ves and liberals alike.Some liberals feared that the posting by 20-year-old university student Aliaa Magda Elmahdy would taint them in the eyes of deeply conservative Egyptians ahead of Nov. 28 parliamentary elections in which they are trying to compete with fundamentalist Islamic parties.Nudity is strongly frowned upon in Egyptian society, even as an art form. Elmahdy's posting is almost unheard of in a country where most women in the Muslim majority wear the headscarf and even those who don't rarely wear clothes exposing the arms or legs in public.Elmahdy wrote on her blog that the photographs — which show her standing wearing only stockings — are "screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy." The blog has received 1.5 million hits since she posted the photos earlier this week.The posting comes at a time when Egypt, a nation of some 85 million people, is polarized between Islamists and liberals ahead of the elections, the first since the February ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. Members of the most hardline Islamic movement in Egypt, the Salafis, have warned voters during their campaigns that liberals will corrupt Egypt's morals."This hurts the entire secular current in front of those calling themselves the people of virtue," Sayyed el-Qimni, a prominent self-described secular figure, said referring to Islamists."It's is a double disaster. Because I am liberal and I believe in the right of personal freedom, I can't interfere," el-Qimni said Wednesday night on one of Egypt's popular TV political talk shows, "90 Minutes."The April 6 movement, one of the most prominent liberal activist groups that led the 18-day uprising against Mubarak, issued a statement denying claims by some on the Web that Elmahdy is a member of the group.The posting prompted furious discussions on Internet social media sites, with pages for and against her put up on Facebook.One activist, Ahmed Awadallah, praised her in a Tweet, writing, "I'm totally taken back by her bravery."A supporter, who identified himself as Emad Nasr Zikri, wrote in a comment on Elmahdy's blog, "We need to learn how to separate between nudity and sex." He said that before fundamentalist influence in Egypt, "there were nude models in art school for students to draw."Some 100 people liked his comment, while thousands flooded the site with insults. Some denounced Elmahdy as a "prostitute" and "mentally sick" or urged police to arrest her.Elmahdy did not reply to attempts by The Associated Press to contact her.Her move comes as Salafis have become more assertive in pushing their attitude that women should be kept out of the public eye, promoting a Saudi Arabia-style segregation of the sexes. On Salafi parties' campaign banners, photos of the few female candidates are replaced by drawings of a flower.During a recent election rally in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Salafists covered up a public statue that depicted mermaids. Salafi clerics appearing on TV talks shows have refused to appear face-to-face with female TV hosts, unless the presenter puts on a headscarf or in one case, a barrier was placed between the two. Most recently, an Islamist preacher crashed into a university musical concert in a Nile Delta province of Mansoura, saying music was forbidden by Islam and that he wanted to "promote virtue and prevent vice" — the term used for the mission of Saudi Arabia's religious police.Women rights activist Nehad Abou el-Qomsan said conservatives "keep adding layers to cover up the women and deny their existence."But, she said, what Elmahdy did "is also rejected because posing nude is a form of body abuse."Elmahdy and her boyfriend Kareem Amer, also a controversial blogger, have challenged Egypt's social strictures before. Earlier this year, they posted mobile phone video footage of themselves debating with managers of a public park who threw them out for public displays of affection.Amer, who spent four years in prison for blog posting deemed insulting to Islam and for calling Mubarak a "symbol of tyranny," chided liberals who condemned Elmahdy."I think we should not be afraid of those in power or Islamists, as much as we should be worried of politicians claiming to be liberal," he wrote on his Facebook page. "They are ready to sacrifice us to avoid tarnishing their image."
Attorney General receives complaint against Alia al-Mahdi, Karim AmerThe members of the public coalition of the law and Sharia (Islamic law) graduates presented a complaint to Egypt’s Attorney General against two young people for publishing naked photos of themselves online.The case is filed against Alia al-Mahdi, a mass communications student at the American University in Cairo, and Karim Amr. The photos were posted on Mahdi’s blog, ‘Memoirs of a Revolutionary.’The coordinator of the coalition, Ahmed Yehia, said the complaint calls to punish Mahdi and Amr under the law as examples, in order to preserve the image of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution.Yehia said the coalition demands to accelerate case against the two, who are accused of inciting immorality, debauchery, and defamation of religion, which are all crimes mentioned in the Egyptian penal code.Source
Waiting for Alia
It is quite easy to see a woman naked. In fact, naked women are always only an internet search, an art gallery, a television show, or film away. The semi-naked, alluring female form is even more pervasive. These images stare at us from billboards, ...
CNN: Egyptian blogger Aliaa Elmahdy: Why I posed naked
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy has become a household name in the Middle East and sparked a global uproar after a friend posted a photo of her naked on Twitter.
The photo, which the 20-year-old former student first posted on herblog, shows her naked apart from a pair of thigh-high stockings and some red patent leather shoes.
It was later posted on Twitter with the hashtag#nudephotorevolutionary. The tweet was viewed over a million times, while Elmahdy's followers jumped from a few hundred to more than 14,000.
Her actions have received global media coverage and provoked outrage in Egypt, a conservative Muslim country where most women wear the veil. Many liberals fear that Elmahdy's actions will hurt their prospects in the parliamentary election next week.
I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal cameraAliaa Magda Elmahdy
Elmahdy describes herself as an atheist. She has been living for the past five months with her boyfriend, bloggerKareem Amer, who, in 2006 was sentenced to four years in a maximum security prison for criticizing Islam and defaming former president Hosni Mubarak.
Here she talks exclusively to CNN in Cairo about why she posed nude.
CNN: Why did you post a photo of yourself nude photo on Twitter, and why the red high heels and black stockings?
Elmahdy: After my photo was removed from Facebook, a male friend of mine asked me if he may post it on Twitter. I accepted because I am not shy of being a woman in a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman.
The photo is an expression of my being and I see the human body as the best artistic representation of that. I took the photo myself using a timer on my personal camera. The powerful colors black and red inspire me.
CNN: Who is Aliaa Elmahdy inside the body portrayed in the nude photo?
Elmahdy: I like being different. I love life, art, photography and expressing my thoughts through writing more than anything. That is why I studied media and hope to take it further to the TV world too so I can expose the truth behind the lies we endure everyday in this world. I don't believe that we must have children only through marriage. It's all about love.
CNN: How have your Egyptian Muslim parents reacted? How do they feel about you living with your boyfriend unmarried?
Elmahdy: I last spoke to them 24 days back. They want to support me and get closer, especially after the photo was released, but they accuse Kareem of manipulating me. He has been my support system and has passed along their text messages to me. I dropped out of AUC (The American University in Cairo where she was a media student) months back after (my parents) attempted to control my life by threatening not to pay the fees.
