The bill may sound fine but –
1) If it is legitimate and wise for us to be messing around in Africa why not do it right and completely? Why is it OK to send in 100 armed “advisers” but not OK to just drone that actual known killer into oblivion? After all, we droned a guy just a few weeks ago who was not known to kill anyone or head anything, basically because he was an inspirational figure to people who oppose our plans for hegemony over them. Why are we handling this murderer indirectly, while a man who was probably not so evil we just killed, with “collateral damage” OK?

2) Exactly WHY are we messing around in Africa, anyway? Why not clean up the torturers torturing people we handed over to them in Afghanistan? Do we really have reason enough to expand our messing around in the African continent? Are we so competent in this interfering all over the world that we should be expanding our efforts?

3) Who believes the president (or whoever is really in charge, it ain’t him) will limit themselves to what’s in the bill? Like Libya? Or Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Exactly what threat are we solving there? Taliban in Colorado next week? Or are we slaughtering people in order to keep bases there as part of our domination of the Middle East (and maybe containment of China?)?

– I would like the idea of taking out this bad guy if we were not messing up with such disastrous results all over the world already –

In some repetition to the above: Apparently the US, which can spot a ruthless terrorist nearly anywhere in the world and destroy him and his family, hasn’t been able to find an African army commander in several years so the US needs to send a few troops.

“The deployment is starting this month, and many of the U.S. personnel that deploy for this mission will carry out support functions in Uganda only. Only a portion of the personnel will travel to field locations,” said the U.S. official, Virginia Blaser.

Field locations. I guess that would be Central African Republic, some distance from Uganda on the other side of the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Because that’s where Kony is, according to Uganda.

AP, Oct 17:

The ruthless African bush fighter that some 100 U.S. military advisers will soon help hunt down was almost caught by Ugandan troops earlier this month, a military official said Monday.

Ugandan troops almost caught Joseph Kony, the leader of the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army, in the village of Ndjema in the impoverished nation of Central African Republic, Col. Felix Kulayigye, spokesman for Uganda’s military spokesman, told The Associated Press by phone.

A deployment of 132 troops, most of whom are for support, with only a portion — say 30 — in ‘field locations.’ And this requires the War Powers Act, while the US has had 600 troops in Philippines for years without the WPA? Iranian plot, LRA fantasy, what’s next?

“our legislation did not authorize the use of force by American troops anywhere,”

From the AUTHOR of the bill.

Thank you Russ.

As I said the other day, when Congress means FORCE they use the word FORCE. When they use the term SUPPORT they mean support, like logistical support, intelligence support, supplies, training, etc.

Thank you David too for this post.

Now, can’t wait for those loud D apologists to spin this news to their liking too. Should be here in 5, 4, 3, ….

Feingold may have meant that, but this is what the legislation actually states:

“SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States to work with regional
governments toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the
conflict in northern Uganda and other affected areas by—
(1) providing political, economic, military, and intelligence
support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from
the Lord’s Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top comanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize
the remaining Lord’s Resistance Army fighters;” (emphasis mine).

I think if the Pentagon made a peanut butter sandwich, they would give the person eating it food poisoning. They are totally incompetent, as is the CIA and FBI.

I do not approve of this action (starting up war #7) or the bombing of Libya, or any of the other five ongoing military actions (WARS).

Also, Obama has killed three US citizens in Yemen in the past couple of weeks with drone bombings. The last one was 17 years old. No arrest, no charges, no trial, no evidence, no justification, no judge, no jury. Just plan old execution. Obama is a very evil man in my eyes.

And once again, did you read what you posted?

It says we can provide military SUPPORT for viable multilateral efforts to apphrehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield.

Not use direct force to do it ourselves.

Also, Obama has killed three US citizens in Yemen in the past couple of weeks with drone bombings. The last one was 17 years old. No arrest, no charges, no trial, no evidence, no justification, no judge, no jury. Just plan old execution.

Yep, no way in hell that’s constitutional either, but hey, if you’re a Democrat and there’s a D in the White House, turns out the Constitution doesn’t matter!!!!

Just like back in the day when Republicans said the EXACT same things when Bush was in the White House.

Neither side with enough sense to see what this leads to.

Still unbelievable to me. I knew R’s were hypocritical, Constitution haters. I just never would’ve believed it was D’s too.

Yes, I read it.

Here is Obama’s statement:

“I have authorised a small number of combat-equipped US forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of (LRA leader) Joseph Kony from the battlefield,” Mr Obama wrote on Friday.

[emphasis mine]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15317684

Without giving an opinion as to the wisdom of this action, it seems to be squarely within the action authorised by the legislation.

Yes, IF that’s what they’re limited to.

But if they’re there to go take out Kony themselves, which is what a lot of us thought on Friday when the news leaked then they’re gone overboard.

