Friday, January 11, 2008

I've Got Questions For Obama

I know that I probably sound like a broken record. But, the more I find out about Barack Obama, the more alarmed I become that this is a man that could ever be considered as a candidate for president.

In her article, Obama, the Muslim Thing, And Why It Matters author Pamela Geller shares many highly important reasons why Obama needs to answer certain questions.

Excerpt:


Every Muslim who left Islam is very definitive about leaving and why. They are quite vocal - Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Walid Shoebat, Elijah Abraham, etc. If he left Islam, Obama must have very definite thoughts about it. He has to, he practiced Islam. That is not benign; it's big. And even if, as inferred by big media, it was not big to him, then he can still appreciate how important it is knowing what he knows about Islam and apostasy.

Obama would have had to make a decision to reject Islam. When did he make that decision? How? Why the silence? Why the reluctance to talk about it?

Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. Have there been calls for Obama's death? If not, why not? Islam gives no free passes.

Obama's posture on this is hard to define or understand, because it is a critical issue.

Transitional issues facing this nation and the world at large - the world at war, creeping sharia, the perversion of the rights of free men, individuals, women, etc., hang in the balance on the make up of the next president of the United States. The stakes could not be higher domestically.

On foreign policy, Europe has laid down. The political elites have capitulated to Islamists and to multiculturalists. Suicide. It seems unclear that they could hold up their end even if America did the heavy lifting.


Pamela brings up questions that I want answered. However, as the liberal leftist media "darling" who has graced countless political news magazine covers, I doubt that anyone (other than Bill O'Reilly, if he learns about these issues and gets the opportunity to question him) would ever even dream of asking Obama such questions. Obama is sure to avoid any conservative radio and/or T.V. talk show host who would be alert to ask about these concerns. Could you ever imagine Obama on Michael Savage's radio show? Never happen! Obama is sure to remain in the bubble of celebrity where he is so adored, protected and never subjected to being asked the hard questions.

Isn't it ironic that two of the four top contenders for the Republican nomination have been asked several questions regarding their faith during the debates?

Not so for the Democrats!

Noooooooooo!

They get a free pass in that area.

The additional information shared in the following portion of Geller's essay is also very disturbing:


The recent revelations of Obama's ties to Raila Odinga in Kenya are disconcerting as well, because Odinga is behind the terrible violence in his country. It was he who instigated bloody riots and killing after he lost the election. Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenyan government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's "stooge." And while there are few angels in Kenya, Odinga is the source of great unrest and turmoil; and the MOU he signed with the Muslim Council to institute sharia is a foreshadowing of a dark fate for Kenya. (A Jacksonian picked up on my previous post on this and wrote a lengthy, well-researched piece on the politics and back story on Odinga.) Just how quickly will Kenya go Islamic?


Pamela writes:

"...do not embrace change for the sake of change - the impossible new buzzword on the campaign trail."


I agree! We must ask these questions!

I've got questions for Obama...

*******
Update 1/13/08 @ 9:08 a.m. PT

I am not the only one who has questions about Obama:

The following is a copy of a Newsmax email:

Was Barack Obama a Muslim?

The issue of Barack Obama’s possible Muslim past has re-emerged with conflicting reports about the presidential candidate’s childhood in Islamic Indonesia.

The controversy was initially touched off in early 2007 when several media outlets reported that Obama had attended a radical madrasa, or Islamic school, when he lived in Indonesia.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs quickly countered with a statement: “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.”

The reports about the radical madrasa turned out to be false. But in March 2007, Gibbs amended his previous statement, telling the Los Angeles Times: “Obama has never been a practicing Muslim,” the key word being “practicing.”

Obama, his Kansas-born mother and Muslim stepfather moved to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, in 1967, and Obama lived there from ages 6 to 10.

The Times sent a reporter to Jakarta to investigate Obama’s childhood years there, and published an article on March 16 that included these details:

A close boyhood friend of Obama, Zulfin Adi, said Barack “was a Muslim. He went to the mosque.”


Obama’s first-grade teacher at a Catholic school, Israella Dharmawan, said: “Barry (Barack’s nickname) was Muslim. He was registered as a Muslim because his father was Muslim.”
In the third grade, Obama transferred to a public school, where he was also registered as a Muslim. At the school, Muslim students attended weekly religion lessons about Islam.


In his autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama mentions studying the Koran and describes the public school as “a Muslim school.”


More recently, Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes wrote on FrontPageMag.com that his research led him to conclude that “Obama was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian stepfather.”

But on Jan. 2, the liberal organization Media Matters for America (MMfA) took issue with Pipes’ report, criticized him for relying too heavily on the Times article, which it claimed was “disputed,” in an effort to “revive Obama-Muslim falsehood.”

