The massacre at Fort Hood and Muslim soldiers with attitude
Scroll for updates…7:39am Eastern press conference…Ft. Hood officials disclose that the murder victims included 12 soldiers and 1 civilian…first responder heroine who shot Hasan is in stable condition…witnesses still being interviewed “all through the night”…they confirm that Hasan was wearing his uniform…
I was traveling to Wichita for a speaking event/fundraiser (which I’ll tell you more about later) when news of the Fort Hood massacre broke. Please continue to pray for the 12 murder victims [update 11/6: now 13 dead] and their families, and the 30 wounded and their families.
Allahpundit at Hot Air has a massive, blow-by-blow post on all the latest developments. The Christian Science Monitor profiles Nidal Malik Hasan, the Muslim soldier identified by the military as the shooter:
Terry Lee, a retired Army colonel who knew Hasan, told Fox News about a story he heard secondhand. He said a fellow colleague had told him that Hasan had made “outlandish comments” about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US involvement in them and that “Muslims had a right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“[He] made comments about how we shouldn’t be over there – you need to lock it up, Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor,” Lee added.
But the suspect’s cousin, Nader Hasan, gave Fox News a different picture. He said his cousin had never deployed but was affected by the war and had been concerned about his impending deployment.
“He would tell us how he would hear things, horrific things, things from war probably affecting him psychologically,” Nader Hasan said.
From AP:
His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.
There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.
“Troubling.” And familiar.
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
Here’s the Scribd comment of Nidal Hasan:
There was a grenade thrown amongs a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that “IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.
Those of you with long memories will remember all those who came before Hasan. Here is my column from March 2003 on Muslim soldiers with attitude:
Sgt. Asan Akbar, a Muslim American soldier with the 326th Engineer Battalion, had an “attitude problem.”
According to his superiors and acquaintances, Akbar’s attitude was bitterly anti-American and staunchly pro-Muslim. So how did this devout follower of the so-called Religion of Peace work out his attitudinal problems last weekend?
By lobbing hand grenades and aiming his M-4 automatic rifle into three tents filled with sleeping commanding officers at the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade operations center in Kuwait.
Akbar is the lone suspect being detained in the despicable attack, which left more than a dozen wounded and one dead. Surviving soldiers say Akbar, found cowering in a bunker with shrapnel injuries, was overheard ranting after the assault: “You guys are coming into our countries, and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children.”
“Our”? At least there’s no doubt about where this Religion of Peace practitioner’s true loyalties lie.
Naturally, apologists for Islam-gone-awry are hard at work dismissing this traitorous act of murder as an “isolated, individual act and not an expression of faith.” But such sentiments are willfully blind and recklessly p.c.
Sgt. Akbar is not the only MSWA — Muslim soldier with attitude — suspected of infiltrating our military, endangering our troops and undermining national security:
– Ali A. Mohamed. Mohamed, a major in the Egyptian army, immigrated to the U.S. in 1986 and joined the U.S. Army while a resident alien. This despite being on a State Department terrorist watch list before securing his visa. An avowed Islamist, he taught classes on Muslim culture to U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., and obtained classified military documents. He was granted U.S. citizenship over the objections of the CIA.
A former classmate, Jason T. Fogg, recalled that Mohamed was openly critical of the American military. “To be in the U.S. military and have so much hate toward the U.S. was odd. He never referred to America as his country.”
Soon after he was honorably discharged from the Army in 1989, Mohamed hooked up with Osama bin Laden as an escort, trainer, bagman and messenger. Mohamed used his U.S. passport to conduct surveillance at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi; he later pled guilty to conspiring with bin Laden to “attack any Western target in the Middle East” and admitted his role in the 1998 African embassy bombings that killed more than 200 people, including a dozen Americans.
Ain’t multiculturalism grand?
– Semi Osman. An ethnic Lebanese born in Sierra Leone and a Seattle-based Muslim cleric, Osman served in a naval reserve fueling unit based in Tacoma, Wash. He had access to fuel trucks similar to the type used by al Qaeda in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, which killed 19 U.S. airmen and wounded nearly 400 other Americans.
Osman was arrested last May as part of a federal investigation into the establishment of a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon. Osman recently pleaded guilty to a weapons violation, and the feds dropped immigration charges against him in exchange for his testimony.
Ain’t open borders grand?
– John Muhammad. The accused Beltway sniper and Muslim convert was a member of the Army’s 84th Engineering Company. In an eerie parallel to the Akbar case, Muhammad is suspected of throwing a thermite grenade into a tent housing 16 of his fellow soldiers as they slept before the ground-attack phase of Gulf War I in 1991. Muhammad’s superior, Sgt. Kip Berentson, told both Newsweek and The Seattle Times that he immediately suspected Muhammad, who was “trouble from day one.”
