The Young Turks update the Kony 2012 story

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks made a new report on Monday on the group promoting the Kony 2012 campaign: Invisible Children Funded By Anti-gay Christian Right? Kony 2012 Criticism 03/12/2012, highlighting the contributions they have received from fundamentalist Christian groups.



At the YouTube site, they link to Bruce Wilson's article that I quoted yesterday, Tax Forms Show Invisible Children Funded By Antigay, Creationist Christian Right Talk to Action 03/11/2012

For what it's worth, in addition to my blog post yesterday, I e-mailed The Young Turks program and tweeted Bruce Wilson's article to Ana Kasparian. It doesn't hurt to call news outlets' attention to things they may have missed, especially ones like The Young Turks who are more in tune with the digital world.

Bruce Wilson has added an updated to his post:

Why does it matter, if Invisible Children was funded by controversial donors? Two reasons - one, we can assume those donors thought IC aligned with their agenda - which is antagonistic to LGBT rights. Two, it fits an emerging pattern in which Invisible Children appears selectively concerned about crimes committed by Joseph Kony but indifferent to crimes, perhaps on a bigger scale, committed by their provisional partner, the government of Uganda - whose president shot his way into power using child soldiers, before Joseph Kony began using child soldiers. Like Kony, the government of Uganda was also indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005, for human rights abuses and looting in the DRC Congo (PDF file of ICC ruling against Uganda). Like Kony, the Ugandan army preys upon civilians and is currently accused, by Western human rights groups, with raping and looting in the DRC Congo, where it is hunting for Kony. In the late 1990s, Uganda helped spark a conflict in DRC Congo that, by the middle of the next decade it is estimated, had killed up to 5.4 million civilians, more than any conflict since World War Two. ... For a very different perspective on IC, Kony, and Northern Uganda, see this editorial by Milton Allimadi, of the NYC-based Blackstar news service[.] [my emphasis]

The Allimadi article to which he refers is KONY 2012, Invisible Children's Pro-AFRICOM and Museveni Propaganda 03/08/2012, who writes:

Invisible Children's goals initially may have been to publicize the plight of children caught in Uganda's decades-long conflicts; lately, IC has been acting as apologists for General Yoweri K. Museveni's dictatorship and the U.S. goal to impose AFRICOM (the U.S. Africa Military Command) on Africa.

And their criticism of Invisible Children's advocacy for the Ugandan regime is harsh:

If Invisible Children was in fact a serious organization that has not been co-opted by the Museveni regime and the U.S. foreign policy agenda, the organization would inform the world that General Museveni, who has now stolen three elections in a row in Uganda is the first person who deserves to be arrested.

This Ugandan and East African nightmare gets a blank check from Washington simply because he has deployed Ugandan soldiers to Somalia at the behest of the United States. So democracy, human rights abuses, and genocide, become minor nuisances as far as U.S. foreign policy goes and as far as Invisible Children cares. This is beyond hypocrisy. Those members of Invisible Children who may have supported this misguided project to send more U.S. troops to Africa because they were unwittingly deceived, should do some serious soul searching.

Museveni does not care for the plight of children in Uganda's Acholi region. How else would he have herded 2 million Acholis in concentration camps for 20 years where, according to the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1,000 children, women and men died of planned neglect--lack of medical facilities; lack of adequate food; dehydration, and; lack of sanitation and toilet facilities. Does this sound like a person who cares about children?

His colleagues have denounced Acholis as "backwards" and as "biological substances." General Museveni himself revealed an interesting pathology, as a first class racist African when he told Atlantic Monthly Magazine, in September 1994: "I have never blamed the whites for colonizing Africa: I have never blamed these whites for taking slaves. If you are stupid, you should be taken a slave." Ironically --or perhaps not-- the general was even more embraced by Washington after those remarks. Gen. Museveni has been a U.S. ally since the days of Ronald Reagan. [my emphasis]

Tags: eliza dushku, invisible children, joseph kony

Invisible Children/Kony 2012 campaign's far-right Christianist ties (and they aren't trivial)

The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian on 03/09/2012 gave a somewhat critical but nevertheless, too-credulous report on the Kony 2012 campaign by the Invisible Children group that advocates for continued US military involvement with the Ugandan military. Too credulous, despite its title of #Kony2012 oversimplifies.



