Independent reporting on human rights, environmental and conflict issues

10 Responses to “21st Century Statecraft: The Rise and Fall of Invisible Children”

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  8. Hi Anne
    I just wrote a long and very clever reply to your comment. And then it was “eaten” by your upload system. I will have to rest my case then. Sorry.

    Cheers
    Jørn

  9. admin says:

    Thanks for your comments and the link, Jorn. This is not a conspiracy theory and nowhere in the text will you find mention of Illuminati nonsense or even the suggestion that all these people got together behind closed doors and decided to invent this campaign out of thin air to dupe the people. I believe Invisible Children began in earnest as a group of naive kids who wanted to change the world. It’s just that their message has been co-opted in support of the economic goals of numerous players in the game, whether Invisible Children was aware of that or not, but as a simple matter of fact, they were getting help from the State Department in crafting their work.

    Governments understand that without public popular support for military campaigns abroad, civil unrest can result in their own countries, which is why they always work so hard to pump out pro-military engagement propaganda. 21st Century Statecraft is just the new face of that.

    More and more people get their news through social media, and smart governments have realized these are the new airwaves to conquer. Propaganda is everywhere. It’s no secret conspiracy, it’s simply the world we live in. We have to be smart about what we watch on the Internet, where it’s coming from and why we are being asked to support yet another military intervention. Because really, how many times will the public be duped by the “humantarian mission gimmick”? unless you’re going to argue that NATO forces bombing Libya back to the stone age was for the betterment of the people, or that exporting “democracy” to Iraq has been a valid mission.

    As mentioned in the article, there is reason to believe that the LRA may be on the verge of increasing its power, but if not for strong economic interests in the region, the US would not care enough to do anything about it. There is nothing radically conspiratory about that. In the mind of a business man, that’s just pure logic.

    Putting Kony behind bars is not a bad thing. On this we can agree. But if you want me to believe that the US has suddenly grown humanitarian wings and is doing this to save the children of central Africa, then perhaps our world views are entirely irreconcilable.

    On the point of the ICC, and the ICJ it is clear that international justice is much more complicated than just capturing one bad guy and putting him on trial.

    As for Invisible Children, an orgainzation that obscures its finances and removes data from its website amid public scrutiny does not lend confidence to critics. The tactics they have chosen to use to spread their message are questionable at best, and there is a reason why subliminal advertising is illegal in some countries. The fact that they as well as others who support them have either lied about the US’s interests in the region, or have obscured these important details, should be cause for concern and should compel us all to learn more about what’s really going on in that part of the world.

    If you take the time to read the State Department cables, you might be surprised to learn some eyebrow-raising details which are not included here. The oil business is as dirty as it gets and unfortunately countries with resources have historically been embroiled in lengthy, bloody conflicts as numerous parties duke it out for every last drop. I fear central Africa will be no exception to the rule.

    They may succeed in catching Kony and that’s not a bad thing at all, just as all the roads NATO has built in Afghanistan are positive developments. But time will tell how the story of East and Central Africa will unfold, especially now that Kenya has discovered oil and now that tensions between South Sudan and Sudan seemed to have escalated drastically.

    There is every reason to mistrust the US. They went into Iraq to find weapons of mass distruction and oops, there were none and they killed half a million people in the process, but hey…business is booming for some.

  10. Hi Anne

    Good write, though I am not convinced about the big picture you give. Actual not at all. But…..

    If we should arrest all the big offenders worldwide for human rights abuses a lot of countries would be without presidents, isn’t it? Maybe we should try, but a lot of unrest and killings would follow. I guess a pragmatic approach to that issue is in the best interest for everybody.

    Personally I would love to see both Kony and Museveni behind bars. We worked a lot in Northern Uganda in the 1990’s. Really, really bad. But it would create another war in Uganda if Museveni is dragged to The Hague. So Kony is just about fine for me.

    Not to go after Kony is like telling Simon Wiesenthal in 1960 not to go after the Nazis who fled Germany, because the war ended in 1945 and the war criminals actually had left Argentina for Uruguay.
    As a friend of mine formulated his thought on the critics of the Kony campaign.
    Critics who has used the argument again and again, that LRA only have a few hundred fighters left and Joseph Kony by the way had left Uganda.

    But here’s another one for you to put together for us who are not into big conspiracies, please 🙂

    http://www.maydaypress.com/exhibitions/page226/page354/page354.html

    Good luck and all the best

    Jørn Stjerneklar

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