Rush Limbaugh provoked controversy for his rant in which he called law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” because she advocated requiring private insurance plans to cover contraception. But last October Limbaugh went even farther over the edge when he defended a vicious African rebel group whose leader, Joseph Kony, has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now that Kony is finally getting some media attention thanks to the video produced by the group Invisible Children, it’s worth revisiting what Limbaugh said.

 

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a marauding cult-like group in Central Africa, has been responsible for killing, wounding and kidnapping tens of thousands of people, brainwashing young boys to become soldiers and forcing young girls into sex slavery. In 2005, the International Criminal Court charged Kony with 12 counts of crimes against humanity (including murder, rape and enslavement) and 21 counts of war crimes (including murder, attacking civilians and forced recruitment of child soldiers).

 

But Rush Limbaugh had a problem with the Obama administration sending U.S. troops after them.

 

During his show on October 14, 2011, Limbaugh told his listening audience that the LRA “are Christians. It means God.”

 

He added that the group which has terrorized people in several countries is made up of Christians “fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops, to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda.”

 

Limbaugh claimed near the end of his show that he was unaware of the atrocities committed by the LRA and promised to do “our due diligence research on it.”

 

Having said that, he reiterated his earlier remark: “But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys—and they claim to be Christians.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Limbaugh Defends Lord’s Resistance Army (by Robert Mackey, New York Times)

Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians (Rush Limbaugh Show)

Obama Sends Combat Troops to Uganda (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)