Why our anti-war president went to war ~ By Jack Cashill

Unlike Iraq in 2002, Libya in 2011 is anything but a "no-brainer" for the president of the United States, especially this one.

Military intervention, especially if short and successful, typically raises a president's stock, and Obama can count on his unprincipled minions in the media to support whatever course he takes.

What Obama cannot count on is the hard left. Bellwether Rep. Dennis Kucinich, for instance, is already planning an amendment to defund military action in Libya.

Nation of Islam honcho, Louis Farrakhan, flat out blasted the president. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he asked of Obama on Chicago radio.

This all I need to say, and it is actually a quote from Jack's great column: "For those friends of yours with short attention spans, please share this two-minute animation, which sums up our involvement in Libya."



RELATED STORY:
Ayers affirms he wrote Dreams from my Father ~ By Jack Cashill (3/24/11)


Why our anti-war president went to war

JACK CASHILL

By Jack Cashill

March 24, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

The first time John Drew met Barack Obama, the fashionably dressed, 19-year-old Obama had just disembarked from a friend's "sleek, expensive luxury car."

Drew, Obama and friends then spent the evening discussing anti-colonialism and the imminent Marxist revolution. Although Drew was already in process of shedding these enthusiasms, Obama may never have.

There is something else, however, that Obama has not outgrown, and that is his paradoxical fondness for the trappings of success. Everyone who has known him well knows how ambitious Obama is.

In the skies over Libya, arguably for the first time, President Obama's political ambitions and his anti-war, anti-colonial politics have butted heads in a way that cannot easily be finessed.

"It is indeed his war," John Kass writes bitingly in the Chicago Tribune. "He started it. He gave the order to launch the missiles over the weekend. And now the man who ran for president as an anti-war candidate owns his very own war."

Obama is new to this kind of conflict. For the first 20 years of his adult life – at Occidental, at Columbia, at Harvard, in Chicago – his radical politics only greased his ambitions.

It was not until Obama raised his political sights in 2002 that he began to understand that something might have to give.

In the retelling, the day of reckoning came on Oct. 2, 2002, at an impromptu rally staged by the Chicagoans Against the War in Iraq.

Here, State Sen. Obama gave a speech second in career importance only to the 2004 DNC keynote. This was the speech that enabled his handlers to position him on the credibly sane left flank of naifs like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, "who took the president at his word" and voted for the war in Iraq.

In the orthodox Obama canon, this was his "Lion King" moment, the occasion on which his principles triumphed over the demands of politics.

At Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum in 2008, Obama would tell the audience that protesting the war was his most "gut-wrenching decision," largely because of its "political consequences."

Obama's official 2008 website attested to the anguish. "As a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002," the website claimed, "Obama put his political career on the line to oppose going to war in Iraq."

This, of course, was all nonsense. Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell, in his valuable 2007 biography, "Obama: From Promise to Power," offers a useful corrective.

At the time, as Mendell relates, Obama was keen on taking a shot at the U.S. Senate in 2004. He envisioned as his base of support blacks and lakefront liberals, the former for their votes, and the latter for their money.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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Barack Obama and Muammar Gadhafi ~ By Joseph Farah

Joseph Farah discusses all the strange connections that Obama has with Libya's Muammar Gadhafi. If the connections aren't shocking enough, now we're finding out that Obama knew about the release of Lockerbie bomber before it happened and that "the release of al-Megrahi was part of a deal brokered by BP for a lucrative oil contract with Libya." Will we be learning any more shocking details about the Gadhafi and Obama connections? Just sayin'...

To most Americans, Gadhafi is a monster – a psychopathic killer and tyrant, perhaps even a madman.

But he has a fondness for Obama. And, by all indicators, Obama, despite his claims to the contrary, has a soft spot in his heart for Gadhafi.

By Joseph Farah

Posted: July 29, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Now that we know Barack Obama lied about being "shocked, shocked" over Scotland's release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, it's worth a few minutes to consider the presidential pretender's history with Libya's Muammar Gadhafi.

But before we examine this surprising relationship, let's review the facts of the Megrahi release.

Pan Am Flight 103 was on its way from London to New York Dec. 21, 1988, when it was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers including 190 Americans, 16 crew members and 11 residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, when debris landed on the town.

In total, 270 people were killed in the bombing.

Libyan al-Megrahi was convicted of carrying out the attack and was serving a life sentence in Scotland until last August when, inexplicably, officials there released him on "humanitarian" grounds, saying he was suffering from terminal cancer and had no more than three months to live.

Of course, al-Megrahi is alive and well 11 months later and doctors treating him now say he will likely live for years, perhaps a decade or more, in Libya, where he is treated like a national hero. In fact, British intelligence knew Gadhafi paid a premium to doctors for the phony diagnosis.

What did Obama have to say about all this at the time?

"I think all of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber," he said. "And my administration expressed very clearly our objections prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made. So we welcome any additional information that will give us insights and a better understanding of why the decision was made."

Most Americans were surprised, disappointed and angry that a mass-murdering terrorist was released. But it is now clear Obama wasn't surprised, disappointed or angry. In fact, he was part of the fix from the beginning, and his administration encouraged the final outcome.

A week before al-Megrahi's release, Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the U.S. embassy in London, sent a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials saying the U.S. would prefer if the terrorist remained in prison, but protested only a prison transfer not a release.

"Nevertheless," wrote LeBaron, "if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that al-Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the U.S. position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."

It now appears the release of al-Megrahi was part of a deal brokered by BP for a lucrative oil contract with Libya.

The scandal stinks no matter how you look at it. It's a story of politicians doing what they do without regard to the safety, security and best interests of their constituents – unless those constituents happen to be multinational oil conglomerates and terrorist mass murderers.

But what were Obama's motivations? Consider this mini-history review of Obama's odd links with Libya's Muammar Gadhafi:

• Gadhafi received Obama's Kenyan grandmother, Sarah Obama, in Tripoli last December. She went to see Gadhafi to congratulate him on his efforts to unify the African continent, the official Jamahiriya News Agency said. According to the Jamahiriya News Agency, she told Gadhafi she had come "to tell him of her pride as an African citizen in the efforts he has made to unify the African continent and his humanitarian initiatives for Africans."

• Obama's pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, met with Gadhafi in Libya in 1984 on a trip with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

• After the freeing of al-Megrahi, the Obama administration gave $400,000 to a Libyan charity run by the Gadhafi family. The money went to two foundations – $200,000 to the Gadhafi Development Foundation, run by Gadhafi's son, Saif, and another $200,000 to Wa Attassimou, an organization run by Gadhafi's daughter, Aisha. Saif Gadhafi, by the way, brokered the prisoner exchange with BP oil officials.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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