Aside

Hillary Clinton expresses hope drones will get Joseph Kony; ignores source of Kony’s funding

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Uganda this week and brought up the subject of Joseph Kony, a warlord about whom the film Kony 2012 was made. The meteoric rise of the film smacked of manufactured success and promotion, culminating with the producer of the film running naked through the streets of San Diego in broad daylight.

But I digress…

While in Uganda, Hillary discussed her desire to see a drone take out Kony.

Via the AP:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she hopes drones will soon be able to see through jungle cover so they can locate warlord Joseph Kony.

Clinton made the remark in Uganda as she watched a small U.S.-made drone that the Ugandan military uses in Somalia to fight al-Qaida-linked militants.

The U.S. last year sent 100 special forces advisers to Central Africa to help hunt Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a band of jungle-roaming militants known for kidnapping children, taking girls as sex slaves and disfiguring victims. Ugandan forces are at the forefront in the hunt for Kony, whose campaign of terror originated in Uganda but who is now elsewhere in central Africa.

“Now we have to figure out how we can see through thick vegetation to find Joseph Kony,” Clinton said at a Ugandan military base on Lake Victoria shortly after meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

The Obama administration’s decision to send 100 special forces personnel into Uganda last year coincided with the release of another film, which starred Gerard Butler as Sam Childers in ‘Machine Gun Preacher.’ Childers’ story is real. Once a very bad guy, Childers was saved and became a Christian. His mission soon became helping the children of Sudan. He continues to do so after 14 years.

After the release of Kony 2012, the real Sam Childers released a video in response. In it, he lauded the idea of going after Joseph Kony but also pointed to the man he says is responsible for funding the murderous warlord – Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan.

According to Childers, Kony is just a “small part of the problem” and that Al-Bashir is the much bigger problem. I had the opportunity to interview Childers back in 2007; this is what he said then:

“Our area is almost all Christian people and the LRA is financed by the Arabs of the north… so the Arabs are the Muslims so it’s basically a holy war inside of our area. This man (Kony) is just out to kill every Christian he can kill in south Sudan and also in Northern Uganda… He’s being financed… it’s been proved for many, many years that the Arabs of the northern Sudan ok, which is Muslims, they have been financing this man for many, many years.”

Any guesses as to who supports Omar al-Bashir? That’s right, the Muslim Brotherhood. If Childers is right – remember, he’s been on the ground there for well over a decade – it would seem that Kony is a small fish in a big Muslim Brotherhood pond.

That brings us back to Hillary Clinton, who also said the following while in Uganda:

“We have to figure out how to work with all the countries where he and his criminal bands are perhaps hiding. We have to put our heads together to find out what additional equipment and support you need to lead this effort to rid the world of this terrible man and his criminal behavior,” Clinton said.

Perhaps some of Kony’s criminal bands aren’t hiding at all. Perhaps Mrs. Clinton should take an even tougher stance with Omar al-Bashir. Then again, that would require a tougher stance with the Muslim Brotherhood, an entity Hillary seems to be increasingly comfortable with.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the upcoming book, Unsung Davids

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