategy shift in AfPak and Libya. The former is still up in the air, but certainly the expanded drone program has notched some important successes against AQ, even if Afghanistan is just as much of a mess as it used to be under GWB. The latter was a significant commitment of resources, and Obama was lucky that it has more or less ended well and relatively quickly; we'll have to see what happens with the new Libya. (That being said, Flixy, the whole thing about the US having a limited role in Libya is a joke. UK and French leadership was a thin propaganda cover for the fact that all of the plumbing that made the operation work was run by the US, as was the more challenging/sophisticated missions. That being said, UK and France did lead the charge politically, which was a welcome change.)