Invisible Children / Kony thing = scam?

Great Debates
41

It’s not a scam, I wouldn’t even call it a bad goal, but even though the goal is just, the people are trying to be noble, and all that jazz, I’m not sure I support it.

Kony is a bad dude, no question. But when the US has already deployed, and been actively involved in tracking him, I think more awareness may hurt more than help. There’s only so far the US can scale up an effort to track him, and if the demand gets too much, I’m worried that somebody will push a larger invasion of the region to scour it. I think that would be like a lit match in a natural gas mine.

Not to mention all the ties to the Ugandan government and such, which is arguably worse than Kony with human right’s violations. Granted, the US supports that government too, but I’m not sure I agree with sending money to a charity that wants to give a lot of that money directly to a pretty atrocious government (not to mention the government of a country that we’re pretty sure Kony has been effectively driven out of for a pretty long time).

That said, it’s not the most evil charity in the world, even if it’s perhaps a bit naive in my opinion. I’m not convinced concerted efforts to stop Kony will solve more problems than they start, but as far as viral videos go I prefer it to Loose Change or Zeitgeist.

42

Cross posted from the other Kony thread:

I’m not up-to-date on this particular organization, but I do study security and development in Central Africa.

This looks to me like an advocacy organization, which is a perfectly legitimate type of organization to be. Lots of massively important decisions get made by public opinion. For example, the public perception of how the US handled Somalia played a direct role in both the rise of Al Queda and our failure to act on the Rwanda genocide. The people in congress are not experts in every random foreign policy issue, and they make their decisions on what their constituency wants. This means that US public opinion can have a very real, game changing effect on international affairs. And advocacy groups play a role in keeping their particular agendas on the map. And so of course their funding is going to go to advocacy and not to feeding orphans or whatever. That’s not their mission.

Their salaries are not out of line with industry standards. Running an NGO requires pretty much the exact same skill set as running a business. You need to be able to have vision, develop talent, manage budgets, run effective projects, etc. It’s the same thing. And development NGOs have some major drawbacks- frequent travel makes it tough for family life, you may find yourself in serious risky security situations, it can be hard to buy houses or have the accouterments of ordinary life, etc. So in order to attract people more talented than starry eyed undergrads and cranks, NGOs have to pay competitively.

To address Komy, yeah, he is a real baddie. He’s been making trouble for years, and he really is just an old fashioned nihilistic sadistic bastard who has been a thorn in everyone’s side for a while. And he has seriously screwed up security in a number of countries who have it bad enough without random psychopaths coming in and slaughtering folks for no discernable reason. He’s got the advantage of being in an area with relatively weak central governments all around, and nobody really has the capacity to contain him. The governments simply don’t control the border regions, and they don’t have the military power to do mucha bout the random criminals camping out on their territory.

But he’s also on the decline. His force has dwindled, and he’s on the run. The US sent some people out to get him, but as far as I can tell they haven’t actually been trying too hard to get where he actually is. It’s hard to tell if this is “get Bin Laden when he was still in Sudan being a troublemaker” or if it’s “wild goosechase for a has-been rebel.”

The whole “Ugandan military” thing is complex. Modern countries need governments to work- they need security, social services, legit ways to manage national revenue, etc. But a government is only as good as people believe that it is and invest in it. A fragmented country that doesn’t see it’s government as having control or being capable of providing security will end up with a government that cannot control it’s borders and needs to rely on bargaining with warlords, ethnic alliances, and keeping the upper-class power elites cushy in order to survive. A weak government, for example, is going to end up dead if they try an anti-corruption campaign that threatens the next-highest level of government. Anyway, this all creates a bit of a catch-22. In order to make a government robust enough to make positive change, it needs to become strong, which isn’t something you want to encourage in a bad government. But the alternative- revolution- rarely works out well for anyone and doesn’t usually lead t lasting positive change. So there just isn’t a neat and clean solution.

43

On the front page of The New York Times, today, the headline, appropriately enough, is: “Online, a Distant Conflict Soars to Topic No. 1”. :smiley:

44

You’re putting up a false dichtochmy there: Either support Invisible children despite the negative aspects (esp. calling for military intervention! That will not help child soldiers)
or don’t act.

The actual choice is: support invisible children despite the negative aspects
or support a ** different** group that helps child soldiers without military intervention.

45

I’m not sure how you’d expect a country to contain a criminal like Kony without military/police intervention (and in that region, militaries hold legitimate police functions.) If the US had some crazy running around kidnapping kids and slaughtering villages, do you think we’d respond with a big group hug? Force and the threat of force is the primary tool every country in the world has for containing violent criminals. After someone is already on the rampage, it’s really the only thing that works.

Heck- that’s basically the definition of what a government is. A government is an entity that maintains a recognized and effective monopoly on the use of force over a defined geographic area.

