Obama worked with terrorist, Senator helped fund organization that rejects 'racist' Israel's existence

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I love the reactions from the Obama supporters. I got exactly what I expected. Dissmissal, denial and deflection. You guys don't dissapoint. It's the same reaction when the rezco thing came up and when the Rev Wright thing came up. I am sure when the next example of poor judgment happens we will all get the same standard response. Thank you all.

Gary, it's the source by which you relied on that deserves to be lampooned. When several reputable news sources bring it up, then give me a call. Until then...stay away from the reading material near the checkout stands.

[GaryC 7]

I love the reactions from the Obama supporters. I got exactly what I expected. Dissmissal, denial and deflection. You guys don't dissapoint. It's the same reaction when the rezco thing came up and when the Rev Wright thing came up. I am sure when the next example of poor judgment happens we will all get the same standard response. Thank you all.

Gary, it's the source by which you relied on that deserves to be lampooned. When several reputable news sources bring it up, then give me a call. Until then...stay away from the reading material near the checkout stands.

Nice deflection. You want a different source? I am sure I can find it. But I bet it wouldn't make any difference to you.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Nice deflection. You want a different source? I am sure I can find it. But I bet it wouldn't make any difference to you.

I dare you to find any reputable source that implicates what the World Nut Daily just claimed. (Run outside, Gary...I think there's UFO flying overhead right now)

[GaryC 7]

Nice deflection. You want a different source? I am sure I can find it. But I bet it wouldn't make any difference to you.

I dare you to find any reputable source that implicates what the World Nut Daily just claimed. (Run outside, Gary...I think there's UFO flying overhead right now)

Are you disputing that Obama served on the Woods Fund? Or are you disputing that while on the board the Woods Fund funded groups that call Israel "the great catastrophy"? Or are you disputing that Obama served on this board at the same time Ayers the bomber did? Tell me what you dispute and I will find a source for it. Go ahead I dare you.

Is the Jewish press to "out there" for you?

Obama Served On Board That Funded Pro-Palestinian Group

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By:Aaron Klein Wednesday, February 27, 2008

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JERUSALEM – Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." (Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.)

The co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department.

Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, at which Khalidi’s wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.

The $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund to AAAN constituted about a fifth of the group’s reported grants for 2001, also according to tax filings. The $35,000 Woods Fund grant in 2002 made up about one-fifth of AAAN’s reported grants for that year as well.

Headquartered in the heart of Chicago’s Palestinian immigrant community, AAAN describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities."

Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line. The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what Palestinians call the "nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel’s founding in 1948.

The theme of AAAN’s Nakba art exhibit, held at DePaul University in 2005, was "the compelling and continuing tragedy of Palestinian life ... under [israeli] occupation ... home demolition ... statelessness ... bereavement ... martyrdom, and ... the heroic struggle for life, for safety, and for freedom."

Another AAAN initiative, "Al Nakba 1948 As Experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel’s founding.

Although AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi has at times denied working directly for the PLO, he reportedly served as director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, a period during which the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi’s wife, Mona Khalidi, reportedly was WAFA’s English translator during that period.

Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991. During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a "racist" state. Critics have accused him of excusing Palestinian terrorism, a charge he denies.

He dedicated his 1986 book, Under Siege, to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon."

While the Woods Fund’s contribution to Khalidi’s AAAN might be perceived as a one-time contact with Obama, there is evidence of a deeper relationship between the presidential hopeful and Khalidi.

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the senator first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003; Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Asked during a radio interview with this reporter on WABC’s John Batchelor program about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama, Khalidi said he "was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician."

Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."

Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can’t talk with the Iranians."

Concerning Obama’s role in funding AAAN, Khalidi claimed he "never heard of the Woods Fund until it popped up on a bunch of blogs a few months ago." He terminated the interview when pressed further about his links with Obama.

Contacted by phone, Mona Khalidi refused to answer questions about AAAN’s involvement with Obama.

The Obama campaign did not reply to a list of questions sent by e-mail to the senator’s press office.

In addition to questions about his relationship with Khalidi, Obama may face increased scrutiny over his ties to William C. Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground terrorist group that sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for a string of bombings in the early 1970’s.

Obama served on the Woods Fund board alongside Ayers (who is still on the board). Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has written about his involvement with the Weather Underground’s bombing of U.S. governmental buildings including the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.

Although charges against him were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct, Ayers told a newspaper reporter several years ago that he had no second thoughts about his violent past. "I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough," Ayers told The New York Times in an interview published, ironically, on Sept. 11, 2001.

