Obama orders U.S. troops to help chase down African 'army' leader

[ronin sparthos]

Iran or bust.

[Shuvo]

Do you think the U.S. has an ulterior motive here?

If the ulterior motive was OIL (capitalized because its everybody's favorite assumption about why the US does anything, ever), they would be sending in a lot more then 100 troops.

The ulterior motive in this case is probably getting a +1 to the favor bank as someone else said in this thread, or repaying an old one. Plus it's always nice when theirs a convenient reason to hunt down and kill genocidal maniacs!

[Gadritan]

Bragg had been shaking my house for the past week or so. Guess this was what it was all about.

Shit always gets louder than the norm for a week or two before we make a move somewhere.

[Churchill]

I'm assuming you live near the back end

[Xno Kappa]

Always felt bad for people who live out there past the drop zones and shit lol.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

If this article is correct, it looks like Obama is an imperialist as well. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_.../MJ18Dj06.html

[Dimmauk]

Are people still mad that we are sending troops to help advise on how to get rid of the leader of murdering rapists?

[Cail]

Are people still mad that we are sending troops to help advise on how to get rid of the leader of murdering rapists?

yes, genocide is good, didnt you know?

[Xno Kappa]

Amurica is evil yo!

[Churchill]

The point is rather that we have no business doing so, not that rapist are bad.

[Anton]

If the ulterior motive was OIL (capitalized because its everybody's favorite assumption about why the US does anything, ever), they would be sending in a lot more then 100 troops.

In a previous thread, I disproved this at length.

The TL;DR version:
-No local infrastructure. It's from medieval times, and in need of heavy capital spending.
-Local political unrest.
-Not much oil. The largest field, Rumalia South, is barely over 1 million bpd.
-Steep, Iraqi government stipulated minimum bids during the contract auction relative to the risk. Government minimum asks are common, the price was high.

+One of few unexploited oil sources thanks to local government mismanagement.

As a result, Rumalia South is being drilled by BP and China's CNPC. Exxon Mobil was the only US oil company to land anything at all in the auction - an 80-20 contract bid (with a korean co i think) for West Qurna Phase 1, one of the larger fields. Chevron backed out, after failing a separate deal.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/...5BB18Q20091213

No other US oil company made a bid. That includes ConnocoPhillips, Citgo, Imperial Oil, Andarko Petroleum Corp, etc. All the biggies.

Herp a derp, it wasn't oil. Continue to be misinformed by hipster bullshit.

[Yuri-G]

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/...ets_christians

this article is a good read if only for the striking juxtaposition of Limbaugh's comments against the picture of a former captee of the Lord's Resistance Army. really hammers the point home, especially when you're like me and you keep noticing each aspect of the man's deformity piece by piece. first I saw the nose, then I noticed the lips, and then when I thought it couldn't get any worse I noticed the ears...

[Xno Kappa]

Pretty funny how Rush Limbaugh and a few people in this thread sound exactly alike yet are on completely opposite sides of the ideology spectrum.

[Jaybar]

Should go watch Invisible Children.

[Zoolander]

Yea the reactions to this in here are truly mind blowing. This was the first person the ICC indicted and is easily one of the biggest pieces of shit currently in existence. The stories are just sickening. Capture little kids from the homes, force the boys to shoot their best friends to initiate/harden them, make the little girls sex slaves for the little boys, get the kids addicted to drugs, and use these little kids to fight your battles and put them on the front lines.

I understand that we have to work within our means and not make every fight our own, but jesus christ its not like we're sending in tons of troops, bombs, tanks, etc. 100 troops in minimal advisory roles is NOTHING. Shit we have them as troops already, why the fuck not use them.

[Kuya]

I assume that the Lord's Resistence Army is at this point only loosely related to any form of Christianity.

[Jaybar]

They are about as Christian as Obama is Muslim. I can see why Rush is so confused.

[Churchill]

Your ideas are fine and dandy, but as someone who has served in advisory roles and in the peudo-wars of Afghanistan & Iraq I can tell you there is no difference. Advisory role means go out and get your slay on. The point is not that x person is a bad leader and does bad things but that the US is involving itself where it should not involve itself. If Congress declared War that would be one thing, but they haven't.

Now me personally, I don't mind going and getting some slay on and neither do the 100 men who were/are being sent; however from the point of view of the Constitution this is not okay.

Along that same vein, I really don't see how you can be in support of this because he's a bad guy and not be in support of whatever has gone on in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both Sadaam Hussein and Mullah Mohammad Omar were bad men and lead bad Governments that did bad things to a lot of people. You can argue intentions all day, the bottom line however is that bad men are in charge in all three instances and if that's your only qualifying factor for sending troops somewhere then that shit is wrong.

Edit: If the only reason is because of the "facts" released before going into those to "wars" not being the wholesale truth, then that's a pretty piss poor reason to not support one over the other. There's more going on here than a bad guy who murders people, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with any obvious factors but without a doubt there are other factors.

[Yugl]

Who cares what that piece of paper has to say.

[Shuvo]

Your ideas are fine and dandy, but as someone who has served in advisory roles and in the peudo-wars of Afghanistan & Iraq I can tell you there is no difference. Advisory role means go out and get your slay on. The point is not that x person is a bad leader and does bad things but that the US is involving itself where it should not involve itself. If Congress declared War that would be one thing, but they haven't.

Now me personally, I don't mind going and getting some slay on and neither do the 100 men who were/are being sent; however from the point of view of the Constitution this is not okay.

Along that same vein, I really don't see how you can be in support of this because he's a bad guy and not be in support of whatever has gone on in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both Sadaam Hussein and Mullah Mohammad Omar were bad men and lead bad Governments that did bad things to a lot of people. You can argue intentions all day, the bottom line however is that bad men are in charge in all three instances and if that's your only qualifying factor for sending troops somewhere then that shit is wrong.

Edit: If the only reason is because of the "facts" released before going into those to "wars" not being the wholesale truth, then that's a pretty piss poor reason to not support one over the other. There's more going on here than a bad guy who murders people, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with any obvious factors but without a doubt there are other factors.

I'll need to research it myself later to confirm but I have to ask - does the constitution explicitly forbid to give any kind of military aid at all to foreign governments that request help? This does not seem right to me at all, it defeats the main point of having alliances.

Or is this more about the definition of 'war' and that this is arguably an act of war and therefore forbidden without congressional approval? I'm guessing this is what you mean. You have to realize though that most people would not agree that something on such a small scale can be considered a war.

And yes, although you already mentioned it I still want to point it out, I'm sure these 100 men are probably perfectly happy being given a mission like this (just as Seal Team Six would have been thrilled to do their last mission). So the whole 'protect our troops' argument is inapplicable.