“It would be great to get rid of Kony. He and his forces have left a path of abductions and mass murder in their wake for over 20 years. But let's get two things straight: 1) Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and hasn't been for 6 years; 2) the LRA now numbers at most in the hundreds, and while it is still causing immense suffering, it is unclear how millions of well-meaning but misinformed people are going to help deal with the more complicated reality,” Keating writes.

Perhaps more alarmingly, Invisible Children’s viral media smash follows Barack Obama’s decision to deploy 100 troops to Uganda last October with the aim of “removing” Joseph Kony from the picture.

In fact, during a period of relative calm that has not been seen in years, Mark Kersten from Justice in Conflict says Uganda’s recently-discovered oil reserves, which “may produce between 2.5 billion to 6 billion barrels of oil…has been directly linked to the country’s security.”

Justificar o envio de militares dos EUA para África com razões humanitárias é um cinismo de toda a ordem.

Eles estão a ser deslocados para lá numa operação dos EUA para tentar controlar os recursos desse continente, particularmente os energéticos, de modo a barrar o caminho a concorrentes se for essa a sua opção.

Esta é que é a razão de fundo do envio dos militares. Por isso, essa campanha tem algo de errado. Militares dos EUA não compagina bem com razões humanitárias. Ou os autores da campanha são muito ingénuos ou então  não são tão bem intencionados como fazer crer.