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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Obama send US Troops to Africa |
| 2011-10-14 |
President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army in and around Uganda. "I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter sent Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army. U.S. military personnel advising regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders will not engage Kony's forces "unless necessary for self-defense," Obama said. |
| Posted by:TS9905 |
| #17 Seen two types of reports. One is that the mission is to capture or kill the LRA bigs. The other is to advise and train local forces. Training is all very well, but in places like Uganda, or Chad, or any other nation on the continent, the restriction on action is transport. How many trucks, including fuel transports, does it take to get a battalion five hundred miles out into the bush to take on the LRA, or any other bunch of bastards? How many trucks does the government have? Can they operate fast enough to get where they're going before the bad guys find out? I like the idea of finding the LRA bigs and calling in half a dozen cruise missiles. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2011-10-14 22:46 |
| #16 Les Aspin denied them armored support |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-10-14 22:34 |
| #15 I'm sorry, this is just insane. I would be quite happy with Kony & Co. being taken out, and as other commenters have noted, there is nothing remotely Christian about this outfit. BUT: what exactly does Obama expect the rest of the LRA to do as our guys go after their leadership? Sit on their hands?? There is some kind of weird Democrat Theory Of War that thinks that these things can be neat, clean, and compartmentalized. And it never works. To be blunt, 100 troops in this area sounds EXACTLY like Mogadishu and Black Hawk Down. |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2011-10-14 22:13 |
| #14 JosephM, I suspect you aren't in the least ashamed of that one. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-10-14 21:58 |
| #13 "Our troops will be fighting CHristians" > OH THE HUGE MANATEE! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-10-14 20:37 |
| #12 CC, it is in our national interest because Obama said so. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2011-10-14 20:34 |
| #11 The LRA are total scum, but I fail to see how this is in our national interest. |
| Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili 2011-10-14 20:19 |
| #10 The bucket of African "bad actors" is bottomless, endless in fact. Once you're in, it's difficult to climb back out. I suspect the word quagmire is quite appropriate. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2011-10-14 19:43 |
| #9 LRA is not Christian at all. They are one of the more brutal African armies, and that's saying something. Kony's removal from the planet can only be a good thing. Christians vs. Muslims? Just total bullshit by the uninformed. |
| Posted by: gromky 2011-10-14 18:35 |
| #8 The only reason I agree with the anti-piracy operations along Somalia is that the Somalis have expanded out far enough to be a big problem in a lot of places in the oceans. Uganda can take care of the LRA, all that they need is more equipment and some specific training. This is how Vietnam started out: a few 'advisers' that got into combat and then we kept introducing more and more troops. We managed to avoid the whole African colonial period, why do we have to start in on it now? |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2011-10-14 18:11 |
| #7 Beyond belief. No wait, it really isn't. In fact it was predicted some months ago right in this forum. African problems should remain the domain of Africans. End of story. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2011-10-14 17:16 |
| #6 He's into child slavery and child concubinage. His specialty is raiding boarding schools, which I take it are Christian church based. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-14 16:29 |
| #5 Rush is wrong. Kony may have started out Christian, but now he is as much Muslim (other name Mohammed) as Christian and all animal. The pious Muslims in Khartoum are his lifeline of weapons and money. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Phater7165 2011-10-14 16:26 |
| #4 Kony is, I believe, nominally Christian, but it's his own religion, with borrowings from Islam. He's into child slavery and child concubinage. I hope he dies soon and painfully, but I have no idea why U.S. troops should be training Ugandan troops, who're more familiar with the problem and the terrain. |
| Posted by: Fred 2011-10-14 16:20 |
| #3 ...Seriously mixed emotions here. On the one hand, Kony is about as James Bond supervillain/Hitler crazy and homicidal as they get. Osama's body count almost certainly wasn't what Kony's is. On the other hand, let's see: Iraq Afghanistan Libya Phillipines Uganda And sadly, in this country, little wars tend to grow like Topsy... Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2011-10-14 16:05 |
| #2 Scroll down to "Amid a world of threats, Panetta laments pending budget axe". Geeesh. Another stick your finger into places you do no need to be. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-10-14 15:42 |
| #1 From another web site in the comments: Rush just said that the LRA is “Lord’s Resistance Army. That it is Christians fighting Muslims. And if Obama is sending troops into another war, (as Libya started this way) that our troops will be fighting Christians. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2011-10-14 15:29 |