MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. In this hour we'll be rethinking how America projects its interests abroad. Later in the broadcast, we'll explore the legal and ethical implications of stepped up air drone attacks in Yemen and the war on terror. But first, American troops in Central Africa.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThis Friday, President Obama announced plans to send 100 soldiers to Uganda to combat the Lord's Resistance Army. For more than two decades, the LRA has terrorized Northern Uganda and neighboring countries with brutal attacks on civilians. Its leader, Joseph Kony, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIBut with troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, many observers are already worried that the military is stretched thin and others are asking how U.S. interests are served by sending troops to Central Africa. Joining us in studio to discuss this is Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us.

MS. JENNIFER COOKEThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso joining us by telephone is Cameron Hudson, senior advisor for the Committee on Conscious at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. From 2006 to 2009, he was the director for African Affairs at the National Security Council and until earlier this year, chief of staff, to the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan. Cameron Hudson, thank you for joining us.

MR. CAMERON HUDSONThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDII'll start with you, Cameron. Uganda is one of the United States' longest standing allies in Central Africa, a relatively -- central and east Africa, a relatively stable country surrounded by some of the more unstable areas on the continent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, Central African Republic. But since the late 1980s, the northern regions of Uganda have been terrorized by a brutal campaign of violence, mostly being waged by the aforementioned Lord's Resistance Army. Could you remind us of who the LRA is and why it's fighting?

HUDSONSure. Well, the LRA is a militant group that formed around a guy named Joseph Kony back in, as you said, the 1980s. He's described himself as a cleric, claims to have had visions of Christ and other kinds of things and has created a small following around him. He's grown that following, though, through really a reign of terror across, as you said, four countries in Central Africa, abducting more than 70,000 children alone, many of whom were used as slaves and sex slaves to his small army, displacing more than 2 million people at last count and sort of killing more than 100,000.

HUDSONSo, I mean, it's been a brutal regime that he's lead over 20 years. And I think one of the reasons it hasn't garnered the sort of press attention that it might deserve is that it has taken place over such a long period of time and operating in such a remote area, along this four-country border region. It's extremely remote, extremely inhospitable and so very often, it's very difficult to get timely information out. So oftentimes an attack on a village will occur where hundreds are killed and we, in the West or even closer in Uganda, won't find out about these attacks until days or weeks after when some of the survivors are able to make it into more populated areas.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments about the Lord's Resistance Army or about the U.S. sending troops to Uganda, call us at 800-433-8850 or send e-mail to kojo@wamu.org. Jennifer, the United States has tens of thousands of troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan. So when we talk about 100 soldiers being sent to Uganda, the actual numbers are not that big. But this move has already raised all kinds of caution flags. What will these troops be doing?

COOKEWell, yes, there is some pushback for people who fear that our troops are overstretched. We're talking about 100 special operations forces. They're going in, not to engage in direct combat. They're not going into really a conflict situation. They're going in to assist the four militaries, that is Uganda, Southern Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, assisting them to coordinate their efforts better to finally put an end to Joseph Kony and eliminate or apprehend him and his top commanders.

NNAMDIFor those listeners who are saying, why all those four countries, because the LRA is operating in all four of those countries.

COOKEWell, yes, when it began in the initial 1980s, it was operating mainly in northern Uganda. But as Uganda was more successful in pushing it out, it dispersed into those other countries where the military capacities, the logistics and so forth are almost nil.

NNAMDIWhat do they do in those other countries?

COOKEWell, they do what they did in Uganda. They have no real ostensible political agenda at this point and as -- I'm sorry, the previous speaker's name...

NNAMDICameron.

COOKE...Cameron, yes. Sorry, Cameron. As Cameron said, they've just waged an incredibly brutal campaign. We're talking about massacres, mutilations, people with ears cut off, lips cut off, young girls abducted to serve as sex slaves. Young men who have been in captivity for 20 years now, fighting alongside of them. It's a truly awful, awful, vicious movement and again, with very little political purpose. So negotiation is not really an option because there is no agenda there.

NNAMDIAnd obviously this is a humanitarian tragedy, Cameron Hudson, but how does Uganda and Central Africa region fit into the strategic interests of the United States?

