Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim

[Spengler]

Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim on the Spengler Blog


by David P. Goldman


Rumors keep surfacing on the fringe of American politics that President Obama is a secret Muslim, including a recent video that has gone viral on Youtube. It involves an Israeli author, Avi Lipkin, who claims that his wife (who supposedly monitors Arab-language broadcasts professionally) heard a Nile TV news program in which the Egyptian Foreign Minister stated that Obama had personally told him that he was a Muslim.

I checked with friends who do monitor Egyptian TV broadcasts professionally. The story is a hoax. Mrs. Lipkin has been asked about her allegations and can't quite remember when the broadcast took place. No-one else has seen it.

No-one will accuse me of harboring warm and fuzzy sentiments about Barack Obama. The estimable John Podhoretz denounced me for crossing the line of decency in attacking him not along ago (we'll let that pass). More than two years ago I published a "Spengler" essay arguing that the then-candidate identified profoundly with the America-hating, fellow-traveling, anthropologist mother who dumped him on his grandparents in Hawaii while she set off to save the Muslim craftsmen of Indonesia against globalization. And I haven't been shy about elaborating on this view since. We have the first President in history who thinks that the United States is part of the problem rather than part of the solution in the world, and it's a disaster.

But all the nonsense about secret Muslim affiliation, missing birth certificates, and so forth, is an annoying distraction. This last report like the many before it is a hoax. Sure, it's funny when  Jay Leno says: "What's the difference between Obama and Bo? Bo has papers." The President's character and ideology are fair game. But let's stick to facts. Obama has written and said enough to make his views clear. He has a deep personal sympathy for Islam and the Muslim world, the sort of bond that arises from abandonment by father, stepfather and mother. He is a dreadful president, possibly the worst in American history. But there's no evidence of any kind that he is a secret Muslim, a foreign national, a space alien, or a cyborg.

[StephenGolay]

But Barack Obama being the "worst" of American Presidents, his continuing failure - one senses - comes from something more than that the has said much, written much, has consistently declared his progressive convictions (to put it mildly).

There is a failure of character about him. One whiffs the worst of a man for being being morally groundless without anchor). He doesn't explain that for us. His media handlers are careful not to widen any cracks. Who is this man? What drives the core of him to that political implosion that will splatter the heart of him upon us all. i

It is that whiff about him which gives causes for all these speculations. So all these suggestions of what fathered him.

The solution is to get the smell of him right.

I would say the man is __________________. It is this that defines. Which motivates him. That carries him off to his private oasis that shields him from grubby reality. Islam may be of many uses to me, but it never can be an escapist oasis for him - the religion is TOO political. One sees it in his eye, the inflection in his voice - his utter inability to handle himself spontaneously, his ill-fittedness in the company of . . . . I'm going too far now.

But I'm convinced. Historic, orthodox, classical Islam does not allow for nuances, core confusion, double-dipping, oasis sitting. Obama does not have what it takes to be warrior in such a religion. The man is no Muslim. The low-hanging fruit in that oasis of his does not feed that notion.

Just ask his wife and mother.

[Walter Sobchak]

OK, he is a blinkered academic socialist. So what? We still have to endure 2 more years of his misrule.

[lzzrdgrrl]

There is a failure of character about him. One whiffs the worst of a man for being being morally groundless without anchor). He doesn't explain that for us. His media handlers are careful not to widen any cracks. Who is this man? What drives the core of him to that political implosion that will splatter the heart of him upon us all.

I sense more a scent of scapegoat. When the american public and the pundit class stops using excoriation of the POTUS as an excuse to gloss over and dismiss their own deficiencies and character failings, then I might take more of what is said of Obama more seriously. I would trust a devious scoundrel over a self-convinced moron...... well, maybe I won't, but I have absolutely no use for the latter while I might have a chance with the former......

