Monday, June 22, 2009

Obama and the CIA: The latest

Sometimes, I think that Cinie and I are the only bloggers who care about the possible links between Barack Obama and the intelligence agencies. Most people lump that line of research in with that "birth certificate" nonsense, not to mention the "Obi the Muslim" smear. I consider the possible CIA connections to be a much more serious area of inquiry. Here's a sampler of some of my previous writings on the topic.

No, I don't claim that these Agency links have been proven with the precision of a geometrical formulation. But the evidence is suggestive -- perhaps more than suggestive. Before we get to Cinie's latest, let's summarize the top ten reasons for suspicion:

1. Obama's mother Ann Dunham took Russian-language classes and married a potential up-and-comer on the Kenyan political scene, at a time when cold warriors considered Kenya "in play." If you don't think that the '60s-era CIA would have paid attention to such a woman, read a few books about the CIA in the 1960s.

2. Later, and despite her alleged "leftist" leanings, she married a key liaison between Indonesian tyrant Suharto and American oil companies. The CIA "made" Suharto by staging a bloody coup in Indonesia, all with an eye toward benefitting oil interests. No genuine lefty would have exchanged two consecutive sentences with hubby #2.

3. During Ann's Indonesia period, Tim Geithner's father Peter ran the Ford Foundation's microfinance program in Indonesia. Ann worked with him. Long story short: Ford Foundation = CIA.

4. Ann's extensive travels abroad, often under the Ford Foundation aegis, would provide excellent cover for intelligence assignments. Her talent for languages was just what the CIA sought and seeks. Nobody knows why she once visited Pakistan or why she tried to learn Urdu.

5. Nobody knows the real reason why Obama, who lived in Hawaii, chose Occidental College in Los Angeles, an expensive (but second-tier) private institution. Obama became very interested in politics at this time. The chief political science prof at Oxy was an old CIA hand, as well as a longtime crony of Zbigniew Brzezinsky, who later became something of a mentor to Obama.

6. As a young man, Obama possessed both multiple passports and knowledge of a rather exotic (by American standards) foreign language. The CIA loves to recruit people like that. The CIA also likes to recruit people from CIA families.

7. In 1981, Obama traveled to Pakistan for no discernible reason, despite a State Department warning of unrest in the area. (There had been a coup.) At the time, Pakistan was a key cold war front, due to the CIA's efforts to supply the Afghan mujahadeen.

8. Nobody knows how Obama paid for these travels. He claims that he was then quite poor. Nobody really know how he paid for his expensive schooling, or why he was later accepted into a prestigious institution like Columbia despite having done indifferent schoolwork.

9. In Pakistan, Obama stayed with the powerful Ahmadmian Soomro -- a key mover-and-shaker in that nation. This, despite the fact that Obama knew no-one in the Soomro family. Soomro was asked to take in Obama by an unnamed personage at the American embassy, who was almost certainly CIA. Nobody knows what messages Obama may have given to Soomro.

10. Obama went on to live a strangely charmed life, perhaps due to off-stage helpers. For example, he received a princely sum for his first autobiography, despite being an unknown tyro author fresh out of college, with extremely vague ideas as to what he wanted to write about. One could cite many more examples to prove the point -- and one has done just that, over the course of many previous posts.

Okay, now let's get to Cinie's latest. She cites this WP story:
The Obama administration has proposed the creation of an intelligence officer training program in colleges and universities that would function much like the Reserve Officers' Training Corps run by the military services. The idea is to create a stream "of first- and second-generation Americans, who already have critical language and cultural knowledge, and prepare them for careers in the intelligence agencies," according to a description sent to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.

In recent years, the CIA and other intelligence agencies have struggled to find qualified recruits who can work the streets of the Middle East and South Asia to penetrate terrorist groups and criminal enterprises. The proposed program is an effort to cultivate and educate a new generation of career intelligence officers from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Under the proposal, part of the administration's 2010 intelligence authorization bill, colleges and universities would apply for grants that would be used to expand or introduce courses of study to "meet the emerging needs of the intelligence community." Those courses would include certain foreign languages, analysis and specific scientific and technical fields.

The students' participation in the program would probably be kept secret to prevent them from being identified by foreign intelligence services, according to an official familiar with the proposal.
Just imagine the outcry on Kos, DU and HuffPo if Bush had tried such a move!

30 comments:

Bob Harrison said...

I'd be thrilled if he were a CIA stooge-- then he would at least be something other than what he is.

Anonymous said...

You see no connection between what you have posted here about his CIA connections and the "birth certificate nonsense" or "his muslim roots"? I'm amazed.

Joseph Cannon said...

You're also anonymous, a good indicator of idiocy in these parts. Can't read, can you?

Peter of Lone Tree said...

CIA Recruiting Laid-Off Bankers in NYC

Anonymous said...

A good research topic would be What Hapenned To The Left. Who casterated them.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joseph Cannon said...

I really couldn't care what the dolts at RI think of me. I keep better company.

Anonymous said...

"You're also anonymous, a good indicator of idiocy in these parts. Can't read, can you?"

