Barack Obama -- April 7, 2009

April 7, 2009

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Obama once dressed as
a Somali elder. Now he has
to kill Somali pirates.

event	description
Obama's Strange Priorities	On Monday, Obama declared the U.S., "is not and never will be at war with Islam." Iran responded by criticizing Obama and urged Washington and other countries possessing atom weapons to dismantle their arsenals. So the U. S. is considering such a concession as part of a policy review by Obama, and he offered to cut U. S. nuclear arms as an enticement to China, Russia and North Korea. Obama specifically outlined U.S. plans to support treaties banning the production of weapons-grade materials, as well as the testing of atomic weapons. Obama's strategy, however, also seeks to gain the support of developing nations by recognizing their right to develop nuclear power and the idea of an international fuel bank. This idea was expected to be part of nuclear-cooperation agreements with Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and others. He is halting production of the F-22 fighter jet and scrapping a new helicopter as he outlined deep cuts to many of the military's biggest weapons programs. A new communications satellite would be scrapped and the program for a new Air Force transport plane would be ended. The Army's Future Combat Systems modernization program would lose its armored vehicles. Plans to build a shield to defend against missile attacks by rogue states would also be scaled back. Also among the proposed cuts would come the end of the "multiple kill vehicle" program -- a hovering machine meant to shoot down enemy missiles, even from space. Other high-tech missile defense programs would also be scaled back. The second prototype aircraft of the Airborne Laser -- a Boeing 747-mounted laser meant to intercept missiles near their launch areas -- would be terminated and the design efforts to date turned into research and development. The U. S. would cancel plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors in Alaska (that'll teach you Sarah Palin). These major overhaul would slash thousands of civilian jobs that go with them -- with unemployment rising, these highly technical skill-sets may not be transferable. Obama also raised questions about the future of an agreement with the Czech government to base missile-interceptors on Czech territory to guard against the threat posed by Iran and other countries. In the background, the Obama administration is working to develop an international nuclear-fuel bank, potentially hosted by Kazakhstan, that fledgling nuclear-power states could tap, according to a senior Obama administration official. Newt Gingrich called Obama’s response to the North Korean missile launch a "vivid demonstration of weakness in foreign policy." He said Obama’s proposals for a resumption of nuclear arms limitation talks reflected "a dangerous fantasy that runs an enormous risk. ... Not since Jimmy Carter have we had an administration this out of touch with reality. Now we no longer have a ‘global war on terror,'" Gingrich said. "We have "overseas contingency operations.' Now we will no longer have 'terrorist attacks.' We will have 'man-made disasters,' and none of our enemies seem to have learned this new language."
I Am One Of Them	Obama made an address to the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, Turkey. Al-Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Istanbul, wrote: "This was the address we had all been waiting for, it hit all the right notes." "He talked about the contribution of the Islamic faith in the life of American Muslims and then he personalised that message by saying 'I know because I am one of them.' It was a message that reached out to many today...." In the same speech, Obama said, "we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation." I don't know if Obama had a mouse in his pocket, but I know he wasn't speaking for the 78.5% of US citizens who call themselves Christians (CIA World Factbook). Perhaps the "we" he was referring to is the 0.6% of Americans who are Muslims. That would make sense. UPDATE: Al-Jazeera has removed this section from the story sometime between the time they published it and now -- the censorship continues. Well, I have the Al Jazeera page cached, so they can kiss the soles of my feet. I have repeatedly been called every name in the book by the Obots for re-publishing articles that even remotely suggest that Obama is a Muslim -- but here it is -- straight from the donkey's mouth -- Obama, himself, telling the Muslim world that he is one of them -- that's why he humbled himself before the protector of the two holy places. Now, get ready for the Obots to parse what Obama really meant, as they try to cover up this frank admission. My "secure" site has been hacked! The Obots have managed to substitute Yahoo Search page code for the HTML that I saved from al-Jazeera. They actually replaced the original HTML. The link remains the same. Both of my cached copies of the al-Jazeera news article -- one on my web host's server and one on my hard drive. My web host is investigating. Trés bizarre! Reader Brenda has sent us a scanned print copy of the al-Jazeera article containing the money quote. It is down near the end of the page. It's a big file -- almost 10 mBytes. If you have dial-up, go get a cup of coffee when you CLICK THIS LINK. Once loaded, clicking the image will make it LARGE.
