And once again it appears that the US military has been operating out of Uganda for some time now long before the Invisible Children's KONY 2012 campaign. Part of a conspiracy or just as far as the US government and the Pentagon are concerned a happy coincidence. So President Obama's agreeing to send in 100 soldiers or advisors is rather disengenuous when he declared he is doing so because of Invisible Children's campaign.
"The plans for Africa are more or less developed, according to AP. An existing base in Entebbe, Uganda, is covering East Africa and the Great Lakes region. President Yoweri Museveni has, since he came to power in Uganda in 1986, developed a major US ally in Africa, often celebrated as the first in a "new breed of African leaders" by Washington. The Entebbe airport is already one of the best developed US bases in Africa. " Quote from: Into Darkest Africaby Eric Margolis via Common Dreams.org,October 30,2012
#KONY 2012 Invisible Children Funded By Anti-gay Christian Right?
It is rather suspicious that the KONY2012 campaign calling for US military intervention in Africa is taking place at a time when the US government and Pentagon have been over the passed few years expanding US military presence in Central and Eastern Africa. Is this a mere coincidence.
But when we add the Religious Right's promotion and large donations to Invisible Children to American expasionism it appears almost as if they were working in tandem.
As jounalist Eric Margolis in an article published October 30,2012 argued that the US and the Obama administration and the Neo-Liberals and Neocons and the Pentagon was already planing to intervene militarily in Eastern And central Africain five months before the Invisible Children's KONY2012 video went viral . Others at Real News Network Pepe Escobar and others have been talking about the US government interests in setting upmoremilitary bases and that this explains why they took out Qaddafi creating another bridge head into Afica.
Into Darkest Africaby Eric Margolis via Common Dreams.org,October 30,2012
Wasted $1 trillion in the futile Iraq war? Being defeated by medieval Afghan tribesmen? Can’t pay your bills at home or abroad? Government paralyzed? Worried about China?
What’s the answer? Simple.
A new little war in Africa.
Having finished off former ally Muammar Gadaffi, the US Pentagon, CIA, and the new US Africa Command are now focusing on East Africa.
In recent weeks, the long simmering conflict in the Horn of Africa burst into flames as the US and France intensified military operations against Somalia’s rag-tag nationalist/Islamist militia, Shebab.
Western politicians and media warn Shebab is a dire international threat that must be stamped out, though most could not find Somalia on a world map.
Though CIA chief Leon Panetta recently admitted only 25-50 al-Qaida members were active in Afghanistan, it seems new al-Qaida threats are popping up all over Africa and the Mideast.
Just in time for Halloween, the ghost of Osama bin Laden is haunting us.
The US will send 100 special hunter-killer troops to Uganda, an undemocratic US ally. This new US force will also operate in Congo (ex-Zaire), Central African Republic, Kenya, and South Sudan – whose independence from Sudan was recently engineered by Washington.
The ostensible reason America’s new involvement in darkest Africa is a deeply obscure bunch of Ugandan bush rebels, the Lord’s Resistance Army, that has been kidnapping villagers and stealing chickens for decades.
At the same time, Washington is bankrolling a Kenyan invasion of southern Somalia, and France is providing naval support and arms. Kenya says it is reacting to attacks from Somalia by Shebab. But the real attackers were more likely traditional local Somali bandits known as “shiftas.”
CIA teams, US-financed mercenaries, Predator drones and Ethiopian forces are currently attacking Shebab.
All this should have been unnecessary. In 2005, a moderate Muslim movement, the Islamic Courts Union, had established control over most of chaotic southern and central Somalia. This was its first stable government since 1991.
But the Bush administration, still reeling from 9/11, went ballistic over the name “Islamic” and ordered the Courts Union overthrown. In early 2006, Washington financed Ethiopia, a close US ally, to invade Somalia. The Courts Union government was duly ousted, but the Ethiopians, ancient blood foes of the Somalis, had to eventually withdraw, leaving more chaos in their wake.
Enter Shebab, an Islamic youth organization dedicated to liberating Somalia from foreign control. Its fiery leaders took 19th Century Somali resistance to British colonialism as their model, and imposed Sharia law.
