My biggest concern? We are focused on a "threat" rather than a "problem." Intel driven strategy. Foolish.

When our senior civil and military officials can talk about Uganda in terms of problems then my inner alarm will likely stop ringing. This is a country with a history of colonial disruption, a country divided north and south by two major ethnic groups, a country that has recently been deemed to be sitting on vast amounts of oil, a country with a "president" who rose to power in '86 as the leader of the Coup, and who recently was extended for another long term in an election that drew cries of manipulation and corruption....

Bottom line, there are a lot of factors in play, and I will engage with my Africa-smart people to learn more about these factors so that I can offer an alternative voice to those who talk only in terms of "threats." I suspect there is probably an oil company or two who are very interested in the greater stability of keeping the same leader in power and reducing those who attempt to challenge him violently, and that those companies are doing some serious lobbying in Washington.

As is often the case, the US does not fight for oil, we fight for favorable distributions of oil profits. Uganda, like all oil producing countries will produce oil and sell it into the global market no matter what. Who profits most is always the critical issue that is fought over. Also, as is often the case, we thinly wrap such true motivations in terms of "liberty" or "democracy" or "human rights." That is a line that is losing it's luster. At least that is what Smedley Butler thought as he looked back at his long career of such service.