"I applaud our nation's military for making this a priority and taking the steps outlined in our legislation that will eventually protect the children and people from Joseph Kony's reign of terror," Inhofe said.
"I have witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by the LRA, and this will help end Kony's heinous acts that have created a human rights crisis in Africa. We must work to bring justice to the children and victims in Uganda devastated by Kony and the LRA. I have been fervently involved in trying to prevent further abductions and murders of Ugandan children, and today's action offers hope that the end of the LRA is in sight."
Kony claims he is a prophet sent from God to replace the Ugandan government with a democracy based on the Ten Commandments.
The website GlobalSecurity.org says the group has been "notorious for kidnapping children and forcing them to become rebel fighters or concubines."
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Kony and four other group leaders for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Campo said that the "LRA is an involuntary army and the majority of the fighters are formerly abducted children. "
Obama's plan in dealing with the LRA calls for increasing "protection of civilians," apprehending or removing Kony and senior LRA commanders from the battlefield, promoting the "defection, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters" and increasing "humanitarian access."
"Each day that goes by without a solution to the problem of the LRA is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks. Already, the LRA has brutally killed more than 2,300 of our family members and abducted over 3,000 others since they began their latest wave of killings in September 2008," the letter said.
"Many of our children are still in the hands of the LRA. We do not know if they are alive or dead. Those who have managed to escape the LRA bear the physical and mental scars of what they have suffered and will never be the same again. We have few means to help them readjust and integrate back into our communities, but we are trying to do what we can."
The letter cites massacres in 2008 and 2009.
"During these attacks, our family members were killed in unimaginably savage ways: their heads crushed with clubs or machetes; their faces disfigured; and their genitals, mouths, ears, legs and arms cut off, for no reason other than to terrorize."
but Yea.. those 100 troops could have really changed the border situation..
