[Vision2020] Obama stumpin’ 4 Sharia — but he's not a Muslim

[No Weatherman]

This is a "Commentary" from the Washington Times. This means that they
published it as an opinion and not a story, contra the propaganda in
Slate, Salon, Puff Ho, The New York Times, etc. The facts are true but
the writer presents them with his personal opinion.

HYMAN: Obama's Kenya ghosts
Mark Hyman
Sunday, October 12, 2008

ASSOCIATED PRESS Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is calling
President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe an "embarrassment" to Africa and
would support the forced removal of the ruler.

COMMENTARY:
About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church
before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those
who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of
a mob numbering 2,000.

The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about
185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda
genocide of a decade earlier.

By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were
slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by
the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities
were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition
leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than
230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the
final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member
of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated
by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama's father.

Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya's Muslim community heading into
the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but
fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim
Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of
understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim
leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.

The details of the MOU were shocking. In return for Muslim backing,
Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims
if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of "Islam
as the only true religion," Islamic leaders would have an "oversight
role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in
original]," installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a
ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who
"allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists," adoption of a
women's dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.

This was not Mr. Odinga's first brush with notoriety. Like his father,
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and
1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist He graduated from East Germany's
Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East
German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against
then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States.
Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the
1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence
in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.

Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt
but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue
of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography
appeared.

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to
stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was
seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when
Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his
behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention
of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr.
Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and
Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In
contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out
against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president
on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption
perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.

"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared. The intent of Mr.
Obama's remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans — he was firmly
behind Mr. Odinga.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama had met several times before the 2006 trip.
Reports indicate Mr. Odinga visited Mr. Obama during trips to the U.S.
in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Obama sent his foreign policy adviser Mark
Lippert to Kenya in early 2006 to coordinate his summer visit. Mr.
Obama's August trip coincided with strategizing by Orange Democratic
Movement leaders to defeat Mr. Kibaki in the upcoming elections. Mr.
Odinga represented the ODM ticket in the presidential race.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama's father were both from the Luo community,
the second-largest tribe in Kenya, but their ties run much deeper. Mr.
Odinga told a stunned BBC Radio interviewer the reason why he and Mr.
Obama were staying in near daily telephone contact was because they
were cousins. In a Jan. 8, 2008, interview, Mr. Odinga said Mr. Obama
had called him twice the day before while campaigning in the New
Hampshire primary before adding, "Barack Obama's father is my maternal
uncle."

President Kibaki requested a meeting of all opposition leaders in
early January in an effort to quell the violence. All agreed to attend
except Mr. Odinga. A month later, Mr. Kibaki offered Mr. Odinga the
role of prime minister, the de facto No. 2 in the Kenyan government,
in return for an end to the attacks. Mr. Odinga was sworn in on April
17, 2008.
Mr. Obama's judgment is seriously called into question when he backs
an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose
supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic
extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more
than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama
from maintaining disturbing loyalties.

Mark Hyman is an award-winning news commentator for Sinclair Broadcast
Group Inc.
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/obamas-kenya-ghosts/