US Special Forces Arrive in Uganda: The Right Way to Stop the LRA?

US President Obama has sent 100 special forces soldiers to east Africa to help stop the LRA.

The President says this deployment is the fulfillment of an obligation in the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, and that the goal is to remove the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, and other senior commanders from the battlefield.

It is claimed that the soldiers will merely be helping local forces with intelligence, and will not engage the LRA unless they themselves are fired upon.

This makes me wonder whether or not these troops will “coincidentally” end up in the path of Kony, sparking a showdown that will see him captured or killed.

But is this the right thing to do?

Non-profit organisation Invisible Children, who raise awareness of the conflict,  seem to think so.

But others have argued, with some reason, that because the LRA is largely made up of abducted children, it isn’t right to send soldiers after them.

On another note, some think that President Obama has ulterior motives that are not humanitarian when it comes to this deployment.

It has been speculated that taking out the LRA is America’s reward to Uganda for its participation in the fight against the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab in Somalia.

Elizabeth Allen thinks that America would like to remove the LRA as a possible tool of the Sudanese government in destabilising the newly formed South Sudan.

Even when considering these other issues, I would still support the President’s move.

Every other method to try to stop the LRA has so far failed, and people on the ground with the technology and expertise to actually find Kony can only be a good thing.

And if this means that America get some by-products that they might welcome?

Well, who dares wins.

There is one major caveat to this of course.

Previous military action against the LRA failed to protect the civilian population, leaving Kony’s gang the freedom to kill hundreds of innocent people in retaliation.

This cannot be allowed to happen again.