CNN: The press has labeled you a revolutionary but you were not in Tahrir Square during the 18 days of the revolution in February this year. Is there a political element to you posing nude?
Most Egyptians are secretive about sex because they are brought up thinking sex is something bad and dirtyAliaa Magda Elmahdy
Elmahdy: I was never into politics. I first joined the protests on May 27th because I felt the need to participate and decided I might be able to change the future of Egypt and refused to remain silent. I made it clear that I was not part of April 6th Movement (an Egyptian political group that came to prominence during the revolution) after the rumors were spread by remnants of Mubarak's National Democratic Party who wanted to capitalize on the reaction to the photo.
What shocked me is April 6th's statement clarifying that Aliaa Magda Elmahdy is not part of their organization and how they don't accept "atheism." Where is the democracy and liberalism they preach to the world? They only feed what the public wants to hear for their political ambitions.
CNN: What do you think about the forced virginity testsperformed by the Egyptian military on more than a dozen girls arrested in Tahrir Square?
Elmahdy: I consider this rape. Those men in the military who conducted these tests should be punished for allowing this to happen without the consent of the girls in the first place. Instead, the girls walk around feeling the shame and most of them are forced to remain silent.
CNN: Do you practice safe sex in your sexual revolution?
Elmahdy: Most Egyptians are secretive about sex because they are brought up thinking sex is something bad and dirty and there is no mention of it in schools. Sex to the majority is simply a man using a woman with no communication between them and children are just part of an equation. To me, sex is an expression of respect, a passion for love that culminates into sex to please both sides.
I do practice safe sex but I don't take pills because I am against abortion. I enjoyed losing my virginity at the age of 18 with a man I loved who was 40 years older than me. Kareem Amer is the second man and the love of my life. The saying suits us: "Birds of the same feather flock together"
Many women wear the veil just to escape the harassment and be able to walk the streetsAliaa Magda Elmahdy
CNN: How do you see women in the "New Egypt" and will you leave the country if the ongoing revolution fails?
Elmahdy: I am not positive at all unless a social revolution erupts. Women under Islam will always be objects to use at home. The (sexism) against women in Egypt is unreal, but I am not going anywhere and will battle it 'til the end. Many women wear the veil just to escape the harassment and be able to walk the streets. I hate how society labels gays and lesbians as abnormal people. Different is not abnormal!
CNN: What are your future plans with Kareem and will you find it hard to deal with your new notoriety?
Elmahdy: I have discovered who my real friends are, and I have Kareem who loves me passionately. He works as a media monitor and I am currently looking for a job. I embrace the simple things in life and I am a vegetarian ... I am a believer of every word I say and I am willing to live in danger under the many threats I receive in order to obtain the real freedom all Egyptian are fighting and dying for daily.
…
Added by Maria De Wind at 11:08am on November 24, 2011
s “no choice” but to help rabid jihadist terrorists that are slaughtering entire Christian villages, brutally raping Christian women and joyfully beheading Christian prisoners? If you are a Christian, you should not want anything to do with these genocidal lunatics. Jabhat al-Nusra is a radical Sunni terror organization affiliated with al-Qaeda that is leading the fight against the Assad regime. If they win, life will be absolute hell for the approximately two million Christians in Syria and other religious minorities. According to Wikipedia, Jabhat al-Nusra intends “to create a Pan-Islamic state under sharia law and aims to reinstate the Islamic Caliphate.” As you will see below, many members of the U.S. military understand this, and they absolutely do not want to fight on the side of al-Qaeda.
Not that we should be supporting Assad either. Assad is horrible. He should be rotting in prison somewhere. But just because a country has a bad leader does not mean that we have justification to attack them.
The U.S. military should only be put into action when there is a compelling national interest at stake. And getting involved in a bloody civil war between Assad and al-Qaeda does not qualify.
For the moment, we have a little bit of time to educate the American people about this because the Obama administration has decided to try to get the approval of Congress before striking Syria. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
Unfortunately, some members of the U.S. Congress are actually trying to push Obama into even stronger action. In fact, some Senators are now saying that they will not support military intervention in Syria unless it is a part of an “overall strategy” to remove Assad from power.
If the U.S. does try to remove Assad, it will unleash hell in the Middle East. Syria has already threatened to attack Israel if the U.S. tries to remove Assad and so has Hezbollah.
As I mentioned the other day, right now there are 70,000 Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel.
When Hezbollah and Syria start sending rockets into the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel will respond with even greater force.
And if a single one of those rockets that land in Tel Aviv have an unconventional warhead, Israel will respond by absolutely flattening Damascus.
When I say that, what I mean is that a city of 1.7 million people will be gone permanently.
Do our politicians have any idea of the hell that they are about to unleash?
Do our leaders actually want Israel to be attacked?
Do our leaders actually want major cities in the Middle East to be completely wiped out?
Do our leaders actually want millions of precious people to die?
As I mentioned above, those serving in the U.S. military understand these things better than most people, and right now many of them are expressing a very strong desire to stay out of this conflict.
According to a tweet from U.S. Representative Justin Amash, he has heard from numerous members of the U.S. military that are urging him to vote against an attack on Syria…
“I’ve been hearing a lot from members of our Armed Forces. The message I consistently hear: Please vote no on military action against #Syria.”
Journalist Paul Szoldra says that he has also heard from a lot of service members that want nothing to do with this conflict…
I’ve reached out to my own sources who are either veterans or currently on active duty in the military, and asked them to share their thoughts on whether we should, or should not, intervene in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. Most have responded with a resounding no.
The following is what a Marine Corps infantry veteran with three deployments to Iraq named Jack Mandaville wrote to Szoldra…
The worst part about this Syria debacle, among many things, is how closely it resembles Iraq. Those Vietnam veterans who warned us about disastrous results in Iraq were doing so based off their experience in a war that, contrary to popular belief, was vastly different from our war and was separated by at least two decades. Many veterans of Iraq are still in their twenties and have a firsthand understanding of Arab political issues. The complicated things we faced with Syria’s next door neighbors is freshly ingrained in our memories. How quickly the American people and our political leaders forget.
Our involvement in Syria is so dangerous on so many levels, and the 21st century American vet is more keen to this than anybody. It boggles my mind that we are being ignored. My anger over this issue has actually made me seriously comment on our foreign policy for the first time since 2006 when I was honorably discharged after three stints in Iraq and subsequently watched it continue for nearly another six years. I’m sickened that we’re putting ourselves in a position for another prolonged war where the American people will quickly forget about the people fighting it.
And even an establishment mouthpiece like the Washington Post is admitting that top U.S. military officials are expressing “serious reservations” about a war with Syria…
The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.
Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.
One officer even told the Post that he “can’t believe” that Obama is even considering a conflict with Syria…
“I can’t believe the president is even considering it,” said [one] officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned.
What Obama wants to do is utter insanity.
Why would we want to enter a war on the side of Christian killers?
In areas of Syria that are controlled by the rebels, Christians are being treated brutally. The following is from eyewitness testimony from a Christian missionary who recently visited the region…
“The Christian residents were offered four choices: 1. renounce the ‘idolatry’ of Christianity and convert to Islam; 2. pay a heavy tribute to the Muslims for the privilege of keeping their heads and their Christian faith (this tribute is known as jizya); 3. be killed; 4. flee for their lives, leaving all their belongings behind.”
How would you like to be faced with those choices?
In other instances, Christians are not even given any choices. Instead, they are being summarily executed for their faith.
For example, the following is one incident that made news back in December…
Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.
The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits.
She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.
How would you feel if a member of your family was beheaded and fed to the dogs?
And the rebels have continued to slaughter Christians even though they know the world is watching. The following is from an NBC News report on August 18th…
Syrian rebels killed at least 11 people, including civilians, in an attack on a checkpoint west of the city of Homs on Saturday that official state media described as a massacre.
Most of those killed were Christians, activists and residents said.
Sometimes these psychotic Syrian rebels actually round up Christian women and children and gun them down. The following is from a report about what the rebels did to the Christian village of al-Duvair when they took control…
Images obtained exclusively by Infowars show the aftermath of an alleged massacre of a Christian village in Syria during which men, women and children were slaughtered and churches desecrated by Obama-backed FSA rebels.
The photos, which were provided by a source inside the village of al-Duvair in Syria’s Western province of Homs, show ruined homes, ransacked churches as well as the burned remains of what looks like an infant.
According to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) on May 29, “The armed rebels affiliated to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) raided the Christian-populated al-Duvair village in Reef (outskirts of) Homs near the border with Lebanon….and massacred all its civilian residents, including women and children.”
But sometimes women are not killed by the rebels. If they are young and lovely, they are often systematically raped. What happened to one 15-year-old Christian girl from Qusair named Mariam is a total abomination…
The commander of the battalion “Jabhat al-Nusra” in Qusair took Mariam, married and raped her. Then he repudiated her. The next day the young woman was forced to marry another Islamic militant. He also raped her and then repudiated her. The same trend was repeated for 15 days, and Mariam was raped by 15 different men. This psychologically destabilized her and made her insane. Mariam, became mentally unstable and was eventually killed.
This is who Obama wants to help?
We are going to shed American blood to help those monsters take over Syria?
Are we insane?
Of course one of the most prominent examples of rebel brutality was even reported on by CNN…
The ghastly video shows how barbaric the Syrian civil war can be.
A man, said to be a well-known rebel fighter, carves into the body of a government soldier and cuts out his heart and liver.
“I swear to God we will eat your hearts out, you soldiers of Bashar. You dogs. God is greater!” the man says. “Heroes of Baba Amr … we will take out their hearts to eat them.”
He then puts the heart in his mouth and takes a bite.
After reading that, can anyone out there possibly justify helping the Syrian rebels?
But the Obama administration insists that we “must” attack Syria because Assad supposedly used chemical weapons against his own people.
Secretary of State John Kerry says that samples taken by UN inspectors have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, and therefore what we must do is clear.
But is it really?
According to Reuters, the UN has had evidence that Syrian rebels have been using sarin gas against Assad forces since May…
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
And as I discussed the other day, Syrian rebels have admitted to an Associated Press reporter that they were the ones that used sarin gas during the incident that the Obama administration is so concerned about.
The chemical weapons were supplied to the rebels by Saudi Arabia, but the Obama administration will never, ever admit this. If the U.S. called the Saudis out on this, it would potentially endanger the status of the petrodollar.
Instead, the U.S. government is going to end up doing exactly what the Saudis want, which is to attack Syria.
But people all around the world are seeing through this charade. For example, the following is a statement that Pat Buchanan made during a recent interview with Newsmax…
“I would not understand or comprehend that Bashar al-Assad, no matter how bad a man he may be, would be so stupid as to order a chemical weapons attack on civilians in his own country when the immediate consequence of which might be that he would be at war with the United States. So this reeks of a false flag operation.”
Sadly, it doesn’t really seem to matter what any of us think. According to James Rosen of Fox News, the Obama administration has apparently made the decision to go ahead with an attack on Syria no matter what Congress decides…
A senior State Department official tells Fox News the president’s decision to take military action in Syria still stands, and will indeed be carried out, regardless of whether Congress votes next week to approve the use of such force.
The official said that every major player on the National Security Council – including the commander-in-chief – was in accord last night on the need for military action, and that the president’s decision to seek a congressional debate and vote was a surprise to most if not all of them. However, the aide insisted the request for Congress to vote did not supplant the president’s earlier decision to use force in Syria, only delayed its implementation.
“That’s going to happen, anyway,” the source told me, adding that that was why the president, in his rose Garden remarks, was careful to establish that he believes he has the authority to launch such strikes even without congressional authorization.
Very soon, the U.S. military will be embroiled in a vicious civil war between a brutal dictator and absolutely psychotic Christian-killing jihadists.
Should American blood be spilled in such a conflict?
Of course not.
Is it worth potentially starting World War III just to teach Assad a “lesson”?
Of course not.
Hopefully this war will not happen, because if it does I fear that it is going to be very, very bloody…
For nearly six years, British resident Omar Deghayes was imprisoned in Guantánamo and subjected to such brutal torture that he lost the sight in one eye. But far from being…
n September 11, 2001. Nearly three thousand people, mostly Americans, were murdered, and thousands more wounded. The great institution of American and global capitalism, the World Trade Center, was destroyed.
Americans agree that we should remember 9/11. The current president has declared it a "National Day of Service and Remembrance" on which we should honor community service. This has been criticized by many conservatives as "statist" politicization of that horrific day. Some might respond that it was politicized by the last president too.
Indeed, within 24 hours of the planes hitting the Twin Towers, many Americans mourned but also reacted quickly with their thoughts of the event's political implications. Many on the right said that the attack showed the need for a more aggressive foreign policy. Others on the left said that it was time to stop being critical of big government. Calls for restricting civil liberties could be heard before the Pentagon fire was extinguished, and they continue to this day.
