It has been discovered that Rush Limbaugh defended the internationally vilified Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony on his radio show last October. Limbaugh used his platform to support Kony in late 2011, even though the guerilla leader has been wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court since 2005. In the radio clip, the pundit applauds Kony as a Christian warrior taking a stance against Muslims in his region. Limbaugh also depicts Kony as a supporter of democratic rights.
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The pundit also lambasts President Obama’s 2011 decision to deploy troops against Kony in his native Uganda in response to reports that his rebel militia was terrorizing citizens.
In this October 2011 audio clip, Limbaugh states:
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 documented atrocities committed by Kony include stealing girls to become “wives” for his troops, forcing children to take up arms for his cause, and ordering the killing and maiming of innocents crossing his marauders’ paths. “Kony’s Ugandan rebel group is blamed for tens of thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 26 years,” according to the Associated Press. “The militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive.”
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Kony’s crimes have been highlighted due to the efforts of the advocacy group Invisible Children, whose recent video depicting Kony’s violence has gone viral. The 30-minute piece has garnered tens of millions of views since being released on Monday. Invisible Children is dedicated to bringing Kony to justice.
Limbaugh has recently come under fire for calling law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” after she spoke at a Democratic event in support of birth control. It is reported that Limbaugh has lost 45 advertisers in response to the widespread anger sparked by his attacks on Fluke.
“That’s like losing a couple of French fries in the container when it’s delivered to you at the drive-through,” Limbaugh said about his losses. “You don’t even notice it.”
Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb