Israel Matzav

Obama's 'mysterious' childhood: Could it mean that he's a Muslim?

I've taken a bit of flack for using Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama's middle name. The argument is that by using his middle name I am trying to scare people out of voting for him by painting him as a Muslim. But what if he really is a Muslim? And what if that's just one in a series of lies Obama has told about his upbringing in a bid to make himself palatable to the American voter? That's essentially what has happened. Let's start with Obama's upbringing.

London's Daily Mail reported more than a year ago that Obama's father was a bigamist and a drunkard who killed himself by driving drunk (Hat Tip: 2blue4u via Little Green Footballs and WorldNetDaily).

Barack Obama Snr started life with the advantage of being able to read and write, but he also felt a profound sense of injustice. His father was a cook for British settlers in Kenya, who demeaningly called him their 'personal boy'.

Grandfather Obama sent his son to a missionary school but after completing his education, the youth could find little work except goatherding in his remote village of Nyangoma Kogela, in the roadless hills of Western Kenya.

At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more interested in politics and economics than his family and his political leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan Independence movement.

He was put forward for an American-sponsored scholarship in economics, with the idea being that he would eventually use his Western-honed skills in the new Kenya. At the age of 23 he headed for university in Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.

Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu, he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.

Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the exclusive east coast university.

At the time, Ann explained to their son that his father had gone because his meagre stipend would not support the family if they lived together. But finance was the least of her worries.

Mr Obama Jnr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed the marriage between his mother and father.

In his book, he says that Ann's mother, who went by the nickname Tut, did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Snr's father 'didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman'.

In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack and her new husband, an oil company manager.

Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.

Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to Africa.

A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."

It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.

Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while driving under the influence and also lost his job.

However, this was no bar to his womanising: he sired a son, his eighth child, by yet another woman and continued to come home drunk.

He was about to marry her when he finally died in yet another drunken crash when Obama was 21.

Mr Obama's 40-year-old cousin Said Hussein Obama told The Mail on Sunday: "Clearly, Barack has been very deeply affected by what he has learned about his father, who was my father's older brother.

"You have to remember that his father was an African and in Africa, polygamy is part of life.

"We have assured Barack that his father was a loving person but at times it must be difficult for him to reconcile this with his father's drinking and simultaneous marriages."

Said adds: "His father was a human being and as such you can't say that he was 100 per cent perfect.

"My cousin found it difficult when he came here to learn of his half-brothers and sisters born to four different mothers.

"But just as Africans find the Western world strange so Americans coming here will find Africa strange."

...

Mr Obama has acknowledged that his father grappled with a drinking problem. But with a gift for words that makes Mrs Clinton's utterances seem stiff and stale, he has turned it into another component of the myth.

Drink, he says, like drugs, are one of "the traps that seem laid in a black man's soul".

Mr Obama claims that he, too, has been racially abused, even during his campaign for the White House.

His mother, Ann, decided that he should get an American education and sent him back from Indonesia to Hawaii, where he was admitted to a £7,000-a-year prep school, Punahau Academy, and lived with his maternal grandparents.

Please note a couple of things here. First, Barack Obama Sr. had four wives. Guess which religion permits having four wives. Second, note that Obama complains about his having left Indonesia for Hawaii, and that those who grew up with him cannot reconcile themselves to those complaints. But Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, while Hawaii is a melting pot.

Friends, however, remember his time at school rather differently. He was a spoiled high-achiever, they recall, who seemed as fond of his grandparents as they were of him.

He affectionately signed a school photo of himself to them, using their pet names, Tut and Gramps.

The caption says: "Thanks... for all the good times." He worked on the school's literary magazine and wore a white suit, of the style popular with New York writers at the time.

One of his former classmates, Alan Lum, said: "Hawaii is such a melting pot that it didn't occur to me when we were growing up that he might have problems about being one of the few African-Americans at the school. Us kids didn't see colour. He was easy-going and well-liked."

Lon Wysard, who also attended the academy, said the budding politician was in fact idolised for his keen sportsmanship.

"He was the star basketball player and always had a ball in his hand wherever he was," Wysard recalled.

Obama has complaints about racism at Columbia - where he went next - as well, but having preceded him there by a few years I can tell you that he's making it up:

Mr Obama was later admitted to read politics and international relations at New York's prestigious Columbia University where, his book claims, "no matter how many times the administration tried to paint them over, the walls remained scratched with blunt correspondence (about) niggers."

But one of his classmates, Joe Zwicker, 45, now a lawyer in Boston, said yesterday: "That surprises me. Columbia was a pretty tolerant place. There were African American students in my classes and I never saw any evidence of racism at all."