Media Matters cited a March 25 article by Kim Baker in the Chicago Tribune that challenged several assertions in the Times story. Barker wrote that boyhood friend Adi “was not certain” about his statements regarding Obama’s childhood and that he “only knew Obama for a few months.”

The Media Matters Web posting stated: “Additionally, the Tribune reported that ‘interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia.’”

Media Matters also said that “Pipes did not note that Obama’s Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, has been described in the Tribune as ‘much more of a free spirit than a devout Muslim.’”

Pipes fired back with a FrontPageMag.com article on Jan. 7, titled “Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam.”

Pipes asked if any of the information from the Chicago Tribune article refutes “my analysis, as MMfA contends. It raises questions about two details in the Los Angeles Times account — the accuracy of the Catholic school’s registration form and the reliability of Zulfin Adi as a source on Obama. But on the larger issue of Obama’s religious practices during his Jakarta years, it confirms the Times account.”

Pipes concludes: “Therefore, what MMfA calls the ‘Obama-Muslim’ falsehood’ is in fact confirmed by both articles as truthful and accurate.”

And he adds: “All this matters, for if Obama once was a Muslim, he is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be executed. Were he elected president of the Untied States, this status, clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world.”

7 comments:

Matt W. said...

I have seen a few clips now where Obama keeps pretending that he wants to reach out to all of us. He says things along the lines of, all people, regardless of political affiliation, want change. Well, there is some truth to that, pretty much all of us want change, but not the kind of change Obama stands for. "...change for the sake of change..." as Pamela put it, and she is right. Yes I think the system is broken, and yes, I think some big changes are needed to get our country back on a good track, but clearly Obama is NOT the agent of the kind of change that we need in this country.

It is staggering to me to think that there are so many people who are embracing this man and his radical leftist idea's. Hillary may be a socialist, but Obama is something far worse. Once upon a time I didn't think that was possible, but now it's clear.

Keep laying it all out on the line Christine, I don't think that enough can be said about Obama and the evil he represents for the future of our country.

Thank you for fighting.

Matt W.

Anonymous said...

Peace!

Although the Obama campaign clearly wish to distance him from his Islamic experience, I think someone who has an understanding of the religion of one sixth of humanity--spanning every continent and nearly every culture and language group imaginable--would be a valuable replacement to the current President who buys the lie of an inevitable clash of civilisations.

BTW You may be interested in Abdullah Saeed's _Freedom of Religion & Apostasy in Islam_ (Ashgate). The Professor points out that Islam does not call for capital punishment for faith conversions away from Islam and the fact that Obama *hasn't* been on the end of any ridiculous calls for any such atrocity should make that clear.

Of course, Muslim history has seen abuse of political wielding of treason-apostasy laws in much the same way that dogged the medieval Christian church, but that has about as much to do with Obama as it would to a Catholic who "apostatises" to Protestantism in modern America.

Irf said...

Could someone please point out a single American Muslim who has called for Barack Obama to be killed? Anyone?

The reality is that many conservative American Christians hate Obama for the same reason they would hate Jesus Christ were they to meet him. And that is that both these people are NOT white.

Your constitution clearly says that religion is not a relevany factor to someone holding public office. What kind of conservatives are you? Clearly you despise your own constitution.

Christinewjc said...

Hi Matt,

Sorry for the delay in responding here. As you know, I got caught up in the firestorm between the U.K. blogger Lionheart and LGF.

I'm sure that some of the reasons why Obama is so popular is because of the current "celebrity" status that he enjoys. It looks like Oprah's endorsement has had a hugely positive result for his campaign. I think that's unfortunate.

It appears that the younger voters are also caught up in Barack's celebrity status. I'm not sure if voters such as these do their research homework on the candidates. They have that "go along with the crowd" mentality similar to the support that Ron Paul is getting.

Apparently, they like what they are hearing. Obama's message is stressing "change," but as you stated, what kind of change is he really promoting?

If he does become the Democratic nominee, then he will have to answer the tough questions (which the MSM refused to do in the Dem debates) in the debates with the Republican nominee. That is when our nation will notice how far left his policies truly are. He will still enjoy the support of the far left minority, but conservatives and moderates will probably cringe when they hear about his voting record in the senate.

In a previous post, I brought up the fact that he was the only senator to stand up and debate against the Born Alive Infants protection bill. When the vote was taken, I think that only 3other senators also voted against it. That is absolutely chilling! I had nightmares when I read that 4people in our Congress thought that it was O.K. to let a born alive infant suffer and die on a cold, steel examination table just because the baby was targeted for abortion! HORRIBLE!!!