HUDSONWell, certainly there's a sort of moral imperative that the United States act to assist and we've done that largely through a really comprehensive humanitarian support effort, both to Uganda and to the other states that have been named. But certainly, too, this is a source of considerable friction between the four states as well.

HUDSONAt various times, there's been, you know, there's been blame about potential support to the LRA from one side or the other and so I think this effort and the United States' diplomatic effort, which is, of course, underpinning this military effort to work diplomatically to find common cause and common ground among these four African states is, I think, incredibly important. And when similar efforts like this were undertaken in 2009 by the Bush Administration, there was quite a robust effort to get the leaders of the four countries talking and communicating and agreeing on a common strategy and a common way for it.

HUDSONI assume that's what's happening now as well. But we shouldn't forget that anywhere that our U.S. military is going in Africa is going to be underpinned by very, very strong diplomatic engagement.

NNAMDIHere is Anne, in Washington D.C. Anne, you're on the air, go ahead please.

ANNEThank you very much for taking my call. I think that as U.S. citizens we should not at all support the U.S. sending troops into Africa. We have to remember that Uganda has very, very rich oil resources and there -- when the U.S. sends in advisors that's been a prelude historically around the world for an acceleration of the conflicts, which has been manipulated by the U.S. as an advanced industrialized country to exploit those resources.

ANNEWe have to ask the question of where did the outfit that is being opposed by U.S. get its arms from. Third World countries don't manufacture the kinds of arms that are involved and if you just follow the money in terms of the oil revenues, it paints a pretty clear picture. There's a book by Stephen Shalom called "Imperial Alibis" and it gives a review of the various reasons and pretexts for U.S. incursions and they're always...

NNAMDIHave you been following, Anne, the work of the Lord's Resistance Army over the past 20 years?

ANNEI think that they are committing atrocities, but...

NNAMDII just asked you, have you been following their work?

ANNEI have, but you have to...

NNAMDIOkay. What do you think should be done about it?

ANNEAll right. I think that we have to look at what creates those conditions.

NNAMDIWhat do you think should be done about it?

ANNEAnd a scarcity of resources -- I think that we need to basically make it possible for the people of Africa to endure their own...

NNAMDIWe're not talking about Africa. We're talking about Uganda.

ANNEIt's -- no, it's anyplace. Any country in Africa or the Third World, they are -- these situations are made desperate by the policies of the IMS and the Third World Bank.

NNAMDISo you think basically that we should leave Joseph Kony alone?

ANNEMy gosh, just -- there are 4 million Iraqi refugees, thanks to U.S. policies. The word for prostitute in countries in the Middle East, where there are Iraqi refugees, for an Iraqi woman is prostitute because -- I mean, there's horrible conditions that are created by U.S. policies. To think that the U.S. is behaving altruistically in this situation is just a site of -- a really...

COOKEYeah, I have to disagree. I mean, first, I think Uganda's oil resources are -- they're big for Uganda, they're quite small, in terms of U.S. interest. And there's much bigger fish at play in Angola and Nigeria, for example. Second, this is very different that wading into an intractable conflict as in Afghanistan or Iraq. You're talking about a fairly -- Joseph Kony is in about 400 soldiers at present under his command. As I said, they don't have any political agenda.

COOKEThey have no popular support. They've terrorized civilian populations wherever they've gone. You have four governments in the region who are trying to eliminate this threat. So the U.S. is not pushing its way in it in any way. It is trying to help the four countries in a better way. As a Cameron mentioned, there were efforts previously under the Bush administration to try to eliminate -- to advise those governments that had a serious backlash in that they didn't capture Kony and instead Kony launched a huge series of awful retaliatory attacks.

NNAMDIAnd...

COOKEPart of the purpose, in this instance, is to ensure that civilians are protected and that those kinds of contingencies are eliminated.

NNAMDICameron, it wasn't supposed to be this way. In December of 2008, the Ugandan military, working with the help of the United States and coordinating with neighbors, launched operation Lightning Thunder. It was supposed to deliver a fatal blow to the LRA, but it failed and may have ended up making things worse, as Jennifer was just in a way describing.

