Summary: Another example of the hate and ignorance that have become central aspects of Republican thinking, provided by Rush Limbough.
Today’s foreign policy analysis from the Right, provided by Rush Limbaugh on his show of October 14:
Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord’s Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That’s what the lingo means, “to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,” meaning capture or kill.
So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and — (interruption) no, I’m not kidding. Jacob Tapper just reported it. Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians? Wouldn’t you say that we are? I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn’t just Obama that supported that. The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy. Now they’ve done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place. Now they’re criticizing it.
Lord’s Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following:
“To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.”
Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.
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Is that right? The Lord’s Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We’re gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys — and they claim to be Christians.
Limbough is proud of the last paragraph, listing it on his “pearls of wisdom” page. It is almost too stupid to warrant analysis, but it illustrates in extreme form mainstream Republican views.
(a) The reflexive nature of Republican’s opposition to Obama. Limbough opposes Obama’s opposition to the Lord’s Resistance Army — without bothering to look up who they are.
(b) The almost blasphemous Christianity of the Right. The Lord’s Resistance Army claim to be Christians — and they’re killing Moslems — so he supports them. Without learning anything more about them. No matter what their actual deeds, which are evil.
(c) Embracing ignorance; exulting in it. As the Party tells us in 1984, Ignorance is Strength. Limbough confidently rebukes Obama while knowing almost nothing about the Lord’s Resistance Army. This is a key aspect of Republican thinking, as seen in the embrace of faux economics, creationism, exaggerating the size of government waste and fraud, and misunderstanding the climate science debate (not that the Earth is warming, but over the causes and future magnitude).
For More Information
Articles about the LRA:
- Slideshow about the LRA, Washington Post, 14 October 2011
- “Profile: Uganda’s LRA rebels“, BBC, 6 February 2004
- International Criminal Court Warrant of Arrest for Joseph Kony issued on 8 July 2005
- Invisible Children — advocacy group and documentary about LRA’s child soldiers
- Sudan: The Lost Boys: Child Soldiers and Unaccompanied Boys in Southern Sudan (New York: HRW, 1994)
- Children of Sudan: Slaves, Street Children, and Child Soldiers (New York: HRW, 1995)
- The Scars of Death: Children Abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda (New York: HRW, 1997)
A heart-rending post on the FM website: The Real Revolution in Military Affairs (it’s not what you think), 14 November 2005 — Summary:
One of the most important and least discussed changes in the nature of warfare is who does the fighting. Women and children acting as soldiers are not unknown in the past, but never with such a large and increasing role. Their participation changes the very nature of war, with effects today we can only guess at.