If it is fair game for people to politicize 9/11 in this way, as an argument for more government and less liberty, people should also feel free to advance different conclusions about terrorism. We must never forget that day, and it is also important, if we want to prevent such attacks in the future, to understand what led up to the event and what has transpired since.
Understanding the Atrocity
Why did it happen? One answer given was that the terrorists simply hated America for its freedom. Those who believed this tended to feel that war was the only answer -- war to punish the evildoers and war to rebuild foreign societies so they would be free and no longer resent us. Another answer given was that the terrorists, although murderous criminals, were exploiting genuine grievances that many people in Muslim countries had against U.S. foreign policy.
Osama bin Laden repeatedly stressed the major objections: The U.S. had been supporting apostate dictatorships in the Muslim world, given one-sided support to Israel, occupied holy land such as the Arabian Peninsula, and enforced brutal sanctions on the Iraqi people that had left hundreds of thousands of Muslims, mostly children, dead.
Americans are warned not to forget what happened eight years ago, but we must not assume history began on that date. Those in the Muslim world tend to have a much longer memory.
In 1953, the CIA helped to oust the democratically elected leader of Iran, a man who had been featured as Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" just a year before, and replaced him with the corrupt and brutal Shah, a dictator who ushered in a period of torture, terror and mass inflation. Twenty-six years later we saw the "blowback" -- a term the CIA uses to describe the unintended reaction from American policy abroad -- in the form of the Islamic Revolution. Iran fell under the grip of fundamentalists, but most of the nation would not rally against America for purely cultural reasons. What united them was resentment toward the U.S. meddling in their country.
Meanwhile, as part of the Cold War, the U.S. began supporting agitators in Afghanistan so as to incite a Soviet invasion and bring about an overstretch of the Soviet military. Although today most Americans think of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan at the time as purely defensive against Soviet belligerence, President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted this was far from the case in a 1998 interview:
"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention."
These U.S.-allied Mujahideen in Afghanistan were championed as "freedom fighters," but many went on to form the basis of the Taliban and al Qaeda. The Taliban became one of the most brutal and backwards regimes on the planet, but as late as May of 2001, the U.S. was sending tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban to finance its war on opium.
Throughout the 1980s, the fundamentalist Iranian regime, which had come about in reaction to the U.S.-installed Shah, was seen as the greatest threat in the region. Thus did the United States throw its support behind Saddam Hussein, who, along with his Baathist party, had been a U.S.-sponsored operative for decades in Iraq. An Iran-Iraq war ensued, wherein the U.S. sent weaponry, material support, money and intelligence to the Iraqi dictatorship. At the same time, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran, as well.
In 1990, the U.S. went to war with Iraq after Saddam invaded Kuwait, although a U.S. diplomat had indicated to him that the U.S. would stay out of such a conflict. Propaganda about Kuwaiti babies being torn from their incubators, and an impending threat from Saddam to Saudi Arabia, got most of the American people on board. But it was a short war, and by 1992 the popular war was a faded memory as the recession and Perot took the presidential throne from the incumbent commander in chief.
At the end of the war, the U.S. had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and, after destroying much of Iraq's sanitation infrastructure, implemented sanctions to be enforced through the United Nations, that cut off the Iraqi people from getting food and medicine from the outside world. Throughout the 1990s, the U.S. perennially bombed Iraq to enforce "no-fly" zones in the name of protecting the Kurds.
In May of 1996, UN ambassador Madeline Albright, soon to be elevated to become Secretary of State, was asked on 60 Minutes about this the trade sanctions on Iraq. This exchange echoed ominously throughout the Muslim world:
Lesley Stahl: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
Most Americans don't know about this exchange, or other grievances foreigners have against the U.S. empire, but the nonchalant way in which Albright weighed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children against the U.S. goal of undermining Saddam's government resonated far and wide. This dismissive attitude toward the foreigners affected by U.S. foreign policy still permeates American policy through and through.
It is such grievances that most directly led to 9/11. This is the conclusion of Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA bin Laden Unit. Robert Pape, who conducted the most comprehensive survey of suicide terrorist attacks from 1980 to 2003, also agrees that the major factor behind such terrorism, by far, is resistance to an occupying power.
This understanding of foreign animosity is completely consistent with the thoughts of candidateGeorge W. Bush, sparring in a presidential debate in October 2000, saying that foreigners resent U.S. intervention in their lands. "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us," Bush said. "If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."
Candidate Al Gore was clearly much more rhetorically devoted to the U.S. intervening abroad:
"Like it or not, we are now...the United States is now the natural leader of the world. All of the other countries are looking to us. Now just because we cannot be involved everywhere, and shouldn't be, doesn't mean that we should shy away from going in anywhere. And we have a fundamental choice to make. Are we going to step up to the plate as a nation, the way we did after World War II, the way that generation of heroes said, okay, the United States is going to be the leader -- and the world benefited tremendously from the courage that they showed in those post-war years."
To which Bush replied,
"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. We can help. And maybe it's just our difference in government, the way we view government. I mean I want to empower people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you."
After 9/11, the position Gore summarizes here became as popular as ever. But the original George Bush position became very taboo and politically incorrect.
In May 2007, at the Republican presidential debate in North Carolina, Ron Paul defended non-intervention, and was asked if such a posture is still relevant after 9/11. He noted that in order to understand 9/11, we must understand that U.S. foreign policy was a
"major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attacked us because we've been over there; we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East -- I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."
When asked if the U.S. "invited" the attacks, Ron Paul answered clearly:
"I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, "I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier." They have already now since that time -- have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary."
Candidate Rudy Giuliani responded:
"That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th."
Ron Paul answered back, explaining that the Golden Rule had something to do with this:
"I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if we were -- if other foreign countries were doing that to us?"
That was in 2007, but a similar narrative explaining the motivations for the 9/11 terrorists could be understood in 2001 as well.
The Response to 9/11
What should have been done in response to September 11? Ron Paul recommended the most proper response to an attack by a stateless enemy, one worthy of our republic: Actually target the terror masterminds and principals through the Constitutional process of the Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Treat the terrorists like pirates. Go after them directly, instead of waging endless and unwinnable wars to recreate the Middle East. Another reasonable course of action would have been to recognize the difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda and go after the latter. There were indeed "training grounds" in Afghanistan, but the planning for 9/11 occurred mostly in the United States and Germany -- the training in Afghanistan was mostly training for ground combat. When the Taliban offered up Osama bin Laden in October 2001, perhaps the U.S. should have negotiated.
