World

Kony 2012: $500 million later, still nothing to show for it

Remember the Kony 2012 video? If you were in a coma throughout 2012, here it is as a refresher:

Joseph Kony became a household name. The video has 101 million views and counting. Americans lost their minds. The social pressure was so relentless that the U.S. government committed special operations soldiers to Central Africa to capture or kill Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. In 2012, a U.S. task force comprised of Special Forces soldiers and, later, Navy SEALs, began rotations throughout Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Remember the Kony 2012 video? If you were in a coma throughout 2012, here it is as a refresher:

Joseph Kony became a household name. The video has 101 million views and counting. Americans lost their minds. The social pressure was so relentless that the U.S. government committed special operations soldiers to Central Africa to capture or kill Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. In 2012, a U.S. task force comprised of Special Forces soldiers and, later, Navy SEALs, began rotations throughout Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It cost the taxpayers $100 million a year to keep up rotations of 100 U.S. special operators in a conflict that had nothing to do with the United States. The LRA posed no threat to either our national security or our financial interests. It posed the question of “should we risk the lives of our service members because we can, or because we need to?”

Read more at Stars and Stripes.

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