How ANYONE could vote against that bill is beyond the scope of stooping down toward an evil like no other!

Christinewjc said...

Hello Umm Yasmin,

I appreciated your insightful comments here.

For me, the issue about Obama's past Muslim ties would not bother me if only he would speak openly and honestly about it. As far as I can tell, he does neither.

That's a red flag in my mind. Since he appears to want to squelch any discussion of it and the sad fact that he has a tendency to twist the truth about his past, makes me question his honesty and integrity about other issues, too.

He avoids media (like Fox News analysts) who would ask him about his Muslim roots. He ignores the questions posed by those who do not agree with his ideology. This bothers me greatly.

The Republican candidates are consistently asked about their religious beliefs. Not so the Democrats. Why? Because the MSM (main stream media) pundits want to use the answers (or lack, thereof) to only benefit the Dem candidates.

I have to strongly disagree with your statement:

"...would be a valuable replacement to the current President who buys the lie of an inevitable clash of civilisations.

I may not be an expert on radical Islam, but the extensive research (including the Obsession documentary film and others) I have done definitively shows me proof that we ARE in a clash of civilizations! In fact, it is one of biblical proportion and prophecy!

As far as Obama "on the end of any ridiculous calls for any such atrocity" goes, perhaps the reason for this is that he has never rescinded his Muslim roots? If he publically did so, do you think that he could be a target for radical Islam? Look at what happened to Benazir Bhutto for siding with the West and desiring to lead Pakistan towards democracy.

Another way to look at it is to question whether or not Obama would be hated as our new American president as much as Bush is hated by radical Islam?

If Obama would not be as hated we need to ask why? Could the reason(s) include that his ideology more closely matches the terrorists goals?

We have already seen Zawahiri try to sway the 2004 election away from President Bush's second term. Was there something in the ideology of the Democratic left that appealed to him?

The answer has to be yes! The radical Islamic terrorists (please note that I AM NOT REFERRING TO ALL MUSLIMS!) want, more than anything else, to kill all infidels and drive the West away from influence in Muslim lands. Will they stop attacking the West if we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan today? No. Of course not! It would embolden them even more in their thinking that America is "weak" (their opinion, not mine) and is a "cut and run" nation.

The "cut and run" concept is what the Democratic party is all about. At the debates, the candidates tried to establish who is more "anti-war" than the next guy!

Back to the "renouncing Islam" part of our discussion.

As you has stated, the Christian faith in America does not target and kill apostates, "infidels" or non-Christians. However, that is not the case with Islam - even here in America. Did you not hear about the Muslim man who killed his daughter because she apparently "disgraced the family name?"

Also, it appears that renouncing one's faith (from being a Christian) in the Muslim world is necessary to avoid being killed. There was the case of a Fox News reporter who renounced his Christian faith to his captors and he was let go. I don't know the man personally, nor do I know whether or not his faith in Jesus Christ was genuine or not. However, the fact remains that he escaped death and was let go precisely because he renounced his faith in Jesus Christ.

Is Abdullah Saeed considered a Muslim moderate? When I get the chance, I will read about him and check out his book.

Thanks again for visiting and commenting. Your views helped me think some things through.

Christinewjc said...

Hi Irfan Yusuf,

Please read my reply to Umm Yasmin. It might help clear up some of the concerns in your comment.

I TOTALLY disagree with your thoughts regarding not supporting Obama because of the color of his skin. That has absolutely nothing to do with it. The reasons why conservatives (of any color) do not support him is because of disagreement with his political positions and ideology.

In fact, there are many conservative blacks (and, apparently liberal black Dems) who won't vote for Obama because of his policies, not his skin color!

You wrote:

"Your constitution clearly says that religion is not a relevany factor to someone holding public office."

This is true. I am not saying that Obama should not run for the presidency. What I am doing is questioning his policies, ideology, liberal voting record, and in what direction his view of "change" would take America. I question how someone like him, with such radical liberal left viewpoints could gain such massive support from younger people through promotion of one word..."change"...when he doesn't even thoroughly explain what that change is or even what it would cost in additional tax burdens upon the taxpayers. I wonder whether or not they really know about his history and voting record in the senate. I wonder if they see his lack of knowledge and experience when it comes to foreign policy issues. In comparison, Republican candidate John McCain is light years ahead in this area. Huckabee, Romney and Guiliani have demonstrated (through their answers at several debates) that they are much more qualified to lead in this country's foreign policy efforts than Obama.

I have the free speech right to express my opinions and concerns.

