He’s not calling it a war, but President Obama will be sending American troops into Central Africa to offer military assistance.
In order to aid with the takedown of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, President Barack Obama told Congress today that he has authorized upwards of 100 American soldiers into the region to “remove from the battlefield” LRA leader Kony and other high-ranking officials of his army.In a letter address to House Speaker John Boehner today, President Obama says that American troops "will only be providing information, advice and assistance to partner nation forces,” but that they could engage in battle if necessary for self defense. Obama says that his decision to send troops into Central Africa comes as a response to two decades’ worth of aggression perpetrated by Kony and the LRA, whom the president says is responsible for having “murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa” and continues to “commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”In all, human rights groups and the Obama administration have estimated that thousands of Africans have been assassinated by the LRA army, which also regularly enlists young women as sex slaves and young men as guerilla soldiers.The first American troops already arrived in Uganda on Wednesday and will soon deploy elsewhere throughout the region once other area nations approve the action. Meanwhile, US military operations continue in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.During the September 2, 2011 GOP Debate, Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul criticized America’s foreign policy and military for overzealously occupying far too many nations. "We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We're going broke,” said Paul. In regards to the ongoing military presence across Earth, Paul asked, “If we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we're kidding ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves. What would we do if another country, say, China, did to us what we do to all those countries over there?"An officer with the US Department of Defense confirmed today to ABC News that American troops are expected to stick around in Africa “for a few months.” Meanwhile, the US war in Afghanistan just entered its tenth year, making it the longest war America has ever been in.