KONY 2012

[Castle Pokemetroid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Pretty inspirational stuff here.

[Arroyo Milori]

Don't easily buy into this video's pandering to your emotions, I've heard that the Invisible Children might be a huge scam

I really don't know much about the current issue with this but please do some research first before being bought in because of emotions.

[VAE]

I love how the bugger's at it for how many years now, even the US are seeking him as a criminal already, but suddenly it becomes an issue in 2012.
If people would rather focus on what's wrong at home...

[Tezkat]

Wow... when I first watched that video it only had about 30k views...

Don't easily buy into this video's pandering to your emotions, I've heard that the Invisible Children might be a huge scam

I really don't know much about the current issue with this but please do some research first before being bought in because of emotions.

The person who wrote that article evidently didn't even bother to read the financial statements on the site he linked to support his arguments. Their audited financials are online for everyone to see. Less than 8% of donations go to their filmmaking projects. The bulk actually goes towards African scholarship programs, school building, and the like. A lot of their promotional materials are even produced in Uganda, providing employment to people displaced by the war. Plus their radio warning network and insurgent activity tracker are actually pretty cool examples of using modern communications technology to mitigate the horrors of war.

That said, I think the timing and focus of this admittedly brilliant social media campaign is a bit strange. The US military has actually been providing operational support against the LRA since the Bush administration, and the major US-supported action in 2009 had rather disastrous consequences. The current mission to help stop this guy is funded through 2013, having passed both houses unanimously (seriously, how often do you see that?), and there's no indication that anyone currently in office is anxious to pull the plug. If the goal is continued support for an American mission, it would have made much more sense to launch the campaign after (or at least much closer to) the election to dissuade any new blood in the legislature and/or executive from rethinking their priorities. As it is, the practical purpose of the campaign seems more geared towards fundraising than lobbying efforts. Not that raising money for charity is necessarily a bad thing...

Kony is a public face for problems that won't magically go away if he's caught or killed. The ICC, the only international organization with enough teeth to strike fear into war criminals, ironically becomes a stumbling block to peace negotiations more often than not, as warlords tend to prefer fighting to the death over standing in The Hague. The LRA is now mostly scattered throughout the Congo with local leaders who are increasingly independent of Kony and just as bad. The ethnic and regional strife that spawned the conflict predates Kony by centuries; the current Ugandan administration that the US is helping to track him down came to power through military conflict (complete with its own child soldiers and atrocities against civilians). Just like the administration before it. And the one before that. And the one before that... If anything, this whole spectacle is a fascinating testament to how easily people will rally behind American military adventurism when the targets are not state-level actors.

[Rabid Mollusk]

ummmm... If you really want the USA to help children, they should stop the war with Afghanistan.

This war killed more childrem them  Joseph Kony ever will.

[Alondro]

ummmm... If you really want the USA to help chindrem, they should stop the war with Afghanistan.

This war killed more childrem them  Joseph Kony ever will.

Feh, we should have at least burned the heroin poppy fields.

Then cut everyone's heads off and stuck them on pike's as a warning to others!

*sighs*  They knew how to fight a real war back in the Medieval days...  Good ol Ivan.