About the religion questioning. Why is it OK for the MSM to absolutely grill the Republican candidates (Romney - Mormon; Huckabee - Southern Baptist Christian) yet not ask a single question of Obama about his Muslim roots and the perceived favoritism for black issues at his current church?

For me, personally, all of these concerns add up to view Obama as quite a scary prospect for president of the U.S.!

Anonymous said...

Peace!
Hi Christinewjc, thanks for your reply.

"For me, the issue about Obama's past Muslim ties would not bother me if only he would speak openly and honestly about it. As far as I can tell, he does neither."

Agreed. I would hazard a layman's guess that his campaign managers are instructing him not to get 'wedged' as we say here in Australian politics. It was a strategy that our current Prime Minister Rudd had to follow to win back power for the Labor party and whilst I personally would prefer a political scene where there is full and frank disclosure, so long as there are opposing political parties who will play dog-whistle wedge politics, I can certainly understand the strategy.

"I may not be an expert on radical Islam, but the extensive research (including the Obsession documentary film and others) I have done definitively shows me proof that we ARE in a clash of civilizations! In fact, it is one of biblical proportion and prophecy!"

I haven't seen the Obsession doctumentary (we tend to get exposed to different media here in Australia) but I work in the academic field of Muslim minorities and Islam policy studies, and my office partner works in a Terrorism Research Centre. It's not so much a clash of civilisations as it is a clash of one Superpower and a bunch of rag-tag motley cultic madmen.

"As far as Obama "on the end of any ridiculous calls for any such atrocity" goes, perhaps the reason for this is that he has never rescinded his Muslim roots? If he publically did so, do you think that he could be a target for radical Islam? Look at what happened to Benazir Bhutto for siding with the West and desiring to lead Pakistan towards democracy."

Benazir? She was topped by Musharraf.

But on the question of apostasy, Obama has clearly demonstrated he is a member of a Christian church. If anyone believed he was ever a Muslim, he doesn't need to make some sort of formal apostasy statement (there is no official body to receive it anyway).

"Another way to look at it is to question whether or not Obama would be hated as our new American president as much as Bush is hated by radical Islam?"

If he followed the same sorts of foreign policy positions, especially to do with ME politics (i.e. the Palestine question, Iraqi involvement, oil etc.) he would.

"If Obama would not be as hated we need to ask why? Could the reason(s) include that his ideology more closely matches the terrorists goals?"

Well, the motley bad of cultic madmen *want* a clash of civilisations. They are more the dark flipside of the Bush coin than they are like Obama and the Democratic positions.

"We have already seen Zawahiri try to sway the 2004 election away from President Bush's second term. Was there something in the ideology of the Democratic left that appealed to him?"

Did he?? Here in Australia, we do get different media. We didn't hear anything like that accusation here. Pretty ineffective at anyrate :) Bush won.

"The answer has to be yes! The radical Islamic terrorists (please note that I AM NOT REFERRING TO ALL MUSLIMS!) want, more than anything else, to kill all infidels and drive the West away from influence in Muslim lands. Will they stop attacking the West if we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan today? No. Of course not! It would embolden them even more in their thinking that America is "weak" (their opinion, not mine) and is a "cut and run" nation."

Well, I can't speak for cultic madmen, but for average ordinary Muslims - the foreign policy decisions of Western nations such as the US and Australia are seen as injurious and hypocritical. I.e. no one cares about invading Zimbabwe and removing the oppressive dictator Mugabe because he doesn't have any oil.

If the US lived up to its ideal of promoting genuine democracy, was an impartial supporter of *both* Israelis and Palestinians, and kept its foreign policy clean - then there would be no fuel for the minority of cultic madmen to keep the fires burning as it were.

"As you has stated, the Christian faith in America does not target and kill apostates, "infidels" or non-Christians. However, that is not the case with Islam - even here in America. Did you not hear about the Muslim man who killed his daughter because she apparently "disgraced the family name?""

Domestic violence, unfortunately, is as much a Muslim problem as it is with Westerners including Christians. There are many millions of Muslim women who do not wear hijab - even many with religious families. The father that murdered his daughter is noteworthy precisely because it's so atypical.

"Is Abdullah Saeed considered a Muslim moderate? When I get the chance, I will read about him and check out his book."

I tend to avoid using the word 'moderate' because it implies lukewarm. I.e. I wouldn't want to be called a moderate intellect, or moderately good looking ;) You could best describe Saeed as a modernist, but apart from running the Australian government funded Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies, he was also my boss on the book project (I assisted in the editing) so I can certainly recommend it for a thorough and scholarly appreciation of the topic.

Regards
Umm Yasmin