Meanwhile, northern Somalia went its own way in the form of autonomous Puntland and Somaliland, from which piracy flourishes.
The US set up a figurehead regime in Mogadishu, the grandly titled but powerless and derided “Transitional Federal Government,” which was sustained by 9,000 US financed Ugandan mercenaries called the “African Union Peace Force,” backed by Ethiopian forces on the border. US drones, fighter aircraft and special forces based in Djibouti now routinely attack Somali targets as well as ones in Yemen.
In the midst of this bloody confusion, famine and drought are ravaging the Horn of Africa, producing millions of desperate refugees. Shebab is accused of blocking food aid. But Shebeb sees the UN and other aid groups as “soft power” tools of the western powers.
Doesn’t Washington have enough on its hands without sending troops to Uganda and Somalia, or South Sudan?
The US is moving into southern Africa for two main reasons. First, to secure South Sudan’s important oil deposits and possible energy finds in Uganda. Second, to block the spread of further Chinese economic influence in the region. France’s neoconservative government is greatly alarmed by China’s involvement in its African sphere of influence.
However, there are manifest dangers for the US. Washington may get sucked into a complex, turbulent region in which it has no real strategic interests other than the lust for energy and a knee-jerk reaction to anything Islamic.
The White House is supposed to be cutting expenses at a time when budgets are out of control and 44 million Americans subsist on food stamps.
Let Washington’s squabbling politicians deal with budget headaches says the mighty US national security establishment. We’re in charge. Onward to Kampala and Juba!
The plans for Africa are more or less developed, according to AP. An existing base in Entebbe, Uganda, is covering East Africa and the Great Lakes region. President Yoweri Museveni has, since he came to power in Uganda in 1986, developed a major US ally in Africa, often celebrated as the first in a "new breed of African leaders" by Washington. The Entebbe airport is already one of the best developed US bases in Africa.
And here's more details on US military's increased presence in Africa. Taking over the world one country and one continent at a time.
US expands military presence in Africa by Afrol.com
afrol News, 23 September - While abandoning much of its Cold War-era bases in Europe and Asia, the US military is relocating to Africa and the Middle East to "fight terrorism" and "protect oil" resources. In Africa, US bases are to focus on Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal and São Tomé and Príncipe, where flexible, small-scale "jumping off points" exist or are to be built.
The US Pentagon is in a period of major restructuring, in particular regarding American military bases abroad. While enormous bases in Germany and South Korea are abandoned or detracted, new and more flexible bases are constructed or planned all over the world, in particular in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.And questions being raised about the relationship between the Invisible Children organization and the Religious Right in the USA and whether Invisible Children has any connection or involvement with the anti-Gay legislation and the campain of hate against Gays in Uganda. Some government officials, religious leaders and the media in Uganda have encouraged the hate campaign against Gays leading to beatings of Gay Ugandans creating a hostile environment for Gay Ugandans .
The concept is creating strategically placed "jumping off points" with very few permanently stationed troops but with the infrastructure in place to rapidly launch major regional operations, according to a report published today by the US new agency Associated Press (AP). Bases are to cover all the world's regions where the US government is concerned over potential instability or terrorism, or simply wants to protect key resources such as oil.
The plans for Africa are more or less developed, according to AP. An existing base in Entebbe, Uganda, is covering East Africa and the Great Lakes region. President Yoweri Museveni has, since he came to power in Uganda in 1986, developed a major US ally in Africa, often celebrated as the first in a "new breed of African leaders" by Washington. The Entebbe airport is already one of the best developed US bases in Africa.
Djibouti has already turned into one of the most important US military bases throughout the world. Here, US forces monitoring assumed terrorist groups in the Middle East, Africa's Horn and East Africa are headquartered. Located only 50 kilometres south-west of the Arabian Peninsula, stable and pro-Western Djibouti is also a major US military safety net in the region as their presence becomes increasingly controversial on Arab soil.
Senegal is the latest focus point of the Pentagon in Africa. The US has achieved a wide range of concessions at a Dakar airfield, which already has been used as a landing point for several military operations in West Africa. These include the large-scale operation in Liberia, but also smaller missions as under the last coup attempt in neighbouring Mauritania. Under President Abdoulaye Wade, Senegal has made a major alliance shift from France towards the US.
