Recently, as the video depicts, it has been brought to our attention that a rebel leader in Uganda is controlling an army which captures and manipulates children in order to utilize them in their fighting force. The video has been seen worldwide due to the use of facebook and other media resources and holds the intent of making the name of the leader, Joseph Kony, a household name, in order to prevent the current American military forces from withdrawing from the country due to lack of (western) public interest. The video created for spreading this news has received much criticism, for reasons such as the content (due to its focus on the creator and his child, and not on the people of Uganda), the financial ethics of the company, The Invisible Children, and possible alterior motives for U.S. intervention. It has been discussed that oil, the world’s current most precious resource, has been discovered in Uganda, and, much like the criticism towards the Iraq war, it has been discussed that those in power in the U.S. are more interested in the natural resources of the country, but are incapable of taking offensive military action due to public opinion. The Vietnam War fell apart (partially) due to the lack of propaganda in the United States and its cultural interests at the time, and because of this people have learnt that to start a war, or to occupy a country, the governments require the public to have an ‘evil enemy’, or a similar justifiable reason for doing so.

Antonio Gramsci, at the end of the First World War, with reference to Marx’s opinions on how the less wealthy portions of a society will unite, explored the causing factors of those same poorer working classes killing each other for the interests of those at the top of the hierarchy. He stated that a country has power over its own culture, and that it can employ ‘intellectuals’ to create that culture. According to Burton & Dimbleby (2001), a country’s capacity to influence its culture is dependent on its economic capabilities (economic capabilities providing the ability to spread information). With the increase in communication worldwide, as observed by Jenkins (2006) it is far easier for people to disrupt the natural, authoritarian process. It could be observed that the Kony campaign run by the invisible children is infact part of a new initiative: one which disguises itself as a creation of those without power, but is really the brain child of an authority seeking riches. As Sun Tsu said, the art of war is in deception, and as the video states, no country has ever gone to war for the benefit of another country. Perhaps the current situation is no different, and although Joseph Kony is a man who needs to be stopped, maybe international intervention is not required. The people of Uganda disagreed with the movement, which is clear evidence that the people of Uganda wish to deal with their problems by themselves, and not employ help from the (debatably) superior west.