operation lighting thunder: next steps

operation lightning thunder (the name for the joint military offensive launched in december) has largely been viewed as a failure. after over a month of military activity, uganda is no closer to apprehending LRA leaders, rebel retaliatory attacks on civilians in DRC have skyrocketed, hundreds more children have been abducted, and the civilian death toll is nearly 1000. there is disagreement among NGOs and civil society groups as to what the next course of action should be. some push for a complete withdrawl of coalition troops from DRC. others feel that withdrawl at this point would only pave the way for further violence, as the ugandan-rwandan-sudanese troops would be unable to protect civilians and counter LRA attacks. still others believe the operation should continue as planned. in the debates around this situation, i even seeing some striking similarities to the debates around the iraq war.

i'm a bit uncertain as to where i fall on this spectrum of opinions. while i don't think that the operation should have been launched in the first place and agree that its implementation has been disastrous, with its disregard for providing security to civilians, i think a complete troop withdrawl right now might do more harm than good. i'm leaning more towards agreeing that it's best to continue the operation, but change the strategy to be much more discriminate in its activities--to focus solely on apprehending the LRA leaders and to put a much greater focus on protecting civilians and limiting attacks where civilians would be caught in the crossfire. i know that's much easier said than done, but hopefully if that path is taken, something could be salvaged from this mess and it might even bring uganda closer to peace.