Obama Says Islam Has Shaped The U.S.A.	Robert Spencer, writing at Front Page Magazine comments on Obama's statement to the Turkish Parliament, "We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country." Undeniably the Islamic faith has done a great deal to shape the world -- a statement that makes no value judgment about exactly how it has shaped the world. It has formed the dominant culture in what is known as the Islamic world for centuries. But what on earth could Obama mean when he says that Islam has also "done so much" to shape his own country? Unless he considers himself an Indonesian, Obama’s statement was extraordinarily strange. After all, how has the Islamic faith shaped the United States? Were there Muslims along Paul Revere’s ride, or standing next to Patrick Henry when he proclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Were there Muslims among the framers or signers of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men -- not just Muslims, as Islamic law would have it -- are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Were there Muslims among those who drafted the Constitution and vigorously debated its provisions, or among those who enumerated the Bill of Rights, which guarantees -- again in contradiction to the tenets of Islamic law -- that there should be no established national religion, and that the freedom of speech should not be infringed? There were not. Did Muslims play a role in the great struggle over slavery that defined so much of our contemporary understandings of the nature of this republic and of the rights of the individual within it? They did not. Did the Islamic faith shape the way the United States responded to the titanic challenges of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, or the Cold War? It did not. Did the Islamic faith, with its legal apparatus that institutionalizes discrimination against non-Muslims, shape the civil rights movement in the United States? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated equality of access to public facilities -- a hard-won victory that came at a great cost, and one that Muslim groups have tried to roll back in the United States recently. One notable example of such attempts was the alcohol-in-cabs controversy at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport, when Muslim cabdrivers began to refuse service to customers who were carrying alcohol, on Islamic religious grounds. The core assumption underlying this initiative -- that discrimination on the basis of religion is justified -- cut right to the heart of the core principle of the American polity, that "all men are created equal," that is, that they have a right to equal treatment in law and society. Surveying the whole tapestry of American history, one would be hard-pressed to find any significant way in which the Islamic faith has shaped the United States in terms of its governing principles and the nature of American society. Meanwhile, there are numerous ways in which, if there had been a significant Muslim presence in the country at the time, some of the most cherished and important principles of American society and law may have met fierce resistance, and may never have seen the light of day. So in what way has the Islamic faith shaped Obama’s country? The most significant event connected to the Islamic faith that has shaped the character of the United States was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Those attacks have shaped the nation in numerous ways: they’ve led to numerous innovations in airline security, which in generations to come -- if today’s politically correct climate continues to befog minds -- may be added to future versions of the fanciful "1001 Muslim Inventions" exhibition. The Islamic faith has shaped the U.S. since 9/11 in leading to the spending of billions on anti-terror measures, and to the ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to Guantanamo, and to so many features of the modern political and social landscape that they cannot be enumerated within the space of a single article. Of course, it is certain that Obama had none of that in mind. But what could he possibly have had in mind? His statement was either careless or ignorant, or both -- not qualities we need in a Commander-in-Chief even in the best of times.
U.S. Muslim Coalition Applauds Obama	The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, applauded Obama's Monday address to the Turkish parliament, in a statement issued today at a press briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. It reads, in part: We applaud President Obama's remarks and hope that they are a sign of improved relations between America and the Muslim world. In his speech, Obama rightly said that the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam. This is a position that needs restating at every opportunity. We also agree with the president's statement that better relations with the Muslim world are vital in 'rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject. We appreciate that the president noted the contributions of American Muslims and recognized that many Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. Turkey is a key player in the region and is well-placed to assist the United States in reaching out to nations such as Iran and Syria and to help achieve a just and comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We also support President Obama's backing of Turkey's entry into the European Union. The American Muslim community believes President Obama's new policy of dialogue and mutual respect will serve our nation and the cause of world peace and stability much better than past policies of unilateralism and confrontation. At today's briefing, AMT representatives also called on Obama to address domestic issues such as the rising level of Islamophobic attitudes in the United States, the deteriorating relations between the FBI and American Muslims, the dissemination of inaccurate and agenda-driven information by DHS-recognized "fusion centers," and Muslims' concerns about Justice Department guidelines implemented in December 2008 that allow race and ethnicity to be factors in opening an FBI probe. If a coalition of major national Islamic organizations is happy about Obama's pronouncements, it can't be too good for the rest of us. Sharia law is coming to America.