The Birthers and the Citizeners …. A Letter From Aunt Gladys
In 2008 US Presidential Election ushered in the 56th President of the United States. The Election, carried out every 4 years, was completed on 4 November with the new president officially sworn in on 22 January of 2009
Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received a sweeping mandate by winning 365 electoral votes vs. 173 for his Republican opponent John McCain. This mandate would have been sufficient to give Obama unprecedented powers should he have been the candidate with the necessary skill and experience to use it. He was not.
Barack Obama ran on a simple platform promising sweeping change in the machinery of government and gave his popular constituency a hope that he was neither able to, nor did he actually have any intention of carrying out. It was a great disappointment in the man and his agenda.
This election packed so many firsts that it stands out in US political history as the most significant since WW II. It was the first U.S. presidential election, in which a non-white received the nomination of one of the two major parties as well as the first election in which a non-white was elected President,
During the early stages of Obama’s campaign, the negative noises, normal in US elections in general, were focused on his color, his liberal agenda and his inexperience. His opponents in the racist South, dismissing him as one with little to no chance of going anywhere in his bid for the top boss job, were only rattled by the precedence he had set for Non-Whites to run for the great office of president of the United States.
But once Obama's real sweeping popularity became obvious and his chance of winning the election loomed larger than what his detractors thought it comfortable to contend with, Conspiracy theories began to be weaved and emerge. Accusations ranging from his religion, his origin, and oddly enough, his membership in terrorist organizations flew left and right propelled by the nutter machinery of over the top radio talk shows.
But perhaps
the most outrageous and most egregious attack designed to discredit
Barack Obama and render his bid for office illegal and his winning unlawful was
the question of his US birth. A conspiracy theory of sort
concocted by his most implacable enemies purported that he was not born in the
United States, a constitutional condition that must be met for anyone to run
for the office of president and occupy the White House.
Confident of his position and aware of the hidden hatred, Mr. Obama elected to remain aloof and dismissed his attackers as unworthy of the dignity of response. However, the attacks escalated and the Obama advisers had enough of the nonsense and showed his official birth record in the state of Hawaii ending the vicious rumor.
This is where the resemblance is to a case that has taken Egypt by storm. Mr. Hazzem Abu Ismail, an accomplished lawyer and a conservative from the group known as the Salafi Muslims, does not mince words when he speaks of America as the reigning Lucifer over the dominion of the Earth. His strong position towards taking Egypt out of the subservient role to the United States and building it to full independence economically, politically and militarily has ruffled the feathers of the Neocons and the Zionists who rule the US.
History has repeated itself. At the behest of the Obama administration a story was concocted claiming that Mr. Abu Ismail is not lawfully entitled to run in the presidential race in Egypt. Why? His mother, the Egyptian authorities allege, was a naturalized United States Citizen. This, according to Egyptian law, precludes Mr. Ismail from running in the race.
Mr. Ismail demanded proof of this allegation and countered by saying that his deceased mother had been holder of a permanent residency status in the US but had not been actually naturalized. When pressed, the Egyptian Government produced a nonsensical letter it claimed came from the United States Department of State claiming that the lady in question was naturalized in 2006 but presented no material evidence admissible at law, nor presented any credible facts other than a perfunctory purport that the US does not tell a Lie! Ridiculous and retarded as this may sound, it is actually all the evidence that the Egyptian government presented to support its case against Mr. Abu Ismail.
Judging by the similarity
of the cases between both Mr. Obama’s detractors, who came to be known in the
US as the Birthers, and Mr. Ismail’s detractors, whom I am dubbing the “Citizeners”, it appears that this seemingly fraudulent and
unsubstantiated allegation was cooked in the political kitchen of the US
Department of State.
A letter from the State
Department without supporting documentation in the form of official photocopies
of original records with photos signatures dates and official seal of the
United States is not proof of anything, much less admissible as evidence in a
court of law since it seems that this is where the case will be heading in
Egypt.
And while Aunt Gladys may
be telling the truth, she could also be biased, corrupt, senile or legally
blind, and while a court of law would treat her kindly and take her testimony
only perfunctorily under advisement it would dismiss it as inadmissible or at
best insufficient evidence presented as hearsay.
US naturalized citizens
pass through a myriad of procedures and Tape-Recorded Video Interviews, and
their files undergo exhausting processes each of which leaves a heavy paperwork
trail of archived material and authenticating documents. And once Naturalization
is completed and Citizenship is granted, an ornate certificate of
naturalization is presented in a highly publicized ceremony with funfair, while
also Photographs are taken for official as well as ceremonial proof. All this
is ready and available to any senior State Department official authorized to
respond to a request for evidence submitted domestically or by a foreign entity
provided that it meets the standard set of laws controlling freedom of
information as well as privacy of information.
Regardless of whether the allegation has any merit, surely someone in the US negative rumors machinery must have known that if they made the allegation they would have to produce the supporting evidence, and that the supporting evidence should be more than a letter signed by Aunt Gladys swearing that she was a friend of Mr. Abu Ismail’s mother and she had seen her with her own very eyes applying for US citizenship.
Shame on you Mr. Obama, and Shame on you Hillary Clinton. I expected something a little more professional out of both of you. Next time, perhaps may I suggest a letter from Uncle Pete swearing that Aunt Gladys is not a crook!
