Kony 2012 Don't Be Fooled

[Ephraim]

by Tom Rollins
The viral video is an attempt to further the US's economic and military interests in Africa.

If you do anything on the back of watching Kony 2012, the new viral sensation currently embarassing the world wide web, it's to investigate exactly who or what is behind it and why people have been so taken in.

US charity Invisible Children wants the Ugandan Lords' Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, responsible for forced recruitment of thousands child soldiers and sex slaves, brought to justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

I actually find it amazing that people can suddenly care so much about an issue that they presumably have a superficial awareness of already, just because of a social media campaign led by Twitter and Facebook twinned with a campaign that aims its cross-hairs on the western all-feeling heart.

How many people have seen Blood Diamond? On its opening weekend in January 2007 it took £1,471,104, two months later it had grossed £7,269,409. One of the main sub-plots of the film, amidst vicious militias, is saving Dia Vandy, an abducted child soldier, before returning him to his family.

This is not a new issue, nor is our awareness of it.

Aside from Invisible Children's suspect finances (pay $32 for an "Action Kit" and 10% of that goes to "direct services," the rest on salaries, travel expenses and so on), worse is the fact so many people could be duped by a video that explicitly calls for US-led intervention in Central Africa. Invisible Children wants its young and beautiful activist community to directly fund the Ugandan army (itself guilty of atrocities against civilians, according to Human Rights Watch reports), which will be led by "American advisers."

For someone who portrays himself as a good Dad and a great all-round guy, Jason Russell is peculiarly fond of using Pentagonese, the opaque, Orwellian language of the military-industrial complex that gave us "collateral damage" (civilian dead), "immediate permanent decapitation" (death) and "pacification" (destruction).

What are these advisers going to be advising about? Who will their advice be advised to? Will it be good advice?

If Invisible Children is anything to go by, probably not. Because Russell and his Hipstomatic-schmaltz wants "direct foreign intervention" in Central Africa - that means boots on the ground, drones and jets in the air and the next inevitable step in America's programme of endless war.



You would think we had learned something after Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that have already killed over 1 million innocent people with a 90 per cent civilian to combatant death rate, and a "textbook" intervention in Libya which has resulted in regime change and with it the total destabilisation of yet another Middle Eastern country. This, as they say, is what democracy looks like.

A coincidence, perhaps, but the United States military has been running an extensive continent-wide programme under AFRICOM, the United States African Command. This includes a string of new drone airfields in the Horn of Africa (conveniently in-land enough to deal with Uganda and Kenya too), and the trans-Saharan Operation Enduring Freedom, to "fight al Qaeda in the Maghreb."

But what about Central Africa? Last October President Obama deployed around 100 US special ops troops to Central Africa, reportedly "to assist African forces in the removal of [LRA leader] Joseph Kony and the leadership of the LRA from the battlefield." Perhaps these are Russell's faceless "US advisers."

And yet there has been no reported (and verified) LRA activity in Uganda since 2006, and it is widely accepted that Kony is no longer in Uganda. Does the west really want to inflame another region by pursuing a small, embattled radical organisation and giving it indispensable credibility and victimhood?

There is clearly more than Kony at stake here. Central Africa is well known for its rich natural resources - including copper, cobalt, gold, uranium, magnesium and tin. Once ravaged by King Leopold II of Belgium, the 21st-century American Empire now wants in.

At an AFRICOM Conference at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller declared the programme's mission meant maintaining "the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market."

Not only that. Ugandan President Yower Museveni has for some time courted Iran and President Ahmadinejad "in all fields." This is the new Scramble for Africa - a sick twist of history in which global powers are returning to old hunting grounds and fiefdoms in preparation for a new proxy war.

If Invisible Children does not turn out to be some Pentagon-CIA front, the charity is still attempting to align social media, activism and youth political disengagement with the United States' hawkish economic and military interests in Africa.

So please, don't be fooled.

[HUMANSENSE]

I immediately thought that it was more than about Kony also. I agree about the natural resources with the gold, etc. GREED, is one of the most 7 deadly sins by man. The celebrities, but ignorance is bliss. Bliss = happy and therefore, they will do anything to complete their mission. Those celebrities who are joining in with this, makes you wonder do they really understand, ok, they don't understand, the deepness of this campaign by the usa.

