You all knew this was coming: armed troops to Central Africa

[Mac1337]

Come on, admit it. This was just bound to happen. We have to nab Joe Kony, yeah that Joe, before it is too late. Looks like Libya is winding down anyway.

[cbelt3]

... but... we've had armed troops 'advising' all over the world. All the time. You didn't know that ?
This is nothing new.

[Dennis S]

Get a life, Dakota.

[rjmacs]

Dakota wrote:
Come on, admit it. This was just bound to happen. We have to nab Joe Kony, yeah that Joe, before it is too late. Looks like Libya is winding down anyway.

Well, i'd really start to worry when we start sending disarmed troops anywhere in the world!

[Chakravartin]

FYI: The news is that we sent 100 Special Ops soldiers to help save the lives of innocents.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...67d7e6ef1e

A special forces unit can be highly effective beyond what the number of soldiers might suggest. They are highly skilled in disrupting insurgency networks by discovering where rebels are based and how they procure guns, money and other logistical support.

The Lord's Resistance Army has been pushing westward since it began its attacks years go, and the administration and human rights groups say its atrocities have left thousands dead and have put as many as 300,000 Africans to flight. They have charged the group with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court under a 2005 warrant for crimes against humanity in his native Uganda. A self-styled prophet, who mixes Christian mysticism with politics, he is believed hiding along the Sudan-Congo border.

Most of the troops will deploy to regional capitals to work with government officials and military commanders on countering the rebels and protecting civilians, Pentagon officials said.

...

Here's a brief and incomplete list of massacres that those rebels are responsible for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Re...#Massacres

[OWC Jamie]

Halliburton and Bush Obama are war-mongers .

Bush and Clinton avoided Africa like the plague.
Africa has suffered colonization resistance, apartheid and civil wars. It's about time we did a little bit more than try to help from a safe political distance.

[RgrF]

The business of America is war, get use to it.

Absent actual war, imminent war or feared war and if our troops from places, like Europe and Japan and (insert the name), were to come home almost all of our now very healthy war fueled industries would have to find something else to do.

Maybe they'd be prodded to do something productive?

[Mac1337]

I am all for this sort of things. Remember Bush's no sanctuary pledge. Welcome to the club. It is just painful to watch you twisted in a pretzel defending defense cuts then defend every crackpot intervention idea that comes out of Obama's head. I have never seen a bunch of out and out hacks anywhere on the internet. Obamatons to the core. So we are good with this now?

"Let every nation know... that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."


Don't go soft on me next time my man sends troops overseas.

[Mac1337]

cbelt3 wrote:
... but... we've had armed troops 'advising' all over the world. All the time. You didn't know that ?
This is nothing new.

France or Belgium may be but for America to send troops to Africa with virtually no national debate is very new indeed. How about putting down one insurgency at a time?

While the size of the U.S. footprint is small, Obama's announcement represents a highly unusual intervention for the United States. Although some American troops are based in Djibouti and small groups of soldiers have been deployed to Somalia, the U.S. traditionally has been reluctant to commit forces to help African nations put down insurgencies.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-ventures-bloody...47650.html

[Acer]

Call it rationalizing, but 200,000 in Iraq is not the same as 100 in the Congo.