I am asking the same question and feel out of the loop since I can't get my normal news sources here, but I am copypasting what I told my friend about it on Facebook:

well one of the effects of not being at home is being mostly cut off from the news cycle, so i'd not heard of this. my best guesses about this timing and so on are the following:

could have something to do with the terrorism in kampala recently as an attempt to help uganda stabilize their domestic situation so that ugandan peacekeepers will continue to fight in somalia so that the us doesnt have to

or, it could have something to do with bringing south sudan more into the US's orbit, since there is potentially an influence game going on there

or, it could be just that the LRA is on its last legs and obama thinks its safe to get in now so that historians dont say the us never intervened. i dont know really

either way, it smacks of a gesture to someone for some reason by obama, we may never know who, but the publicness of it only confirms that possibility. in my opinion anyway.

LRA is always the excuse used to prop up Uganda and justify UPDF's presence in the Congo, South Sudan and elsewhere (in which they just happen to make bundles through the mineral trade), where they've engaged in atrocities on a scale much larger than these small raids the LRA is blamed for. They also use a group called Battalion 105 to pose as LRA militants in committing atrocities, and the world ignores their rampages in Acholiland. Now it's an excuse to prop up the Kiir regime in South Sudan. This isn't new. Obama signed into law a wide ranging (and unprecedented) bill to go after the LRA last year. Public statements that new advisers would be sent have been made by Africom for a while now.

It should come as no surprise that the same people who have links to The Family (think: Kill the Gays) pushed the bill to go after the LRA. Wonder how much Museveni pays them.

howd i know putin would support the LRA

I don't support the LRA, but the LRA isn't the main problem. LRA has collaborated with the SSIM in South Sudan. The LRA is just an excuse.

Howd I know Santa would interpret any opposition to American proxy wars in East Equatoria as support for the LRA.

i agree with putin

i also think this may have to do with the discovery of oil in uganda earlier this year

I am puzzled as to why this deployment is so publicized, for example the u.s. has had advisors and some combat troops in the philippines since, if I remember, 2003 at least, and hardly anyone is aware of this. But I really don't understand the value of this deployment; among countries of "national security interest" to the U.S., Uganda is definitely up there as one that should be near the bottom.

Uganda is the linchpin of America's entire Horn of Africa strategy. Through Uganda the US is able to have its hands in the DRC, Somalia, Sudan, CAR (where the LRA is HQ'd now) and even Zimbabwe to a certain extent. It gives them a base with which to militarize Africa through Africom.

I think the publicity has to do with the fact that there are certain very vocal pro-Uganda lobby groups that have managed to get the ear of many in the government (namely Resolve Uganda & Invisible Children), much like the Darfur lobby groups (the two are directly connected and funded by the same people). So this appeases them.

^Agreement.

Lmao for once Putin we are not at odds.