Send in 100 advisers. Send in 200. I don’t care. But if they’re there to engage in hostilities (which is what it looked like Friday) then Congress should approve it first.

That was what the big stink was about Friday. Sending them into harms way.

If all they do is advise and support, yep, they’re technically within the law I agree (without arguing the wisdom of it because I’m torn myself on that).

EDIT: And BTW, I think one could make a rational argument that sending in 100 “combat-equipped US forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of (LRA leader) Joseph Kony from the battlefield” sounds an awful lot like committing them to hostilities to aid in removing Joseph Kony from the battlefield.

And if that’s the case, as the AUTHOR of the law stated, that would NOT be what was authorized. When Congress means military FORCE, they’re usually pretty clear about the word FORCE.

here’s whats coming for the people of Libya (and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia) and if they start using bombs in DR Congo too:

Background

Recent reports have drawn attention to increases in congenital birth anomalies and cancer in Fallujah Iraq blamed on teratogenic, genetic and genomic stress thought to result from depleted Uranium contamination following the battles in the town in 2004. Contamination of the parents of the children and of the environment by Uranium and other elements was investigated using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. Hair samples from 25 fathers and mothers of children diagnosed with congenital anomalies were analysed for Uranium and 51 other elements. Mean ages of the parents was: fathers 29.6 (SD 6.2); mothers: 27.3 (SD 6.8). For a sub-group of 6 women, long locks of hair were analysed for Uranium along the length of the hair to obtain information about historic exposures. Samples of soil and water were also analysed and Uranium isotope ratios determined.
Results

Levels of Ca, Mg, Co, Fe, Mn, V, Zn, Sr, Al, Ba, Bi, Ga, Pb, Hg, Pd and U (for mothers only) were significantly higher than published mean levels in an uncontaminated population in Sweden. In high excess were Ca, Mg, Sr, Al, Bi and Hg. Of these only Hg can be considered as a possible cause of congenital anomaly. Mean levels for Uranium were 0.16 ppm (SD: 0.11) range 0.02 to 0.4, higher in mothers (0.18 ppm SD 0.09) than fathers (0.11 ppm; SD 0.13). The highly unusual non-normal Fallujah distribution mean was significantly higher than literature results for a control population Southern Israel (0.062 ppm) and a non-parametric test (Mann Whitney-Wilcoxon) gave p = 0.016 for this comparison of the distribution. Mean levels in Fallujah were also much higher than the mean of measurements reported from Japan, Brazil, Sweden and Slovenia (0.04 ppm SD 0.02). Soil samples show low concentrations with a mean of 0.76 ppm (SD 0.42) and range 0.1-1.5 ppm; (N = 18). However it may be consistent with levels in drinking water (2.28 μgL-1) which had similar levels to water from wells (2.72 μgL-1) and the river Euphrates (2.24 μgL-1). In a separate study of a sub group of mothers with long hair to investigate historic Uranium excretion the results suggested that levels were much higher in the past. Uranium traces detected in the soil samples and the hair showed slightly enriched isotopic signatures for hair U238/U235 = (135.16 SD 1.45) compared with the natural ratio of 137.88. Soil sample Uranium isotope ratios were determined after extraction and concentration of the Uranium by ion exchange. Results showed statistically significant presence of enriched Uranium with a mean of 129 with SD5.9 (for this determination, the natural Uranium 95% CI was 132.1 < Ratio < 144.1).
Conclusions

Whilst caution must be exercised about ruling out other possibilities, because none of the elements found in excess are reported to cause congenital diseases and cancer except Uranium, these findings suggest the enriched Uranium exposure is either a primary cause or related to the cause of the congenital anomaly and cancer increases. Questions are thus raised about the characteristics and composition of weapons now being deployed in modern battlefields

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No one will ever convince me that leaving these people the fuck alone would have been worse than poisoning future generations. I only wish that EVERYONE WHO EVER SUPPORTED ANY OF THESE WARS FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER FOR EVEN ONE SECOND WOULD BE THE ONES TO SUFFER, NOT THE CHILDREN OF FALLUJAH.

Human rights group may be responding favorably to this action, but I’m not.

If we want to see this group of killers brought to justice, we should support the Organization of African States in their efforts.

This is just the camel’s nose under the tent. We’re not shipping our soldiers halfway around the world to fight for human rights. We just want the American and African public to get used to our having a military presence there. Then AFRICOM will get into resource wars with China over Nigerian oil, etc. Perhaps there’s no choice, but they should level with the American public.

Uganda’s neighbor to the east is The Democratic Republic Of Congo. They have a bunch of serial rapists and murderers there as well. It’s been going on for about seven years now. Almost 5 million people murdered in the regional conflict over minerals mining. USA, Britain and France all have “interests” there. Did I mention the cannibals before? So why didn’t our humanitatian leaders send in the Anti-Rape Mounted Police years ago into the Congo.