A man that is convinced that Obama is a secret muslim against all evidence, is not a man I want to entrust with serious matters. I don't want him looking at my spreadsheets, I don't want him to have possession on the paper to my home. It gets to be serious business. I want people that believe in reality to deal with it......

[ellens]

I totally agree with you Lizz. I'm no fan of Obama, but the American public wants a free lunch. They want lower taxes, more spending on social programs that benefit them, and more middle income jobs without having to improve their skills.

Sorry, but George W Bush could not deliver that, neither can Obama and neither will anyone else. In 2 years time, the Tea Party people will look stupid too. Reality will someday set in.

The truth is, though, that Americans are mostly center-right or center-left and Obama has created the image of being too far to the left in cultural matters. This has been a problem of all DP candidates except Bill Clinton. I don't see how you solve the image problem of the DP given that the elite of the party are all 60's-70's relics who still think the attitudes of those years were correct. I stopped supporting that party in the 1980's over this issue and in spite of the stupidity of the GOP have never gone back because they still haven't repented for their mistakes on cultural and social matters. To quote an old song, "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

[Pastaneta]

I don't think he is anything at all... Neither Christian, nor Muslim, nor Buddhist... By the way I am convinced he was born in Hawaii and that the reason he didn't publish the long form birth certificate was because his parents weren't married.

But as an observer of American politics with a foreign sensibility let me tell you where I see his biggest failing. Americans want to feel their president is one of them. That they could invite him for a beer and a barbecue and he would accept and be able to blend. Most of it is image. After all while Bush would blend, but he was raised in a very rich family... Kennedy, the same. Obama, they cannot see in this role.

The financial crisis elected Obama... But now, avec du recul, a lot of people are seeing an alien... Not in the sense of being born in Kenya, but somebody with a life story and sensibilities so different from their own that he wouln't blend.

This wouldn't happen in France, where the people still see the politicians as a bit their better... But America isn't France...

[Richard Greene]

Obama is not a secret Muslim; per Shari'a he's technically a murtad fitri.

[ellens]

I think you're right Pastaneta. The problem of the American electorate is that the sort of person they would want to have a beer with wouldn't be smart enough to run a modern country, given the terribly complex problems they all face. I like a lot of things about Sarah Palin but she is nowhere near smart or educated enough to run the country. If she gets elected, it will be another GWB disaster presidency. She has a nice spirit that would be better suited for a VP position, though.

On the other hand, candidates who are smart enough seem like they can't mingle with the common people often. And this is one of the problems of Democratic candidates like Kerry, Dukakis, etc. It is also a problem for Obama made worse by 20 years in Rev Wright's church. How do you sit through that environment for that long and face a white or Asian electorate who are routinely being insulted by the Reverend as part of his sermonizing? That's why he feels so uncomfortable with most Americans. He has spent most of his life among people who despised them.

[Richard Greene]

It is also a problem for Obama made worse by 20 years in Rev Wright's church. How do you sit through that environment for that long and face a white or Asian electorate who are routinely being insulted by the Reverend as part of his sermonizing?

I joined the Republican Jewish Coalition during the 2008 presidential election after I saw an endless stream of Democrat pols and pundits on cable news doing incredible mental gymnastics to explain away Obama's close ties with the Rev. Wright, a bigot, a hater of America and an ardent antisemite.

[charleston]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/10/salon-media-critic-spreads-lies-about-geller-ground-zero-mosque-in-claiming-to-clear-up-nyt-inaccura.html

And as for whether or not Obama is a Muslim, her analysis proceeds from his actions, not from empty speculation about his inner dispositions. If you wonder how anyone could have gotten the crazy idea that Obama is a Muslim, which I am not sure Pamela believes or considers an important question in any case, consider this list of Obama's actions, which she published last June:

March 2009, Obama declares the "war on terror" is over despite a dramatic increase in jihad war ops.

March 2009, he floats the idea that he will talk to violent, genocidal Hamas.

March 2009, he demands, recruits and insists that more Muslim Americans work in the Obama administration.