Curiously, Muhammad was admitted to the Army despite being earlier court-martialed for willfully disobeying orders, striking another noncommissioned officer, wrongfully taking property, and being absent without leave while serving in the Louisiana National Guard.
Although Muhammad was led away in handcuffs and transferred to another company pending charges for the grenade attack, an indictment never materialized. Muhammad was honorably discharged from the Army in 1994. Eight years later, he was arrested in the 21-day Beltway shooting spree that left 10 dead and three wounded.
Ain’t tolerance grand?
– Jeffrey Leon Battle. A former Army reservist, Battle was indicted in October 2002 for conspiring to levy war against the United States and “enlisting in the Reserves to receive military training to use against America.” According to the Justice Department, he planned to wage war against American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Ain’t diversity grand?
“It’s bad enough we have to worry about enemy forces, but now we have to worry about our own guys,” Spc. Autumn Simmer told the Los Angeles Times this week after the assault on the 101st Airborne. The Islamist infiltration of our troops is scandalous. Not one more American, soldier or civilian, must be sacrificed at the altar of multiculturalism, diversity, open borders, and tolerance of the murderous “attitude” of Jihad.
FYI: Convicted Beltway sniper John Muhammad is scheduled to be executed next week. No doubt the families of the Muslim sniper victims are re-living the horror tonight.
FYI: Muslim US soldier Hasan Abujihaad was convicted last year on espionage and material terrorism support charges
after serving aboard the USS Benfold and sharing classified info with al Qaeda financiers, including movements of US ships just six months after al Qaeda operatives had killed 17 Americans aboard the USS Cole in the port of Yemen.
On Twitter, follow #fthood for news updates.
More Twitter-related news here.
***
Clarice Feldman notes President Obama’s “odd” — to say the least — reaction to the attack on Fort Hood soldiers:
On Thursday, 11 soldiers and civilian police at Fort Hood were slaughtered execution-style at close range and over 30 others wounded, allegedly by a U.S. Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan. The President immediately addressed the nation concerning this horrific event.
However, his expression of grief was very odd. He spent the first two minutes of the four-and-a-half minute address in a light-hearted discussion of his earlier “Tribal Nations Conference” on Native American rights, including a “shout out” recognition of a conference attendee.
When he finally got around to the purpose for his public appearance, he gave an uninspired and rambling dissertation on the tragedy. Even then, he could not keep the topic focused on sympathy for the pain of others:
I want all of you to know that as Commander in Chief, that there’s no greater honor, but no greater responsibility for me (emphasis his) than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for…Poor soul, it’s so saddening to know how this tragedy affects him. Listening to this address provides some insight into Obama’s character and how he ranks his priorities.
***
Business as usual: The whitewashing of jihad by the MSM. See here and here.
I’ve said it many times over the years and it bears repeating again as cable TV talking heads ask in bewilderment how all the red flags Hasan raised could have been ignored: Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.
***
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin, was briefed by military officials and said Hasan had taken some unusual classes for someone studying about mental health.
“He took a lot of extra classes in weapons training, which seems a little odd for a psychiatrist,” McCaul said.
McCaul said Hasan had received poor grades for his work at Walter Reed and was not happy about his situation in Fort Hood, where Hasan apparently felt like “he didn’t fit in.”
“He’s disgruntled because he had a poor performance evaluation, he doesn’t believe in the mission, he’s looking at getting transferred to Afghanistan or Iraq,” McCaul said. “He’s not happy about all that.”
McCaul added that officials planned to interview Hasan to try to determine for sure that he was not working with foreign agents.
“From an intelligence standpoint, that’s key, finding out if he talked to anyone overseas,” McCaul said.
***
Bruce Bawer has a brilliant essay on the MSM whitewashing of jihad:
CNN (ditto the New York Times website) was considerably less useful than the tidbits I picked up online by following links on various blogs and in Facebook postings. They led me to (among other things) an AP story, a Daily Mail article, and a Fox News interview that provided telling details: Hasan had apparently been a devout Muslim; Arabic words, reportedly a Muslim prayer, had been posted on his apartment door in Maryland; in conversations with colleagues he had repeatedly expressed sympathy for suicide bombers; on Thursday morning, hours before the massacre, he had supposedly handed out copies of the Koran to neighbors. A couple of these facts eventually surfaced on CNN, but only briefly; they were rushed past, left untouched, unexamined; the network seemed to be making a masterly effort to avoid giving this data a cold, hard look. Meanwhile it spent time doing heavy-handed spin — devoting several minutes, for example, to an inane interview with a forensic psychiatrist who talked about the stress of treating soldiers bearing the emotional scars of war. The obvious purpose was to turn our eyes away from Islamism and toward psychiatric instability as a motive.
