Obama, the passport scandal, and a murder

A reader has asked me to blog about a strange murder case, although I'm not sure if I can bring any "value added" to the discussion. All I can say is this: Though the incident is a year old and the sources cited leave me feeling queasy, the allegations do convey a substantial intrigue factor.

According to the Moonie Times of April 19, 2008,

A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.

Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast...

A full year later, many right-wing blogs are treating this story as though it were literally yesterday's news. (See, for example, the wackiness on display here.) I wonder why?

Harris was a witness in a strange mini-scandal which some of you may recall. In March of 2008, various news articles revealed that State Department employees had rifled through the passport files of candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain.

The original reports mentioned only Obama. Naturally, the progbloggers concluded that eeee-vil Hillary Clinton -- who, in the fevered imaginings of the Kossacks, ran the Bush State Department -- was the culprit. The comments here are a reminder of just how sick "the left" became:

And that in tern makes it quite possible that it was the Clinton people rather than any Republican campaign that was doing it.

Methinks Hillary has some 'splainin to do!!!

Interesting Clinton connection there... Of course, with the incestuous infolds of Penn, Black (and Rove and Mehlman), all information is probably shared between the McBush and Clinton teams at any rate. Bush probably sells it to them.

Olberman was strongly intimating Clinton supporter involvement.

Maybe Hillary would have to resign her Senate seat too.

And how is it that nobody spied on Hillary or McCain?

And so on, and so on. As an emitic, those old Kos threads serve a useful function.

Turns out someone at State did spy on Hillary and McCain, albeit at different times and (perhaps) for different reasons. The Kossack Konspiracists presumed that these latter revelations were bogus, intended to take the heat off what they are pleased to call the "Clinton-Bush crime family."

Which brings us back to the present day.

One of my least favorite right-wing bloggers, Pamela Geller -- who is still pushing the "certificate of birth" nonsense -- connects the passport scandal and the Harris murder to Obama's strange 1981 trip to Pakistan. Much as I loathe Geller, the Pakistan thing is like catnip to me. And so...

(excuse me while I affix a clothespin to my nose)

...let's see what Pammikins has to say about that:

On April 8, 2008, Obama confessed to having taken a trip to Pakistan in 1981.

Much speculation has been made about what national passport Obama used when he traveled to Pakistan in 1981.

So Obama confessed to this trip two weeks after his passport was tampered with.

Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and ruled of martial law. Millions of Afghan refugees were living in Pakistan, while the Afghan Mujahedeen operated from bases inside Pakistan in their war with the Soviets. One of the leaders that based his operation in Quetta, Pakistan was Usama Bin Laden (The Sheik).

Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business. (more here)

The link goes to one of those Obi-the-Muslim crank sites. We may safely ignore that side-journey.

Nevertheless, it is true that Obama did go to Pakistan in 1981, even though the State Department strongly advised against doing so. Geller also notes (or rather, quotes) the following:

According to published reports in Pakistan, Obama in 1981 also stayed at the home of a prominent politician, Ahmad Mian Soomro, in an upscale Karachi suburb, and went on a traditional partridge hunting trip north of Karachi. Soomro’s son, Muhammad Mian Soomro, is a senior politician who served as acting president before the appointment of President Asif Ali Zardari last September.

It's pretty clear that Geller and the other right-wingers want to paint Obama as a secret jihadi. The right-wingers are hinting, without stating, that the passport scandal and the murder of Harris resulted from an attempt to uncover that disturbing past -- or, perhaps, to hide it.

I don't buy that theory. Despite the crazed assertions of many reactionary nutters, Obama is not a Muslim, and certainly not a kill-crazy jihadist.

Nevertheless, something odd definitely was a-brewing in Pakistan back then. Ask yourself: Aside from jihadis, who else went to that part of the world in that era?

Forgive my putting the matter in pop cultural terms, but James Bond himself made the trip not many years later, in The Living Daylights. Bond was hardly a Muslim, now, was he? No. His journey was all part of the great game against the Russkies.

In previous posts, I have argued that young Barack Obama may have been inveigled into some rather Bondian adventuring. That scenario would explain, in part, the strange visit to Pakistani bigwig Soomro.

While in Karachi, Obama had stayed at the residence of his college friend, Hassan Chandio. In Jacobabad, he was the guest of Soomro family. Muhammadmian Soomro confirmed this information and said it was his first meeting with Obama.

