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The LRA Is Nowhere Near “The Top of the List”

Kevin Drum makes an odd statement in support of the deployment to Uganda (via Barganier): We can’t go after everyone, but the United States has been committed for some time to the integrity of both Uganda and the newly created South Sudan. If we’re going to go after anyone, the LRA surely deserves to be […]

Kevin Drum makes an odd statement in support of the deployment to Uganda (via Barganier):

We can’t go after everyone, but the United States has been committed for some time to the integrity of both Uganda and the newly created South Sudan. If we’re going to go after anyone, the LRA surely deserves to be near the top of the list.

This doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. The LRA is monstrous, as I said yesterday, but the same might be said about any number of militias that have been roaming eastern Congo over the last 15 years. If the U.S. is going to “go after” such groups, the U.S. would start with groups that threaten American interests, and then it would move on to groups that threaten strategically important allies, and then, somewhere very, very far down the list, it would do something about groups that threaten the integrity of Uganda and South Sudan*. When people refer to these states as allies, it underscores how misleading that word can be. These states are dependents, and they are not contributing much, if anything, to U.S. security. That South Sudan can’t effectively control its own territory and already needs assistance from the U.S. is an argument against U.S. backing for a ready-made failed state. It’s true, as several people have pointed out, that Uganda provides soldiers for the African Union’s mission in Somalia, but I’m not sure why this suddenly requires the U.S. to help Museveni fight his own decades-old battles. It is all the more puzzling when a lot of the weapons that the U.S. has provided to Ugandan troops in Somalia have ended up in the hands of the Islamists they are supposed to be opposing.

On a separate note, Americans often refer to what “we” are doing when they actually mean that the government is doing something. It’s a pervasive habit, and I’m sure I’ve fallen into doing it from time to time, but it is a bad one. It identifies citizens with their government in a rather unhealthy way, which tends to reinforce deference to whatever the government is doing, and it is a bit of make-believe, as if “we” here at home are participating in U.S. military activities on the other side of the planet. “We” aren’t “going after” anyone. The Ugandan military and other military forces in the region are “going after” the LRA, and some American soldiers are advising them.

Update: John Glaser made an important observation on the deployment to Uganda yesterday:

In 2009, when the US teamed up with the Ugandan army to coordinate a series of raids on LRA encampments – codenamed “Operation Lightning Thunder” – it failed miserably and let LRA forces escape only to go on a killing spree in surrounding areas, resulting in somewhere between 600-900 slaughtered and many more raped and maimed. Ivan Eland has compared this to “needlessly poking a hornet’s nest.”

David Axe has more background on the LRA and previous failed attempts to combat it:

Though the danger to American lives is probably minimal, any effort against the LRA poses serious risks. Previous operations targeting Kony have ended badly. In 2006, a squad of Guatemalan commandos trained by the U.S. infiltrated an LRA encampment. But Kony was away. In the ensuing firefight, LRA troops wiped out the entire eight-man commando force and beheaded their commander.

Three years later, a small team from U.S. Africa Command helped the Ugandan army plan a complex series of raids on LRA camps, codenamed “Operation Lightning Thunder.” But the Ugandan air and ground forces could not coordinate their attacks. The enraged rebel survivors fanned out, killing more than 600 civilians as they fled deeper into the forest.

After the disastrous Operation Lightning Thunder, Africa Command assumed a lower profile in Congo, sending small numbers of trainers on short-term missions aimed at boosting the Congolese army. Meanwhile, aid groups and civilian militias ramped up their efforts to guard against LRA attacks, employing homemade shotguns and a DIY radio warning network. And advocates of greater U.S. involvement continued pleading their case, culminating in today’s announcement.

* That is, this is what the U.S. would do if it had boundless resources and an obligation to provide internal security for most countries on the planet.

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