…after [the Anderson Cooper show] was over, we got a “special edition” of Larry King Live hosted by Wolf Blitzer. This one really took the cake. By way of “illuminating” Hasan’s actions, Blitzer interviewed a panel of — no, not experts on Islamic jihad, but psychiatrists. Blitzer endlessly repeated the mantra that Hasan had been “taunted” for being Muslim, had feared going to a war zone, and had ultimately gone “berserk,” and the docs echoed this line. “He did not reach for help when he should have,” lamented one panelist. Another opined: “It sounded like it got to be too much for him.” Yet another told us: “All kind of people need help who aren’t getting help. … He was feeling picked on by his colleagues. … He was strained. He was scared.”
Could there be a more bitter contrast? At Fort Hood, so many courageous GIs, all of them prepared to risk their lives fighting the Islamic jihadist enemy in defense of our freedom, several of them now dead. And, on our TV screens, so many apparently craven journalists, public officials, psychiatrists, and (alas) even military brass — all but a few of whom seemed unwilling to do anything more than hint obliquely at the truth that obviously lies at the root of this monstrous act.
And now: Reports that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar!” during the attack.
Nothing to see here. Move along…
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
The trial of the last Haditha Marine: SSgt Wuterich takes plea deal
January 23, 2012 03:25 PM by Michelle Malkin
59 Comments
The last Haditha Marine: Trial update, prosecution collapse, plea deal in the works?
January 19, 2012 05:49 PM by Michelle Malkin
56 Comments
The last Haditha Marine: Wuterich trial update
January 5, 2012 06:19 PM by Michelle Malkin
26 Comments
Remember SSgt Frank D. Wuterich: The last Haditha Marine goes on trial
January 2, 2012 12:24 AM by Michelle Malkin
57 Comments
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
December 25, 2011 03:26 AM by Michelle Malkin
75 CommentsJoe Biden: The Taliban Per Se is Not Our Enemy
December 19, 2011 04:06 PM by Doug Powers
105 Comments
Remembering Pearl Harbor: 70 years
December 7, 2011 10:10 AM by Michelle Malkin
123 CommentsA message from “Occupy Bagram”
November 20, 2011 07:54 AM by Michelle Malkin
63 CommentsMoonbat of the day: Suffolk Univ. law prof condemns sending care packages to troops, flying American flag
November 14, 2011 08:36 PM by Michelle Malkin
46 Comments
Pundit & Pundette
» Bishop Jenky, Nicki Minaj, and the "98%"Sister Toldjah
» Obama’s new budget is a bad jokeJustOneMinute
» We Hear From The Department Of Good Ideas And False Choices
Pure,
I doubt a great deal of “secret” information would have been divulged in these meetings.
My main concern is that this administration is full of people like Van Jones, Bill Ayers, Hasan and Barack and Michelle Obama, who HATE AMERICA and will do anything to hurt it.
Their anti-American theories have done and will continue to cause enormous damage to this nation and cause immeasurable suffering here and abroad.
Frankly, the Obama Administrations recent “relaxation” of missile technology restrictions for China will do more harm than Hasan was able to do. But, like his commie-loving buddies, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Obama cannot help but do things to help those people and nations who mean to do America harm.
Me, too! But do we really have any indication there’s any affiliation between Hasan and any of those others?
To me, just the fact that he was allowed in such meetings is too close for comfort.
On November 8th, 2009 at 4:07 pm, purealchemy said:
I’m a Mongol and most people’s assumptions especially in Southwest Asia and the Middle East give me an advantage. But, remember the Snark, some are Boojums and not at all what they expected.
Ssnark:
No doubt polygamy can lead to issues (abuse of women). I wonder if that’s stems so much from the polygamy itself or the other aspects of the cultures or religions that permit it. I think it’s the latter. In any case, I still see the laws as unenforceable. After all, a polygamist can have just one legal marriage and the rest just done in private and treated as “live-in friends.” I don’t see how it can be enforced. In my mind, anything unenforceable shouldn’t be a law.
WE82:
Of course you have, because you are too weak willed and pathetic to even take your own advice from this thread. As I have said to you many times, I truly pity you.
On November 8th, 2009 at 7:15 pm, zeroangel said:
To a degree it may be cultural. But the situation that I pointed out wasn’t exactly, it was just human behavior where a ‘pecking order’ had been established and those at the bottom were treated like recruits in the old Soviet Army. We humans like our hierarchies.
. Someday, we’ll discuss the ‘open marriage’ and ‘group living’ arrangements of the 1960s and mostly 1970s. Interesting times those. I’m not sure I like it having seen how it can go wrong. But, I guess there’s a bit of hypocrisy on my part at play here having once found myself with a wife and women who called themselves ‘my harem’. It isn’t all that most men think it’s cut up to be either.
I was assuming you were talking about the Ottoman Empire but didn’t think about Mongols.
What are the assumptions?
Oops! Just looked it up. The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world.
