Keep up the good stuff brother. I love coming on this site.

While I won’t pretend to go to bat for an organization I, quite honestly, only heard of because of its viral video, I will say that it was not Invisible Children that put Kony on the top of the international most wanted list. And although many people misconstrued some of the points made in the video (which is likely to happen when a bunch of information is dumped on 30 million people all at once) Kony’s record of being a sinister man capable of horrible atrocities is not really in dispute, whether he’s currently in Uganda or not.

Had it not been for the video, most of us would have continued to go to bed as we always have, not giving the plight of children and families touched by his terror the slightest thought.

The video did not state outright that his army is comprised entirely of children. His kidnapping and brainwashing of children has been going on for decades, so it’s no surprise that the soldiers encountered during the interview were not children. Of course, if I were him, I would have kept any child soldiers out of sight.

Further, I don’t think the video was proposing war. It was proposing stepped-up U.S. assistance to capture a man wanted for crimes against humanity. It’s unlikely Kony will turn himself in anytime soon, and an unarmed search party would most certainly be slaughtered upon delivering his arrest warrant.

You are correct that he is certainly not the only problem. The Ugandan army is reputed to be extremely corrupt. But then, so are a great number of governments and armies in the world. Before pressure from Invisible Children, no attention was being paid to this issue by the United States. If momentum can be maintained – the chances of which I am highly skeptical – then once Kony is brought to whatever justice befalls him we can focus on the next problem. With any luck, his demise will serve as an example to others of what fate awaits them.

Tyrants like him and so many others have been bee allowed to gain their power through our indifference and, in some cases, through the direct assistance of the United States, Russia (or former Soviet Union), China, England, you name it. It’s about time we invested in something like this, where our national interests are not at stake, but it’s still the morally right thing to do.

I don’t entirely disagree with your position that “the most effective means of facilitating and achieving world peace is simply by being peaceful.” However, the people who have fallen victim to Kony (or the Ugandan army, for that matter) be they children or adults, soldiers or female sex slaves, were trying to live peacefully. Look what it got them.