But this is not the path we went down. Instead, the Bush administration took us into a war with Afghanistan and then Iraq. Osama bin Laden fled from Afghanistan before the end of 2001, according to most experts, and now the goal has apparently shifted to promoting democracy, stamping out opium and keeping Pakistan in line. Many, many thousands of Afghans have died, millions have been displaced, and 821 Americans have fallen in that theater of war, with no end in sight and no discernable mission.
President Bush also took us to war with Iraq on the basis of propaganda that has turned out to be totally false: Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, no operational ties to al Qaeda and no involvement with 9/11. The declared American goal soon became one of bringing democracy and stability to Iraq. A socialist Iraqi constitution was drafted and a new U.S.-allied regime in Iraq with friendly ties to Iran and deference to Sharia law was born. Alliances would shift over the next several years, culminating in the celebrated U.S. "surge" of 2007 that cynically involved paying off Iraqi militias to fight "al Qaeda in Iraq" rather than U.S. forces. Such bribery, as well as the fact that the Sunnis had effectively lost the civil war by then and Iranian intervention had reduced Sadrist belligerence, was probably what really stemmed the bloodshed temporarily.
More than four thousand Americans have been killed, tens of thousands wounded. Independent estimates of Iraqi dead range from a hundred thousand to a million.
And of course, Osama bin Laden has yet to be found. This should be no surprise. As early as March of 2002, only six months after 9/11, President Bush made it clear that finding Osama was no longer a major priority:
"As I say, we hadn't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don't know where he is. I'll repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But, you know, once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we find a training camp, we'll take care of it -- either we will or our friends will."
But Bush did say he was "deeply concerned about Iraq, and so should the American people be concerned about Iraq. And so should people who love freedom be concerned about Iraq."
Osama is not in Afghanistan. Saddam, who did not turn out to be nearly the threat he was made out to be, has been dead for years, and Iraq never attacked or plausibly threatened to attack America. Why are U.S. forces still in either country? Neither nation is going to be turned into the type of democracy imagined by the neoconservatives in the foreseeable future. A few more years and a few thousand more American deaths isn't going to make or break those countries, and practically everyone knows it. There are, however, far more potential recruits for the anti-American terrorist cause than ever before, and according to our own government, al Qaeda and the Taliban are more closely linked than ever.
Such paradoxes typify current U.S. policy. In Iraq, the U.S. supported the Islamists who soon came to head up the new Iraqi government and ally it with the interests of Iran. In the midst of the civil war that followed the U.S. invasion, the balance of power between factions has led to bizarre de facto alliances with the U.S. The American mission in Iraq became increasingly unclear over time, as the administration boasted a meaningless "" in April 2004, prided itself on the elections of 2005 that were followed by mass violence, ignored the Baker report and launched its "surge," paid off the Sunni militants that had previously offered a ceasefire in exchange for a bribe, and eventually capitulated to the Iraqi government with the Status of Forces Agreement last year, which gives Obama a couple more years to withdraw before we know whether we're leaving at all. Meanwhile, the U.S. is supporting the two major Kurdish factions in the North, who are united and at relative peace now, but may find themselves at war with the Iraqi government over oil-rich Kirkuk in the future. Throughout the 1990s, the U.S. backed the Kurds against Saddam with its "No-Fly Zones," even as America also supported the Turks against the Kurds.
The foreign policy paradoxes after 9/11 get stranger than that. The U.S. has apparently been supporting the fanatical Mujahideen-e-Khalq in Iraq, an Iranian Marxist faction that had been allied with the Atatollah Khomeni, only to then side with Saddam Hussein against Iran. In Pakistan, America is reportedly backing Jundallah, an organization with probable ties to al Qaeda and likely once led by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 9-11 mastermind.
What's more, all this violent intervention is counterproductive to American security. Michael Scheuer has said that U.S. foreign policy has played right into the hands of America's enemies. Although Osama's longterm goal is to get the U.S. out of the Middle East, his strategy to do this was to lure us into a counterinsurgency sand trap, bleed us dry and bankrupt us. So long as the wars continue, Osama will be winning.
The Post-9/11 Assault on Liberty
In light of the attacks, most Americans came together, and most rallied behind the president and federal government. Polls taken in the weeks after 9/11 revealed a dramatic resurgence in trust and approval in the federal government. This was despite the fact that 9/11 was the largest government failure in living memory. The U.S. government had spent about forty billion a year in intelligence gathering and processing, and failed to prevent the attacks.
For one example of many mishaps, the FBI refused to allow a criminal investigation of two of the hijackers weeks before 9/11. A high official at the agency denied a warrant to Minneapolis agents who wanted to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer. He had come to flight school, paid cash and wanted to learn how to fly a 747, but not take off and land, and had lots of fishy questions about the airplane's mechanics and how much damage could be expected from its crashing. The FBI, misapplying the FISA law, denied the search warrant in the face of tons of evidence satisfying the standards under FISA, even after a flight school official pointed out to the FBI "that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb," and after one of the head Minneapolis agents warned the main FBI office that Moussaoiu might "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center."
This was just one mishap out of many. As Peter Lance has reported, the FBI had been infiltrating al Qaeda operatives in the United States since 1989. Intelligence failure after intelligence failure, in the midst of the assassination of Rabbi Kahane in 1990, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, the 1998 African embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, typified the gross ineptitude of America's massively financed and empowered federal intelligence apparatus prior to 9/11.
But one ironic result from 9/11 has been that, insofar as the terrorists truly hate our freedom, the government has given the terrorists what they wanted. Our freedom has been under continual attack for the last eight years in the name of fighting terrorism. While proponents of a militaristic society do not want to sacrifice the interventionist foreign policy that motivates America's enemies, they do seem willing to sacrifice those very liberties they claim are the real reason we are hated. However, whereas relinquishing the empire, despite being agreeable with some of our enemies, would be of no long-term harm to our country (indeed, a constitutional republic cannot survive long as an empire), the sacrifice of our freedoms has been something that only America's enemies should want to see.
First came a roundup of hundreds of suspected terrorists and "material witnesses," now long forgotten, who were denied due process for months. Next came the Patriot Act, which empowered the federal government to spy on communications with even fewer safeguards than existed under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, itself a deviation from Constitutional due process. The Act also allowed for sneak and peak surveillance -- searching people's property without letting them know for months on end -- and the issuance of National Security Letters that violated the First Amendment by prohibiting their recipients from informing anyone, including their own lawyer, that they got them. This provision was overturned as unconstitutional in 2004.