No, ZeroBrains, I urged others to ignore you. And since they didn’t I decided, for their benefit, to resume mocking you for the utterly moronic things you continue to say.
You are perhaps one of the 10 stupidest people in New Jersey and that is saying a great deal.
I am ignoring zero but in his defense, I don’t think he’s stupid, just misguided.
Dont worry, zero. Ten stupidest in Jersey would still score you top 2% in Piedmont, SC. With the added bonus of probably having all your teeth.
Pure & Snark,
I lived near the Tatar Republic in the Former Soviet Union and met many Tatars who are descendants of the Golden Horde. Oddly enough, many were blond with blue eyes.
The first few times I took the train through Kazan I would try to decipher the words on the train tracks and it made no sense. Then I realized not all the words were Russian even though they were in Cyrillic Script. Once I realized the language was akin to Turkic I stopped trying to read it.
Some of my Tatar friends would visit Turkey where they could converse with Turks with the Turks speaking in Turkish and they responding in Tatar and having little problem understanding one another.
Interestingly enough, many of the Tatars I met would invite me to their homes to enjoy pork barbecue and beer so they might explain their Muslim roots to me. I don’t think any of them ever saw the irony in the invitation…
And of course Chappy is one of the 5 stupidest people in DC. Chappy makes George W. Bush and Joe Biden look like geniuses…
Fascinating tale, WarEagle!
On November 8th, 2009 at 7:38 pm, purealchemy said:
#839384
On November 8th, 2009 at 7:44 pm, purealchemy said:
In much of the Middle East and SouthWest Asia people assume I’m Muslim. The fact that I studied the Koran, Shari’a and Kabbalah extensively as part of my professional education, helped bolster that assumption. There is also the fact that some of my ancestors actually ruled in parts of the areas I’ve been assigned to. In a way its strange at times to see a modern place and remember the family history of that same place. It also doesn’t hurt to know the means they used to keep their erstwhile allies under control.
Ssark:
Of this I have no doubt.
WE82:
Did you just say, “I meant to do that” again?
Maybe you should master English first?
chap:
Top 2%, all my teeth and the pride of knowing my side kicked a$$ in the Civil War.
While I’m here, I’ll defend Chappy also.
He is exceedingly smart and witty.
And I apologize to him for joining in with WarEagle to describe him as a “tool”.
Such a wit WarEagle!
I swear I remember you opening for Paula Poundstone back in the late 80s.
Wow! That is COOL!
Weren’t the Mongols considered exceptionally fierce warriors? And good on horseback?
no prob pure
ZeroBrain,
I see you have nearly perfected your illiteracy in a single language. Congratulations on that monumental achievement. Your special ed teachers must be sooo proud of you…
And yes, I intended to say that I had resumed mocking you. You are getting very good at recognizing the difference between “mocking” and “ignoring.” Keep it up and you may finally get a gold star on your paper!
As they say in large parts of the FSU, Так чайников!
This is rich. A Muslim lunatic murders more than a dozen US soldiers and wounds scores and our DHS is worried about a backlash against Muslims.
If the stupid witch had been doing her job maybe she would have noticed that this radical Muslim was plotting against America before he unleashed mayhem on our shore!
When will the idiot leftists realize that we are not the enemy! Maybe they should change the name of the department to “Department of Terrorist Protection.” Janet Napolitano needs to find another line of work…
What does WND have to say about it?
So he’s apparently one step ahead of you, who, as recently as yesterday, was insisting he was ignoring zero, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Now you’ve decided you are going to stop ignoring him after it was clear you never were in the first place.
But whatever. What I really want to know is how I can sign up for this Ignore List you apparently have. Is there an application fee? Do I have to fillout some form in triplicate?
On November 8th, 2009 at 7:58 pm, WarEagle82 said:
Not so odd really, I’ve been mistaken for Amerind, Colombian, Mexican, Nicaraugan, Filipino, Korean, Russian, Swiss, and a host of other ethnic and racial groups. My own father had grey/green eyes and looked like he was half caucasian. As I mentioned earlier we held the empire together by strategic marriages. So we’re a very polyglot people ethnically. You might say we’re more Heinz 57 than many other mixtures of humanity.
Oh, looky here. (any problems with this one, Chaps?)
The Tatar Republic wanted to change from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet a few years ago. I understand it was a very controversial decision and I am not sure it has ever been implemented.
I have wondered why they decided on the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic alphabet they used prior to the Bolshevik imposed change to Cyrillic.
And of course Chappy demonstrates his ignorance again. I advised people to ignore ZeroBrain. I ignored most of his idiotic comments until I chose to mock him!
You see, it is my choice, Chappy, and not yours to decide when I ignore people and when I mock them. Like I am mocking you now for your basic lack of intellectual acumen for not knowing the difference.
