It seems like a caricature, but this transcript is very real. I thought we had reached the nadir of faux-conservative depravity when Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay were busy defending the evil practices of their clients on the Northern Mariana islands, practices that included forced prostitution and forced abortion. But this is a lot worse. Rush Limbaugh actually defends the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, on the grounds that they are “Christian”:
“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.”
He then goes on to read on the “aims” of the LRA, which include “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people”. In other words, they are the good guys.
I realize that many people are not familiar with the LRA. I am. I remember visiting Uganda, and the fear and terror evoked by this group. People spoke of them with a sense of chill and foreboding. Led by a deranged madman called Joseph Kony, this rebel group has terrorized Northern Uganda, around the Gulu area, for about two decades. Their strategy is to sweep into villages (seemingly out of nowhere) to kidnap children to become soldiers and sex slaves. They frequently massacre, rape, and burn where they strike, and they have a fondness for attacking Catholic churches. Kony keeps his child army in line with drugs, fear, charisma, and a hodge-podge of nutty spiritual beliefs, such as the notion that smearing oil on your body makes you immune to bullets. He claims his aim is a theocratic government based on the ten commandments. And let’s be clear that his enemy is Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who is Christian, and that the LRA receives strategic support from the Islamic regime in Khartoum.
It’s hard to find greater evil and wickedness in the world today. And yet these are the people Limbaugh is lauding. I always knew Limbaugh was a narcissistic drug-addled hedonist in the thrall of a poisonous individualistic ideology, but this is a step into something far darker. I’m sure his defenders will claim that he didn’t know these details about the LRA, but that’s no defense. Two minutes on wikipedia tells you all you need to know. No, Limbaugh is engaging in dark nihilism here – attempting to destroy Obama by painting the LRA in a sympathetic light, knowing that his gullible audience will take what he says on faith. And given that Republicans live in fear of this charlatan, don’t expect many criticisms of this.
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