Once again I managed to beat Imam Zaid Shakir to the punch with my article about Obama’s love affair with the AIPAC, but that is probably only because he took the time to ponder over it and write something much more elqouent and powerful. His article is certainly worth a read.

In their 2006 working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt accuse AIPAC of being “the most powerful and best known” component of a larger pro-Israel lobby that, they say, distorts American foreign policy. They write: “AIPAC’s success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. … AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel PACs. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. … The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

Cited on Wikipedia 

It seems very few have been willing to admit what we really knew all along: Barack Obama is just another American politician. He is not some savior of humanity, as some would like to portray him, and he is certainly not going to step on the toes of the corporate demons who fund his campaign.

In times such as these, when America is being ruled by a president who will do anything to please his corporate sponsors, whose policies have killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificed thousands of American soldiers, opened the door for torture, championed the imprisonment of innocent people, and welcomed the contempt and disgust of the entire world, there is something the American people need more than politics as usual.

The American people need morality and honesty. Above all else, a leader who is willing to do what is right and to speak the truth even when he does wrong is the type of leader who can truly turn this country and this race (the human one) away from the brink of extinction that it has now brought upon itself.

Instead, Obama has become glossy eyed with the prospect of becoming president and is willing to bend over backwards for Israel and the AIPAC, even if it means echoing Israel’s call to attack Iran, a country that has not invaded nor even threatened to attack another country (something even Iraq could not claim).

Obama sounds like Bush, albeit a more eloquent and intelligent upgrade from the first two Bush versions. He proudly proclaimed, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”

The evidence, Senator Obama, indicates that Iran is not even trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, so why even mention this? You might very well pressure Iran into doing the very thing you swear you will prevent them from doing. And what does “everything in my power” mean? Surely, a president’s power includes control over the military. Obama is threatening to attack Iran. That is not quite as strong as Hillary Clinton’s language, but the end result would be the same.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” he went on to say.

Any intelligent (and honest) person can easily see that the greatest threat to Israel and peace is Israel itself. It is Israel that invaded Palestinian territory. It is Israel that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. It is Israel that committed massacres, one after another, against thousands of innocent Palestinians. It is Israel that continues to hold scores of Palestinians in dungeons, without any formal charges against them. It is Israel that has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, not the other way around. It is Israel with the track record of invading another country (Lebanon) and occupying it for 20 years, not Iran. It is Israel that has nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the NPT. It is Israel that has had over 40 U.N. resolutions passed against it condemning its atrocities, yet it refuses to take heed of any of them. It is Israel, Senator Obama, that forces the Palestinians to live in Apartheid-like conditions, and that is not just my opinion, Senator Obama. Former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, agree.

So like Reagan, Senator Obama, you are supporting yet another Apartheid regime, another regime that has acquired and is threatening to use its nuclear weapons against a country that is guilty only of defending the rights and lives of the Palestinian people when everyone else in the world, including you, Senator Obama, is unwilling, or too much of a coward, to do so.

Obama was not finished. He continued with, “This audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Israel’s security. …”

Do we? Do Americans really care about Israel’s security while the policies of our own government continue to degrade our own security? Senator Obama wants us to believe that Israel is a symbiont inside of the heart of America, but there is another more appropriate name for such an organism: parasite.

“The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …”

If we really wanted to make this statement true, it should probably be uttered by the Iranian supreme leader, “The American regime supports violent extremists (Israel) and challenges us (Iran) across the region. It already has a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …(blah blah blah)…”

Finally, Senator Obama either wants us to believe he is a complete idiot (just as Bush expects us to believe that about him) or he is a liar in the esteemed tradition of liars who have occupied the oval office, both republicans and democrats. Senator Obama decided to echo the propaganda that has infected our airwaves and television sets, “Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

I see no point in even trying to disprove this lie again. He never denied the Holocaust (he said that it should be studied by independent historians) and he certainly never threatened Israel (but rather said that Israel will fade from the pages of history).

So how, Senator Obama, do you plan to eliminate a threat that does not exist? I suppose you will do as other presidents before you have done: you will create one.

I’m certainly not voting for McCain, and unless Obama grows a conscience, I’m afraid he has lost my vote as well.

Turkey has once gain placed their so-called “secular” principles above the independence and human rights of their own people by once again upholding the ban on head scarves in universities.