George and Joe send their regards for making them look so smart…
Pure,
I wonder how long before DHS shock troops will be providing a protective cordon around “Revolution Muslim” HQ to protect them from us?
I wish our government were on the side of America. It would make me feel a little better about the taxes I pay…
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Muslims: ‘America’s chickens have come home to roost’
U.S. Islamic street preachers declare Fort Hood victims got just desserts
If only they would place themselves conveniently in the defense of Islam somewhere like Iraq or Afghanistan, So that they can learn whose chickens are roosting where. Personally, I’d love to introduce them to my friends Mr. M21 and Mr. 7.62 NATO. I think they might find that while 168 grains of enlightenment and a trip to paradise.
After this, I really think I am going to have to purchase a firearm. I am not sure who is ultimately the greater threat to our nation though. It is a close race between the “Muslim Revolution” and the Obama Administration.
The bigger problem is the Obama Administration thinks conservatives are the major threat to America and is actively “protecting” radical Muslims on our own shores from us!
We really need to take our country back from the Marxist barbarians in suits.
And speaking of security, if you are having problems with viruses on a Windows PC go here and download a Linux boot disk with a built-in virus scanner: http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/.
Download the ISO and burn it to a CD.
A friend has had a virus for months. Norton would detect it but couldn’t remove it. BitDefender seems to be taking care of it in short order.
Another option is Knoppicillin but it is in German and unless you are comfortable with German it gets a bit confusing. But you can find that tool here: http://www.heise.de/software/download/knoppicillin_download_edition/37894.
These are “useful tools” as opposed to “useless tools” that troll here so regularly.
I nominate ssnark to replace Napolitano!
WE82:
Chap’s already pointed out your stupidity. Honestly, ignore me. Your juvenile taunts aren’t even funny anymore. It’s really quite pathetic. This is not a put down. Watching you flounder around like this is gut wrenching.
…and then you come out looking like a hypocritical fool, which is exactly what you are. Anyway, as we say in NJ, “go F*CK yourself!” *smile*
Ah, ZeroBrain resorts to profanity. Why am I not surprised that ZB doesn’t understand that it is my choice to advise people to ignore him and yet taunt him when I choose?
That is nearly as witty as “your mother” from the other day. I’d warn you about trying to be so witty but since you have no brain you obviously can’t do any damage to that organ…
Oh, and if you are having trouble ignoring ZB and Chappy (which must be French for “No Brain) go to hulu.com and watch The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It never drops the “F-bomb.”
http://www.hulu.com/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes
From the Associated Press.
On November 8th, 2009 at 9:01 pm, purealchemy said:
While I”m flattered, I could never serve under Mr. Obama. It is the reason I retired recently. I would not be a part of breaking faith with my troops. It is my opinion that he will betray them if he hasn’t already.
ssnark,
I suspect a lot of good soldiers will retire in the next few years as they find their oath to protect and defend the constitution will be increasingly at odds with orders issued from the Obama Administration.
Wow, you are a great patriot.
On November 8th, 2009 at 9:39 pm, WarEagle82 said:
What really frosts my cookies is that my eldest boy is going through BCT even as I write this. He’ll be out there when the “chickens come to roost” through Mr. Obama’s lack of a viable war policy. I wish I could do something about it. But he felt called as I did many years before. I fear that this next few years will be worse for the military than the Vietnam era had been. I hope and pray that I am wrong.
Will the officers who knew of Hasan’s “anti-American propaganda” yet failed to act be held accountable? Will Political Correctness continue to be the driving force in America? Will the government ever fulfill its responsibility to the citizens of this nation and protect us from “enemies, foreign and domestic?”
With any luck my children will never have to server under America’s first Marxist regime. I certainly will not encourage them to enlist as long as Obama and his ilk are in office.
On November 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm, purealchemy said:
Am I? I am very conflicted as I have a son just entering military service in the US Army. He’s in BCT now and I keep thinking, did I do the right thing since I won’t be able to do much to help him. I realize that he has to stand on his own hind legs or he’ll never be the man he can be. At the same time I want to be there to protect him from the MAJ Hasan’s of the world. So I wonder sometimes, did I do the right thing? I know Mr. Obama’s mother and both grand parents. My late first wife taught at Punahou High School. His mother was a friend of my late wife’s. So I knew of him long before he came to National attention. What I knew was not impressive. In fact it caused me to vote for John McCain III, a man who was better for having been a POW but not worth spit on his father’s shoes.
ZINGER! Let’s hear the goods on Jugears!
Of course you did.