In his memoir, Fugitive Days, Ayers wrote: "Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon" – though he continued with a disclaimer that he didn’t personally set the bombs but his group placed the explosives and planned the attack.

Besides serving with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at several public speaking engagements.

http://www.jewishpress.com/print.do/30283/...nian_Group.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well this is in The UK Times - so it is getting exposure.

‘Terrorist’ link puts Barack Obama under fire

It also seems to be in the Washington Post.

[HAL 9000 96]

To be honest, 1+1=2.

Funny in all of this is how none of it reflects on Obama's actual official stance. Hence, pure gossip.

[GaryC 7]

To be honest, 1+1=2.

Funny in all of this is how none of it reflects on Obama's actual official stance. Hence, pure gossip.

Not very objective are you? You have never heard of the saying "You are judged by the company you keep"? I wonder what the reaction would be if McCain had ties with terrorists?

[SaadBell 0]

Yell it all you want. McCain wasn't found to have done anything wrong. Want to try again?

The Keating Five were five United States Senators, who were accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, while John Glenn and John McCain had been only minimally involved. The Committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct."

All five of the senators involved served out their terms, but only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election (and were subsequently re-elected).

I see your point he was only minimally involved, see if that works in court for a normal person. Like saying I was only minimally involved in his murder, point is, his hand was in that corruption, so he was not found to have done anything wrong. Be careful who your friends our, I guess for Obama that only counts, but McCain, oh that is cool.

Try again

[HAL 9000 96]

To be honest, 1+1=2.

Funny in all of this is how none of it reflects on Obama's actual official stance. Hence, pure gossip.

Not very objective are you? You have never heard of the saying "You are judged by the company you keep"? I wonder what the reaction would be if McCain had ties with terrorists?

Well Bush has connections with family members of terrorists, much closer a connection than the ones described in these articles. DePaul is a Catholic University- does that make them connected to these Arab groups? Does that mean that St. Vincent DePaul's order is tied to terrorists?

See?

And yes, I breathe objectivity all day long. Remember what I do for a living.

Move over to more fact and issue-based articles, Gary. I expect more from you.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Bush's Former Oil Company

Linked To bin Laden Family

President Bush recently signed an executive order to freeze the US financial assets of corporations doing business with Osama bin Laden. He described the order as a "strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network."

"If you do business with terrorists, if you support or succor them, you will not do business with the United States," said President Bush.

He didn't say anything about doing business with a terrorist's brother - or his wealthy financier.

When President George W. Bush froze assets connected to Osama bin Laden, he didn't tell the American people that the terrorist mastermind's late brother was an investor in the president's former oil business in Texas. He also hasn't leveled with the American public about his financial connections to a host of shady Saudi characters involved in drug cartels, gun smuggling, and terrorist networks.

Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush family. Much of the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw materials and credit to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Several business operations managed by Prescott Bush - the president's grandfather - were seized by the US government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

On October 20, 1942, the federal government seized the Union Banking Corporation in New York City as a front operation for the Nazis. Prescott Bush was a director. Bush, E. Roland Harriman, two Bush associates, and three Nazi executives owned the bank's shares. Eight days later, the Roosevelt administration seized two other corporations managed by Prescott Bush. The Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, both managed by the Bush-Harriman bank, were accused by the US federal government of being front organizations for Hitler's Third Reich. Again, on November 8, 1942, the federal government seized Nazi-controlled assets of Silesian-American Corporation, another Bush-Harriman company doing business with Hitler.

Doing business with the bin Laden empire, therefore, is only the latest extension of the Bush family's financial ties to unsavory individuals and organizations. Now that thousands of American citizens have died in terrorist attacks and the nation is going to war, the American people should know about George W. Bush's relationship with the family of Osama bin Laden.

Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Energy. - the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush. Arbusto means "Bush" in Spanish. Salem bin Laden died in an airplane crash in Texas in 1988.

Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the family patriarch and founder of its construction empire, also died in a plane crash. Upon his death in 1968, he left behind 57 sons and daughters - the offspring he sired with 12 wives in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. About a dozen brothers manage Bin Laden Brothers Construction - one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East.

Fresh out of Harvard Business School, young George W. Bush returned to Midland, TX, in the late 1970s to follow his father's footsteps in the oil business. Beginning in 1978, he set up a series of limited partnerships - Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so on - to drill for oil.

One of President Bush's earliest financial backers was James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker. Bath served with President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden appointed James Bath as his business representative in Houston. Revelation about Bath's relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business partner with Bath. White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same year former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA.

During a bitter legal fight between White and Bath, the real estate partner disclosed that Bath managed a portfolio worth millions of dollars for Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis. Among the investments made by Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf Airport.

