I've watched this program, and I can most certainly agree that Joseph Kony is a monster and should be stopped. But, please allow an old man his concern about what is being done about this situation. I'm not speaking about the worldwide campaign to bring Kony and his crimes to public attention. Certainly that is a good and just endeavor. My concern lies elsewhere.
President Obama has sent "advisers" into Uganda to assist the local military in trying to arrest this man. That frightens me. Why? Because another President, Lyndon B Johnson, used the same tactics during his administration. He sent "advisers" into a country to assist the local military in stopping another man who was doing virtually the same thing then as Kony is doing today. Stealing children, forcing them to be soldiers, forcing not only young girls, but also young boys to work in brothels, and using the money to but arms and ammunition, building his power base, becoming more and more powerful. That country was Viet Nam, and the man was Ho Chi Mihn.
The years dragged on, and the military advisers became soldiers in a "police action, supporting the government in power in their war against rebels, criminals, and terrorists." More years, and the "police action" became a full fledged war, with more and more American troops being committed, and more and more young men and women giving their lives For a cause that the American people came to look at as an act in futility, defending a people who didn't really want defending from a threat that, ultimately, didn't affect us one way or the other. Where in the beginning, returning troops were hailed as heroes, and celebrities supported them and donated their time to go and entertain them, in the end, those troops were called murderers and baby killers, and the celebrities visited, not them, but the enemy.
Folks, this IS a just cause, Kony IS, at the very least, a criminal who has to be stopped. But rhetoric isn't going to stop him. Just pasting posters on walls isn't going to stop him, and military advisers aren't going to stop him. In order to stop Joseph Kony and the evil that he represents, a lot of time and resources are going to have to be committed, troops, real troops, not advisers, are going to be deployed, and a lot of good men and women are going to die. Maybe even some of the members of this Board. Just, please, be aware of that fact. Something like this is never easy, and victory, in the end, isn't always assured merely because the cause is just. If you can live with those facts, then, I say, in the words of a rather famous vampire, "Let's go to work." But if you're not willing to go that far, stay at home, where it's warm and comfortable, and just be clad that you don't live in Uganda.