Pretty much there’s nothing you don’t know by now. His grandmother raised him because his mother didn’t have time chasing after anyone who might upset her parents MidWestern conservative values. I get the impression that Mrs. Dunham tried very hard to be a good parent to the boy and his half sister. But Mr. Dunham was pretty much aloof and didn’t approve of Sidney’s habitual miscegenation. Mrs. Dunham wasn’t an ordinary working class stiff as Mr. Obama tries to make out. Yes, they lived in an 850 sq. ft. two bedroom apartment but it was in what was then an upscale part of Manoa and 850 sq. ft. is a lot of space in Hawaii where Honolulu is nearly as densely populated as Japan. Mrs. Dunham was the Senior Vice President of Trust Operations for the largest bank in the Pacific Rim, Bank of Hawaii. She was pretty much an old dragon as I found out dealing with her as a trustee of an old friend and mentor’s estate. Sidney was a person that was always coming to my wife with tales of woe caused by the men she sought. She was one of those people who allowed herself to be done too and was a pitiable figure were it not for the fact she eschewed any real parental role preferring to be her children’s buddy. Barack was pretty much always in search of a father figure but his choices were nearly as bad as his mothers. It was a wonder and perhaps the intervention of his grandmother (I don’t actually know for sure) that kept him from juvenile detention. He was smart but a so-so student in High School although, so-so at Punahou is nothing to be sneered at especially not at a tuition of $47,000/yr.+ fees and books. He learned to prevaricate early in life and the more he got away with it the more he used it to his advantage. He had few real friends because of the chip he carried on his shoulder and was more likely to be seen with all the washed up hippies and former radicals that were in his mom’s circle of acquaintances. Why my wife befriended her was a function of her former radicalism and the fact that she picked up stray people like some people pick up stray dogs. It was generally a sort of sad and pitiable thing about those kids. I was surprised to find out that he was the Harvard Law School graduate junior Senator from Illinois and didn’t believe he was the same guy till so informed by another mutual friend from those days and of course when I found out Mrs. Dunham was his grandmother.
That’s pretty much it. There’s some gossipy things that caused us to keep our son away from him. But that’s pretty much not stuff that is worthwhile to pass on. Suffice it to say someone got blamed for something that the accused says Barack did. Nothing major just the kind of stuff teens do when they’re being stupid.
snark, provided you are telling the truth (Not an accusation, just any rational person listens to internet stories with a grain of salt) I am interested to know if you believe he was born in the US?
It is funny how few people recall anything concerning young Barack. Yet most often, when they do it contradicts what young Barack has said about himself.
There is a great deal in his past that he wants to remain hidden. And he has spent millions on keeping it hidden.
Kind of makes you wonder what they mean by “transparency.”
“Transparency” translation – they will fill your email inbox with all sorts of crap, from all sorts of sources. It’s transparent what they are doing.
Karma will avenge for the toothless. I hope Chap lives long enough to crack the plate of his false teeth while mumbling something about The One and the glorious days of his reign.
There ya go, Barn!
ssnark,
Thanks a bunch for your in-depth reporting.
Does Barack have any more real friends by now? I wouldn’t put it past our FLOTUS to throw him under her bus under the right circumstances.
Recently she was asked on TV what about him annoyed her the most. She replied, “I don’t have enough time.”
Prevaricate is Barry in a nutshell.
That could be his next book, “The Audacity of Prevarication.”
Redundant?
On November 9th, 2009 at 8:00 am, Mainah said:
Skepticism is always healthy as is critical thinking.
Here’s my take on it. In the Archives of the Honolulu Star Bulletin within days of his birth in 1965 and announcement to that effect was published. Now some question remains as to whether he was indeed born in Kapiolani Hospital (I believe he was.) or in Seattle where Sidney went to wait on a summons by Barack Sr. and stayed with friends there. But that’s the only two places she was at about that time. Barack Sr. was busy playing footsie at Hah-vahd with a couple of other rebellious lasses who wanted to tick daddy off. Sidney found out about it and headed back to Hawaii.
On November 9th, 2009 at 11:06 am, purealchemy said:
Shoot, how would I know. I didn’t have a thing to do with him when he grew up and left the islands and only dealt with him because of his mom and grandmother and only while I was getting my college education, for a brief while when stationed at CinCPac and home on leave and my wife and child were the center of my universe then.
ssnark.
Write me at home dude:
prairiegrass@mindspring.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOBpUGZLziQ&NR=1
I am in the snark fan club !
I’m confused. Who is Sidney?
On November 9th, 2009 at 8:31 pm, purealchemy said:
LMAO! I love it!
#839994
On November 9th, 2009 at 10:23 pm, MtsEdge said:
My bad! The memory is going to heck with age or maybe its that I address any woman not my wife as Ma’am or Mrs or Miss so and so. I meant Ms. Stanley Ann Soetoro nee Dunham and perhaps Obama though that ‘marriage’ is open to question. Known to many as ‘Ann’. Named after her father whose name I also misremembered but knew it.
One more little tidbit about Ms. Stanley Ann Dunham, is that she was very pro-communist and well studied in Marx, Lenin and Mao tse Tung. She engaged in proselytizing her communist teachings whenever possible or not dealing with some boyfriend/Significant Other crisis. She pretty much abandoned Barack in Hawaii when he didn’t fit in in Indonesia or some such causing him to be sent home to Hawaii while yet married to Mr. Soetoro who was an associate of the father of another of my wife’s friends. She did a bit of globe trotting in Asia and Africa accompanied by her daughter through Soetoro who was still a toddler girl and would be foisted off on Mrs. Dunham when she was about 5 IIRC. Ms. Dunham also had several apartments in the Manoa area on Poki St. near my aunt’s home, Alexander St., near the old rental home my wife and I lived in for about 10 years, and another on Spreckles I think.
I also mis-remembered his birth year. This is a quote from the Honolulu Star Bulletin on 29 July 2009. “If any doubt is left, both the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser included Obama’s birth in vital-statistics columns in August 1961, available on microfilm in the main state library. Were the state Department of Health and Obama’s parents really in cahoots to give false information to the newspapers, perhaps intending to clear the way for the baby to someday be elected president of the United States?”
The fact is it’s not microfilm it’s microfiche. But essentially correct in that the announcement does exist.
Still he can’t be that old. I’d swear he couldn’t be older than 44 not 48.
I wondered about that but didn’t get around to checking it. Another “S” name.
Too busy trying to figure out yet another “S” word. *snark*
Interesting. I didn’t know whether you knew of another name for Ms. Dunham, since you seemed to remember so many other vital (and far more interesting) details.
WRT this thing about mis-representing BHO Jr’s place of birth “b/c he may one day become pres” that’s a logical fallacy that continues to trip up those who merely seek the truth. His mother would have had ample reason to pretend his birth was in the US since she was obviously a hypocrite who talked the talk about communism but didn’t want to walk the walk (e.g., by relocating to China or Russia). She knew he’d be better off if he was seen as an American citizen, regardless of the path he took in life (which I doubt she was really concerned about, either). So she exploited Hawaii’s lax law regarding certificates of live birth. This argument has been so easily poked full of holes, it’s laughable that we keep being presented with it to justify BHO’s lack of disclosure about this very simple and foundational item of his life.
On November 10th, 2009 at 6:57 am, MtsEdge said:
Other than that she went by ‘Ann’ more often than not. I guess it goes to show the era I grew up in, a time when a man never called a woman by her first name except if they were engaged, married or a close family member of a like age or younger than the man. So, first names and nicknames would have been used by my wife, not me. I stuck with ‘ma’am’ as it was safe.
The timelines for her attendance at the UH as can probably be backed up by transcripts if not eyewitnesses and her attendance at UW in Seattle would not give her much time to get to Kenya where some ‘birthers’ believe he was born. Some 7 to 14 days total between her leaving Hawaii at the end of first summer semester at the UH and first appearance in Seattle for the fall semester in UW. The latter may be shortly after the birth of Barack Obama. The former would put her late in the third tri-mester and not a time when travel especially the two transoceanic flights would be terribly comfortable and from all that I gather, Barack Obama Sr. didn’t have a lot of casual spending loot for a trans-continental ticket for two to his homeland. The only thing that is a bit uncertain is the address listed on that birth certificate. It lists the address of a pair of UH faculty members who lived there into the 1970s. But, perhaps there’s something not so uncommon at least from my point of view. Back in those days, an out of wedlock birth would be kept as secret as possible and shamed parents may have kicked their daughter out of their home at the time. I know it continued to happen into the late 1960s and even early 1970s. One of the girls in my high school class listed on of her teacher’s addresses as her ‘residence’ on the birth certificate because she was actually living on the steps of the Church of the Crossroads near the UH and ate at their soup kitchen.
As to the laxity of Hawaii’s birth certificate issuance practices. I wonder if you thought about the fact that long form certificates are issued in hospital facilities where the proper equipment to weigh and foot print the baby would be available. Whereas, ambulances in those days were station wagons with the back seat pulled out. It’s about a 30 minute drive to Kapiolani Women’s and Children’s hospital in the best of times from the 4000 block of Kalanianaole Hwy. and he may have been delivered en route. That almost happened to me when I was born. Thankfully, or not as the case may be I was a long difficult labor. But, Mr. Obama’s birth might have been a quick delivery. In which case, the limited equipment on the ambulances of 1961 would not have a scale for neonates or the equipment to take footprints and other processes that are called for on the long form birth certificate. Hence a possible reason he has a short form that makes far more sense than a starving student from a poor family in Kenya suddenly coming up with the near $10K that a trip for two to Kenya would have cost in those days on the only carrier going there from Hawaii Pan Am Flight 002 their West bound Clipper Class flight around the world. (I always envied the fact that the Government paid my dad to fly on that storied flight for his TDY trips.) I was told they had table linens and silver service even for coach on that flight and three hot meals were served in the eighteen hour flight across the Pacific. Talk about the way to fly!
