As I wrote yesterday, Rush Limbaugh criticized President Obama for sending 100 of our troops to Africa to help rid the planet of some of the most evil people alive. Here’s what he said:
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.
A 19-year old girl, Evelyn Apoko, who survived the atrocities of the malevolent monsters posted a video response to Limbaugh. This is hard to watch because Apoko is severely disfigured. She was protecting one of the many children of the commander in charge of her group when a bomb exploded very near her. Not only did she survive the horrific explosion, she was then forced to march again, separate from the rest because she was seen as repulsive, face hanging in tatters and shreds, unable to eat or drink for days. Her story is told in rather gruesome but essential detail HERE. It is an incredible and almost unbelievable story of survival.
Here is her response to the odious Limbaugh:
Dear Mr. Limbaugh: Evelyn’s Appeal from Strongheart on Vimeo.
Perhaps the best response to those who argue against our intervention in this tragic and evil situation came yesterday from Michael Gerson of the Washington Post:
When President Obama announced last week the deployment of 100 U.S. military advisers to aid in the pursuit of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), reaction was swift. Michele Bachmann criticized “unnecessary foreign entanglements,” while admitting, “I do not know enough about it to comment on it.” Rush Limbaugh called the LRA “Christians” and accused Obama of sending American troops “to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda,” before promising to do some “research on it.”In both cases, it is remarkable that public figures feel no hesitancy — no internal check of propriety or shame — about offering opinions while admitting ignorance. A few minutes on the Internet would have sufficed. The LRA is a brutal rebel group headed by a messianic madman. Its victims — captured boys turned into soldiers, captured girls forced into sexual slavery, villagers put to the machete — have been the focus of activism by Christian organizations and human rights groups for decades.
~SNIP~
But Kony’s crimes are vivid at close hand. When I was there in 2006, I talked to a boy forced by LRA rebels to execute his neighbors in order to break his ties with the past and to deaden his sympathy. I met another who was forced to bow in Kony’s presence — the rebel leader claims divinity — but who dared to look up in curiosity. The LRA soldiers took out one of the boy’s eyes in punishment.
Obama is not sending in troops to hunt Kony as we did Osama bin Laden — though it must have been tempting. He is sending in 100 mostly special-operations forces to help coordinate the efforts of regional governments in protecting civilians and “removing from the battlefield Joseph Kony.” Unlike Bosnia or Libya, this is not an American humanitarian intervention. It is American aid for an African humanitarian intervention. The goal, one senior administration official told me, is “to support regional forces, to help make them more effective.”
Read the whole thing. It is worth your time.
And lest you think this is only right-wing freaks arguing against our assistance, you are, sadly, wrong.
