Humanitarian activists around the world have had strong reactions of resentment to those opposed to or wary of President Obama’s recent decision concerning Joseph Kony and the LRA. Many of these critics are misinformed.

On Oct. 14, President Obama announced that the United States will send 100 military advisors to the war-torn region of central Africa to assist the local governments in stopping Joseph Kony, the merciless leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

The reaction among the general public has been mixed, largely due to a lack of information and miscommunication.

Many news sources published confusing articles, many of which implied that our president was planning to send combat troops to central Africa.

In addition to this, most people know little to nothing about Joseph Kony, his rebel army, and the atrocities they have been committing for a quarter of a century. A prime example of such ignorance would be the response of political commentator, Rush Limbaugh of The Rush Limbaugh Show.

On his radio program he stated that by sending military advisors to central Africa, President Obama was seeking to “wipe out Christians” and further went on to say that the LRA is “fighting Muslims” and that the rebel group is “the people Obama has sent troops to help.”

When producers of his show frantically updated the radio show host of the group’s atrocities, he unapologetically responded saying, “well we just found out about this today and of course will do our due diligence research.”

A victim of the LRA’s violence recently sent Limbaugh a video informing him further on the topic of Kony and his rebel army.

To even begin to understand the situation, there are many things to look at. The first would be Joseph Kony’s long history of unpunished violence.

In 2009, The Enough Project and Invisible Children came together to get 500,000 signatures on a petition to present a bill to President Obama which he signed in early 2010, pledging to take significant action against the LRA.

There are many key factors that most American’s have no idea about. It is essential that people start at the beginning when analyzing this devastating conflict: who is Joseph Kony? What is this Lord’s Resistance Army?

In 1986, Joseph Kony seized the opportunity to be in control. He borrowed concepts from two preceding rebel groups ironically titled Ugandan Peoples Offence Army and Holy Spirit Movement.

He mimicked the traditional military chain of command displayed by the UPOA and the spiritual practices of the HSM.

He then created ten commandments for his Lord’s Resistance Army, the most important being that he must never be questioned or challenged by LRA .

He pledged to overthrow the Ugandan government and rule the entire country by his ten commandments. He then went on to break every single of one of them.

Instantly, Joseph Kony lost all support of local Ugandan people.

Desperate to stay in control, he went on a search for outside resources. He found these resources in Omar Al-Bashir, the president of Sudan who is also an indicted war criminal for the Darfur Genocide. Al-Bashir supplied Kony and his army with firearms, some of which they still use today.

Armed, Kony and his few followers began to raid villages and abduct children to build up his army.

Over time, it has become apparent that this army wasn’t a way of Kony building himself up politically; it was solely for personal gain.

One of the reasons he has been able to terrorize this region for so long is that there is no negotiating with Joseph Kony. He has everything he wants: money, control, and multiple sex slaves that he calls “wives.”

The general public is also unaware that while Obama recently announced his decision to send advisors into central Africa, he signed a bill in early 2010 pledging to take action against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

This bill was brought to him through the work of two humanitarian organizations, The Enough Project and Invisible Children, and their hundreds of thousands of young supporters.

These hundreds of thousands of activists now have the support of the International Criminal Court in their hope to capture Joseph Kony alive and bring him to the ICC headquarters located in the Netherlands sometime during 2012.

Last year, our school’s chapter of the Invisible Children club raised over $13,000 to support the Keyo Secondary School, an institute responsible for educating 800 boys and girls, many of whom are former child soldiers.

Additionally, the middle school raised over $1,200 last quarter for Invisible Children.

This past summer I traveled to the San Diego to join 700 young minds in an effort to end Africa’s longest running war.

The event was called the Fourth Estate, a tribute to what was considered the lowest class in France during the Revolution. Despite having everything stacked against them, the people that made up the fourth estate were eventually successful in their mission for social change.

During our short four-day stay, we listened to 12 guest speakers. Among them was the President of the International Justice Mission and Carl Wilkins, the one and only American to stay in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. The speakers touched us, inspired us, and, most importantly, pushed us to keep on keeping on.

“Fourth Estaters” as we’re called, began referring to our experience as being “on the mountain top” after listening to a recording of one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speeches in which he describes the blissful feeling of being part of a force united against injustice.

The Fourth Estate was our mountaintop: there we were, 700 strong, and there was no one there to doubt us, no one there to judge us, and no one there to put us down.

In a culture where kids and teenagers are often treated as burdens, this change was shocking and so refreshing. We were constantly being told that we are making a difference and we will continue to make a difference. On the first day we were told the 700 of us had raised an estimated 3.8 million dollars for Invisible Children in the past two years. Cheers erupted and tears were shed. Our goal was to end the war in Africa, and stop Joseph Kony. We are closer to reaching that goal than ever before.

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of what is the morally correct thing to do. While the President’s decision has been questioned by many, hundreds of thousands of activists applaud his decision and hope that the goal of delivering Joseph Kony alive to the International Criminal Court in 2012 will become a reality. With the support of American military advisors and the European Union, this is an extremely realistic goal that will hopefully be achieved.