Glad to read your reply. Again, it is quite intriguing to read your account and perspective on things.
WRT to the idea that a “poor starving student from Kenya” would foot the bill for his child to be born in Hawaii, you have already pointed out what all of us know…that the Dunhams were decidedly NOT poor, and we know that they ultimately reared this child. Why rule out the possibility that they sent for their daughter after the child was born? Or another commonly cited fact that the Hawaii certification does NOT attest to the PLACE of birth?
On November 11th, 2009 at 8:56 am, MtsEdge said:
Partly its a timing thing. too few days between leaving the UH and going to school in Seattle. It’d take in relative time two whole days to get from Hawaii to Kenya because of the International dateline. It will take only one entire day going the other way. The Dunhams probably would have had a fit at that point footing the bill for Barack Sr. to go home with his erstwhile wife (You know as far as anyone knows the two of them never co-habited with each other.) So assuming you meant literally that the Dunhams brought their daugher home. Who picked up the outbound tab? Not Barack Sr.’s dad as he wasn’t all that well off. Not the Luo tribe they’re not that well off. Then of course there’s the where is she on that fine day in August. The birth certificate seems to indicate she was living with a couple (married) of her professors. We do know this much the Certificate of Live birth was issued for a Birth in the State of Hawaii and the Island of O’ahu in the City and County of Honolulu (see the imprinted Seal). That’s something that might not have been possible in 1961 for Mrs. Dunham to pull off. She was after all haole which is the equivalent of being the ‘N’ word in Milwaukee or Chicago with all of the negatives that go with it. So you probably wouldn’t have seen some Japanese civil servant whose uncle was at Manzanar and who was a card carrying member of the HGEA. They wouldn’t lift a finger in someone’s favor to falsify a birth certificate. Now if they were a relative and the Dunhams had none in Hawaii, that might be a different story. So, you can be sure that much is true, that he was born somewhere on Oahu. My conjecture is that Barack Jr. was born on an ambulance or in her landlord’s car enroute to Kapiolani Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Kind of like a few other people who lived on the Windward side of the island and didn’t make it there back then across the two lane ‘Old Pali Road’ which didn’t open till the mid-1960s. The traffic on Kalanianaole Hwy has always be abominable. So my guess is he was born somewhere along the way and not in a hospital. Also, Mrs. Dunham wasn’t yet the bank SVP she would be ten years later. So while the two made a good living they were still middle class at that point.
ssnark, have you seen an actual birth certificate (COLB) for Barack, Jr.? I have only seen an electronic version.
And even if he was born in an ambulance, as you suggest, why indicate a hospital of birth on his COLB?
WRT “falsifying” a COLB, my understanding is that this is a legal document that certifies that yes, a child was born, SOMEWHERE. Not necessarily in Hawaii. It may be legally flawed, but it is still a legal document for the State. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this.
Putting aside all of these glaring and unresolved questions, even if he was born in Hawaii, which I still seriously doubt, but even if I conceded this point, he still has a citizenship issue. His father was NOT a U.S. citizen, therefore he would have had (at best) dual citizenship w/Britain and the U.S. How did he travel to Pakistan in the 1980′s w/o renouncing any ties to the US that he may have had?
All of these questions can be cleared up without any further speculation if only BHO would be “transparent” with his own records. I have no faith nor trust in a person who is so un-forthcoming about what should be simple matters.
On November 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am, MtsEdge said:
Nope, and could care less to do so. I’ll take the State document at its face value.
From the document itself, if you’ve seen it. It states that he was born in the “City, Town or Location of birth” Honolulu, from the “Island of Birth”, Oahu, and “County of Birth” Honolulu. That’s the legal location of his birth. Apparently confirmed by the State of Hawaii Department of Health twice over. Including apparently from Snopes, that there is on file a standard Certificate of Live Birth. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the veracity of Dr. Fukino who made one of the attestations to the authenticity of the document.
I won’t convince anyone who wants to believe otherwise. But, the secret to surviving in combat is to be able to recognize what is important. My gut says this isn’t important.
I tend to prefer the truth based on empirical evidence, rather than hearsay. The Hawaii Dept. of Health official who claims to have seen the birth certificate makes the rest of us at least one person removed from the actual document.
When there is overwhelming data disproving the protestations of an individual, the situation calls for more than “I have no doubt” that the person is telling the truth. “Because he/she said so” is not much evidence, IMHO. Meanwhile, there are specific analyses (here’s another one) that have been performed on this document that point to a forgery or other discrepancy in this situation. These leads should be followed to their logical end. Again, all of this could be avoided by simply releasing for public viewing the ACTUAL document.