I hope you don't mind that I copy and paste your own statement Joseph. I'm only "anonymous" because I have no google account nor Open ID nor URL. My Name is Lonni. I'm a 62 year old woman and "idiocy" being your primary conception of an anonymous poster in these parts reflects your unwillingness to consider another persons view unless you have a name to go with it? I'm still amazed.....and stand by my first comment.

Joseph Cannon said...

I keep telling you people. Must have said it a hundred times. You don't have to sign in with Blogger. Just end with some sort of indicator of who you are. The same way you would end a snail mail letter. Like this:

-- Idiotic in Iowa

See? Not so hard, is it?

I imposed the "no anomymity rule" because it screens out most of the creeps. I's not an onerous rule. Most blogs ask for an email address.

Nibbles McGee said...

All of you attempting to lob these facts about Obama's history in with the COLB bullshit can go ahead and offer up another explanation for them any time. If you can come up with an innocuous explanation for the 1981 Mystery in particular, I'd love to read it. I doubt I will, though.

Joseph Cannon said...

I should add that the most outrageous thing about the 1981 mystery is that he completed two autobiographies without mentioning what must have been quite an adventure.

DaveB said...

OK, "Joseph" (not your real name is it?), I'm not anonymous, are you happy? So answer the lady's question, what is the difference between your ravings in this post and the 9/11 truthers and birthers you claim to deplore? And what is so sinister about microfinance, the only capital market the impoverished peoples of places like Bangladesh have access to? Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for this a couple years ago and no one I know of complained or called him a CIA stooge.

Anonymous said...

So answer the lady's question, what is the difference between your ravings in this post and the 9/11 truthers and birthers you claim to deplore?

A) Joseph doesn't wear a tinfoil hat

B) Joseph asks questions based on known facts and evidence

C) Joseph doesn't reach unwarranted conclusions or ignore contradictory evidence

D) All of the above

Anonymous said...

E: None of the above.

truly Idiotic in Iowa

elliewyatt said...

Items #4 & #9) "In 1986, Dunham did a one-year development project in Pakistan... for the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan ... followed by stints at People's Bank of Indonesia and Women's World Banking in New York. She also did consulting work for the World Bank and USAID." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOOwMgWY_VIA&refer=home

USAID had long been considered CIA also.

Wasn't 1986 the year Obama worked at Business International?

You mention that Obama stayed at the home of Ahmadmian Soomro. His son, Muhammad Mian Soomro was at some point CEO of the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan where Stanley worked.

Item #5) Obama has said that he attended Occidental on full scholarship. I have wondered how a B- student gets a full scholarship when there must surely be far better students vying for such a benefit.

OldCoastie said...

Well, I'm with you and Cinie, Joseph...

something doesn't smell right about O's spooky connections...

lastlemming@mac.com said...

Question: how do you justify connections with such notorious crooks as Rezko et al.
Answer: Because it's your job to keep an eye on them.

Question: How do you manage to avoid any legal prosecution with such connections?
Answer: because you were acting in the line of duty. In fact, you were part of the bait.

Question: How come these connections aren't used as political ammunition?
Answer: Because people like McCain know that while it's great political ammunition, it was all in the line of "patriotic duty" and any deep analysis of that role might compromise your cover and any further sting operations.

Question: How can Patrick Fitzgerald walk away from prosecuting you?
Answer: He's used to dealing with agents under cover. See prosecution of first World Trade Center bombing.


By the way, I have a spouse from a country that is suspended somewhere between the second and third world. Without giving away her identity I gave him a brief run down of Obama's mama's CV and asked what this person did for a living. He laughed and said, "why CIA, of course."

Anonymous said...

I think the hypothesis bears up well as an explanation for many of the peculiar facts as known so far, and is worth keeping in mind for future developments.

That said, why does Cinie call Obama 'the Pretendinent?' Sounds like a birther, although my first visit there didn't reveal that position on the linked site. Is that the case (that Cinie is a birther), or is there some other reason to imply the president is a pretender to his office?

XI

Sextus Propertius said...

So, basically he's our Vladimir Putin.

Or perhaps our Yuri Andropov.

dmd76 said...

Look what I found searching on Google for about 2 minutes.
According to his campaign staff, Mr. Obama visited Pakistan in 1981, on the way back from Indonesia, where his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, were living. He spent “about three weeks” there, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Bill Burton, said, staying in Karachi with the family of a college friend, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, but also traveling to Hyderabad, in India.
So much for "[traveling] to Pakistan for no discernible reason". What's that about Joseph not wearing a tinfoil hat?

Sophie said...

Why does Cinie call him Pretendinent? The answer is obvious and it has nothing to do with where he was born (if he was in fact even born). The only folks that don't get it are the Pretendizens.

Joseph Cannon said...

Screw you, dmd. You didn't bother to look into my previous stories, which discuss (and, if I recall correctly, name) Obama's Pakistani friends.

None of this explains the trip. If I met a Bosnian in college in 1994, it would still be odd for me to make a summer jaunt into what was, essentially, a war zone.