[sozaboy]

when i see Lady Gaga , Bill Gates, Justin Bieber, Warren Buffett, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney and many more of the most fakest united on one issue i know i aint with it

[PTB]

This ain't nothing but an attempt to get amerikkklan youth to support amerikkklan foreign policy. They're just trying to avoid another vietnam hippie college protest situation by making "invading a third world non-white nation for its resources by demonizing it government and/or other influential figures through media propaganda" look "cool".

[Black7Sun]

Well, Bin Laden's gone (by very mysterious circumstances I might add) so it looks like we got a new bogeyman on the horizon. This mf is suppose to be so hated and "number one" on the arrest-list but they haven't capture him yet, yeah okay. Damn, this looks all too familiar. Kinda reminds me of that line by Gil Scott, Heron from his rap-jam "RE-RON", "say baby, ain't we seen this somewhere before... I swear I've seen this somewhere before".

when i see Lady Gaga , Bill Gates, Justin Bieber, Warren Buffett, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney and many more of the most fakest united on one issue i know i aint with it

And let's definitely not forget about Oprah.

This ain't nothing but an attempt to get amerikkklan youth to support amerikkklan foreign policy. They're just trying to avoid another vietnam hippie college protest situation by making "invading a third world non-white nation for its resources by demonizing it government and/or other influential figures through media propaganda" look "cool".

Word, that's why we who are hip to what's going on have to have a serious talk with the youngsters we know so they don't get caught-up in the b***s ***. Oh, you can bet it's gonna be hard 'cause they've (the powers that be through their corporate-media) has dressed this thing up so well as "the hip thing to do". Closely check out how the video in structured and see the serious mind-f***in' going on.

[PTB]

Well, Bin Laden's gone (by very mysterious circumstances I might add) so it looks like we got a new bogeyman on the horizon. This mf is suppose to be so hated and "number one" on the arrest-list but they haven't capture him yet, yeah okay. Damn, this looks all too familiar. Kinda reminds me of that line by Gil Scott, Heron from his rap-jam "RE-RON", "say baby, ain't we seen this somewhere before... I swear I've seen this somewhere before".


And let's definitely not forget about Oprah.


Word, that's why we who are hip to what's going on have to have a serious talk with the youngsters we know so they don't get caught-up in the b***s ***. Oh, you can bet it's gonna be hard 'cause they've (the powers that be through their corporate-media) has dressed this thing up so well as "the hip thing to do". Closely check out how the video in structured and see the serious mind-f***in' going on.

Hell yeah comrade, they are going some intense brainwashing! Especially with the innocent looking blue-eyed, blonde-haired little white boy talking and stuff.

[goldankh]

anyone do the metaphysical breakdown on this KONY 2012 trash?

Jacob- could be symbolic of the fictional character of the bible and the deception story behind that.

The program called TRI...

20 pop culture makers and 12 policy makers- comes out to be the number 32 which is the Scottish rite degree of freemasonry. An ascension towards secrecy...

the broken pyramid at the end of the film...

the slogan at the end "The better world we want is coming"- obviously the New World Order.


I'm sure there's a better breakdown out there somewhere.

[Anayansi]

Are there any African American led movements/NGOs/groups trying to solve African issues such as child soldiers, female genital mutilation, genocide, etc.? Please forgive my ignorance if there are. And if they are, why don't they receive the coverage that white-led movements receive?

[Black7Sun]

Here's a well detailed commentary on the subject...

Uganda, AFRICOM, and the Kony Boogeyman

http://www.corbettreport.com/mp4/grtvbg20120315.mp4 (the video version)

by James Corbett
GRTV.ca

9 March, 2012

When oil executives [nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYV-BG9ha9k[/nomedia] of the largest onshore oil reserves in the Lake Albert region of Uganda in July 2009, the landlocked, oft-neglected East African nation of Uganda went from relative obscurity to a key partner for multi-national oil conglomerates.

Although buoyed by the news, the people of Uganda were naturally cautious, having seen how oil finds in Nigeria and Angola have brought more violence, bloodshed and instability than peace or prosperity.

These worst fears of Ugandans were lent further credence late last year, when President Obama announced he would be deploying US troops on the ground in Uganda, ostensibly to help capture Joseph Kony, the charismatic leader of a small rebel force that has been accused of murders, rapes and kidnaps in Uganda for decades. The timing of the deployment, however, coming at the exact same time as accusations that some of the highest officials in the Ugandan government were guilty of accepting bribes from international oil companies, only further confirmed that the deployment had less to do with Kony, an elusive figure who in fact left Uganda six years ago, and more to do with the securing of [nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L20uNqJtYYo[/nomedia].

