Obama sends 100 Special Operations Forces to Africa

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Uganda

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Apparently wars in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya (some of which have never been declared or approved by Congress) were not enough for the winner of the world’s most ironic Nobel Peace Prize.

Today Obama sent a letter to the Speaker of the House, John Boehner and the president pro tempore of the Senate, Daniel Inouye in which he detailed his plan to send roughly 100 armed American troops, mostly Special Operations Forces, to track down the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) within Uganda and surrounding nations.

Obama wrote, “I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield”.

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“I believe that deploying these U.S. armed forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa”, wrote Obama.

He claims that the soldiers will only be advising regional forces in hunting down and presumably killing Kony and other LRA leaders unless it is necessary for them to do so in self-defense.

On top of this, since 2008 the U.S. has spent over $40 million in supporting anti-LRA activities according to the spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland.

Yet this massive expenditure on a group which poses no threat to the United States whatsoever pales in comparison to the affront to the Constitution that is the Obama regime.

Obama is now sending troops – not just drones or airstrikes – to a foreign land to engage militarily.

Once again, Obama is falling back on the humanitarian intervention excuse which has become tired and worn out thanks to the disaster that is the NATO operation in Libya, which despite the many claims, still has not been won.

The “initial” team (hinting that there are likely going to be many more teams) is going to be armed with “appropriate combat equipment” while other forces include “a second combat-equipped team and associated headquarters, communications and logistics personnel.”

This doesn’t sound like it is going to be a couple-day long operation, but since Obama ignores the War Powers Act completely; time is of no object to him.

Uganda is far from alone in this operation, “Subject to the approval of each respective host nation, elements of these U.S. forces will deploy into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The support provided by U.S. forces will enhance regional efforts against the LRA”, wrote Obama.

In reality, sending Special Operations Forces to “advise” these anti-LRA forces will just continue the cycle of violence that has plagued the world for so many years.

The U.S. troops will teach the anti-LRA forces to be brutal killing machines and this is never pretty. Claiming that we’re intervening for humanitarian reasons makes even less sense given we are sending “advisers” who have the sole mission of turning Ugandans into trained killers.

In October of last year, U.S. military forces numbered more than 1,700 in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Pentagon. U.S. troops had a military presence in 33 different sub-Saharan African countries.

Obama’s plan for handling the LRA sounds eerily like the plan for Libya which has still yet to be fulfilled.

It includes calls for more robust “protection of civilians” (just like Libya), apprehending or “removing” (read: killing) Kony and senior LRA officers (just like Qaddafi in Libya), and also just like Libya pushing for the “defection, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters” while increasing “humanitarian access.”

As Tony Cartalucci points out, this is like a “’reverse Libyan-style’ intervention” in that the West is stepping in to crush an uprising against the 25-year dictatorial rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Musveni.

The claim that the U.S. has any interest in humanitarian concerns is laughable at best, given the fact that the U.S. and NATO are currently supporting al Qaeda-affiliated war criminals in Libya.

To make matters even worse for Obama’s claim that this is based on humanitarian concerns, Museveni recently supported displacing and murdering some 20,000 Ugandans on behalf of a British corporation in the name of global warming.

Let us not forget that this same individual ended term limits in order to keep himself in power, has clamped down on the domestic democratic opposition,  and invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Museveni had no small part in the Second Congo War, which has left the Democratic Republic of Congo in total ruins, so much so that the estimated death rate of 45,000 people per month has not decreased since the conflict officially ended.

If Americans really care about spending our non-existent money meddling in yet another foreign conflict while there are record levels of poverty here at home, then Obama should do his job and get Congressional approval for his latest interventionist adventure.

But, since he has not, Obama is continuing his remarkable record of laughing in the face of the Constitution and flexing his dictatorial powers while supporting a dictator in the name of humanitarianism.