Incidentally, we now have confirmation that Obama knew Brzezinski at Columbia. Previously, this was denied.



Neither you nor Obama's press secretary have explained why someone from "the embassy" (and we all know what THAT means) made sure that young Obama stayed with an extremely powerful pro-American family in Pakistan, during Obama's jaunt to a town with no connection to anyone he met in college.

As I recall, the friends themselves were not without interest.

How did Obama pay for this? He claims in his books that at this time he wore thrift store clothing. His Grandmother wasn't THAT affluent. A student preparing for that transition would be expected to get a job to cover expenses. Obama seems never at any point in his life to have cared about expenses.

After Columbia, he took a $10,000 a year job with PIRG. SO the guy obviously did not worry about paying back loans.

And why the hell did Obama NEVER MENTION THIS 1981 ADVENTURE IN HIS TWO BOOKS? Not many men write TWO autobiographies before exiting their 40s.

Anonymous said...

DMD76 is a trool.

That's 1/2 troll and 1/2 tool

dmd76 said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Idiotic in Canada said...

All these "facts" could be explained without a Obama = CIA theory.

For example:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004417706_apyoungobama2ndldwritethru.html

"As a freshman, he quickly became friends with Mohammed Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid, two wealthy Pakistanis"

So, can we theorize he was invited by them in Pakistan ? Everyone of your points could be explained differently, but I guess your CIA theories are much more fun.

And what about Bill Clinton and the CIA ? You know, the Bill Clinton who never prosecuted the criminals of the Iran Contra scandal and allowed the CIA to keep on importing dope in the US ?

Joseph Cannon said...

I know of no evidence connecting Bill Clinton to the CIA. What Roger Morris offered was not evidence.

As for his Pakistani friends: I note that you leave much out. You're reading selectively.

LightPond said...

PatriotDEMs blog also has several articles on the CIA connection. I am thinking in particular of this one: http://patriotdems.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/the-red-dunhams-of-washington-state-1956/

Anonymous said...

Is that the case (that Cinie is a birther), or is there some other reason to imply the president is a pretender to his office?

XI




You mean, besides the known fact that he committed voter fraud in the primaries?

-----------

You know, the Bill Clinton who never prosecuted the criminals of the Iran Contra scandal

(Another leftist nut rears its ugly head. Sigh.)

There were investigations into Iran-Contra in the 80s (one by the Dems).The result? The 1987 Tower Commission report said Reagan had no knowledge; Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh said he couldn't be prosecuted because he was not mentally competent to stand trial.


North and Poindexter got off because an appeals judge ruled that the use of immunized testimony required vacating their convictions. In the two years that followed (1990-1992), Walsh decided not to re-try them.


In December 1992, Walsh said he had evidence showing GHW Bush had a deeper involvement than previously disclosed, but he still didn't re-try North and Poindexter, supoena GHW Bush's personal diaries (somehow it took him 5 years to find out they had been withheld from investigators), or even interview the man himself (in fact, Walsh made an agreement with GHW Bush not to do so before the election).


The 1987 Senate Iran-Contra panel - led by Lee Hamilton(D) - issued the report that essentially let GHW Bush off the hook, and in January 1993, as President, GHW Bush pardoned Weinberger, Abrams and four others. Robert Parry (who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories) says Walsh received no support from Bill Clinton and the Dems into a continuing investigation, but even he states flatly that the pardon of Weinberger by itself blocked any possible future incrimination of GHW Bush. i.e. there is nothing more that could reasonably have been done.

and allowed the CIA to keep on importing dope in the US ?

First, you mean cocaine, not dope (which is marijuana). Second, you fail to provide any evidence that the CIA had any continuing involvement in Colombian drug trafficking past the Reagan and GWH Bush admins. Third, even given such involvement, you assume he would be able to stop such completely without your proposing any mechanism for same. Fourth, (assuming such involvement)unless you are privy to top secret information, you are apparently making the assumption he did not try doing so due to the continuing presence of the cocaine trade in the US, whereas history shows us such trade (whether drugs or other contraband) continues even without assistance from any part of goverment.



Sergei Rostov

Anonymous said...

It's ironic that progressives used to protest the CIA even recruiting on campuses', and now the candidate they support not only wants this, but wants the universities to assist the CIA in pre-qualifiying them.


Sergei Rostov

Anonymous said...

(Slight correction: Ok, "dope" can refer to a number of things - pit, heroin, steroids, but I have never heard it applied to coke.)

The school money thing bothers me more now - I always figured his family (mostly his grandparents)paid for it. But hmmm:

- In 2007, he said he had only paid off his student loans "a few years ago." "A few" in common parlance means "3 or 4", which means 2003 or 2004. In 1994 he bought a townhouse; got a sweetheart deal for it, in fact, from Alex Giannoulis (of the mob family of the same name). If Obama was not lying, then he got a mortgage even though at the time he was carrying what, $80-100,000 in loans? So that was even more of a favor than I had at first thought. (Though I guess being made IL State Treasurer due to Obama's later endorsement was still a good return on that favor for Alex G. and his family).


Sergei Rostov