A powerful banker in Saudi Arabia, Mahfouz was one of the largest stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI was a corrupt global banking empire operating in 73 nations and was a major financial and political force in Washington, Paris, Geneva, London, and Hong Kong. Despite the appearance of a normal banking operation, BCCI was actually an international crime syndicate providing "banking services" to the Medellin drug cartel, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa, the heroin kingpin in Asia's Golden Triangle.

The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political names in Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - during the first Bush White House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug cartels, smuggling weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to influence American politicians.

The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players came out of the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused Mueller of botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed by President George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis Freeh who did nothing while William Jefferson Clinton allowed the Red Chinese to loot our national security secrets.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Justice Department, reviewed allegations by Bill White in 1992 that James Bath funneled money from wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen to American companies to influence the policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. Robert Mueller, the new FBI chief, was in a senior position at the Justice Department at the time of the review.

White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the Justice Department had "blackballed" him professionally and financially because he refused to keep quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic conspiracy to launder Middle Eastern money into the bank accounts of American businesses and politicians.

In sworn depositions, Bath admitted he represented four wealthy Saudi Arabian businessmen as a trustee. He also admitted he used his name on their investments and received, in return, a five- percent stake in their business deals.

Indeed, Texas tax documents revealed that Bath owned five percent of Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd. Bush Exploration Company controlled the limited partnerships, the general partnership firm owned by young George W. Bush.

Although George W. Bush's Texas oil ventures were financial failures, his financial backers recovered their investments through a series of mergers and stock swaps. He changed Arbusto's name to Bush Exploration, then merged the new firm into Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984.

The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up being folded into Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr. Bush joined Harken as a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of Harken stock. Bush used his White House connections to land a lucrative contract for the obscure Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern government of Bahrain. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 and paid off his loan he took out to buy his small share in the Texas Rangers. The Bahrain deal was brokered by David Edwards, a close pal to Bill Clinton and a former employee of Stephens Inc. Shortly after Bush sold his stock, Harken's fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Some critics claim young George was tipped off in advance by his father about the soon-coming Gulf War.

George W. Bush, however, worked wonders for Harken Energy Corp. before the stock collapse. Using the Bush family name, he managed to bring much-needed capital investment to the struggling firm. George W. Bush traveled to Little Rock, AR, to attend a meeting with Jackson Stephens - a powerful Arkansas tycoon who help bankroll the state campaigns of young Bill Clinton. He first gained political prominence as a fund-raiser for President Jimmy Carter. Stephens was also deeply involved in the BCCI scandal by helping the corrupt bank take control of First American Bank in Washington, DC.

Jack Stephens didn't need an introduction to young George W. Bush. Mary Anne Stephens, his wife, managed Vice President George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign in Arkansas. Stephens Inc., the well connected brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a Bush campaign fundraising dinner in 1991. When George W. Bush won the contested Florida election in 2000, Jack Stephens made a substantial contribution to the Bush inauguration. Recently, former President Bush played golf on April 11, 2001, with Jack Stephens at the Jack Stephens Youth Golf Academy in Little Rock. The former president told Stephens, "Jack, we love you and we are very, very grateful for what you have done."

Perhaps the former president was thanking him for the money Stephens provided young George W. Bush. Stephens arranged for a $25 million investment from the Union des Banques Suisses. The Swiss Bank held the minority interest in the Banque de Commerce et de Placements, a Geneva-based subsidiary of BCCI.

Both Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and well-connected Saudi real estate investor, signed the financial transaction. The Geneva transaction was paid through a joint venture between the Union Bank of Switzerland and its Geneva branch of BCCI.

The BCCI connection, therefore, linked George W. Bush with Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz. Known in Arab circles as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz held a 20 percent take in BCCI between 1986 and 1990. Mahfouz is no stranger to the Bush family. He was a big investor in the Carlyle Group, a defense-industry investment group with deep connections to the Republican Party establishment. Former President Bush is a former member of the company's board of directors. George W. Bush also held shares in Caterair, a Carlyle subsidiary. Sami Baarma, a powerful player in the Mahfouz-owned Prime Commercial Bank of Pakistan, is a member of the Carlyle Group's international advisory board.

President Bush certainly is aware of that his former Saudi sugar daddy is still financing Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. USA Today newspaper reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden's attacks on US embassies in Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis were funneling tens of millions of dollars each year into bin Laden's bank accounts. Five top Saudi businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank to transfer personal funds and $3 million pilfered from a Saudi pension fund to the Capitol Trust Bank in New York City. The money was deposited into the Islamic Relief and Bless Relief - Islamic charities operating in the US and Great Britain as fronts for Osama bin Laden.