HUDSONYeah, that's true, Kojo. I mean, I think it's important to note, though, that Operation Lightning Thunder came after a multi-year effort to engage Kony and the LRA in a peace process. The U.N. secretary general appointed a special envoy to LRA affected areas and there was a lot of effort, both by the neighboring states and the U.N., supported diplomatically by the U.S. to engage Kony for a period of time to get him to come in.

HUDSONAnd President Museveni in Uganda had offered a special immunity deal for some of the fighters and the army. So I think Operation Lightning Thunder was really a last resort initiated by the Ugandans and supported by the United States government. But even during that effort, there was steps taken to embed within the Ugandan army, and this is something the U.S. military has continued to do to train grief counselors and Child Protective Services soldiers to go in.

HUDSONSo that when abductees are freed and people come in or able to escape from captivity in the LRA, that there are the resources necessary both from NGOs, but also from the government of Uganda. So there's been efforts underway in the Ugandan administration and the Bush administration to ensure that civilian protection and other protections are taken into account when conducting a military operation of this nature.

NNAMDIWithin the U.S. foreign policy establishment, a debate has been raging about so-called decapitation operations. For a number of years, we've gone after the senior leadership of organizations like al-Qaida with the assumption that terrorist groups will collapse without their heads. But some are beginning to question that idea. In the Ugandan case, the priority has long been to capture or to kill Joseph Kony. Will that work, Jennifer?

COOKEWell, I think it's a little more difficult than it was perhaps a few years ago because a number of commanders have grown up under his tutelage. Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, both wanted by the International Criminal Court along with Joseph Kony. And the movement has dispersed so you're talking small groups dispersed over a wide terrain, incredibly dense and difficult to navigate.

COOKEAnd I think there is some question that Joseph Kony will deliver a very serious blow to the movement, no doubt about it. He's still very much the symbolic leader. But there are these opportunists who have grown up. But, again, small number of troops -- small number of fighters overall, many of them forced into servitude.

NNAMDIHere's Gabrielle in Cabin John, MD. Gabrielle, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

GABRIELLEOkay. Thank you very much for taking my call. I would like to thank America for taking this brave step. You know, I think it's very tragic what's been going on in Central Africa. I'm more familiar with the Democratic Republic of Congo situation. And I was just wondering, you know, I'm sure you're aware there are some statistics for the number of -- particularly women and children up to five to six million is what I've read.

GABRIELLEYou know, there are different statistics, you know, connected to the mineral rich areas in (word?) and the warlords that fight for the control of the mineral rich areas there. And I was wondering -- I'm very interested in what you're saying about you feel that the liberation army has no political agenda. I was wondering to what extent do you feel that there is interconnection there or do you believe that there are two different issues altogether?

NNAMDIAre there interconnections, Cameron Hudson, between the LRA and so-called warlords in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

HUDSONWell, I mean, I think that there's certainly a geographic overlap. In times past, the LRA has operated in areas within the DRC, close to and in surrounding areas to some of the warlords in Eastern Congo, to the extent that they share common cause. I don't believe that that has been the case. And what we've seen in some past practices is an effort by some of those militia leaders to avoid any kind of support or the appearance of any kind of relationship with the LRA given, you know, the odious reputation that that group enjoys.

NNAMDIGabrielle, thank you very much for you call. Before we go, Jennifer Cooke, could you reiterate what you see these hundred troops doing in that area?

COOKEReally helping the four armies of the region to ensure civilian protection, to improve their cooperation and coordination in getting at Joseph Kony and the top commanders, also, in some ways, instilling an ethic of human rights and professionalism.

NNAMDIWhy now?

COOKEWell, this has been coming for some time. By the way, this has -- the Congress in 2009 passed unanimously a bill calling for the U.S. to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony from the scene and a number of other series against the LRA. I think, given the failure in 2010 to effectively do this, I think there's an opportunity at this point to bring those four countries together to make this much more effective. It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy, however.

NNAMDIJennifer Cooke is director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thank you so much for coming in.

COOKEThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDICameron Hudson is senior adviser for the Committee on Conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Cameron Hudson, thank you for joining us.

HUDSONThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll be, of course, a part of our fall membership campaign. This is the third day. But after that, we'll be discussing the legal and ethical implications of stepped-up air drone attacks in Yemen and the War on Terror. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.