Kony in 2017

It was time to abandon search for African warlord

U.S. Special Forces, after a fiveyear, $780 million hunt in Central Africa, are apparently nearing a decision to abandon their effort to catch Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army and put the murderous, ragtag movement out of business.

Mr. Kony’s organization, whose stated platform is the Ten Commandments, has been around in an area that includes parts of the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda for 30 years now. The LRA’s record has been one of almost unmitigated savagery, including forced recruitment of child soldiers, slavery and slaughter of helpless farmers and villagers.

The U.S. forces now number some 150. They arrived following the global publicization of the LRA’s atrocities in the “Kony 2012” campaign, a short film that went viral. The U.S. troops joined with forces of the CAR, DRC, South Sudan and Uganda in an effort to surround and capture Mr. Kony and his band. They never succeeded, partly due to the difficult terrain within which the LRA operates, and partly due to the likely infiltration of the various African forces by personnel who reported to the LRA, helping Mr. Kony evade capture.

The LRA is part of a long line of African political, religious, and military organizations led by male and female prophets across the years. Their efforts were frequently directed against colonial governments of Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, and in some cases carried over their resistance to independence governments of Africa.

Mr. Kony’s group’s record has been among the historical worst, but it is also entirely true, as apparently the Trump administration has concluded, that the LRA’s actions have virtually nothing to do with U.S. interests in Africa or anywhere else. It is nominally Christian, not Islamic. Its size, estimated now to be small, also means that the governments of the countries where it has operated are capable themselves of dealing with it, if they decide to once American forces and money have been withdrawn.