Bruce Wilson of Talk to Action has been checking out the Invisible Children group who are pushing for prolonged US military involvement in central Africa in the name of going after Joseph Kony, leader of the notorious guerrilla cult, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). In Tax Forms Show Invisible Children Funded By Antigay, Creationist Christian Right 05/11/2012, he explains that the funding for this group comes from Christian Right extremists who admire the Ugandan government not for their opposition to the nearly-decimated LRA that apparently isn't even operating in Uganda any more, but because the Ugandan government is run by gay-hating theocrats with ties to US Christian Right extremists:

What does Invisible Children share in common with the Discovery Institute, the leading organization promoting "Intelligent Design", a pseudo-scientific theory created to insinuate creationist ideas into public schools -- or with The Call, whose leader Lou Engle claims homosexuals are possessed by demons, calls God an "avenger of blood" and a "terrorist", and in May 2010 staged a rally in Kampala, Uganda, at which Engle warned of a gay menace to society and shared a stage with one of the authors of Uganda's notorious Anti Homosexuality Bill?

990 IRS tax forms and yearly reports from Invisible Children, and 990s from its major donors, tell a story that's jarringly at odds with the secular, airbrushed, feelgood image the nonprofit has cultivated. ...

... Invisible Children's first yearly report, from 2006, gives "special thanks" to the "Caster Family Foundation" and IC's 2007 report is more specific, thanking Terry and Barbara Caster. In the lead up to the 2008 election, the California-based Caster family was identified as one of the biggest financial backers of the push for California's anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8.

Capping the pro-Prop 8 push was a November 1, 2008 San Diego stadium rally held by The Call, whose leader Lou Engle warned that same sex marriage could unleash a "sexual insanity" that would be "more demonic than Islam" and suggested believers should carry out acts of martyrdom to stop gay marriage and legal abortion, which Engle predicts will lead to a second American civil war.

The answer? -- all of these ministries - the Discovery Institute, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, The Fellowship Foundation, The Call, Ed Silvoso's Harvest Evangelism, and Invisible Children - received at least $100,000 in 2008 from what has emerged in the last decade as the biggest funder of the hard, antigay, creationist Christian right: the National Christian Foundation. [my emphasis]

Do American fundis advocating violence against gays and abortion providers give a flying flip about black kids in Uganda who were abused by Kony and the LRA? Not very likely.

Bruce Wilson's research indicates that part of the success of the Invisible Children campaign were to persuade many Facebook and Twitter users to give good publicity to their group, which encourages extended US military involvement with the unsavory Ugandan regime and which is backed with big $$$ by hardcore Christian Rightists. I'm not sure how far this kind of stealth promotion of a Christian Right cause offers lessons for honest progressive causes.

Eliza Dushku, one of my favorite actresses, also seems to have solid progressive instincts, and I mean progressive, not just Democratic-partisan. Her mother is . She writes about the Kony 2012 campaign in Kony 2012, Awareness, and THARCEGulu Huffington Post 03/09/2012 from the perspective of her involvement with the THARCEGulu NGO headed by her mother, Judy Dushku, professor of African politics and a prominent Mormon feminist (Rich Barlow,A feminist look at the Mormon faith Boston Globe 06/17/2012). Eliza explains what her mother's NGO does:

You see, for the last three years, all of those subjects have been on my mind daily, as I have worked with my mother and our start-up team of our NGO, www.THARCEGulu.org, or Trauma, Healing and Reflection Center for former child soldiers and victims of Joseph Kony and his rebel group the LRA or Lords Resistance Army in Gulu, Northern Uganda. ...

This is what matters most to me: 30,000 child mothers and fathers, now raising children that came from rape in the bush, make northern Uganda one of the most traumatized places on earth. There is crushing poverty, terrible PTSD, and unbelievably high suicide rates. Traditions, the bonds of family and community, were all compromised by years of captivity and then IDP camps enforced by the Museveni government. The issues are not simple. There are many additional good NGOs working to help the people of Uganda recover.

The Trauma Healing and Reflection Center in Gulu, or THARCE-Gulu is one such NGO. Gulu was the epicenter of Kony's war in Uganda. THARCE-Gulu includes on its staff two former child soldiers who have risen from "victim" to "survivor" then "thriver." They are assisting others to rebuild their lives. Programs to assist with earning a living, developing everyday coping skills, building strong families, and finding ways to creatively express their experiences and take from them their terror, are all part of what THARCE does.

This sounds to me like a constructive thing, unlike Invisible Children's advocacy for US military involvement supporting the Ugandan government.

As with any charity or NGO, people should check it out before they donate and consult sites that rate charities independently. Charity Navigator, for instance, gives Invisible Children an overall rating of 52%, with a transparency rating of 45%, with accompanying notes, "The charity's audited financials were prepared by an independent accountant, but it did not have an audit oversight committee," also noting that it fails their standard for independent board members. I was unable to locate a rating for THARCE-Gulu there.