In April 2004, Bush asserted:
"[B]y the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
And yet, at the end of 2005, we learned that the National Security Agency, an organ of the military, had been spying on American telecommunications without even the safeguards guaranteed by the newly amended FISA. This illegal surveillance was legalized -- at least by statute; the program is still unconstitutional -- last year, with Senator Obama voting for it.
Shortly after 9/11, we saw the birth of a detention policy completely at odds with the principles of habeas corpus. Citizens were stripped of their right to a trial, and foreigners were rounded up and deprived of both the protections of prisoners of war and the legal privileges afforded to criminals. The Geneva Conventions and Bill of Rights were abandoned. Thousands of foreigners have been unjustly detained and tortured, many who were apprehended by warlords in exchange for a cash reward. Hundreds were released from Guantanamo when it became clear they were innocent of anything but being in the wrong place (Afghanistan or Pakistan) at the wrong time (after the U.S. had gone to war). This was after officials had assured the American public that only the "worst of the worst" were being detained. While the Court has extended some protections to Guantanamo,President Obama is now seeking to preserve indefinite and lawless detention at Bagram in Afghanistan.
A policy of "extraordinary renditioning" came to life, whereby suspects are transferred to foreign regimes like Syria or Morocco to be interrogated brutally. This policy has ensnared a number of innocent people, such as Canadian citizen Maher Ahar. Under Obama, renditioning has apparently been expanded to include non-terror suspects.
All-out war has been waged on the Bill of Rights since 9/11, accompanied by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the militarization of domestic police, the nationalization of airline security (which fails to keep weapons off planes but harasses normal Americans daily), a "no-fly list" that prevents more than a million Americans from traveling freely (which some in the current administration want to use to disarm those Americans), "fusion centers" that chill free political speech, and a ridiculous color-coded terror alert system that we now know was a political farce. A series of supposed foiled terror plots have turned out to be similarly dubious.
Economic freedom has also taken a hit. We have seen financial privacy eroded in the name of stopping terrorism and a military response to 9/11 that has cost, in direct terms, at least a trillion dollars, and whose long-term costs are probably many times that. Furthermore, the fog of war has allowed the domestic leviathan to advance. Under the false patriotism, President Bush was able to push through his expansion of Medicare, his enormous farm bill, and record-busting deficits with a Republican Congress afraid to confront their president at wartime. The monetary and fiscal response to 9/11 coincided with the economic response to the dotcom bust: Credit expansion to keep Americans shopping, building and buying homes and living it up, so as to reinflate the economic bubble, only to see it all collapse last year and bring on the greatest economic depression of a lifetime.
Moving Forward
It is considered crass in some circles to point out all this horror that surrounds the events of 9/11, both before and after. Yet to truly honor those Americans who were peacefully living their lives, working in the great system of global capitalism, only to be slaughtered on that Tuesday morning eight years ago, we must appreciate why it happened, what the full implications of the attack and the U.S. response to it have been, and what will truly keep Americans safer in the future. The answer is not to keep sacrificing the freedoms and values that some Americans believe are the reasons we were attacked. The answer is to abandon the policy of foreign intervention and rely on our liberties -- our right to bear arms, for example -- to protect us.
The U.S. has been an interventionist empire under both parties for the better part of a century. September 11 occurred after years of such interventions. The current administration is virtually identical to the last administration in clinging to this counterproductive and unconstitutional foreign policy. At the core of this continuity is a philosophical problem, a dedication to intervention in our national culture that must be questioned and confronted. Our true hope for security and freedom lies in restoring the constitutional limits on presidential power, bringing the troops home from around the world, and restoring the republic.
Anthony Gregory is Editor-in-Chief at Campaign for Liberty, a research analyst at the Independent Institute, a columnist at LewRockwell.com, a policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, a freedom activist, and a musician. See his webpage for more articles and personal information.…
he Constitution and the War Powers Act
Congressmen Allen West of Florida (R-Florida) and Darrell Issa (R- California) have consistently and loudly criticized the president for overstepping the political mark and bypassing Congress’s approval on a whole range of dubious policies and issues:and the recent Obama attack on the Supreme Court of Justice and the Russian ” Open Mic ” gaffe on National Security, leads to one question: Is Barack Obama making his own case for impeachment? Obama did not become the Democratic nominee for President without the help of several leaders of the Democratic Party who knew that he was not eligible for office
Listed below are the One Hundred Articles of Impeachment.
1. Appointment of a “shadow government” of some 35+ individuals termed “czars” who are not confirmed by the Senate and respond only to the president, yet have overarching regulatory powers – a clear violation of the separation of powers concept. Obama bypassed the Senate with many of his appointments of over 35 “czars.”
2. No congressional support for Libyan action (violation of the War Powers Act ). Obama lied to the American people when he said that there were no US troops on the ground in Libya and then later said they were only “logistical troops.” Obama violated the War Powers Act of 1973 by conducting a war against Libya without Congressional authorization.
3. Betraying of allies ( Israel and Great Britain. Obama has placed the security of our most trusted ally in the Middle East, Israel, in danger while increasing funding to the Palestinian Authority (Fatah, just another Islamic terrorist group) whilst they have enjoined a reconciliation pact with long-standing terrorist group Hamas and the disclosure of British nuclear secrets to the Russians in the Start Treaty. Obama gave missile codes to British Trident missiles to Russia.
4. Backdoor implementation of the DREAM Act which would grant 22 million illegals amnesty. Obama passed the Dream Act through an executive order, bypassing Congress again. DREAM is: Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors
5. Telegraphing troop reductions to enemies – against the consult of his experienced field commanders – while embracing negotiations with our enemy, the Taliban, and recognizing another, the Muslim Brotherhood.
6. Betrayal of Arizona. Obama brought a federal lawsuit against a sovereign state, Arizona, seeking to protect its citizens from this threat of mass illegal immigration
7. Obama’s Failure to enforce U.S. law, the Defense of Marriage Act. He’s stripped America of its moral base by his support for homosexuality and the attack on marriage between a man and a women Obama allows the DOJ to refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.
8. Support of an inept and incompetent attorney general who has failed to prosecute voter intimidation cases (New Black Panther Party), initiated a dangerous gun-smuggling program (Operation Fast and Furious) – which resulted in deaths to one of our own law enforcement agents. Obama allowed Operation Fast and Furious to occur, which allowed hundreds of Mexican nationals and Border Agent Brian Terry to be murdered with illegal arms given out by the ATF and DOJ.
9. Increasing the regulatory burden on American business through bypassing the legislative process with his executive branch agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.
