Obama and the Jihadist Vote

Frank Gaffney, Jr. had an interesting article on the Center for Security Policy's web site October 14. It was titled "The Jihadist vote," and sought to make the case that "...the Democratic candidate hopes to win the White House by relying, in part, on the Jihadist vote."

Gaffney writes that an NBC report last week stated Mouha Husaini, the Obama campaign's Muslim outreach coordinator, recently attended an event with her predecessor, Mazen Asbahi, and "two prominent Muslim Brotherhood operatives: Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and Nihad Awad of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR)."

The Muslim Brotherhood, Gaffney says, "...is an instrument the Islamists have been using to foster a Fifth Column in America. Its stated purpose in this country is to 'destroy Western civilization from within.'" Citing the NBC report, Gaffney writes that "...even other attendees expressed concern that the Obama campaign was reaching out to such 'politically radioactive' individuals as Bray and Awad."

But the problem according to Gaffney is that this is bigger than the one event. He cites others in the article, specifically the following:

"A Federal Election Commission (FEC) employee has reportedly been warning for months about evidence that the Obama campaign has received as much as $200 million almost half of his total donations, in amounts less than $200. That is below the threshold for donor information that Sen. Obama has chose to report to the FEC - unlike the Clinton and McCain campaigns which have reported all donor information. Of the $200 million, between $30 and $100 million is from the Mideast, Africa and other places Islamists are active. It is unclear whether - as seems likely - these funds are coming not only from Wahhabis, Muslim Brotherhood types and jihadists of other stripes but from non-U.S. citizens. That would make such contributions not only worrying but illegal."

And this one:

"Another question yet to be resolved is whether Senator Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, a prerequisite pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. There is evidence that Obama was born in Kenya rather than, as he claims, Hawaii. There is also a registration document for a school in Indonesia where the would-be president studied for four years, on which he was identified not only as a Muslim but as an Indonesian. If correct, the latter could give rise to another potential problem with respect to his eligibility to be president. Curiously, Sen. Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter."

I've seen this reported before, and I'm not sure there is any validity to it at all. But Senator Obama could certainly clear the matter up once and for all by simply providing his original birth certificate. Seems simple enough to me and I find it interesting that he has not done so if for no other reason than to silence the critics on this matter.

Gaffney goes on to criticize Obama's get-out-the-vote effort, specifically the "Arab-Americans for Obama" portion, and efforts in prisons and homeless shelters.

Lastly, Gaffney expresses his concern over "various well-known Islamists" with whom Obama has had some history. "These include," Gaffney writes, "a former Black Panther convert to radical Islam who calls himself Khalid al-Mansour; an aggressive promoter of Wahhabi influence operations, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal; a virulently anti-Israel and pro-suicide bomber Palestinian professor named Rashid Khalidi; and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan...."

I am posting this for one reason and one reason only. It reinforces a concern I've had about Barack Obama for a very long time. That concern is driven by the people he has chosen to associate himself with during his adult life. Each may be able to be dismissed individually, but together they seem to represent a pattern of questionable relationships that deserves further examination.