Raven Brooks of Netroots Nation (The anatomy of Kony 2012 03/09/2012) praised the marketing of the Kony 2012 campaign, and it is difficult to argue that it was successful. I'm more doubtful than Brooks than it can be easily duplicated for honest progressive causes. Adam Branch honed in on one of its most successful aspects when he asked, "how often does the U.S. government find millions of young Americans pleading for it to intervene militarily in a place rich in oil and other resources?" (Kony 2012 Won't Change the Lives of Ugandans Dissent Online 03/09/2012) Right now, it seems to be all to easy to get people to encourage military intervention somewhere, even though a majority of Americans soured on both the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War long ago. They also seemed to have been successful in passing off a Christian Right political cause as some general humanitarian concern. Those Christianist funding operatings aren't give Invisible Children big bucks without expecting them to further some theocratic goal.

I'll re-link here to some of the other articles I've linked on this in recent days:

Kate Cronin-Furman & Amanda Taub, Solving War Crimes With Wristbands: The Arrogance of 'Kony 2012' The Atlantic Online 03/08/2012

Michael Wilkerson, Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things) Foreign Policy 03/07/2012: "Unfortunately, it looks like meddlesome details like where Kony actually is aren't important enough for Invisible Children to make sure its audience understands."

Bruce Wilson, "Invisible Children" Co-founder (KONY 2012) Hints It's About Jesus, and Evangelizing Talk to Action 03/08/2012

Geoffrey York, Obama sends U.S. troops to capture Lord’s Resistance Army chief Globe and Mail 11/14/2011

Geoffrey York, Invisible Children's Kony campaign goes viral just as Lord's Resistance Army is dying Globe and Mail 03/09/2012

Christopher Goffard, Video on Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony sparks an uproar Los Angeles Times 03/09/2012: "Next month, Invisible Children plans a "cover the night" event to dispense T-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers and buttons in major cities, in part to pressure Washington to maintain its limited troop presence." (my emphasis)

Facebook page collecting news on the Kony 2012 campaign: Stop Kony 2012 - Get The Facts

Tags: eliza dushku, invisible children, joseph kony

Having US troops in Uganda supporting the homophobic, theocratic government there is a really bad idea

Raven Brooks at the Netroots Nation site holds up the apparently stealth-Christianist "Kony 2012" campaign run by the Invisible Children group as a model of effective online marketing techniques for political activism: Raven Brooks, The anatomy of Kony 2012 03/09/2012.

Is this what we have to look forward to at this year's Netroots Nation, uncritical praise for a propaganda campaign to promote American intervention in yet another country with which we are not officially at war? According to the news reports this week, the Obama Administration has already sent 100 Special Forces troops to central Africa somewhere to hunt Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) cult.

I'm all for learning from the techniques of others, even those of dubious causes. But the cause can't always be cleanly distinguished from its marketing. In this case, the Kony 2012 viral marketing success is in promoting a call for US military intervention. As Adam Branch asks in Kony 2012 Won't Change the Lives of Ugandans Dissent Online 03/09/2012, "how often does the U.S. government find millions of young Americans pleading for it to intervene militarily in a place rich in oil and other resources?"

The fact that so many American young people latched on to this call for more military intervention is a sad though not entirely surprising reminder of how the lessons of the Iraq War needs to be more widely understood. That war, too, was justified by humanitarian and democracy-promotion slogans along with the manufactured claims about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction". American advocates of war against Islamic countries are invariably seized with humanitarian concern about the victims of repression and the rights of women in countries where they want the US to bomb and kill thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. Anyone who actually believes that the results of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been primarily humanitarian ones really, really wants to be deceived.

Casually advocating for war is irresponsible, no matter what cause is used to justify it. I'm wondering if the notion of war as a necessary evil is outdated, even though American Republicans and far too many Democrats no longer see war as evil, but as a good and virtuous thing. Maybe it's better to think of war as evil, though in rare cases unavoidable. War is always, always a failure of statecraft. Even though every country will happily claim that it was a failure of statecraft by the Other Side.

Branch reminds us:

Invisible Children is a symptom, not a cause. It is an excuse that the U.S. government has gladly adopted in order to help justify the expansion of its military presence in Central Africa. Invisible Children are "useful idiots," being used by those in the U.S. government who seek to militarize Africa, to send more and more weapons and military aid, and to build the power of military rulers who are U.S. allies. The hunt for Joseph Kony is the perfect excuse for this strategy—how often does the U.S. government find millions of young Americans pleading for it to intervene militarily in a place rich in oil and other resources? The U.S. government would be pursuing this militarization with or without Invisible Children—Kony 2012 just makes it a bit easier.

