Dancing With the Stars – Warlord Edition

With this recent upswelling in Facebook posts and tweets about Joseph Kony and Invisible Children, a charity founded with the purpose of drawing attention to Joseph Kony.  Here’s the snazzy video by Invisible Children about trying to end the plague of Joseph Kony by making him famous:

I am a skeptic, and watching that video put some sand in my craw.  Sure, Joseph Kony sounds awful, but I’m sure it’s more complicated than the movie makes it seem.  After all the Facebook posts about the movie, a series of posts (1, 2, 3) ensued criticizing Invisible Children for being a crappy charity, and not really doing much to help the plight of Ugandans.  So, Invisible Children responded to these criticisms, and you’re left with a middle ground conclusion of “Joseph Kony sucks, and Invisible Children may not be the charity to invest money in to stop him.”

So, what is the moral of this, other than you can’t trust anyone or anything?  No.  The point is that there are terrible people out there, and it’s important that this is brought to our attention so that we can put a stop to this type of behavior.  But it’s not like Kony is the only terrible warlord in the world.  There are so many more, and I think they all deserve the Kony treatment.  Which is why I think ABC should use their killer ratings (pun intended!) to bring us Dancing with the Stars – Warlord Edition.  Here are some potential matchups:

Joseph Kony WITH Chelsie Hightower. Easily the most intriguing pairing, as Kony’s extremist Christian faith is used to justify murder, mutilation, rape, and even cannibalism, while Chelsie is a devout Mormon.  Will their religious differences get in the way?  Chelsie is a professional, and she is definitely keen on finally winning the competition.  But, will Joseph’s reluctance for celebrity get them quickly eliminated? Years in the jungles of Uganda prove that Joseph is a fighter, so only time will tell!

Ahmed Haroun WITH Kym Johnson.  Early favorites to win this competition, two-time champion Kym feels this is her year for number three.  Fleet-footed Ahmed has evaded the International Criminal Court for years, and has done a great job giving NGOs and aid organizations the run-around in Darfur. Hopefully this will translate to amazing performances of the foxtrot and paso doble, two of Kym’s fortes.

Omar al-Bashir WITH Cheryl Burke.  Cheryl is really excited to be dancing with the President of Sudan, but is Cheryl too much of a firecracker for the 68 year old al-Bashir?  Cheryl has yet to win the competition since her back-to-back trophies with Emmitt Smith and Drew Lachey.  The closest she came was second place last season with Rob Kardashian, so you know she’s hungry.  But is she as hungry as the people of Darfur?

Bashar al-Assad WITH Anna Trebunskaya.  From the first moment we knew there would be strong chemistry between Bashar and the Russian-born Anna.  While Bashar has thrived in power due to support from Russia, Anna loves to start each day with a hummus sandwich.  Also, Bashar and Anna are both following their family business, Bashar taking over control of Syria from his father Hafez al-Assad, and Anna being the daughter of two professional ballroom dancers.  Perhaps this is the year for Anna, as Bashar is well known for crushing his opposition, be it on the dancefloor or in Homs.

Abdul Rashid Dostum WITH Karina Smirnoff.  The Pro-Soviet Dostum was disappointed to not be paired with Anna Trebunskaya, partly due to his fondness for redheads.  However, he couldn’t do better than Karina Smirnoff, last season’s champion with J.R. Martinez.  When asked how she feels to be paired with a man who suffocated hundreds of prisoners of war to death, she replied “He can’t be as bad as Rocco DiSpirito”.