Rush Limbaugh Defended Joseph Kony And The LRA In 2011
Headline of the piece: "Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians".
Above is a transcript from Rush Limbaugh's radio show on October 14, 2011. An excerpt:
Lord's Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people." Now, again Lord's Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord's Resistance Army, what they're trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology." Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.
It's pretty clear that Limbaugh knew very little about Kony during the airing of this show. However even at the end when he apparently gets some information to the contrary, he can't help but continue to hammer on the fact that LRA are Christians:
Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.
The transcript of the show is still available at his website. However, a keen redditor has provided the screencap above for those who do not want to give Limbaugh ad views.
You can also view the Stephen Colbert treatment of Limbaugh's statements here.
It should be mentioned that Joseph Kony and the LRA are gaining widespread attention now, due to the Invisible Children social media campaign and the Kony 2012 video that has recently swept the web.
However, in mentioning this, it is also important to note that concerns about the organization running the awareness campaign have been raised.
If you're wondering what the photo above is all about, that's the Invisible Children filmmakers striking a rather worrisome pose.
For a brief outline of some of the criticisms leveled at Invisible Children, check out the Vice article linked below.
When it comes to an issue this complex and with as much history as this has behind it, it's probably a good idea to become as informed as possible before passing judgement on either side of the spectrum... as it's possible Rush may now agree.
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