So why strengthen the local governments rather than swooping in and doing it ourselves (not withstanding that there is no political will for that)? Because if a government can’t fulfill it’s promise to provide security to it’s people, the people lose their confidence in their nation and all kinds of stuff starts falling apart. People retreat into ethnic and regional identities rather than national ones, and start working against each other rather than for a shared vision. Local and foreign investors stop trusting that their investments will be safe, and business on all levels grinds to a halt. Governments have to spend increasing sums placating the elites to keep revolution at bay- and social services to the people suffer. Eventually a “grab what you can while you can” mentality emerges, and eventually the whole thing gets rotten to the core and collapses. And this collapse rarely bring about positive change, but rather it starts a cycle of instable weak governments that fall prey to the same problems.

And these governments do need straightening. The government of Central African Republic, for example, only has around 3,000 guns to control an area the size of Texas- which is full of diamonds, gold, elephants and other targets that attract armed criminals- and the civil wars in the area have saturated rebels, organized criminals, warlords and other baddies with all the arms they can handle. Protecting against poaching alone could probably occupy the entire military…and there are so many armed groups out there that they are too outgunned to do much more than try to make alliances (mostly by giving kickbacks to) the baddies. These governments are genuinely cash-strapped, to the point where a million here and there can be a make-it-or-break-it thing. Yes, they are corrupt, but corruption is a symptom as well as a cause of weak governments. Stronger governments have a much better chance of controlling corruption and have fewer incentives to give handouts to elites and baddies.

Anyway, it’s all darn complicated, and in reality we don’t know much about how to address governance problems. But simply providing services to former child soldiers doesn’t do much to actually solve the root problem, in reality to stop this guy it will take force, and the local governments are the best candidates to apply that force. Another thing to keep in mind is that others are watching. If we teach people “your grievances are what they are and that’s an internal matter, but if you bring child soldiers into it, you will be shunned and hunted down like a dog,” they will listen. Rebels expect to become leaders one day, and they will pay attention to the international community (in a limited way) to lay the foundations for their expected leadership.

46

I’m not sure if this is meant as response to my post, but in case it is: I meant the idea of an US intervention in a country with difficult internal politics and difficult terrain is not a good solution. Contrary to video games, US soldiers don’t just swoop in, shoot the bad guy and solve all problems. They have the same terrain problems that the native soldiers have, and additionally the problem of telling friend from foe.

And when the soldiers sent to eliminate Kony and his LRA encounter child soldiers conscripted and brainwashed that shoot at them, the soldiers shoot back and kill the child soldiers - which isn’t going to look on CNN. And not really helping the child soldiers, either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Kony LRA mess didn’t come about because the Ugandan government didn’t know what to do - he used the child soldiers to fight the government in the first place.

I’m all for improving local governments. I don’t see where I said anything against that?

I thought the main problem was that handguns were so ubiquitous in Africa? Esp. since many are produced in the next smithy? Isn’t the statistic something like 9 out of 10 guns worldwide are in Africa? How do you ensure that the guns you give to the local govt. stay in the hands of police and army, and aren’t being sold for cash by the local corrupt leader? Or taken when a faction of the army does a rebellion (As happens often enough in some African countries?) How do you make sure that the police or army doesn’t develop into the right-wing paramiltaries that are a plague in much of South America, enforcing policy by shooting the wrong people?

Aren’t they cash-strapped partly because the World bank hands out loans unconditionally which were and are used to buy a lot of expensive weaponry instead of fighting hunger or improving infrastructure? (Of course during the Cold war, buying weapons was encouraged by both sides).

Don’t you think it’s a bit late to send that message, considering that the message has been more along the lines of “If you have oil, we will invade your country, if you don’t have oil, we will stand by while you kill each other” in the past decades?

47

It may technically be a war crime (aggression) to unilaterally invade a country that hasn’t attacked one’s own country. There were incredible failures of the UN to intervene in genocides, but there have also been massively unpopular unilateral actions from the US and Israel. There have also been failures to adequately try war-criminals such as Gaddafi or Bin Laden and a replication of that is not the expressed intention of Invisible Children.

Not to mention that there’s already a conspiracy that the US has strategic interest in the region, which is just about enough for the left-fringe I know to put on fatigues and kidnap a local toddler.

48

Let’s just get some facts straight: the primary mission of Special Forces soldiers that have been deployed to counter the LRA is not to shoot people, seize territory, and secure populations. The Special Forces have the lead responsibility in the US military to train foreign armed forces how to plan and execute their own missions. We use small numbers of Special Forces to train larger numbers of indigenous forces to do their own mission better and more effectively.

So this speculation about US troops going out to conduct raids and end up shooting armed children is really pure conjecture based on incorrect assumptions of what US troops are doing there. US troops did not invade in any way, shape or form; they are there with the full support of the host country.

Now, one could speculate that in the future that the mission could change. But that does not reflect the current mission, nor the stated intent of the current mission.

49

Interesting commentary from someone who wrote a book about the LRA.

50

I’d recommend you watch this video for another view over this Kony issue that’s popped up recently.

51

I don’t think the advocacy group is a scam, they want to get information out there, have got information out there, and want more money so they can enhance and continue those efforts.