According to the AP report, São Tomé and Príncipe is likely to become the next US military base. The small archipelago - an upcoming oil producer - is strategically placed in the Gulf of Guinea, sub-Saharan Africa's major oil producing area. Here, the "US military could monitor the movement of oil tankers and protect oil platforms," the news agency quotes high ranking military officers.
Also the bases in Djibouti and Senegal are strategically place to protect US oil interests. Djibouti is located at the narrow Bab el Mandeb Strait at the entrance of the Red Sea, at the "world's busiest shipping lanes and close to Arabian oilfields," according to the CIA. Senegal, at the West African coast is strategically placed in a region with intensive oil explorations, which the US hopes may become a new major oil supplier within some years.
In North Africa, often considered "the backyard" of the European Union, US military presence is still more limited but is in many ways covered by NATO cooperations. The US however has developed a close military and intelligence cooperation with several North African countries, in particular Morocco and Egypt. Cooperation with Algeria and Tunisia is also improving.
In addition to this new strategic network of flexible bases, the Pentagon is known to have signed a large number of military pacts with governments all over Africa during the last years. These include oil producers such as Gabon and Mauritania, but also less significant resource owners such as Guinea Conakry and Rwanda. The US has indeed developed into the principal military partner of most African countries, displacing ex-colonial powers.
Truth Wins Out Raises Questions About Anti-Gay Group Funding Invisible Children
Posted March 12th, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: John Becker
Phone: 920-265-6023
Email: john@truthwinsout.org
Creators of ‘Kony 2012’ Viral Video Tied to Religious Right
BURLINGTON, Vt – Truth Wins Out expressed concern today about new revelations that Invisible Children, a San Diego-based charity that created the ‘Kony 2012’ viral video, receives major funding from far-right, anti-gay fundamentalist donors and organizations. The video, which has received nearly 74 million views and captured the attention of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, and Rihanna, calls for the apprehension and prosecution of former Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. However, according to researcher Bruce Wilson and the charity’s IRS 990 forms, Invisible Children is funded by the U.S.-based National Christian Foundation (NCF), which has also provided significant funds to fanatical groups deeply tied to the persecution of LGBT people in Uganda, including that nation’s infamous “Kill the Gays” bill.
“Stopping a brutal warlord is an admirable and important goal, but it should not be done at the expense of LGBT Ugandans,” said Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out. “Invisible Children needs to account for the very disconcerting ties between their organization and the religious right, and ultimately decide whether they’re going to be idealists or ideologues.”
According to Wilson’s report, the NCF has emerged as the biggest funder of the anti-gay, dominionist Christian right over the last ten years. Groups receiving NCF grants include Focus on the Family; the Family Research Council, a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified anti-gay hate group; the Fellowship Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the subversive D.C.-based fundamentalist shadow organization known as “The Family;” and Harvest Evangelism, a California-based ministry whose founder, Ed Silvoso, has worked with Julius Oyet, a leading promoter of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
NCF also funds The Call, led by Lou Engle, a notorious anti-LGBT extremist who frequently uses violent imagery in his tirades against homosexuality. In 2010, Engle brought The Call to Uganda, where the legislature was already considering the infamous “Kill the Gays Bill” – authored and sponsored by MP David Bahati, a member of The Family. Engle’s rally, which Bahati attended, stoked the fires of homophobic hatred and helped to create an even more frenzied climate of intolerance in that country.
“American anti-gay groups like The Family, The Call, and Harvest Evangelism are waging a global war on LGBT people, exporting their hateful bile abroad even as the tide turns against their dangerous views at home,” said John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications and Development. “It is irresponsible for organizations that seek to do good, including Invisible Children, to be affiliated the funders of this fanaticism.”
In 2010, Truth Wins Out organized the American Prayer Hour to draw national attention to Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. The multi-city event provided an alternative to the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event hosted in Washington by The Family, a group with disturbing ties to Bahati, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The APH helped lead Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama to speak out against the bill.
Invisible Children has also received contributions from Californians Terry and Barbara Caster and their foundation. The Caster family contributed heavily to the successful push for the passage of Proposition 8, California’s constitutional marriage discrimination amendment, in 2008.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
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