I am so worked up at the moment that I knew I had to post on here. It's been some time, so it was due anyways. I was taking a break from some work and just seeing what some of the latest news was on some sites that I frequent. One of the sites, a rather large non-profit which keeps a pretty good daily blog, Invisible Children, had a recent article about a guy who thinks Invisible Children is a money-making, war-mongering, government conspiracy trying to get the US Government more oil and uranium from Sudan and Uganda. His blog is below:
Invisible Children, Save Darfur, Genocide Intervention Network, “Cool” War Propaganda for the Kids?
There are those of us who believe that when two sides have a conflict that involves military force, adding a third party to the conflict, with superior military force and inferior cultural understanding does not result in a peaceable solution. In fact, recent adventures in Iraq, Kosovo, Somalia, and other places have proven that the end result is more violence, more death, and more chaos. This philosophy is called non-interventionism.
That is why it is particularly alarming that some organizations are able to promote war policy not unlike that which was used to create the unpopular quagmire in Iraq to people who did not support that particular occupation. Are business interests eyeing an oil pipeline in Afghanistan or the oil and uranium found in Uganda(http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Natural_Gas_And_Uranium_Discovered_In_Uganda_999.html), or (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:QKAWzVv0hP0J:www.globalpolicy.org/empire/humanint/2007/0207darfuroil.pdf+uranium+darfur&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)Darfur?
I showed in my previous article “Democrats Need Blood Too” how Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs was hired to make the civil war in Bosnia appear to be a genocide to get American public support. We have no way to confirm or deny genocides from afar, and sending troops over to intervene with frighteningly powerful weapons and no real understanding of the local perspective has proven to do nothing but leave heaps of bodies and lower our standing in the world. Many will use the Hitler and World War II argument to counter this position, but we were attacked first in that particular situation and had the proper moral authority to go in, validating once again the wisdom of the non-interventionists just war defensive foreign policy view. The “preemptive war” policy trumpeted by the special interests, trotsky-ites, and transnationalist globalists has been tried ad nauseum since that time, with ill-effect and a mess of innocent casualties.
So what of these financially powerful, hip, celebrity-approved organizations like Save Darfur, Invisible Children, and Genocide Intervention Network. Do they seek to truly help the people of those nations through private donation alone, or is there sinister lobbying for military intervention(aka WAR) involved? Let’s investigate.
Taken from Genocide Intervention Network’s “About Us” page on their website, “GI-NET's founders believed that private contributions in support of peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan, the site of the twenty-first century's first genocide, could protect civilians and inspire policymakers to take action.” Peacekeepers are of course armed military from other nations, particularly those under the banner of the unelected, disorganized United Nations.
Taken from the Save Darfur website, “The national effort delivered one million hand-written and electronic postcards to President Bush, demanding that he support a stronger multinational peacekeeping force to protect the people of Darfur.” Like the one he is using in Iraq? That same coalition of the willing? Would this war torn nation benefit from that kind of “nation building” help? This is war propaganda, indubitably.
Taken from the website of Invisible Children, Kingston, “Their spirit gave rise to a flourishing non-profit organization that works tirelessly to improve the lives of the Northern Ugandan community through education and economic initiatives and rallies for government intervention.”
I would compel those in charge of these organizations to publicly denounce their support of U.S. Military intervention in Uganda and the Sudan. Obviously organizations who are going to fund schools and give money to private citizens to keep defense or to stay fed are great ways to spend your charity money, however, it is important to do the due diligence to make sure that your money is not being used as a lobbying effort to get us into the next Iraq War.
So far as I can tell through research, it appears that these organizations are so well-funded for the obvious reason... someone behind the scenes is going to make a profit on those oil and uranium fields, and these poor citizens, already in war-torn conditions, are going to be in for some real trouble if the American people authorize more “peacekeeping.” Our “foreign aid” would doubtlessly go to the very government who is supposedly doing the persecuting, and if sanctions were applied to punish the human rights abusing government, the economic consequences on the very people we are trying to help would be devastating, much like they were in Iraq.
Let us follow the wisdom of the founders and make available free trade and private charity for these nations and their poor, the only way we can help from afar. Putting them under a confusing and complex military occupation like the one in Iraq? Let’s learn our lesson.
-Barry Donegan
Right away, I felt my heart sink. I couldn't even get through 2 paragraphs before I see his ideas are not based in fact, but slander and conspiracy theories. First, he mentions Bosnia. He mentions that a company was hired to make Bosnia seem like a genocide. Now...I lived in Bosnia last year. It was a wonderful place. I made a lot of friends and had a really great time. I still think of Bosnia and hope to go back someday.
While I was there, I learned firsthand from ex-soldiers and friends who were just young children of what they went through. I visited sites of mass massacres and nearly broke into tears upon seeing the mass graves. To see that this letter he uses make claim that there is no proof of genocide and it was just a scheme to get American support is not only outrageous, but so far from the truth that he should probably work for Fox News. Srebrenica alone lost over 8,000 men and boys in a matter of days! So many more died through out the country during that war…how many need to die before it’s labeled a genocide?
He even mentions Kosovo, in my mind, probably talking of the NATO bombings of '99, which actually landed in Serbia in their capital of Belgrade. I have friends in both places, and have heard the stories first hand. Again, not some research done on Wikipedia - actual face to face conversations in those places.
These places aren’t just stories and statistics to me, they are people, faces, friends. How dare he make such claims! Before he even gets to talking of the organizations, he is already at fault for irresponsible verbiage aimed at swaying the reader into thinking more into the conspiracy he has set up. Before any one says anything about Serbia, I have made no indication of blame and have friends in Serbia as well who remember the bombings and the wars. I've heard many sides to what happened in these places.
It is clear that he has no fact to base off of, simply speculation and the idea that conspiracy is all around us. He clearly sees the US Government as an evil entity that has no good bearing whatsoever, at least, based on just that essay and spouts out his rhetoric simply to cash in on the conversation and earn some Ego points. He mentions making a phone call to Invisible Children but also makes clear that he was searching for anything he could use to say that we support the government to go over there so they can take the fields for oil and uranium. It seemed giving an answer is "going around the issue" when it's not the answer you want.
Clearly, any organization that is doing well, must be evil in some way because that’s the only way to succeed in the world. Selling your soul for your own benefit, or in this case, the benefit of your non-profit.
(the above was sarcasm)
I see absolutely no steady foundation on which he places his claims. It’s sad that he is poisoning other peoples minds with a lack of knowledge and a hunger for feeling sophisticated enough to discuss a major political event. He just clearly doesn’t understand the event well enough to really know what has actually been happening.
Seems like this kind of thing is going around a lot these days. It's sad. I hear a lot of different organizations or groups or ideas get trashed based on ignorance. I really hope, anyone who reads this, will actually look into something before they bash it. Take some responsibility and learn facts - and don't go into a discussion that you don't fully understand with a swayed mind already. Have it open enough to hear what the other side has to say.
Please.
I'm not saying don't question motives though and blindly follow. If you are concerned about something, act on that concern. Search it out, question it, get answers to your questions, but don't twist the words of another to fit the idea you already have. If you find problems after looking into something, then don't support it. Simple enough, right?
