On Kony

First of all: 

Watch this if you haven't already. While I have known about Kony and what has been happening in Uganda for quite a while, it has always been simply one of those events where no one really seems to do anything about it. There's been no huge television appeal, no mass coverage. It's been happening under our noses and because no one takes the time to look at something closely, everyone became ignorant. Kony is a monstrous man, that is no doubt. The campaigns' goal to put enough pressure on the Senate and people who 'matter' suggests the right idea, that we cannot do anything but make the people who can act on it. But there's only so far they can go.

The sad thing is, if we blindly donated to the regime within Uganda, we are not donating to the good guys. Only donating to the slightly less evil ones. The Ugandan army has committed many an atrocity. The only real people we can look after are the people who aren't part of either. And then, what are we going to do? Throw money at them when it will go straight into the hands of the military? As is the case in many African nations, sometimes we can only sit back. Blindly throwing money is never the answer, look at Somalia. And that also showed that blindly throwing troops into a hell hole doesn't work. A U.N backed peace keeping aid mission may be the only logical solution but you try selling that to the international community right now. Should first world countries play the game of international police? I believe they should, it's there responsibility. Surely the right thing to do when faced with something like this is to stand up and do everything in your power to stop it? Not just let people die because we don't have the money. You wouldn't do that in real life. You wouldn't not help a woman who had fallen over in the middle of the road because you don't have the effort. At least, I hope that is true.

There are hundreds of regimes out there and each one needs to be dealt with but we can't just deal with them all. What needs to happen is a consensus on how we can bring the ones responsible to justice. Short, sharp operations aimed at the very highest level with precision, backed by international aid groups and advisors to stabilise. That's the only option. As we saw in Libya, the precise military action can help. We just forgot about what would happen after.