Family members and acquaintances believe that the real cloud over Mr Obama's life has been the discovery that his father was far from the romantic figure that his mother tried to portray.

A family friend said: "He is haunted by his father's failures. He grew up thinking of his father as a brilliant intellectual and pioneer of African independence only to learn that in Western terms he was basically a drunken lecher."

This ugly truth, say friends, has made Mr Obama ruthlessly determined to use every weapon that he has to succeed, including the glossily edited version of his father's story.

"At the end of the day Barack wants the story to help his political cause, so perhaps he couldn't afford to be too honest," said Ochieng.

Read it all.

Over at Israpundit, Ted Belman makes out a pretty solid claim that Obama's family is Muslim and that Obama himself is at least a closet Muslim.

1. Obama’s father was a Muslim polygamist.

2. Obama’s step-father was a Muslim.

3. In Indonesia he was registered in school as a Muslim.

4. Occasionally he went to the Mosque for prayers

5. He took religious classes and studied the Koran in Arabic.

...

6. His grandfather, after whom he was named Hussein, was one of the first Muslim converts in his village.

He “fiercely devoted to Islam.” He had at least 3 wives: Helima, who had no children, Akuma who gave birth to Sarah Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Auma Obama.

“What your grandfather respected was strength — discipline.” Obama quoted his grandmother, Sarah, as telling him. “This is also why he rejected the Christian religion.

“For a brief time, he converted, and even changed his name to Johnson. But he could not understand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that this man Jesus could wash away a man’s sins.”

“To your grandfather, this was foolish sentiment, something to comfort women,” she added. “And so he converted to Islam — he thought its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs.”

Grandfather’s third wife was Sarah, the one often referred to by Obama as his “grandmother.” She is not a blood relative and describes herself as a lifelong Muslim. “I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith,” she says.

...

Although Obama claims Senior was an atheist, Senior was buried as a Muslim.

Obama Senior also had three sons by another woman who are all Muslim.

Obama’s family connections to Islam would endure, however. For example, his brother Roy opted for Islam over Christianity, as Obama recounted when describing his 1992 wedding.

“The person who made me proudest of all,” Obama wrote, “was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol.”

Abongo “Roy” Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must “liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture.” He urges his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.

...

On February 27th, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, “with a first-class [Arabic] accent.”

The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:

“Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet… ”

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim’s complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia blog, written by an American who has lived in Indonesia for 20 years and has met with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, contains the following:

“Barack Hussein Obama might have convinced some Americans that he is no longer a Muslim, but so far he has not convinced many in the world’s most populous Muslim country who still see him as a Muslim and a crusader for Islam and world peace.”

“Barack Hussein Obama’s race, his staunch opposition to the war in Iraq, his sympathy to Islam and Muslims worldwide and his Muslim heritage receive the Indonesian media coverage. There is no mention of his apostasy.”

“A good example of how some of the Indonesian media is reporting on Obama’s religion can be found in the following.”

“What I found interesting in the article was the use of the word ‘mengaku’ when refering to Obama’s conversion from Islam to Christianity. The word ‘mengaku’ in Indonesian means “claimed” and as such leaves the insinuation to the native Indonesian reader being that Obama might actually still be a Muslim.

But this is how Indonesians see Obama, they don’t see him as an apostate at all, they see him as a crusader for the cause of Islam.”

And then there's Obama's church, which it seems (in addition to hating Jews and Israel) has an especially tolerant attitude towards Muslims:

On Feb 15/08 Usama K. Dakdok, President of The Straight Way of Grace Ministry called Obama’s Church I then asked her what I needed to do to join. She told me that I needed to attend two Sunday School classes in a row and then I would walk the aisle. I replied, “That sounds easy. One last question please. IF I AM MUSLIM AND I BELIEVE IN PROPHET MOHAMMED, PEACE BE UPON HIM AND I ALSO BELIEVE IN JESUS, PEACE BE UPON HIM, DO I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY ISLAMIC FAITH TO BE A MEMBER IN YOUR CHURCH?”

SHE ANSWERED, “NO. WE HAVE MANY MUSLIM MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH.” It is important to note that Muslims would not attend church.

“YOUR CHURCH HAS DONE GREAT HARM TO THIS COUNTRY BY COVERING A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING AND THAT WOLF IS SENATOR BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA.”

Read the whole thing. Especially those of you (if there are any of you left) who are even thinking of going to the polls and pulling a lever for this wolf in sheep's clothing. Obama seems to have reached the point where he himself cannot distinguish between the truth and the lies. Dare I say it? He almost makes Bill Clinton look honest.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:28 PM