It would be more defensible if it weren't blatant propaganda and accurately discussed the regional politics at play. There's a difference between promoting awareness and suckering people into one way of thinking.

 

Absolutely. But I have a hard time envisioning a model where you find people willing to put time and money into a project like this, and can sustain that involvement and money flow, without propaganda. There's not much of a market for fair and balanced looks into issues, unfortunately. It's too boring to get the interest and support of a wide swath of the population.

 

I'm not saying this video is a good thing, but I don't know how we get to the "better" thing.

 

When I watched the video, I thought "man, his son is adorable." Afterward, I thought it was really smart to use his adorable son, but it also made me feel really awkward. I wouldn't say the kid was exploited, but it doesn't quite sit right with me.

I wholeheartedly agree; that's I said "some will think." You're preaching to the choir on this particular issue, good sir.

Kony is a terrible murderer - he is fighting against terrible murderers. Invisible Children is a dubious group at best. Basically, there is nobody to back in this mess and reposting this video in ignorance of the facts is pointless.

 

Pretty much.

That, and as you mentioned before, I really don't want US resources being spent there and US lives being risked there. Some will think that's cold, but non-interventionist is my preferred stance on foreign affairs. And I wouldn't break that trend just because someone is "really bad" unless they're also threatening the US in some (at least semi) direct way; but here, this isn't even an obvious case, for the reasons above.

 

In fairness, though, whether or not Invisible Children is a "good" organization has little to no bearing on whether this is an issue worth caring about/doing something about/getting worked up about, etc. It might impact whether or not you want to or should make donations directly to them, but that doesn't tell us anything about the LRA and Ugandan situation.

It's not really being "cold" to not want to intervene. It's being realistic.

 

US troops intervening in Africa also has historically provoked bloody retaliations against civilians. With both sides of the conflicts being violators of human rights, you pretty much have to occupy the entire country and rebuild it in order to prevent genocide. The US is in no position to even consider anything like that. Our military is way overextended as it is and we have a ton of domestic problems that need to be handled. It's just not feasible to intervene in a conflict where their is no preferable side. There are no "good guys" to be found.

 

I also extended the same reasoning toward Libya. Gaddafi was basically the Mother Theresa of the dark continent (relatively speaking).

 

Damn that might not be the "PC" thing to say, but sure makes a lot of sense.

Preach Pengy, preach!

 

 

Convert them!!

I see the good lord! Amen brutha! A! Men!

I knew nothing about this until now, but it took me 7 seconds to find out that "Invisible Children" is a very questionable organization.

 

I wish I could give this post 50 green up arrows...