All the KONY2012 people are trying to achieve is heightened public awareness so that the ongoing mission doesn't get shelved, they aren't asking for US military escalation. It sounds to me like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what they are actually trying to achieve here and what the role of the US military personnel on site is. The Ugandan military is doing the foot work, The Ugandan military would be doing the capturing/arresting. All the US military is doing is providing 100 advisers to provide intelligence resources, advice and some training.
Your argument though, that the US, should they capture Kony, would then have some sort of mandate to capture other war criminals, may have some validity, if it had any grounding in reality.
But really, even if there was a US escalation, god forbid the United States used it's military to help maintain a global-minimum-standard for human rights, instead of solely looking after their own financial interests where they aren't wanted.
Cannot rep you again. I just can't.
Covers pretty much a lot of what I am hearing:
a) What's the point in taking the one guy out when there are other bad people around?
So is it better to just do nothing? Does anyone think that having this guy arrested and brought to trial as a war criminal might be more effective than letting him rape, pillage, and abduct children out of their parents' houses until he dies of natural causes and then see what happens? also he's already been identified as one of the worst of the worst. Can arresting this guy and bringing him to court possibly be worse than leaving him alone? Does ignoring him until he dies set a better example for future men like him?
b) This random guy who works for a different charity or went to Africa and then wrote a book says that this charity also spending time in Africa doesn't know what they are talking about and are 'well-intentioned foreigners'
Having never been to Africa myself and not understanding the subject at all I certainly can't speak to this. All I know is the only one that seems to have what might be a viable solution or any action at all is Invisible Children. I've been reading both sides for a few days now and I keep reading all sorts of reasons why it shouldn't be done, but not one alternative. I do think something is better than nothing when people are being tortured and killed. Also there is a lot of disagreement even amongst other charity groups and 'experts' on Africa.
c) Look at their rating on this one random charity rating system that most people haven't heard of before.
Aside from that issue being already well defended by the original group, there is no rating authority for charities and multiple sites with varying rating systems on the internet such as givewell.org or charitywatch.org, neither of which even have ratings for this group.
d) Why are they not just taking all their money and giving it directly to the children, rather than spending it on things like mindless videos.
Well aside from also having been covered here by Biggles, and on the critic response, this mindless video has in one day managed to raise more awareness about the issue then any campaign in the last 25 years. In terms of awareness campaigns for an NGO charity operation that is staggering. This thread on a mountain biking forum is proof that it was money well spent
e) crowdsourcing militarized action is a scary precedent
I wholeheartedly agree with this point. However I don't think it was ever stated that the goal was anything past keeping the 100 already assigned soldiers in place, and their job simply to assist in capturing Kony.
f) People might die in trying to get to Kony
People are dying for sure right now.
g) The LRA aren't even active in Uganda any more
Pretty sure Invisible children never claimed their purpose was to defend Uganda as a country. Their purpose is to stop the LRA regardless of where they are. There are other groups fighting other problems, this is theirs. there is room for all of them. People seem to have a big problem with going after him now because he's in a different country killing, abducting, and raping. However we don't any trouble with hunting Nazi war criminals and bringing them to international court because they left Germany do we?
I'm not totally off the fence despite all this. I'm still considering my own involvement and waiting to see how things play out, while considering both sides. But I'm certainly not going to claim that Invisible Children are somehow trying to swindle people out of their money and are some shady organization bent on taking advantage of the poor caring people of the world and the people of Africa. And I also doubt they are a bunch of clueless foreigners who know nothing of the inner workings of African culture, government, and issues considering the years they have put into this. They just have a goal and an idea that they are passionate about and know how to connect on an emotional level with their own native population.
Again (slightly off-topic) in regards to the OP, my biggest fascination with this whole campaign is the raw power of the internet to amplify a very small voice and make previously unmovable issues and organizations not only defend themselves but back off from major actions due to the sheer force of the will of the internet community or usher the creation of something that otherwise wouldn't happen, whether that be defeating bills put forth by huge government, or funding something that was formerly the domain only of huge publishing behemoths. We saw this with SOPA (although it will return in another form), and we're seeing that here. It's a pretty fundamental shift in the world and it seems to be rapidly changing all the old perceptions of 'just the way things are'. Amazing to see first hand, let alone be a part of.