Obama and Uganda--Why?

Obama's latest foray into international affairs shown by his interference into Ugandan's affairs is one of the most outlandish things I have experienced in the past 40 years. The approval of many conservatives all based on War Powers Resolution  which invokes the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009  is beyond belief. If this was so important in 2009 why hasn't action been taken before now. I have only one answer--it's election time.  Why  James Inhofe (R) from Oklahoma and other Republicans went along with this is even more curious.  Did they even question WHY or did they get caught up in the "feel good " of the moment.

The soldiers' mission is to help Ugandan forces round up the so-called Lord's Resistance Army, a group that few Americans had heard of before last week.

It is nothing more than Obama's continuing embracing of  the U.N. doctrine known as "Responsibility to Protect," which says that the "international community" has a responsibility to protect civilians from crimes against humanity, by force when necessary, when their own governments are too weak or too corrupt to do so.  Of course the "doctrine" does not say weak or corrupt but call it what it is with no UN sugar coating. It is also a campaign ploy to show Obama as a "strong leader" on international and military affairs since all he has to show thus far is following of Bush's doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is something he hopes folks will forget before election time and thus this new action.


The entire doctrine is totally opposite of what the US Constitution says. The US Constitution , which seems not to matter to Obama or the UN, empowers Congress to set up a military force for one purpose, one singular end, "the common defense... of the United States," not some third rate country with a corrupt govenment and a band of fanitics running around causing mayhem.


The "feely good" Obama Doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" does nothing but make an attempt to prove nobility of his "doctrine" by putting blood and tax dollars at risk when there is nothing in it for us and certainly not any of our affair.

In the hunt for Somali warlord Mohaned Farrah Aidid, all went well until one day it went wrong, dead wrong for 18 US soldiers and left 80 more wounded inwhat became known as the "Black Hawk Down" incident of '93.

While this  excursion may not have the same results it provides the opportunity for such, if not now , in the future as success in this mission will only bring on more new intervention as we watch our military become further detached from it's constitutional purpose--national defense.  How long will it be before we have cause to regret?

A similar disaster seems unlikely here, and our Ugandan incursion may well do some for the LRA's long-suffering victims. Yet success breeds boldness, and with each new intervention, our defense establishment is becoming further unmoored from its constitutional purpose: national defense. Before long, we may have cause to regret that shift.