April 2009, Obama tells Europe to admit Islamic Turkey into EU, much to the consternation of the Europeans.

April 2009, Obama demands non-Muslims respect Islam (despite our differences) in a speech in Turkey.

April 2009, Obama in a speech from Turkey: "We are not a Christian nation."

April 2009, Dalia Mogahed, the first hijab-clad senior adviser to Obama on Muslim affairs says in an interview with terrorist- and jihad-supporting Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi's website, "Many have claimed that terrorists have 'hijacked Islam'. I disagree. I think Islam is safe and thriving in the lives of Muslims around the world. What the terrorists have been allowed to take over are Muslim grievances."

In April 2009, Obama lays groundwork for a partnership with Hamas.

May 2009, Obama promises to offer his "personal commitment" to Muslims.

May 2009, Obama calls America "one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet."

June 2009, Obama invites the Muslim Brotherhood, violent global jihadist group whose sole objective is a universal caliphate, to his speech to the ummah (Muslim community) in Cairo.

June 2009, Obama makes a stunning speech to the Muslim world from Al Azhar University in Cairo. It defies explanation.

July 2009, Obama reaches out to the violent jihadists of Hezb'allah.

July 2009, Obama creates a new office at the State department, Outreach to the Worldwide Muslim community, reporting directly to Hillary Clinton.

July 2009 State Department Welcomes Hamas Mouthpiece, Al-Quds TV, to DC to Film Propaganda.

Obama promises to close GITMO.

Obama is rebuked when plans are revealed for CIA prosecutions for 911 interrogations: Seven Ex-chiefs of CIA Oppose Case Review: ALL Sign letter to Stop CIA Persecutions.

In July, Obama sanctions the brutal crackdown of those marching for freedom in Iran and sides with the mullahcracy. He stands silent about the Iranian regime's mass executions, mass rape and murder.

July 2009, Obama plans to slash US nuclear arsenal.

September 2009. Bolton on Obama at the UN: "This is the most radical anti-Israel speech I can recall any president making" "I have to say I was very shaken by this speech."

October 2009, Obama offers millions in Muslim technology fund.

November 2009, Fort Hood Jihad Cover up: Obama Urges Congress To Put Off Fort Hood Probe, Warns Against Turning Tragedy Into "Political Theater."

November 2009, Obama offers the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces, in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.

November 2009, Obama Reaches out to bloody Jihadis in the Philippines.

On Thanksgiving eve, Obama issues a special Hajj message to the world's Muslims.

December 2009, Obama's "Non-Religious" White House Christmas and No Christmas Gifts for his Kids.

February 2010, Obama names a Hafiz to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. "And as a hafiz of the Koran, [Hussain] is a respected member of the American Muslim community," Obama said in his message to the Doha meeting, using the term for someone who has mastered and memorized the Muslim holy book.

February 2010, Obama cuts US space program, orders NASA to work with Muslim countries.

February 2010, covering up for jihadists in the White House.

Obama's counter terrorism adviser, John Brennan, Involved in Obama Passport Breach.

March 2010, Obama Obsession with Islam: Calls 'entrepreneurship summit' with Muslims.

April 2010, Libyan Pres Gaddafi Praises Obama: "Barakeh Obama is friend" "He is of Muslim descent, his policy should be supported...."

May 2010, Obama's Counterterrorism Adviser Calls Jihad "Legitimate Tenet of Islam."

May 2010, White House Pro-Terrorism John Brennan Speechifies in Arabic, Equates Terrorists with Shoplifters, Lawmakers Call for his Firing.

June 2010, Obama equivocates on the jihad warship convoy (affectionately named a "flotilla" by the media): Obama "Expressed a Deep Regret Over Loss of [Jihadist] Life."

June 2010, Obama Administration to Support Anti-Israel Resolution at UN.