Too strong? White House spokesperson Jay Carney
yesterday praised the viral-video campaign against Kony.

Geoffrey York reported for the Globe and Mail in Obama sends U.S. troops to capture Lord’s Resistance Army chief 11/14/2011:

The latest U.S. military adventure, the deployment of 100 troops to Central Africa to hunt for a notorious militia commander, is provoking cheers from human rights activists and befuddlement from many others.

President Barack Obama, who announced the move on Friday, said the U.S. troops would be combat-equipped but would serve as advisers to African armies and will not fight unless attacked. Their mission is to help capture Joseph Kony, infamous leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a fanatical militia that has killed an estimated 30,000 people over the past two decades. ...

The LRA moves in heavy jungle and small villages in the remotest corners of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. The U.S. troops will be authorized to operate in all of these countries if their governments agree. ...

Laura Seay, an Africa expert at Morehouse College in Atlanta, said the U.S. troops will face huge problems: language barriers, difficult terrain, lack of roads, and the likely use of human shields by the LRA. She described Mr. Kony as a "brilliant tactician" who uses a system of scouts to warn him of any threat. But despite the risks, the mission is worth trying, she said. [my emphasis]

York reports this week in Invisible Children's Kony campaign goes viral just as Lord's Resistance Army is dying 03/09/2012:

The attacks by the LRA in Congo this year are “the last gasp of a dying organization,” says Mounoubai Madnodje, spokesman for the UN peacekeepers in Congo.

“They used to control villages and take hostages,” he told the Reuters news agency. “Right now it looks more like people trying to survive. … It’s small-scale attacks.”

The LRA perpetrated massacres of civilians in Congo in the Christmas period in 2008 and 2009, but more recently those attacks have been halted. In the second half of last year, its attacks began to decline dramatically.

The Pentagon has spent about $40-million on the anti-LRA mission since last October, deploying 100 military advisers to help the four African armies in their hunt for the LRA.

He adds, "while the Ugandan military has been heavily involved in the hunt for the LRA over the past few years, it also has been widely criticized for human rights abuses including rape of women and looting of mineral resources."

Christopher Goffard reports in Video on Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony sparks an uproar Los Angeles Times 03/09/2012:

In October, Obama sent a 100-man special-forces team to Uganda with orders to train the country's military to pursue the Lord's Resistance Army and specifically to help it capture Kony.

Three other countries in the region — the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan — are receiving U.S. aid for their help in the effort and the American troops are also now employed in those countries. Pentagon officials insist the U.S. team is not conducting its own operations to capture Kony. "They're there to train and advise the Uganda military," said Lt. Col. James Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland suggested the team would not be withdrawn soon. "They've only been in for a couple of months, and we consider them a very important augmentation of our effort to help the East and Central African countries with this problem," she said.

Next month, Invisible Children plans a "cover the night" event to dispense T-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers and buttons in major cities, in part to pressure Washington to maintain its limited troop presence.

Mamood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor who has studied the region, said some Ugandans worry that the video could actually trigger further bloodshed. "We all know that the inevitable result of military activity is that civilians get hurt," he said, cautioning against the influence of "millions of well-meaning and well-intentioned but ill-informed people." [my emphasis]

Tags: christian right, joseph kony, uganda

The "Kony 2012" campaign

I started getting tweets a couple of days ago from various celebrities - yes, I follow some, and you do, too, fess up! - about the "Kony2012" campaign to highlight the crimes of Ugandan cult leader Joseph Kony, whose group is called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), who has been known among other things for kidnapping children and turning them into child soldiers.

This is a fishy cause, as the following pieces explain:

Kate Cronin-Furman & Amanda Taub, Solving War Crimes With Wristbands: The Arrogance of 'Kony 2012' The Atlantic Online 03/08/2012

Joshua Keating Michael Wilkerson, Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things) Foreign Policy 03/07/2012

Bruce Wilson, "Invisible Children" Co-founder (KONY 2012) Hints It's About Jesus, and Evangelizing Talk to Action 03/08/2012

There's also a Facebook page collecting news on the Kony 2012 campaign: Stop Kony 2012 - Get The Facts

It's worth checking it out a bit before sending them $30 for a wristband. One thing I learned on the reporting around this campaign, though, is that the US has 100 Special Forces troops in Uganda. Supporting the Ugandan government that wants to execute gays and lesbians, a goal cheered by some American "Christian Right" religious leaders who should know (and act) better.

There are lots of constructive charities out there, and political causes too, with much more transparency than this Kony 2012 campaign has.

Tags: christian right, joseph kony, uganda