The Capitol Trust Bank is run by Mohammad Hussein al-Amoudi. His lawyer is Democratic Party bigwig Vernon Jordan, close friend of former President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25 million cash infusion into George W. Bush's Harken Energy Corporation, appointed Talat Othman to manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp. Othman, a native Palestinian, is president and CEO of Dearborn Financial Inc. - an investment firm in Arlington Heights, IL.

Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking Corporation, the Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah Bakhsh's share was the identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar Riady, the godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to the Chinese communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson. Bakhsh is represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm in New York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P. Rogers.

Independent investigator reporter David Twersky reported in the early 1990s that Othman had a seat on Harken's board of directors and met three times in the White House with President George Herbert Walker Bush. Organized by Chief of Staff John Sununu, Othman's first meeting with President Bush at the White House was in August 1990, just days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

There exist to this day an Arab-Texas connection. Khalid bin Mahfouz, financier of both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, still maintains a palatial estate in Houston, TX. Former President George Bush also lives in Houston. James Bath, Texas political confidant of George W. Bush, managed to obtain a $1.4 million loan from Mahfouz in 1990. Bath and Mahfouz, along with former Secretary of Treasury John Connally, were also co-investors in Houston's Main Bank. Bath was also president of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Ltd, a Texas air charter company registered in the Cayman Islands. According to published reports in the early 1990s, the real owner was bin Mahfouz. When Salem bin Laden, Osama' brother, died in 1988, his interest in the Houston Gulf Airport was transferred to bin Mahfouz.

Since Osama bin Laden's bloody attack on America on September 11, the federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts connected to Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic charities.

Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets of the Bush family too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets were seized by the US government for trading with the enemy.

http://www.rense.com/general14/bushsformer.htm

[SaadBell 0]

Well Bush has connections with family members of terrorists, much closer a connection than the ones described in these articles. DePaul is a Catholic University- does that make them connected to these Arab groups? Does that mean that St. Vincent DePaul's order is tied to terrorists?

See?

And yes, I breathe objectivity all day long. Remember what I do for a living.

Move over to more fact and issue-based articles, Gary. I expect more from you.

Brilliant point, Bush and Bin Laden were friends, but I guess that doesn't count either.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Well Bush has connections with family members of terrorists, much closer a connection than the ones described in these articles. DePaul is a Catholic University- does that make them connected to these Arab groups? Does that mean that St. Vincent DePaul's order is tied to terrorists?

See?

And yes, I breathe objectivity all day long. Remember what I do for a living.

Move over to more fact and issue-based articles, Gary. I expect more from you.

Brilliant point, Bush and Bin Laden were friends, but I guess that doesn't count either.

Here, here! Now can we stop this silly nonsense and actually see how McCain and Obama match up on real issues that effect real Americans? The Republicans must be shaking in their boots over the idea of Obama facing McCain.

[GaryC 7]

Ah! The deflections are still pouring in! Keep it coming Obama fans! If you can't defend your position then make the other guy look just as bad.

Well Bush has connections with family members of terrorists, much closer a connection than the ones described in these articles. DePaul is a Catholic University- does that make them connected to these Arab groups? Does that mean that St. Vincent DePaul's order is tied to terrorists?

See?

And yes, I breathe objectivity all day long. Remember what I do for a living.

Move over to more fact and issue-based articles, Gary. I expect more from you.

Brilliant point, Bush and Bin Laden were friends, but I guess that doesn't count either.

Uh huh, Before they were terrorists. But that bit of information was left out I see. Try again.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Ah! The deflections are still pouring in! Keep it coming Obama fans! If you can't defend your position then make the other guy look just as bad.

McCain lost the election already, Gary. You'd be better off bracing yourself for that inevitability than be bitter.

[GaryC 7]

To be honest, 1+1=2.

Funny in all of this is how none of it reflects on Obama's actual official stance. Hence, pure gossip.

Not very objective are you? You have never heard of the saying "You are judged by the company you keep"? I wonder what the reaction would be if McCain had ties with terrorists?

Well Bush has connections with family members of terrorists, much closer a connection than the ones described in these articles. DePaul is a Catholic University- does that make them connected to these Arab groups? Does that mean that St. Vincent DePaul's order is tied to terrorists?

See?

And yes, I breathe objectivity all day long. Remember what I do for a living.

Move over to more fact and issue-based articles, Gary. I expect more from you.

Come on Mav, you know how that sounds? Try applying your working objectivity to your political thought. I would expect better from you.