I used to be addicted to conservative “Talk Radio." I cannot estimate how many hours I listened to Rush Limbaugh and the others. I fed upon the “information" that they provided. Even after I became suspicious of the quality of the “information,” I continued to listen for the entertainment value. Then I became thoroughly bored, was no longer entertained, and I stopped listening.
I now live in Rwanda where “Hate Radio” played a critical role in organizing, igniting and directing the genocide of 1 million people in 100 days in 1994. Subsequently and quite justifiably, demagoguery and hate speech has been prohibited. I now look upon “Hate Radio” in the US and realize that hate is dangerously contagious. It has great appeal to the fear, selfishness, and darkness that lurks within each of us. If good people are unwittingly drawn and indulge, anyone can become dangerous. Let us not make the mistake of thinking that the distinctions between Rwanda and the US are so great that such a frenzied outbreak of violent hate could never be fomented in the US. It happened among educated Germans, so why could it not happen in US if we are not vigilant about the truth?
Rush Limbaugh recently made shocking statements about certain persons and events in East Africa (where I reside) that could not be further from the truth. Yes, the statements were mind bogglingly ignorant. But worse yet, they were provocative and dangerous,... and presumably millions of Americans believe them.
Joseph Kony is surely one of the most evil men on earth. Saddam Hussein was a gentleman compared to Joseph Kony, who regularly kidnaps and kills children, compels children to kill children, rapes and mutilates women, as he leads his “Lord's Resistance Army,” a band of psychopathic killers that Kony skillfully fashioned of the children that he kidnapped over the past 20 years. Joseph Kony is the scourge of Uganda, Eastern Congo, and Southern Sudan, where he delivers indiscriminate death and unspeakable savagery. He has long been hunted for his heinous crimes against humanity, but he has eluded capture. Not wanting to make the same regrettable mistake we made in Rwanda, President Obama recently decided to send 100 US military personnel to assist in the capture of this international criminal.
All of this is indisputable and very easy to confirm. Google away. Everybody knows it. But Rush Limbaugh announced to America that Joseph Kony and his Lords Resistance Army "are Christians" who are fighting Muslims, and that President Obama has sent US troops to invade Uganda and kill these Christians. In context, we should also acknowledge that many of Rush's listeners actually believe the nonsense that President Obama is a “closet Muslim" who is secretly working on behalf of Al Qaeda to destroy America from the inside.
Read the following transcript from Rush Limbaugh's own website:
Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: President Obama has deployed troops to another war, in Africa, ladies and gentlemen. Jacob Tapper, ABC News, is reporting that Obama has sent 100 US troops to Uganda to help combat Lord's Resistance Army. Tapper reporting today: "Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces 'remove from the battlefield' -- meaning capture or kill -- Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA." I wonder how the Wall Street crowd is gonna react when they find out that Obama has sent troops to another war? "Mr. Limbaugh, it's just 100 peacekeepers." Yep, yep, yep, that's how Libya started, and, by the way, there's no end in sight for Libya.
"The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo." A hundred people are gonna go to all those places? "The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that 'deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.'" LRA is Lord's Resistance Army. And it doesn't mean God's resistance army. Lord is some Lord, some guy. A "Defense Department official tells ABC’s Luis Martinez at the Pentagon that the U.S. troops will be in Africa 'for a few months in an advisory role.'" One hundred troops in an advisory role. So nothing to worry about here, folks, only gonna be for a few months. Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord's Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord's Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord's Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill.
So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and -- (interruption) no, I'm not kidding. Jacob Tapper just reported it. Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians? Wouldn't you say that we are? I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn't just Obama that supported that. The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy. Now they've done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place. Now they're criticizing it.
Lord's Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people." Now, again Lord's Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord's Resistance Army, what they're trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology." Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.
The government of Uganda claims that Lord's Resistance Army only has 500 or a thousand soldiers in total. So what's the threat? If that's the maximum size of their army, what's the threat? A thousand soldiers? Now, 1100 soldiers because we have sent a hundred. I'm not making this up. This is Jacob Tapper. ABC News had reported that Obama got a letter off to John Boehner a couple days ago announcing this. It's just for a few months until the Lord's Resistance Army is eradicated. That's all. Just a few months. Not much of a threat.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here's Mike in Youngsville, North Carolina. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, this is Mike. How you doing?
RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: Let me just say thank you so much for your dedication and teaching the principles and the truths of current events today, and I'm a longtime listener, first-time caller.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I sincerely appreciate it.CALLER: Yeah, I told Snerdley I want to get to my point quickly --
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: -- but just the difference between the Tea Party and the occupation (sic) Wall Street crowd, and that is that, you know, I'm gonna be 60 years old this year in just a few weeks.
RUSH: You don't sound that old.
CALLER: Yeah, I'm gonna be 60 and I've got four children, 32, 30, 29, and 27. I just thank God for this country. I thank God for all the military people that are listening right now serving our country presently and in the past. My parents, both my mum and dad served in World War II. They met on a blind date, my dad passed away in 2003, they would have been married 65 years this year.
RUSH: Whoa. That's something I can't even imagine.
CALLER: Yeah. And, Rush, you know what? I went to a Tea Party rally in Raleigh last year, and the clientele of people that were there were older, you know, I was 59 at the time, and there were a lot of people my age, there were a lot of people right up until that World War II generation that had served. They were polite; they were kind; they were orderly; they were clean. I mean, we left the capitol and you coulda eaten off the ground.
RUSH: Yeah, I know.
CALLER: Yeah. And, you know, Rush, I grew up, I was privileged and my parents sent me to a parochial school. And, you know, this ADD that they talk about, you know, people say ADD, ADD, everybody ADHD, whatever.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: You know what I call that? ADD?
RUSH: Being a kid.
CALLER: Yeah. Absence of discipline disorder.
RUSH: Well.
CALLER: That's what it is.
RUSH: I like it.
CALLER: I had it when I was young. But the nuns beat it out of me in about two weeks, along with all the other kids that were unruly in the class. And we were taught to be obedient. We were taught to respect our elders. Rush, I went to high school when you did. I had to wear a suit coat and tie at a public school and have my hair cropped so it didn't go over the collar and didn't go over the ears, and these kids today, I've seen it for 30 years since I started having children of my own, and my wife and I would take our kids out to public restaurants and public places, and we made our children obey, we made them, they knew --
RUSH: Well, you know, that's the old days. Now parents want to be friends.
CALLER: Yeah, they want to be their friends.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: They want to be their friends and this is the result of it. We have these kids that think they're entitled to everything, you know, and we've seen it for 30 years. To this day, you go into any shopping center or store or restaurant and these young children are so unruly, they're crying, they're screaming, and it just reminds me, I knew there was gonna be a payback, and this is it, this is the payback --
RUSH: You knew there was -- (laughing)
CALLER: This is it. We're seeing it.
RUSH: Well, there is a lot of spoiled bratness --
CALLER: Yes, exactly.
RUSH: -- no question. How do you feel about the news? I want to go back, your extensive military background, how do you react to the news that Obama has dispatched a hundred soldiers to fight radical Christians in Africa?
CALLER: That's amazing. I can't believe he's doing that.
RUSH: You can't?
CALLER: You know, Rush, our parents, my mum and dad both served in World War II. I forget how many million soldiers that we sent overseas, and we lost 450,000 lives in 44 months, you know. And they came back, they didn't complain, they went, they served their country, we kept our freedom, we freed all those people that were in those camps of many nationalities --
RUSH: There's no question that times are different, and child rearing has changed. Not everywhere, though. Anyway, Mike, I'm grateful you're in the audience. I'm glad you called. Thanks very much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: On sending the soldiers to fight the Christians in Africa, here is how Obama ends his letter to John Boehner justifying sending troops to Uganda: "I have directed this deployment, which is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct US foreign relations and as commander-in-chief and chief executive." Would somebody explain to me what you think our "national security interests" are in Uganda. Now, keep in mind, folks, this is the same Barack Obama who said that we had no national security interests in attacking Iraq. After they were shooting at our planes and trying to kill our president and Allah knows what else, Obama said, "We got no national security interests in Iraq! They don't threaten us! What are we doing?" We've got 500 to a thousand soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army and Uganda trying to wipe them out, and we're sending a hundred soldiers to help them.Vital national interests are at stake, according to Obama.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I wonder when the Nobel Committee is gonna call Obama and ask for the Peace Prize back. You think this is what they had in mind when he got the Peace Prize? Remember, he got that prize on the come. He hadn't done anything for peace, and since then, how many wars are we in now, five? And he hasn't gotten us out of any of these wars? I know, isn't gonna happen.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.
END TRANSCRIPT
END TRANSCRIPT
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