Thread: Obama Sends 100 US Troops to Uganda to Help Combat Lord’s

Oct 14, 2011 1:54pm

Obama Sends 100 US Troops to Uganda to Help Combat Lord’s Resistance Army

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report:

Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefieldâ€

Obama sends 100 military advisers to fight Africa rebels

Deployment to support regional forces pursuing Lord's Resistance Army


Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army.

NBC News and news services
updated 1 hour 23 minutes ago 2011-10-15T01:45:41

WASHINGTON — The first wave of U.S. Special Forces Green Berets arrived in Uganda this week to support the battle against a guerrilla group accused of widespread atrocities, Pentagon and military officials told NBC News.

President Barack Obama has ordered up to 100 U.S. military trainers into central Africa to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army, a band of just 200 rebels behind a campaign of murder, rape and kidnapping that began 20 years ago.

Officials told NBC News on Friday the first dozen Green Berets were in Uganda and the remaining American trainers would be deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.

In the president's notification to Congress on Friday, Obama said the U.S. forces were combat-equipped and would provide assistance and training to regional forces working to remove the group's leader, Joseph Kony, and his band from the battlefield.

U.S. military officials told NBC News that although the Lord's Resistance Army has a force of only about 200 rebels, they have managed to operate for decades because the African nations involved have not pursued them.

The rebels' mobility and the terrain's difficulties also have made for a difficult fight. Attempts to negotiate peace failed in 2008 after Kony refused to sign a deal to end the killing.

U.S. officials told NBC News that the presence of American forces was intended, in part, to push the regional forces into taking action against the rebels.

Col. Felix Kulayigye, Uganda's military spokesman, said of the troops: "We are aware that they are coming. We are happy about it. We look forward to working with them and eliminating Kony and his fighters."

Fighting anti-insurgency

While the size of the U.S. footprint is small, Obama's announcement represents a highly unusual intervention for the United States. Although some American troops are based in Djibouti and small groups of soldiers have been deployed to Somalia, the U.S. traditionally has been reluctant to commit forces to help African nations put down insurgencies.

It demonstrates the Obama administration's escalating attention to and fears about security risks in Africa, including terror networks, piracy and unstable nations. The move was intended to show some engagement to lessen the impact of one of the worst protracted wars in Africa.

Obama declared that his decision to send troops was in keeping with the national security interests of the United States. The White House announced it in a low-key fashion, releasing the Obama notification and justification of the troop deployment that the president sent to congressional leaders.

Pentagon officials said the bulk of the deployment will be of special operations troops, who will provide security and combat training to African units.

Most of the troops will deploy to regional capitals to work with government officials and military commanders on countering the rebels and protecting civilians, Pentagon officials said.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said U.S. troops would train local forces in activities such as tracking, intelligence assessment and conducting patrols "to render the LRA ineffective." The trainers "will be armed for self-defense," Little said.

American efforts to combat Lord's group also took place during the administration of President George W. Bush, The New York Times reported. The Bush Administration authorized the Pentagon to send a team of 17 counterterrorism advisers to train Ugandan troops and provided millions of dollars worth of aid, including fuel trucks, satellite phones and night-vision goggles, to the Ugandan Army.

Those efforts scattered segments of the LRA in recent years; its remnants dispersed and regrouped in Uganda’s neighbors, the Times said. In spring 2010, apparently desperate for new conscripts, Kony’s forces killed hundreds of villagers in the Congolese jungle and kidnapped hundreds more, according to witnesses interviewed at the time.

The move raises the profile of U.S. involvement on the continent and represents an apparent victory for administration officials who have argued for more robust intervention in humanitarian crises.

The change in policy could reflect the long-standing concerns of a number of high-ranking Obama advisers left scarred by the U.S. failure in the 1990s to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda and the belated action to halt the violence in Bosnia. For a current parallel, the Lord's Resistance Army's 24-year campaign of rebellion, rape and murder represents one of the world's worst human rights crises today.

Coming off the administration's successful, if limited, intervention in Libya, the Uganda deployment represents a continued effort by Obama to use military force for humanitarian protection in areas where atrocities are occurring. Sending 100 troops may not be significant in terms of military numbers, but the composition of the force gives the United States a new counterterrorism foothold in a region of the world with terrorist networks, pirates and unstable nations.

Relying on elite force

A special forces unit can be highly effective beyond what the number of soldiers might suggest. They are highly skilled in disrupting insurgency networks by discovering where rebels are based and how they procure guns, money and other logistical support.

Obama's letter to Congress said the deployment "furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa."