Wikipedia: Democratic Republic Of Congo

The Impact of armed conflict on civilians

In 2009, people in the Congo may still be dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month,[24] and estimates of the number who have died from the long conflict range from 900,000 to 5,400,000.[25] The death toll is due to widespread disease and famine; reports indicate that almost half of the individuals who have died are children under the age of 5. This death rate has prevailed since efforts at rebuilding the nation began in 2004.[26]

The long and brutal conflict in the DRC has caused massive suffering for civilians, with estimates of millions dead either directly or indirectly as a result of the fighting. There have been frequent reports of weapon bearers killing civilians, destroying property, committing widespread sexual violence,[27] causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes or otherwise breaching humanitarian and human rights law. An estimated 200,000 women have been raped.[28]

Few people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been unaffected by the armed conflict. A survey conducted in 2009 by the ICRC and Ipsos shows that three quarters (76%) of the people interviewed have been affected in some way–either personally or due to the wider consequences of armed conflict.[29]

In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN’s Indigenous People’s Forum that during the war, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. In neighbouring North Kivu province there has been cannibalism by a group known as Les Effaceurs (“the erasers”) who wanted to clear the land of people to open it up for mineral exploitation.[30] Both sides of the war regarded them as “subhuman” and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.[31]
e serial rapists and murderers there too.

Almost 5 million people murdered in the regional conflict over minerals mining. USA, Britain and France all have “interests” there. Did I mention the cannibals before? So why didn’t our humanitatian leaders send in the Anti-Rape Mounted Police years ago into the Congo.

Because the conflict didn’t do any damage to US corporations, which as we know is more important than five million lives and X million rapes. I’ve been thinking the military step-up is because the Frank-Dodd bill has some previsions about conflict minerals (only reporting, but relatively strict reporting on supply chain) and SEC is currently working on the rules to comply with the bill.

Africa isn’t a battlefield so Obama doesn’t need congressional authorization. The world is a battlefield so Obama can assassinate US citizens anywhere. I’m glad we have a constitutional scholar to straighten these things out.

I just was about to say the over/under is 2 on GOP Presidential circus clowns who end their political careers saying something incredibly stupid and insensitive about the Central Africa troop deployment.

Just about say that when Lord Pus-filled AssBoil decided to check in…

“Just when you thought you couldn’t loathe Limbaugh more, he defends The Lord’s Resistance Army”

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/17/just-when-you-thought-you-couldnt-loathe-limbaugh-more-he-defends-the-lords-resistance-army.html

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/limbaugh-defends-lords-resistance-army/?smid=tw-thelede&seid=auto

Isn’t it odd what poor memories politicians have. This clown authors a law and then can’t remember what he authored.
Senator Feingold, 2009:
“providing . . . military, and intelligence support . . . to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top comanders from the battlefield”
Senator Feingold, 2011:
“our legislation did not authorize the use of force by American troops anywhere,”

Never, ever trust a politician.

Good, except DRC is to the the west of Uganda.

The area has lots of oil and minerals, especially in S. Sudan, and also lots of Chinese, civilian and military.

Of course, this will be a joint operation with Ugandans in the lead and with the US only supporting, just like in Afghanistan and Libya. That’s the way they sell it, but it’s our guys that do the heavy lifting — you can be sure of that. They’re better trained and better equipped, for one thing. Or two.

The world would be a far better place without Kony and the atrocities he has committed. Unfortunately Uganda’s UPDF is guilty of many similar atrocities:

Since 1986, Museveni’s army has been known to commit some of the worst atrocities on the ethnic Acholi people who occupy the regions of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader. The UPDF, also formerly known as the National Resistance Army (NRA) became infamous for burning civilians alive in huts, killings, and the rapes of both women and men in what the Acholi called tek gungu. Tek Gungu referred to rape of men and women by Museveni’s soldiers who would force a man or woman to kneel down (gungu) before the rape is committed against the male or female victim. These rape incidents have been documented by Human Rights Watch and yet remain ignored by most so-called mainstream media. Museveni, despite his army’s atrocities remains a Western “darling.”
from: http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1917.cfm

The UPDF has been an active participant leading atrocities in the DRC in the greed for mineral wealth. This is well documented including in a UN report.

The UPDF has recently been asked to leave both the CAR and the DRC, from Uganda journalist Rosebell Kagumire’s blog:

The CAR government in December 2010 had asked the UPDF to leave but they are still present in one area. A friend who works in CAR once told me that when they were asking CAR civilians which militia groups are involved in the conflict, some wrote UPDF. This is because the ordinary people on the ground just see people in UPDF uniforms and have no clue who they are and what they are there to do.