With a record like that, how could anyone get the idea that Barack Obama is warmly positive toward Islam, and may even continue to consider himself a Muslim, as he was registered in school as a child in Indonesia?

[lzzrdgrrl]

Having a sympathy for Islam is not the same as being a 'secret muslim'. Fighting the issue with people making a serious point is an unwelcome distraction and they may understandably get surly with you. At the very least, you may understand why they won't let you take the keys........

[charleston]

Having a sympathy for Islam is not the same as being a 'secret muslim'. Fighting the issue with people making a serious point is an unwelcome distraction and they may understandably get surly with you. At the very least, you may understand why they won't let you take the keys........

The Guardian, paper of the free to be communist..

And sympathy for islam? why?..because of it's history of service to humanity? because of it's "Golden Rule"? Because of it's reigious tolerance? Because of its humane religious/legal system sharia?

Sympathy for islam, because of its never ending struggle (jihad) to make islam supreme?

WTF are you babbling?

This author is making a "serious point"? A raving lunatic-is she Cheri Blairs'sister?

[lzzrdgrrl]

I am not so demented as to say and defend things that would require me to engage in a shooting war with up to a third of the world's population. There is meaning and consequence to words. Besides defending them, they require you to take action - otherwise, they are false, or you are false......

I am not a ninny or an america-hating goop. I am simply not inclined to absorb and process a line of thinking with a logical progression that would require me to accost the next young woman in a hijab I see, and put a bullet under her right eye.....

Muslim extremists are trapped in this sort of hell. Why do you think they do what they do?.......

[charleston]

you are the definition of a dhimmi-appeasing muslims is a dead end

Muslim extremists are trapped in this sort of hell. Why do you think they do what they do?.......

They do what they do, because that is islam..they follow the example of mohammed and the koran

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/09/ ... logue.html

Koranic sources, in particular the timeless war proclamation (the Koran being the 'uncreated word of Allah' for Muslims) on generic pagans (not simply Arabian pagans), Koran 9:5, offers pagans the stark 'choice' of conversion or death:

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor—due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

The idolatrous Hindus (and the same applies to enormous populations of pagans/animists wherever Muslim jihadist armies encountered them in history, including, sadly, contemporary Sudan), for example, were enslaved in vast numbers during the waves of jihad conquests that ravaged the Indian subcontinent for well over a half millennium (beginning at the outset of the 8th century C.E.). And the guiding principles of Islamic law regarding their fate —derived from Koran 9:5—were unequivocally coercive. Jihad slavery also contributed substantively to the growth of the Muslim population in India. K.S. Lal elucidates both of these points:

The Hindus who naturally resisted Muslim occupation were considered to be rebels. Besides they were idolaters (mushrik) and could not be accorded the status of Kafirs, of the People of the Book — Christians and Jews... Muslim scriptures and treatises advocated jihad against idolaters for whom the law advocated only Islam or death... The fact was that the Muslim regime was giving [them] a choice between Islam and death only. Those who were killed in battle were dead and gone; but their dependents were made slaves. They ceased to be Hindus; they were made Musalmans in course of time if not immediately after captivity...slave taking in India was the most flourishing and successful [Muslim] missionary activity...Every Sultan, as [a] champion of Islam, considered it a political necessity to plant or raise [the] Muslim population all over India for the Islamization of the country and countering native resistance.

The late Rudi Paret was a seminal 20th century scholar of the Koran, and its exegesis. Paret's considered analysis of Koran 2:256, puts this verse in the overall context of Koranic injunctions regarding pagans, specifically, and further concludes that 2:256 is a statement of resignation, not a prohibition on forced conversion.

