Like a locust the viral video labeled “Kony 2012” has spread throughout Facebook and Youtube letting everyone know that Silent Children is looking for a terrible tinpot dictator named Joseph Kony. Kony was the leader of a little army called the LRA which has and continues to exist in four different countries. Kony used child soldiers and sent them off to war. Kony has been internationally regarded as a war criminal for many of his negative charges and is lauded as a international scum bag.
So like many of you, you probably got that video sent to you by somebody. Well…. I’m not sharing it. Fuck that. I got it shared to me by like 5000000 people and I’m sick of it.
So in this blog post I will lay down some key arguments as to why you should ignore Kony 2012.
I will ignore the obvious problems with Silent Children’s organization in that they are not audited like other charities and the money issue. Instead I will stick to the main point.
Argument #1: Supporting Bad Guys to Get Bad Guys
One of the historical tragedies that has occurred throughout the 20th century (and alas all of history) is that as a people we will support a bad guy who can stablize an unstable region rather than deal with the harder issues.
I can go back real far so let’s start with World War 1. At the end of WW1 Germany was very unstable. Their political system was in shambles and was supporting five different political parties with none of them really able to form a majority. When Hitler was declared chancelor of Germany he was actually SUPPORTED by British parliament. The feeling was that “Hitler will sort them out.” People ignored the warnings of King George and Winston Churchill. Nye, Prime Minister at the time Neville Chamberlain argued that Germany should in fact be re-united and Hitler would stay in Germany.
He was wrong.
Horribly wrong.
Hitler spread across Europe collecting Jews burning them in giant piles of dead bodies and gasing gypsies in rooms that look no different than showers. Having visiting two of these concentration camps I can tell you, it is monstrous.
The post WW2 decision was what? Well first thing we will do is split Germany and half and force them to accept all responsibility. But what we will do right off the bat is install the Nazis back to maintain control. A decade later we would try most of these same people as war criminals. Germany would still be controlled by a dictatorship if not for the fact that East Germany was controlled by a dictatorship and we wanted to show those Ruskies we were freedom baby yeah.
At the end of World War 1 we also made sure to install Yugoslavian Presidente Tito. This one is kind of interesting because his war crimes were so bad against so many people it has caused multiple countries in the region to continue guerrila conflicts against each other.
Let’s go to a region called “The Middle East.” In the Middle East we installed every single dictator that lives there, including Saddam Hussein who we have successfully removed on our second try. After removing Saddam Hussein we made sure to install his Republican Guard as the official military for the country with the argument “we have no one better.”
So in the past we have re-installed: Hitler, Nazis, Communists, Republic Guard, and Tito’s government.
Now I’m sure you are all dying to hear what this has to do with anything.
Well Silent Children supports the current military of Uganda because it is felt they are the best capable of defeating the former army that occupied Northern Uganda and capture Kony.
Sounds familiar at all?
Isn’t it at least weird that war criminals are always very effective at running countries and capturing other war criminals?
Yes the Uganda army is made of war criminals. They have recruited children soldiers into their ranks, a large portion of their soldiers have been caught by International monitors raping young women (yes some children) and most of the army loots villages.
Silent Children is asking you to maintain historical continuity in supporting one set of bad guys to capture another one. The hook is that we are supposed to believe these other bad guys are worst than these bad guys. It’s the same thing. The Nazis who gased Jews left and right directly controlled East and West Germany for years. Now it is just being repeated again in Uganda.
Are we supposed to give our money to Silent Children so they can give it to the Ugandan Army who have just as bad or worse of a track record as the war criminal they are trying to capture?
This is like setting Hannibal Lecter free in order to capture Buffalo Bill. It’s not entirely clear which is worse.
Argument #2: White Man’s Burden
Bleeding heart liberals are often dumb-struck as to why so many people ignore the plight of Africa and do not help them more.
It should be noted that the first sentiments of helping Africa were not Liberal, they were Conservative.
Rudyard Kipling in the 19th century wrote a poem called “The White Man’s Burden.” Kipling’s argument was that white men should colonize and rule other people’s because it was our burden as white people.
Many people have interpreted this to mean largely Native Americans and Aboriginals since the sub-title of his poem was “The Americas and The Phillipines.” But this poem’s theme has been interpreted to mean all colonies, including those in Africa.
It has been the arrogance of almost 200 years of effort to feel that we can “fix” Africa.
It is that same thinking that leads us to think we can “fix” the Middle East.
There is a simple economic problem with Africa. Africa has a large number of resources. Included in them are diamonds, gold, and coral. These are resources that have been exploited for centuries. Because of this private individuals have been able to fund their armies based on the diamond, gold, and coral trades.
It is such that people often refer to any diamond from Africa as a “blood” diamond and people will often choose zirconium diamonds made in a lab over authentic ones.
If you actually want to stop what’s going on in Africa stop buying diamond rings which contain two of the main resources that fund these armies. Stop using as much oil and as many plastics as you do, that fund many of these tinpot dictators.
I told my girlfriend (with much hate coming back) that I would never buy her a diamond ring because of the historical implications of it.
But alas, we still feel we can fix this problem by going in and trying to change the politics of the area.
All of these areas have serious social and political problems created… by us. We created different classes and artificial ethnicities in Africa in order to exploit their resources. As long as they hate each other they will help us enslave each other and we can play them all against each other.
The hate still exists today. The story of Rwanda (featured in Hotel Rwanda) is one in which two artificially created classes have been at constant war. One group creates a massive genocide against the other… and get away with it.
We were the ones who created these problems, how can we be so arrogant to think that we can also be the ones to fix it?
