KONY: NOT SO FAST!

The half-hour video ‘KONY 2012’ has been viewed by more than 60 million people on You Tube since Monday. This fund raising campaign to hunt down Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony for atrocities committed by his Lord's Resistance Army has been taken up by entertainment celebrities - Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Tori Spelling, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Rhianna and four Kardashians for starters - and countless young people.

But, all you gullible souls out there, not so fast! According to a charity watchdog group, Invisible Children, the San Diego-based organization behind KONY 2012, spends a high percentage of the donations it receives on overhead, with only 37 percent actually supporting its programs in Africa. Moreover, Kony is not even in Uganda anymore and he’s no longer the menace he once was - his LRA is down to a mere 250 fighters rather than the 30,000 that the video claims, and they are on the run.

So, before you squander your dollars on the hunt for Kony, you might think about contributing to some truly worthwhile organizations that try to reduce the starvation and diseases, like AIDS, that afflict a multitude of Africans.

From Mail Online:

The explosive popularity of the Stop Kony campaign has also cast a harsh glare on the cause and on Invisible Children, the organization behind it.

For starters, Kony already seems to be marginalized. His forces -- once thousands strong -- have been so degraded that the Ugandan military no longer considers him a threat to the region. Because of the intensified hunt for Kony, his forces split into smaller groups that can travel the jungle more easily

Experts estimate that the LRA now has only about 250 fighters. Still, the militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, and even to kill their parents or each other to survive. The LRA now operates in Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The Atlantic has argued that by focusing so much attention on a fading warlord, the Kony 2012 movement is diverting millions of dollars away from charities working to stamp out starvation in the Horn of Africa, slow the spread of AIDS or battle widespread corruption -- all issues that effect far more Africans than a single warlord.

Invisible Children has also been criticized for favoring direct military intervention in Uganda. It also strongly supports the Ugandan Army, which has been accused of widespread torture and other human rights violations.

Foreign Affairs magazine accused the group of exaggerating and manipulating facts surrounding Kony and the LRA to over-emphasize the scale of the abductions and murders committed.

Finally, as international aid groups go, Invisible Children spends a huge portion of its donations on overhead. Last year, the group raised about $8.7 million but only 37 percent -- about $3.3 million went to support programs in central Africa.

It has been criticized by the charitable arm of the Better Business Bureau for not responding to a request for information.

Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog that rates charitable organizations, gave the group two out of four stars for financial transparency because its ledgers aren't audited by an independent committee.