"Yes, he had been our guest and spent three days in Jacobabad," he told The News. Soomro, presently in the US, his second home, said an American friend had told his father, Ahmadmian Soomro, about Obama's arrival in Pakistan and asked him to look after the American. Soomro's father was the deputy speaker of West Pakistan Assembly and had also later served in the Senate.

Ahmadmian Soomro had also served in banking industry and was considered a pioneer in cooperative banking. By the time Soomro's father had hosted Obama, he was only a college student who went to Pakistan on his way from Indonesia where his mother was working with the Ford Foundation's micro credit finance project. Also Obama's mother was a frequent traveller to Pakistan and according to Time Magazine, she had a little bit proficiency in speaking Urdu.

When Soomro was asked about the person who referred Obama to his father, he said he nowadays lived in some country in South America. He was, however, reluctant to disclose his identity, saying he will have to seek permission from that man before giving his profile.

Although, Obama has not disclosed his link with Soomro, he mentioned it during his canvassing campaign while talking to a Pakistani American, Shahid Ahmad Khan, member of Board of Trustees Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The mystery man who arranged the Soomro/Obama meeting sure smells like CIA to me. Your nostrils may work differently.

But why in hell would the Agency act on behalf of a feckless American college student? I mean, during my college days, I had plenty of feck, yet the intelligence community would never have introduced me to any foreign movers-n-shakers. Sniff.

And how the hell could Barack Obama -- allegedly penurious and wearing thrift store clothing -- afford such a trip?

And even if he scraped together the lolly by selling magazine subscriptions, why would a young American who had never seen the Sistine Chapel or the Louvre want to go to freaking Karachi?

In my previous posts, I have argued that Obama was recruited for this trip by a political science professor at Oxy. This prof had (and has) a CIA background, as well as close ties to Obama's political mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. At this point, of course, we can only guess as to what the purpose of the mission was. Presumably, the Agency had to deliver a message to Soomro -- a message that could not be entrusted to either phones or mail.

Ah, but why would this prof pick out young Barack Obama for this task, as opposed to one of his other students?

Passports.

As a former Indonesian citizen, young Barry probably possessed two passports. The Agency just loves people who have two. At that time, the Indonesian passport would have made travel to (and within) Pakistan much easier.

There's another reason why Obama may have been recruited. I have argued that Obama comes from a rather spooky family. As mentioned above, Stanley Ann Dunham, our current president's mother, also went to Pakistan -- for reasons that have no discernible link to her career path. She even learned Urdu. Why?

Certainly, Barack Obama Sr. -- an up-and-comer in a nation in danger of turning to the Soviet bloc -- was exactly the kind of person the CIA likes to keep an eye on. The Agency would have been seriously off its game if it had not noticed his liaison with Ann as they pursued left-wing studies in Hawaii.

Ann later married an Indonesian executive who was the liaison between the Mobil corporation and the dictator Suharto. The CIA had installed Suharto by way of a very bloody coup, in order to further Mobil's interests in Indonesia. Obama pretty much admits all of this -- including the CIA connection -- in Dreams From My Father, although he is suspiciously coy about admitting his stepfather's actual job.

Later still, Ann worked with the Ford Foundation, a very well-known cover for CIA personnel overseas. (See here.)

The evidence adds up. Of course, for a die-hard Obi fanatic, no amount of evidence will suffice, but many others will see the pattern. In short and in sum: I suspect (but cannot prove) that Ann was recruited by the Agency -- or rather, by one of our spy agencies -- and that her many overseas activities had a covert component.

She was spooky. And spookiness tends to run in the family.

Nota bene: Obama kept his hair-raising Pakistan adventure completely under wraps for many years. He never alluded to it in public. He wrote two autobiographies without once mentioning a dangerous trip to an exotic war zone -- a trip that most guys would consider rather thrilling and colorful.

Does that reticence strike you as odd? Sure strikes me as odd.

Even odder: One month after the passport scandal, Obama -- a propos de rien -- let slip that he had been to Pakistan.

Did he have reason to suspect that the fact would soon come out? Was he thinking "It's better if people hear about this from me first"?

Hm. Methinks I did add a little value to this story after all. Alas, I still have no theory of the Harris murder.