Politics & Current Events
LittleMoxie
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Why did Obama do this?
He sent 100 US soldiers to CAR to hunt for Kony. I'm very liberal and am not an isolationist, but this seems like its going too far, IMO. I know 100 soldiers isn't a lot, and this may give us some moral standing in some circles (as a response against the "the US only intervenes when oil is involved" stance)... but it still seems wrong to me. Like we are over-reaching, like it's not our place, like we aren't using our military wisely, like this just shows how we spend too much money on defense, etc. I can't exactly articulate why this seems wrong to me; it's not like I think Kony should just go free, but it just doesn't sit will with me.
Re: Why did Obama do this?
Because Uganda is fighting a proxy war on our behalf in Somalia and has suffered substantial loss of human life as a result--both soldiers in combat and dozens of civilians in terrorist attacks in Kampala. We have actually been helping the Ugandan military with this for some time--see Operation Lightning Thunder of 2008/2009 (that was actually authorized by an EO of Bush, but the same concept).
If you think this is a big investment don't look into the activities of the US military in the Sahel
This is the future of American military involvement in sub Saharan Africa. Very light touch, and primarily in a training/advisory role with heavy covert operations (see Somalia today).
Election year, duh.
In all seriousness, we send special forces out to do shiit all the time. We just generally keep quiet about it. So I'm not surprised he did it, not cynical enough to believe he only did it because it would make him look good but I am cynical enough to believe we know about it because he thinks it will make him look good.
Click me, click me!
Yeah, the article mentions that we've been helping for a while. It's not that 100 soldiers is that big of an investment given our MASSIVE armed forces, it's just that I feel uncomfortable with us having this much involvement finding specific people all over the world and doling out help as a reward. The whole concept just seems off to me.
And to HAB's point...I do think that this being publicized now is only because of all the recent press on Kony, which also rubs me the wrong way. If these things truly need to be done, fine, but keep quiet about it.
This is likely true.
Click me, click me!
I guess now we know what that video actually "did" or at least what these things have the power to do.
(TIC, since it's really just more coverage of something that was happening before the video).
Don't you remember the press it got when Rush Limbaugh blasted Obama for sending US troops to fight Christians?
LOL. Yes, I remain sad to this day that more people did not share in that particularly precious moment of radio hilarity.
But isn't this the problem? Americans in general have no idea of the involvement the US has had in world affairs?
Yeah, and given the tremendous latitude our government has to do things covertly with little judicial oversight I'm not sure I want less transparency!