After the community which the Prophet had established had extended its power over the whole of Arabia, the pagan Arabs were forcefully compelled to accept Islam stated more accurately, they had to choose either to accept Islam or death in battle against the superior power of the Muslims (cf. surahs 8:12; 47:4). This regulation was later sanctioned in Islamic law. All this stands in open contradiction to the alleged meaning of the Quranic statement, noted above: la ikraha fi d—dini. The idolaters (mushrikun) were clearly compelled to accept Islam — unless they preferred to let themselves be killed. [Note—Koran 9:5];
In view of these circumstances it makes sense to consider another meaning. Perhaps originally the statement la ikraha fi d—dini did not mean that in matters of religion one ought not to use compulsion against another but that one could not use compulsion against another (through the simple proclamation of religious truth).

Such coercion applies not only to 'pagans'. Princeton scholar Patricia Crone
makes the cogent argument that those of any faith may be forcibly converted during acts of jihad resulting in captivity (including, for example, the jihad kidnapping of the two Fox reporters, Centanni and Wiig). In her recent analysis of the origins and development of Islamic political thought, Dr. Crone makes an important nexus between the mass captivity and enslavement of non—Muslims during jihad campaigns, and the prominent role of coercion in these major modalities of Islamization. Following a successful jihad, she notes:

Male captives might be killed or enslaved, whatever their religious affiliation. People of the Book were not protected by Islamic law until they had accepted dhimma (Koran 9:29). Captives might also be given the choice between Islam and death, or they might pronounce the confession of faith of their own accord to avoid execution: jurists ruled that their change of status was to be accepted even though they had only converted out of fear.

An unapologetic view of Islamic history reveals that forced conversions to Islam are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries.
Moreover, during jihad—even the jihad campaigns of the 20th century [i.e., the jihad genocide of the Armenians during World War I, the Moplah jihad in Southern India [1921], the jihad against the Assyrians of Iraq [early 1930s], the jihads against the Chinese of Indonesia and the Christian Ibo of southern Nigeria in the 1960s, and the jihad against the Christians and Animists of the southern Sudan from 1983 to 2001], the dubious concept (see Paret, above) of 'no compulsion' (Koran 2:256; which was cited with tragic irony during the Fox reporters 'confessional'! ) , has always been meaningless.
A consistent practice was to enslave populations taken from outside the boundaries of the 'Dar al Islam', where Islamic rule (and Law) prevailed. Inevitably fresh non—Muslim slaves, including children (for example, the infamous devshirme system in Ottoman Turkey, which spanned three centuries and enslaved 500,000 to one million Balkan Christian adolescent males, forcibly converting them to Islam), were Islamized within a generation, their ethnic and linguistic origins erased.
Two enduring and important mechanisms for this conversion were concubinage and the slave militias—practices still evident in the contemporary jihad waged by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against the southern Sudanese Christians and Animists . And Julia Duin reported in early 2002 that murderous jihad terror campaigns—including, prominently, forced conversions to Islam —continued to be waged against the Christians of Indonesia's Moluccan Islands.
Recently, at the close of a compelling, thoroughly documented address (delivered April 2, 2006, at The Legatus Summit, Naples, Florida) entitled, 'Islam and Western Democracies,' Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, posed four salient questions for his erstwhile Muslim interlocutors wishing to engage in meaningful interfaith dialogue:

1) Do they believe that the peaceful suras of the Koran are abrogated by the verses of the sword? (see here, pp. 67—75 )
2) Is the program of military expansion (100 years after Muhammad's death Muslim armies reached Spain and India ) to be resumed when possible?
3) Do they believe that democratic majorities of Muslims in Europe would impose Shari'a (Islamic religious) law? (see here)
4) Can we discuss Islamic history (here and here)—even the hermeneutical problems around the origins of the Koran (see here, here, here, and here)—without threats of violence?