If you feel passionate about getting information out there about the LRA and advocating ways to deal with it, we live in a free society and you’re free to donate your money to causes you feel passionate about.

However, the simple fact of the matter is it is highly unlikely the United States will do significantly more on a State level than it is already doing. Even the small force of advisers we have there now are not there without controversy. This President has not shown any desire to become embroiled in any sort of large military deployment over issues like this, and I honestly don’t feel that advocacy will change that.

Even right now, some 65% of Americans do not feel that we should become involved in the Syrian troubles to stop humanitarian violations. I think because of the creativity and passions stirred by this video a good number of Americans might initially support a military mission to Uganda to try and hunt Kony down. However, that would not be a wise strategic move whatsoever. Keeping Uganda stable just simply isn’t the job of the United States government, nor should it be.

Further, and the reason I don’t see a significant increase in state-level response is it is not a wise political move for President Obama. I think President Obama is shrewd enough to know this. If Obama could get a large force there to try and hunt Kony down he would get an initial bump from individuals who felt passionate about this. However, the moment U.S. soldiers started dying and it ended up hunting him down isn’t going to be a short and easy thing you’re going to see Mitt Romney hammering Obama on military adventurism of the same sort President Obama opposed as Senator Obama (opposition that later massively boosted his political strength and helped his early campaign), Mitt Romney will be hammering President Obama on the cost of this adventure and etc. It would basically be politically stupid.

There’s some sliver of a chance we send a force and through some combination of events (or plain luck) Joseph Kony is quickly captured, which would be massively to President Obama’s benefit. But for a guy who mostly has the 2012 election in the bag unless the economy nosedives (and who can’t win it if it does most likely) he has no reason to engage in this sort of political stunt.

Even the U.S. government just giving Uganda a bunch of money to try and help capture Joseph Kony is really problematic. We have no idea how the money would ultimately be used, we have no idea what impact it would have on Uganda or Ugandans.

I’m not necessarily saying the right answer for individual Americans is to do absolutely nothing, but I do think the right answer for the U.S. government is to do little more than we are already doing. Individuals Americans who feel passionate about Africa should work to make the parts of Africa that are conflict areas and prone to systemic instability better, more stable places. There are a lot of NGOs that are working towards that, but it’s a big issue and any one individual could donate their lifetime to a very very small sliver of the overall picture. I still think that’s a better use of your money and energy vis-a-vis Africa than getting involved in publicity stunts centered around vague ideas as to how to reign in individual African bandits. Banditry conducted by psychopaths is not new at all to humanity and is certainly not new or even especially unique in Africa, but it’s a symptom of a greater problem and focusing undue energy on the symptom fails to actually significantly improve things long term.

Anyone who knows anything about African conflicts or foreign policy has probably heard of the LRA and knows how bad they are, but I can name several other things in Africa that are at least equally deserving of the level of attention Kony is getting. The one positive I can see from all of this is if it increases the general awareness of African issues and generates some long term desire to actually try and make things better there in the American people, the advocacy effort could be a good thing. I would just hope most of that attention and money ultimately flows to more structural improvement efforts and not efforts targeted at individual bandit lords.

52

Because it’s on YouTube, it’s in The New York Times. It used to be, because it’s in The New York Times, it’s on YouTube.

(Or consider for future news: Because it’s on YouTube, it’s on CNN. It used to be, because it’s on CNN, it’s on YouTube.)

Wow.

I watched “KONY 2012” on YouTube again and I thought it was interesting when the narrator, Jason Russell, said, near the ending, “It’s turning the system upside down. And it changes everything.”
This changes everything.

53

I’m not sure if it’s what you’re advocating, but giving money to corrupt governments isn’t going to make them less corrupt.

They’re not going to listen. If that approach was effective, the Hutus wouldn’t have killed half a million in Rwanda, Pol Pot wouldn’t have lived another 19 years after killing 2 million Cambodians, Milošević would have stopped all his naughtiness in former Yugoslavia, the Shining Path wouldn’t still be around in Peru after 32 years and Idi Amin wouldn’t have died from kidney failure in Saudi Arabia 24 years after his rule in Uganda.

54

The video left a bad taste in my mouth due to the cheesy slogans and incongruous pop music. Nothing gears me up to stop an african warlord more than MGMT. Not to mention the leaders are a bunch of unrelatable d-bags.

55

The thing that got me was the phrase ‘stop at nothing’.

Really?

I’d like them to stop at the logical point of diminishing returns and reevaluate. Often.

ETA: Kony is a war criminal who should be captured and tried, there is no point in chucking resources at Uganda if he’s in Southern Sudan or DRC.

56

AlterNet researched KONY and found that it’s funded by anti gay and pro creationist groups.

57

Apparently he ate children as well. Nice.

58

And Jesse Helms supported billions of dollars for Bono’s effort to combat AIDS in Africa.

Bono: hating gays by trying to eliminate AIDS in Africa.

59

Communist. :mad:

60

I have heard plenty of informed and cited opinions about this topic, but I’ll leave it to y’all to find them.