The DRC government asked UPDF to leave, at first by May this year but later asked for a calendar showing their withdrawal. I have not heard of the details of this withdraw plan. In some incidents the Congolese Army, which has its own structural problems had clashes with UPDF in DRC which were largely unreported in the media.

The UPDF are the forces the US is partnering with, training, equipping, supporting etc, who are supposed to go after Kony. The US already tried this once with the UPDF at the end of 2008, see: http://crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/stability-operations-cause-900-civilian-deaths-100000-displaced-miss-target/.
The killing and displacement continued for months after that account was written. Over 1000 people were butchered, and well over 100,000 were displaced.

US forces have been active in Uganda for several years as part of AFRICOM. They are already there. The question is, will anything positive and successful be done to stop the LRA? Evidence to date is not promising. It is far more likely the body count will just grow.

The reason primarily behind this venture is most likely that George Soros has just acquired oil rights in Uganda and he instructed Obama to get some forces over there to protect his interests. He has other stuff going on in Africa, and is a major player in the destablization of Africa. Our efforts at legislation would be better served by reinstating the Glass Steagll standard which would throw a spanner in people like Soros’s works and thus put an end to all this Wall Street interference in US sovreign national affairs. We are being used as a means to feather the oligarch’s nest and the nest has gotten so huge it seems as though it is rivalling God in as much as they would like it to fill all space. They are getting on my last nerve. Please would everyone stop being so cool about everything that is being fed to us, Uganda, Libya, Syria, Palestine,
our alliance with Karzai and Netanyahu, the assassination of the US Citizens with no trial and now we are hurtling towards a confrontation with Iran when we should be questioning the DOJ about Fast and Furious rather than go up in smoke over a foiled attempt to blow up an elite restaurant. Covering up this latest outrage of the Administration re Uganda, as well as covering up all the other outrageous, flagrant breaches of what the President is meant to do Constitutionally, is getting monotonous in as much as it seems that only Maxine Waters is concerned about the Constitution, and in that regard has proposed to repeal the part of the last budget hike that gave us the SUPER CONGRESS, on the grounds that it overrides the Congress, and in so doing overrides the will of the people, and is in violation of the US Constitution. I say “Maxine Waters for President”.

“The basis is being prepared for the expansion of war in Africa. Obama said that ‘elements of these U.S. forces will deploy into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’

Kony has been a protected asset of the British. Efforts by African governments to capture him have always been stymied by his being tipped off. His location in central Africa is easily known to advanced-sector intelligence agencies through monitoring of his satellite phone. When the government of Uganda tried to negotiate with Kony, offering amnesty in return for shutting down his operation, the British-founded International Criminal Court forbade Uganda from doing so.”

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/19852

“However, what General Ward would not discuss, is one of the key strategic interests which drives American policy in Africa,’ according to a paper circulated at the event by J. Peter Pham, an expert in Africa defense policy.

In addition to fighting terrorism, disease, and ‘dictatorships,’ Pham lists the objective of ‘protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance … a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment’” (emphasis added).

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2008/3544africom_control_resources.html

“What Pham argued in 2007 was similarly argued by the Heritage Foundation in 2003, when it first proposed AFRICOM to the Bush administration as a way to secure access to African raw materials. But the real mother of this policy was the 1974 National Security Memorandum 200, by British agent and U.S. National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger (who famously bragged in 1982 that he ‘kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than … the American State Department.’) In that document, NSSM 200, Kissinger essentially stated that the vital national security interests of the United States lie in the control over world strategic raw materials in ‘lesser developed nations.’ Under Kissinger’s policy, those regions in the developing world were to be targeted for massive depopulation, lest the people of those nations attempt to develop and employ their own resources and their own technologies…”

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/19854

How many of these mini-wars, dd’s word, are waiting for presidents to unwrap?

“If the military –.”

If not, then what? Once a politician, always a politician, is that it?

A coalition of human rights groups applauded the president’s move.

I don’t care anyone was coalition of the willing-to-applaud. It’s borderline if not outright appeal to authority. Do human rights groups take corporate dollars at least as willingly as the corporate parties or do they stand on principles, a rare thing these days from so-called liberal organizations. Were any of these, independent AND not in bed with the neolibs/neocons, I wonder?

John Prendergast, Co-Founder of the Enough Project, said that if…

Again that word sneaks in, IF. Am I the only one who finds so many IFs awfully shaky ground?

How long before we hear we have consumed lies again?

If you want my attention, tell me how you’re going to take out Bernie Sanders or Jan Schakowsky or Raul Grijalva or Peter Welch.

I didn’t appreciate it fully at the time, it was just too unusual an idea to consider but if Feingold was still in office, wouldn’t he be of the same class of dem we would have been looking to see defeated?