Uganda

[Lalaith]

Thoughts?

I guess I'm curious as to why we're doing this now. If this guy has been committing atrocities for 20 years, why now? And is it our job to fix this situation?

I'm torn on this; of course I want this sort of thing to end (rapes, murders, etc.), but is it wise for the US to be the ones to end this? And how does the international community view this type of action?

[vison]

You guys might remember that a team from Langley BC went to the Little League World Series.

The first team they were scheduled to play was the team from Uganda. But the Ugandan team wasn't allowed to enter the US, so the team from Saudi Arabia got to go instead.

The Ugandans have invited the Canadian kids to Uganda - they want to play that game.

And the Canadian kids are going. Not as part of our league, we cannot possibly sponsor them, nor do I, personally, approve of this venture. But it's a big deal, let me tell you. The Disney people are involved.

Jeez.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think a little more background as to what is going on is necessary to discuss this. For one thing, it is certainly not just Uganda; there are multiple countries in central Africa involved. To set the stage, President Obama recently made the decision to send a small number of U.S. troops (about 100) to central Africa to help several countries, including Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo deal with the notorious guirrella army Lord's Resistance Army, led by a gentleman named Joseph Kony. This group has been committing horrendous atrocities for many, many years, resuting in thousands of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of people being displaced from their homes.

Why are we doing this now? As is always the case in situations like this, the reason are complicated, and undoubtably involve some political payback for Uganda's help in Somalia, for instance, but the main root of it is the sense that Obama and many of his main foreign policy advisors have that the U.S. was wrong to fail to move more aggessively to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. Nor is this a sudden decision; it has been in the works for more than a year, meaning that the Obama administration began putting it it place early in his administration.

Politically, this is a risky thing for the president to be doing, with the focus on domestic issues, and a clear sense that people want us to get our own house in order rather than policing the rest of the world. But it is the right thing to do, and I applaud the president for doing it despite the potential political price that he may have to pay for doing so.

Here is one of many different articles on the subject:

Human Rights Group Welcomes Obama’s Decision to Send Troops to Uganda

[Holbytla]

This isn't necessarily a new topic either. We have been funding this resistance for a number of years, however without success. The addition of troops is in effect saying that money alone is not going to cure this problem, we need to stop blindly funding resistance movements without more of a presence in country, and we need to stop this now before the political and economic atmosphere makes it impossible to do so. This is about lopping the head off of a poisonous snake while we still can.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm a bit confused by your comments, Holby. This is an effort to assist governments in opposing a so-called resistance movement, not an effort to support the so-called resistance movement.

[Holbytla]

I guess my brain was thinking resistance to the Lord's Resistance Army.
In any case, just replace "resistance movement" in my post and insert cause to make things clearer.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Okay. That makes sense.

[Lalaith]

I appreciate the further thoughts here. I consider you all experts in US and world politics.

[Túrin Turambar]

This topic bought to mind, for me, this article by conservative columnist Mark Steyn, published a month after 9/11. I've been thinking about it for a while, but haven't really thought up a coherent response. Rather than quote the whole thing (which I think is worth reading) I'll just quote the conclusion:

America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial superpower, but the viability of that strategy was demolished on September 11th. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilise them. Kipling called it "the white man's burden" – the "white man" bit will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, and it's no longer really a "burden", not in cost-benefit terms. If neo-colonialism makes you squeamish, give it some wussified Clinto-Blairite name like "global community outreach". Tony Blair, to his credit, has already outlined a ten-year British commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan under a kind of UN protectorate. But, given the appalling waste and corruption that attends any UN peacekeeping mission, it would be better to do it directly under a select group of western powers. We can do it for compassionate reasons (the starving hordes beggared by incompetent thug regimes) or for selfish ones (our long-term security) but either way the time has come to turn "American imperialism" from a cheap leftie slur to a formal ideology.

These days I suspect the west is too broke to do any civilising, but I'm coming around to sharing Steyn's suspicion of 'soft' humanitarian intervention. The same issue just came up in the U.K. politics thread as well.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

This topic bought to mind, for me, this article by conservative columnist Mark Steyn, published a month after 9/11. I've been thinking about it for a while, but haven't really thought up a coherent response. Rather than quote the whole thing (which I think is worth reading) I'll just quote the conclusion:

America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial superpower, but the viability of that strategy was demolished on September 11th. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilise them. Kipling called it "the white man's burden" – the "white man" bit will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, and it's no longer really a "burden", not in cost-benefit terms. If neo-colonialism makes you squeamish, give it some wussified Clinto-Blairite name like "global community outreach". Tony Blair, to his credit, has already outlined a ten-year British commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan under a kind of UN protectorate. But, given the appalling waste and corruption that attends any UN peacekeeping mission, it would be better to do it directly under a select group of western powers. We can do it for compassionate reasons (the starving hordes beggared by incompetent thug regimes) or for selfish ones (our long-term security) but either way the time has come to turn "American imperialism" from a cheap leftie slur to a formal ideology.

These days I suspect the west is too broke to do any civilising, but I'm coming around to sharing Steyn's suspicion of 'soft' humanitarian intervention. The same issue just came up in the U.K. politics thread as well.

This reminds me of Gandhi's famous quote:

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

I truthfully think the less interventionism, 'humanitarian' or otherwise, the better... for everyone.