For years, American interests in Africa have been increasingly threatened by China, the resource-hungry fast-growing second-largest economy in the world. America and its allies have noted with increasing dismay China’s growing economic cooperation with Africa, including its vast investment in the infrastructure for oil exploration, drilling and transportation in countries like Libya and Sudan. In recent years, China has been building up its relations with Uganda, and just last month the newly-appointed Chinese ambassador to Uganda, Zhao Yali, announced a series of measures to increase ties with the soon-to-be oil-rich African nation, including the granting of tariff free exports, and investments in transportation projects, power plants, and infrastructure.

But now, just as China makes its overtures toward Uganda to gain a potential toehold in the region and access to the as-yet-untapped oil wealth, a new video about Joseph Kony has suddenly gone viral online, having been viewed 10s of millions of times in just a week, and changing the focus of the American foreign policy debate toward greater US military involvement in oil-rich Uganda. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it suggests that the only way to capture Kony is to maintain an American military presence in the region.

It wasn’t long before Ugandans themselves took to social media to try to inject their own voice into the debate.

But such words of caution have fallen on the deaf ears of a public who believe that the problem of Kony is a simple one requiring an equally simple solution: more American troops. Just this week, a new bill was introduced in Congress that would see an expansion in regional forces in Africa.

What the film’s well-meaning supporters, many of them youth activists rallying behind a political cause for the first time, don’t realize, is that the Kony film, whether wittingly or not, is accomplishing what years of Pentagon propaganda could not muster: public support for an expanded American military role in Africa.

The process of setting up a unified American military command for the continent of Africa began in 2006, with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forming a committee to advise on the formation of AFRICOM. Officially established in October 2008, AFRICOM’s mission statement is to “strengthen our security cooperation with Africa and create new opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa.” In reality, this provides a convenient excuse for maintaining and expanding a permanent American military presence in the region.

Libya’s Gaddafi was strongly opposed to the AFRICOM mission, and predicted that China would ultimately have more success wooing the continent with its hands-off approach to trade and investment in Africa. In the early weeks of the Libyan bombing of 2011, AFRICOM took a lead role in the campaign, coordinating warships, aircraft and munitions.

Late last year, I had the chance to talk to former Congresswoman [nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezktVMOvTQs[/nomedia] about AFRICOM, and how the US is increasingly turning its military attention to Africa in an effort to secure Africa’s resources.

Now, as the gears of the Washington political-military complex grind into action yet again, a bewildered public is asking itself how such a phenomenon as the Kony 2012 video and attendant activist campaign arose so quickly, and what this means for the future of the political process.

The campaign itself was organized around the concept of recruiting celebrities like Rihanna, Tim Tebow and Mark Zuckerberg to promote the video. After receiving significant boosts from tweets by the likes of P. Diddy and Kim Kardashian, and media interviews by Angelina Jolie, the hype surrounding the video seemed to be a spontaneous phenomenon, but was in fact a planned PR rollout.

In the end, perhaps there is something positive that can be taken out of this latest ploy to rally public support for greater military conquest. If nothing else, the Kony phenomenon has shown us that with the right video and the right marketing, any idea–no matter how periphery to the current political debate–can be catapulted into the limelight and become a rallying cry for millions.

Perhaps, then, like-minded activists might be able to organize a campaign around another [nomedia]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo[/nomedia], this one responsible not for kidnapping tens of thousands of children, but for killing hundreds of thousands:

Or perhaps a Bush/Cheney/Blair/Rumsfeld 2012 campaign could be mounted to bring to justice the war criminals who launched illegal wars of aggression by lying to the public about Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Or the Obama 2012 campaign could refer not to the ongoing political campaign to re-elect the President, but an alternative campaign to hold him accountable for his moves toward outright dictatorship over America with the signing into law of the NDAA and his self-proclaimed power to assassinate American citizens on command.

Or perhaps a well-made video could rally the public around a Blankflein 2012 campaign to hold Goldman Sachs and its Board of Directors accountable for its crimes against the people of the world, from the US to Greece to the UK and beyond.

No word yet on whether P. Diddy, Kim Kardashian or Angelina Jolie will be on board any of these proposed alternative campaigns.

http://www.corbettreport.com/uganda-africom-and-the-kony-boogeyman/