Consider this, listed as genocide is cultural genocide, which includes the adoption of one culture’s children into another. Consider for a fact that legally Angelina Jolie is aiding in genocide. She also supports Silent Children… who are also supporting the genocidal government in Uganda.
Argument #3: No Justice
There is no justice for war criminals or their victims. There have been very few war criminals who have been tried in court. There has also been no real justice.
The International War Crimes Court has tried a lot of people. The vast majority of these people are war criminals in the Yugoslavian crisis. This crisis erupted based on Tito (remember that guy) unfairly treating his people and creating different ethnic groups in the “Great Slavic” region. Among them include Croates and Serbians.
Tito funded a board to create a distinct Croate and Serb language and taught his people they were different. It is so close that people accidentally use Croat words instead of Serb words. This was his method of control. People believed it religiously and learned to hate the other.
When Tito died all of these states split into nation-states all with a nationalist agenda. In the mid-90s NATO illegally invaded the former Yugoslavia bombing some of the most beautiful buildings and bridges in all of Europe in one of the few regions that was rarely effected by war.
All of this was done because Croates and Serbians were killing each other off in one of the largest civil wars in history. Unlike most civil wars this one was going for genocide, two sides totally offing each other.
When the leaders of these groups were captured they were captured openly without any hunt needed. These war criminals were on trial for years with three of them still being on trial. Slobodan Milosovic who was the most villanous of that died of natural causes long before he could ever be indicted of war crimes.
The problem is that international war crimes. I know it sounds weird. But think about this. America commits war crimes all the time and no American president has ever been indicted for it.
Included in American war criminals are John F. Kennedy, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush and current President Barack Obama. Any war unsanctioned by the United Nations is considered a war crime.
Whenever you turn a “war criminal” into the International court is is thus always required of the court to prove without a shadow of a doubt that you were not only violating international law, but your own. Because of this it’s really hard to get these guys. Slobodan Milosovic didn’t recognize the UN court and the countries of Yugoslavia did not recognize it until after Milosovic was brought to court.
You can only be tried based on the laws of your country at the time. If tomorrow it is illegal to drive on the right side of the road you cannot try the entire country retroactively… that’s not how justice works.
So how do we “get” bad guys. Well… it’s quite simple… we kill them. When we went to “get” Hitler we shelled out his city and he killed himself. When we went to “get” Hussein we captured him, setup a mock trial, and publicly hung him. When the Mossad found former Nazi generals in Brazil… they assassinated them. We knew where Osama bin Laden was and instead of having America’s most elite team of soldiers bust in and capture him they instead killed him first and asked questions later.
Is this actually justice?
Do us white people not believe that everyone deserves a fair trial?
By supporting the Ugandan Army against the LRA and Kony you will not see a fair trial. You will just see one group of bad men kill another group of bad men.
You know kind of like the CIVIL WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA.
Maybe my point about “The White Man’s Burden” makes far more sense after reading this. But maybe you are still all sad from this emotional video.
Argument #4: Demographically Targeted Ignorance
The video itself is targeting a very specific demographic, women. The men that is targets are very liberal men who have a heart for Africa. It is essentially targeting the uneducated masses and tugging at their heart strings in hopes of getting money from them.
Would it be shocking at all to know that most countries in Africa use child soldiers. Would it be weird to know that the Ugandan army uses the former abused children of the LRA as their own soldiers?
When America invaded Somalia in order to bring stability to the region (this was with UN and Turkish support) that over half of the army fighting in the city of Mogadishu (famous for Blackhawk Down) were in fact children.
Africa has been pretty much fucked up for all time. They have had children acting as soldiers for decades now.
And here is the zinger.
Here is the truth.
Here is the thing that hurts the most.
There is nothing we can do to stop it.
Silent Children would want us to invade and attack the LRA which recruits children. So, just to make this clear. Silent Children wants us to attack an army of children. Do you not see the inherent logical flaw here? In order to stop children from joining the army we should kill off the army of children.
That just sounds weird to me. And it should sound odd to you. I’m sure American sharp shooters are great, but when a 12-year old comes running at you firing off an AK-47… you are going to kill them.
In Vietnam one of the charges against Americans was that they were killing children. This is true. The local Vietnamese had a lot of child soldiers and American soldiers had to defend themselves. American soldiers were at war so long they became very distrustful of the local population. The standard women and children who were just innocents were active members of the army fighting Americans.
You probably feel bad for this cause because you are a human being. When a human being sees something so out of the ordinary as this they are likely to shed a tear and write a cheque in support of the cause.
In truth supporting this particular cause will actually cause more harm than good.
I know what you’re thinking “how can you know.” It’s simple. I’ve studied history all of my life. I know how things have gone and continue to go. I can recognize patterns in history and am never shocked by how they turn out.
This crisis represents the typical problem of history, there is no right choice.
But there is a glimpse of hope. South Africa became a free democratic state because of a CULTURAL revolution and not a military one.
So here is what we’re going to do. If there is a little girl or a little man you want to marry… don’t do it with diamond rings. Boycott diamonds.
In this video it listed Stephen Harper as a person that I should contact and try and support this cause. He is the Prime Minister of my country, Canada. I would suggest to people to not call their local government and most importantly DO NOT give them your email. By giving them your email all you are doing is making it so they can contact you later for credit card information.
My apologies in advance for the crap organization and poor grammar and spelling. I really just want to get this out as a rant.
Now back to games.
AND STOP SENDING ME THIS STUPID VIDEO.
TheGameGuru.Me 