10. Failure to take the steps necessary to secure our borders and stem the flow of illegal immigration, termed as “repel invasions” in our United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8 and Article 4, Section 4. Obama has failed to defend US soil in Arizona as Mexican troops bring illegals and drugs into the USA, crossing the border doing so. This is a direct violation of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.
11. Inappropriately commanding the release of strategic oil reserves and providing Brazil $2 billion for its offshore oil exploration.
12. Illegally soliciting funds from within the White House ($5 dinner video fundraiser). The unalienable rights endowed to us by the Creator; life, liberty, and the pursuit (not guarantee) of happiness – are being threatened by the Obama administration. This current government has abridged the consent of the governed and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends. It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.
13.Taking on the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review with a preemptive striking against justices who might contemplate an unfavorable ruling on ObamaCare.
14.”Open Mic ” gaffe in which he explained Russian President Dimitri Medvedev that he’d have more “flexibility” to sacrifice American security after his re-election
15. Occidental College Transcripts Reveals Obama Claimed Foreign Citizenship to Get Scholarship? http://tinyurl.com/czldzx8
16. Obama’s secret back channel Nuclear deal with Iran, a sworn enemy of America and our Allies
17. Obama’s offer of a seat at the table for our avowed enemy the Taliban
18. Barack Hussein Obama’s Ineligibility to be POTUS because he was born in Kenya
19. Obama and his Administration leaking previously classified information about our intelligence communities’ efforts to slow down Iran’s march to nuclear weaponry.
20. Obama destabilized Western Ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and allowed the Militant and Anti West Muslim Brotherhood to take over the Egyptian Regime, posing a mortal threat to our Ally Israel and our own Western assets and interests in the region. Obama instigated a revolution in Egypt against an ally in the War on Terror.
21. Obama has appointed Muslim Brotherhood advisers, enemies of the State, to the White House. Aid and comfort to the Muslim Brotherhood is TREASON per Article 3 Sec III of the US Constitution.. http://tinyurl.com/3x88l2s
22. Obama bypassing Congress again by Executive Decree to allow Illegal Immigrants to remain and vote in America for partisan electoral purposes and reasons.
23. Obama selling citizenship to criminals in direct opposition to Federal Law.
24. Obama admin assisted Egypt in remilitarizing the Sinai, “something forbidden by the Camp David Accords” http://is.gd/nDwdbl
25. Obama has attempted to compel religious institutions to pay for abortion services — a clear violation of First Amendment rights
26. Obama apologizing on 9/11 day to our sworn Islamist enemies, the Salafists, the same day these terrorists massacred the American Ambassador and three other American officials in the Benghazi Embassy, Libya. and ramsacked and looted the Cairo Embassy in Egypt.
27. Obama spending billions in aid on America´s enemies, while disregarding the needs of the US.
28. Obama is directly responsible for the many wars and murders of Christians in the Middle East
29. Obama has financially ruined this country, and his actions are leading to the demise of the dollar. President Obama is either an idiot or he is purposely trying to destroy the American economy.
30. Obama is hollowing out our military, and destroying our intelligence gathering capability.
31. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro deliberately concealed his true illegal background to be POTUS, TRUTH out: why #Obama records sealed FOREIGN student ID http://twitpic.com/aufduf Can we trust Pres. who games system – lies
32. Criminal cover up by the White House over BengaziGate, where four Americans, including Ambassador Stevens were murdered by Islamic Extremists.
33. #CANDYGATE Collusion with CNN Moderator Candy Crowley at the 2nd Debate to cover up BengaziGate The Candy-Obama Controversy : Get the Transcript’ http://amsp.ec/1P1Dyy
34. Obama’s Illegal Foreign Campaign money.
35. Obama Administration defining the Fort Hood Terrorist Act as a Workplace Accident, which gave succour and comfort to our enemies.
36. The Border-gate arms deal offense that resulted in the death of a border patrol agent as well as numerous innocent Mexican civilians.
37. Suspected organized and widespread election fraud engineered by Agents of the Obama Regime at the November 6th Presidential Election.
38. Obama and unrepentant terrorist William Ayers misappropriated over 300 million dollars in donations meant for the education of Chicago’s minority students. They routed the money to Obama’s community activist buddies who then tried to turn the students in radicals. The program was a total failure.
39. Obama, as an Illinois State Senator, redirected tens of millions in Illinois tax dollars to Valerie Jarrett and Tony Rezko, to provide housing for low income families. They returned the favor with political donations. The housing units were built with cheap materials and labor and are uninhabitable after a mere 10 years of use.
40. Obama accepted millions in illegal campaign contributions from foreign credit cards after the credit card filters used to screen out foreign money, was switched off. This also allowed domestic donors, who were over the legal limit, to contribute more.
41. Obama and SecState Clinton’s efforts to bring the US under the UN’s Small Arms Treaty are direct violations of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
41. Obama attempted to move control of the Census Bureau from the Commerce Department to the White House, to be managed by then Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.
42. Obama had provided under the radar amnesty to illegal immigrants by allowing ICE Director John Morton to prohibit ICE officers from enforcing US immigration laws.
43. Obama allowed USAG Holder to ignore the violation of US immigration laws in the sanctuary cities, i.e.,San Francisco, etc.
44. Obama illegally fired the IG Walpin for investigating Obama’s buddy, Mayor Kevin Johnson (Sacramento), for fraud (850K) with AmeriCorps.
45. Obama is in contempt of Federal court for his illegal oil drilling moratorium in the Gulf…
46. Obama spent a month as the UN Security Council Chair in 2009, which raises the question of his conflict of interest between the US and the UN. This is also likely a violation of his Oath of Office as the UN conflicts with our Constitution on many levels, i.e., LOST, UN Small Arms ban, etc.
47. Obama signed an EO in December 2009 that allows Interpol to operate in the US without oversight by Congress, courts, FBI, or local law enforcement.
48. Obama and SecState Clinton misappropriated, er, used $23 million in US taxpayer funds to help Obama’s homeland of Kenya move to a communist nation where the freedom of speech, private property rights, and other rights are subservient to “social justice”. This includes the fact that the Kenyan constitution adopted Sharia Law, which violates the basic human rights of women.
49. Obama was likely involved with then Governor Rod Blagojevich to try and sell his Illinois Senate seat, i.e., pay to play. Jesse Jackson Jr is under investigation for it and it appears that Valerie Jarrett might also have been involved.
50. Obama ran a website that asked Americans to report on other Americans, in the area of ObamaKare, using whitehouse.gov and taxpayer money to do so. He repeated this with AttackWatch.
