Green Berets AKA Army Special Forces have been sent to Uganda to quell a 20 year old string of rape, murder, and kidnapping. A reported 200 rebels belonging to the group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LR-A) lead by Joseph Kony have committed these atrocities.
President Obama is sending up to 100 Special Forces to the region, which includes South Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their main objective according to President Obama’s communication to Congress on October 13 is to “provide assistance and training to regional forces working to remove the group’s leader…and his band from the battlefield.” Apparently President Bush also sent a handful of advisors to the area and millions of dollars in aid.
Certainly our humanitarian efforts to prevent further atrocities and to oust these rebels are commendable. The question is why hasn’t the United Nations intervened and why didn’t they do it twenty years ago? The obvious answer is that the United Nations is an impotent organization that we need to stop supporting. We need to remove it from our soil. If the United Nations cannot or will not stop 200 rebels from committing atrocities in a small country what good is it?
In his notice to Congress President Obama he said sending the soldiers to Africa will further “U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.”
If sending troops to Africa is in the interest of our national security why is President Obama planning to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan? Especially given the fact that both General Petreaus and General Keane are against it. General Keane stated in an interview that reducing the troop strength in Afghanistan is going to present a “huge challenge” in completing the mission. He stated the Taliban are “remarkably defeated in the south” and that we need to “keep the forces the same” and reducing the force puts “overall success at risk”.
On one hand Obama sends our soldiers to Africa while the other reduces our presence in Afghanistan, going against his military advisors. I can’t remember the last time there was a terrorist attack directed from Uganda. Don’t the Taliban pose a “U.S. national security” risk too? Then why is it OK to pull out of Afghanistan and let it once again breed terrorism?
(As an aside, I have to let you know for a few weeks in Vietnam I served as the platoon medic under General Keane when he was a lieutenant.)
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