The Lord's Resistance Army has been pushing westward since it began its attacks years go, and the administration and human rights groups say its atrocities have left thousands dead and have put as many as 300,000 Africans to flight. They have charged the group with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court under a 2005 warrant for crimes against humanity in his native Uganda. A self-styled prophet, who mixes Christian mysticism with politics, he is believed hiding along the Sudan-Congo border.

The deployment drew support from Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who has visited the region.

"I have witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by the LRA, and this will help end Kony's heinous acts that have created a human rights crisis in Africa," he said in a statement. "Today's action offers hope that the end of the LRA is in sight."

Senator John McCain, Obama's Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential election, said promoting African stability by reducing the LRA threat was a "worthy goal" but Obama should have consulted Congress before putting forces "into harm's way."

Another Republican, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, said he hopes it will "save innocent lives and begin to bring the LRA to justice for the immense human tragedy that has fallen across central Africa at its hands."

Obama stresses mission's limits

Still, Obama's letter stressed the limited nature of the deployment.

"Our forces will provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nation forces," it said. "Although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will ... not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense."

In recent months, the administration has stepped up its support for Uganda, which has played a key role in battling extremists in Somalia.
In June, the Pentagon moved to send nearly $45 million in military equipment to Uganda and Burundi. The aid included four small drones, body armor and night-vision and communications gear and is being used in the fight against al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked group that U.S. officials see as an increasing threat and that African peacekeeping troops in Somalia have been battling to suppress.

At the State Department, officials portrayed the new troop deployment as part of a larger anti-LRA strategy that dates to the Bush administration but also includes legislation passed by Congress this year.

This article contains reporting by NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News producer Courtney Kube and Reuters and The Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44906278/ns ... ws-africa/

We Must Pulverize Gooney Goo Goo's to Save Gooney Goo Goo's

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1200061.html#1200061

Black Hawk Down comes to mind.Not to speak of the 'acident'of loading up 16 Seals a few months ago all on one slow moving heli.
Wonder how many special forces they have left to put in harms way?
Ever see the pictures of those in the high risk combat zones? I think they are killing off our patriots .But I also think its time for them to do what they swore to do and thats to start refuses illegal orders for illegal wars.
Not to speak of the millions of troops who come back here drug addicted by their military officers or otherwise disabled.
We see them at our dr.s office,blind,missing limbs,burned or totally out of it from the drugs.What a tragidy!!!!

Is Washington Using Famine in the Horn of Africa to Embark on Yet Another Illegal War?

US Drones Coordinate Air Power For Kenyan Ground Invasion of Somalia

by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, October 19, 2011

The large troop deployment by Kenya into Somali territory is taking on the form of a full-scale invasion, rather than a temporary incursion as initially reported.

What is also emerging – but largely unreported – is that the US appears to be providing coordinated aerial firepower to help the advance of the Kenyan military against Al Shabab Islamic militants who have held power in the southern Somali territory.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, which was installed in 2009 with US support, has been battling against the militants for the past two years. Plagued by allegations of corruption and incompetence, the TFG has only managed to cling on to power in the capital, Mogadishu, thanks to diplomatic and military support from Washington and neighbouring US-allied countries, including Ethiopia and Kenya. Some 8,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi are stationed in Mogadishu to help stave off advances by Al Shabab from the southern hinterland where it holds sway.

Kenya’s surprise military intervention in its eastern Horn of Africa neighbour on Sunday came only two days after the US launched deadly aerial drone attacks in southern Somalia. According to Press TV, the worst fatalities were in the town of Qoqani, 80 kilometres from the border with Kenya. Some 78 people were killed in that attack and scores of others injured.

Qoqani was the first major urban centre commandeered by Kenyan troops – backed by heavy artillery, tanks, helicopters and fighter jets – within 48 hours of crossing the border on Sunday.

Now as Kenyan forces move towards the port city of Kismayu – some 200 kilometers from the Kenyan border and the strategic base for Al Shabab – US drones are targeting what appears to be the next military objective.

A US drone attack on Kismayu on Monday claimed the lives of some 27 people, including children, according to reports. There were also several reports of similar unmanned aerial vehicles crashing or being shot down near Kismayu, according to the BBC and Press TV. At the beginning of last month, a US drone attack reportedly killed 35 Al Shabab fighters in the port city.

In July, the Washington Post and New York Times, reported “the first US drone attackâ€

Barack Obama’s New War in Central Africa?



by Boris Volkhonsky
Global Research, October 19, 2011

-[A]ll previous and present U.S. military operations abroad have shown that the issue of “human rightsâ€