51. Obama got onto the Indiana ballot through voter fraud in 2008.
52. Obama sealed all of his records that would show that he is possibly an illegal president, that he is feloniously using a false SSN, that his draft registration number is false, that his Fulbright award was falsely awarded as Obama claimed foreign student status, and that his student aid was falsely obtained.
53. Obama violated the Constitution by firing the GM CEO.
54. Obama violated bankruptcy laws by forcing GM bondholders to accept millions of dollars in losses of money that they were legally entitled to.
55. Obama violated bankruptcy laws by awarding the UAW with a share of GM and Chrysler during their bankruptcy proceedings.
56. Obama bought votes for ObamaKare with acts like, “Cornhusker Kickback”, “Louisiana Purchase” and the DoI increasing water allocations toCalifornia’sCentral Valley. This brought in the votes of Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, both Democrat holdouts.
57. Obama lied about Americans being able to keep their healthcare coverage if they wanted to. ObamaKare is already forcing them out of their current coverage.
58. Obama attempted to bribe Joe Sestak with a job offer in order to get him to drop out of the Senate race against Arlen Specter.
59. Obama bypassed Congress and told the EPA to set carbon emission standards.
60. Obama forced BP to pony up a $20 billion slush fund to compensate Gulf Coast businesses and residents affected by the BP oil spill. It was administered by one of Obama’s political appointees and there is NO Congressional oversight.
61. Obama did nothing to Holder (abetted a felony) when Holder refused to prosecute two New Black Panther Party members for brandishing weapons in front of a voting location in Filthadelphia. A direct violation of the voters Civil Rights.
62. Obama bypassed the Senate with a recess appointment of Donald Berwick as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Violates policy. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?postid=273766
63. Obama illegally fired Sherry Sherrod from the USDA over remarks she made at an NAACP meeting in March 2010. He violated her due process.
64. Obama violated contractual law when his regime cancelled 77 oil field development contracts previously approved by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, under Bush 43’s administration. This keeps us from extracting from 2-3 TRILLION barrels of oil.
65. Obama used the DHS to determine the political affiliation of Americans making FOIA requests about the Regime. This led to requests being stalled, lost, etc.
66. Obama acted in April 2009, at the G20 meeting, to expand the Special Drawing Rights, that now gives the IMF more control over the US economy.
67. Obama issued an EO on July 12, 2011, attempting to restrict the Second Amendment rights of US citizens in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona.
68. Obama’s allowed the FCC to assume authority over the internet, in direct violation of a federal appeals court that DENIED the commission that authority. In December, the FCC voted and passed the first federal regulations on internet traffic.
69. Obama allows the DHS/TSA to routinely violate the 4th/5th Amendment rights of Americans at airports, train stations, and VIPER checkpoints.
70. Obama allows the DOJ in 2009 to stop enforcing federal drug laws in regards to marijuana.
71. Obama attempted to bypass Congress and raise the Debt Ceiling by “reinterpreting” the 14th Amendment.
72. Obama just bypassed the Senate AGAIN by appointing Richard Cordray to a new unconstitutional agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Violates policy. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?postid=273766
73. Obama deprived the due process of two U.S.citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, by assassinating them via a CIA drone attack in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011. This also raises the question of an act of war against Yemen for firing into a sovereign nation. Obama said in 2008: “No. I reject the Bush Administration’s claim that the President has plenary authority under the U.S. Constitution to detainU.S.citizens without charges as unlawful enemy combatants.”
74. Obama allowed Education Secretary Arne Duncan to grant waivers to No Child Left Behind however, this is a law enacted by Congress and neither Obama nor Duncan have the authority to authorize that.
75. Obama allowed the bailouts to grant money without the authority to do so. “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7U.S.Constitution
76. Obama allowed Operation Castaway to occur, which allowed firearms laws to be broken through coercion of legal gun dealers.
77. Obama bypassed the Senate to appoint three people to the National Labor Relations Board. (Naturally, they’ll all be Obomobots) Violates policy. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?postid=273766
78. Obama twenty three illegal Executive Orders to impose a Gun Grab, which is a direct violation of the Second Amendment.
79. Providing aid and comfort to the enemy by announcing the date for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Thereby providing the impetus for the escalation of the green on blue attacks
80. Obama by announcing the date for unilateral withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby triggered the disintegration of the green respect that had been a goal of the training mission.
81. Obama deliberately interfering in the elections of our chief ally in the Middle East, Israel to try and influence the result.
82. Obama supplying the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt with F16 Jets and 220 Abram Tanks, sworn enemies of the USA and our Chief Ally Israel.
83. Obama nominating a Muslim John Brennan to be Director of the CIA,when America is at War with Radical Islamic Terrorists.
84. Obama nominating Chuck Hagel, a sworn enemy of our Chief Ally Israel, to be Secretary of Defense
85. Obama and Holder breaking Constitutional Law, by introducing Drone attacks on Americans.
86. Obama is using his Executive Decree to allow 80,000 Muslims to enter America next year, and 100,000 Muslims for the next five years.
87. The Obama administration failed to enforce a century-old law meant to prevent immigrants from taking root in the U.S. only to live on the government dole
88. The Obama administration’s release of hundreds and potentially thousands of illegal-alien criminals from U.S. detention centers
89. The sequester is actually a plot by Obama to cut defense spending and transfer money to “ACORN-like” groups that would help elect Democratic candidates.
90. The Obama administration’s allegedly revealing his political opponents’ private tax information to the media.
91. Obama allowing the third Saudi Bomber in Boston be deported to Saudi Arabia – Arch Terrorist Osama Bin Laden’s son
92. Obama Will Not Charge Boston Jihad Bombers as Enemy Combatants
93. White House Link to Illegal Taping of Sen. McConnell
94. Allowing Islamic Terror Group the Taliban to flourish and operate on American soil.
95. The Obama Government has been caught promoting the delivery of taxpayer-funded welfare benefits to foreigners – “These disclosures further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. And the coordination with a foreign government to attack the policies of an American state is contemptible,”
96. Agents of the Obama Regime conspired in 2008 to get Obama’s name illegally put on the Indiana Primary Ballot.
97. Obama Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel Involved In Massive Vote Fraud Scandal? http://j.mp/15QrBsb
98. TREASON…Obama Government Hired Al Qaeda to Defend the Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi?
99. Obama Military Considers Stopping Christians from Proselytizing
100. The Sequester is actually a plot by Obama to cut defense spending and transfer money to “ACORN-like” groups that would help elect Democratic candidates.
UNKNOWN: How many exact other violations of his Oath of Office.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
http://conservativepapers.com/news/2012/04/04/a-case-for-impeaching-obama/#.UY1kA2o7bFx…
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