Dr. Habib Malik, in an eloquent address delivered February 3, 2003 at the at the 27th annual Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Presidents Conference decried the platitudinous 'least common denominators' paradigm which dominates what he aptly termed the contemporary 'dialogue industry':

We're all three Abrahamic religions, we're the three Middle Eastern monotheisms, the Isa of the Koran is really the same as the Jesus of the New Testament.... This is politicized dialogue. This is dialogue for the sake of dialogue. Philosophically speaking, this is what Kierkegaard called idle talk, snakke in Danish; what Heidegger called Gerede; what Sartre called bavardage. In other words, if this is dialogue, it's pathetic... it needs to be transcended, and specifically to concentrate, to focus on the common ethical foundation for most religions can also be very misleading. Because when you get into the nitty—gritty, you find that even in what you supposed were common ethical foundations, there are vast differences, incompatibilities. Suicide bombers is one recent example. Condoned by major authoritative Muslim voices; completely unacceptable by Christianity.

Cardinal Pell's unanswered questions highlight the predictable failure of the feckless 'We're all three Abrahamic religions', 'dialogue for the sake of dialogue' approach to both Muslim—Christian, and Muslim—Jewish dialogue.
Eschewing the comforting banalities of his predecessor, Benedict XVI has acknowledged that real dialogue, as opposed to bavardage, begins not by kissing the Koran, but reading it. Most importantly, he is impatient with an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians limited to platitudes about 'Abrahamic faiths', which scrupulously avoids serious discussions of the living, sacralized Islamic institution of jihad war.
Until Muslims evidence a willingness to engage in such forthright discussions, Benedict appears to share Dr. Malik's sobering conclusions from his February 2003 speech: 'One certainly needs to be open at all times to learn from the Other, including to learn at times that the Other right now has nothing to teach me on a particular issue.'
Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.
on "The Pope, Jihad, and 'Dialogue'"

[charleston]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 5949239614

AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother.

The US President's former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama - who was known as "Barry" when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta - studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Anne Dunham, a Roman Catholic.

The teacher's recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama's links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia.

His middle name, Hussein, and the fact that his stepfather was a Muslim, have combined to perpetuate rumours about Mr Obama's religious leanings. The number of Americans who think that he is a Muslim has grown since his inauguration to one in five.



Mr Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, when he was 6, and lived there for four years. In his memoirs he recalled his time in the country as the "bounty of a young man's life" and there is affection and pride among Indonesians for the boy who ended up as President of the United States.

The teacher, Effendi, who taught at Menteng One for 29 years, remembers Mr Obama as a "fat, curly-haired, curious boy". The school had an international mix of pupils, including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.

Mr Obama attended classes on Islam while the Christians attended classes on Christianity, said Effendi. Barry, he said, was alone among the pupils in that he insisted on attending both.

"His mother did not like him learning Islam, although his father was a Muslim. Sometimes she came to the school; she was angry with the religious teacher and said 'Why did you teach him the Koran?'" said Effendi.

"But he kept going to the classes because he was interested in Islam. He would also join the other pupils for Muslim prayers."

Questions over Mr Obama's religion were fuelled, in part, by comments about his Muslim roots made by Hillary Clinton during the Democratic party leadership campaign.

The conservative American media took the speculation further by claiming that Mr Obama attended a madrassa - Islamic school - as a child. Mr Obama's former classmates, however, have dismissed the claims as nonsense.

The US President - who has cancelled a scheduled trip to Indonesia twice before - may be stymied again by air traffic disruption caused by an ash cloud emitted from Mount Merapi.

The volcano has been erupting since October 26, killing at least 117 people.

Mr Obama is due to arrive in Jakarta tomorrow after three days in India.

A third cancellation would not be welcomed in Indonesia, where some offence has already been taken at the brevity of the visit.

The homecoming anticipated so keenly by Indonesians has been reduced to less than 24 hours; the shortest amount of time he will spend in any country on the Asia itinerary.

Pupils at Menteng One, who have been rehearsing songs and dances for more than a year, will be particularly disappointed.

Their headmistress has not yet had the heart to tell them that Mr Obama will not, after all, visit their school.

"When I told them in March that he had cancelled his trip again some of the children cried and asked why?" HJ Hasimah said. "I don't know what I will tell them this time."

The Times

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