Obama , Ahmadinejad and Imam Mehdi AJTFJ

Assalamou 'alaikoum wa Rahmatou Allahi wa Barakatouhou;

Letter from Barack Obama on His Muslim Heritage

Je m'excuse auprès du MODERATEUR, mais je n'ai pas eu le temps de traduire, d'autant plus que de l'anglais, au Français, GOOGLE (options linguitiques" fait un bon travail)...

There has been a lot made in the recent weeks about the Muslim history of my family. Some of the things that have been said are true, others are false, so I am writing this letter to clear up the misunderstandings on this issue.

Yes, it is true that I have a name that is common amongst Kenyan Muslims where my father came from and that my middle name is Hussein. Barack is a name which means "blessing" and Hussein is a masculine form of the word beauty. Since there is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of blessings from God and the beauty He creates I fail to see the problem with these names. Some will say wouldn't it be a problem to have a president with a name similar to the deposed and executed former dictator of Iraq? My answer to this is simply no; rather it is the strength
and beauty of America that the son of an African man with a "funny sounding" name, born under British Colonial Rule, can now be a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States .

My father was a Muslim and although I did not know him well the religion of my father and his family was always something I had an interest in. This interest became more intense when my mother married an Indonesian Muslim man and as a small child I lived in Indonesia and attended school alongside Muslim pupils. I saw their parents dutifully observing the daily prayers, the mothers covered in the Muslim hijab, the atmosphere of the school change during Ramadan, and the festiveness of the Eid celebrations.
The man my mother was married to was not particularly religious; but he would attend the mosque on occasion, and had copies of the Quran in different languages in the home, and books of the sayings and life of the Prophet Muhammad. From time to time he would quote Islamic phrases such as "no one truly believes until he wants for his brother what he wants for himself", "oppression is worse than slaughter", and "all humans are equal the only difference comes from our deeds".

Growing up in Hawaii with my mother and her grandparents Islam largely escaped my mind. My mother installed in me the values of humanism and I did not grow-up in a home were religion was taught.

It was later while I attended college at Columbia University and Harvard Law that I became reacquainted with Muslims as both schools had large Muslims student populations. Some of them were my friends and many came from countries that our nation now has hostile relations with. The background I had from my early childhood in Indonesia helped me get to know them and learn from them and to me Muslims are not to be looked upon as something strange. In my experiences up until college a Muslim was no less exotic to me than a Mormon, a Jew, or a Jehovah's Witness.

After college I settled in my adopted hometown of Chicago and lived on the South Side and worked as a community organizer. Chicago has one of the largest Muslim populations in America (estimated to be around 300,000) and Muslims make-up some of the most productive citizens in the area. I met countless numbers of Muslims in my job as an organizer and later on in my early political career. I ate in their homes, played with their kids, and looked at them as friends and peers and sought their advice.

Therefore, when the tragic terrorist attacks of 9-11 occurred I was deeply saddened with the rest of America , and I wanted justice for the victims of this horrific attack, but I did not blame all Muslims or the religion of Islam. From my experience I knew the good character of most Muslims and the value that they bring to America. Many, who did not personally know Muslims, indicted the entire religion for the bad actions of a few; my experience taught me that this was something foolish and unwise.

Later I had the chance to visit the homeland of my father and meet Muslim relatives of my including my grandmother. I found that these were people who wanted the same things out of life as people right here in America and worked hard, strive to make a better way for their children, and prayed to God to grant them success.

This is what I will bring to the office of the Presidency of the United States. I will deal with Muslims from a position of familiarity and respect and at this time in the history of our nation that is something sorely needed .

--------------
Commentary: Obama and Ahmadinejad
Amir Taheri 10.26.08, 1:33 PM ET

Is Barack Obama the “promised warrior” coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shi’ite Muslims conquer the world?

The question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shi’ite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bihar al-Anwar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlesi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shi’ite Islam.

According to the tradition, Imam Ali ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a “tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West.” Commanding “the strongest army on earth,” the new ruler in the West will carry “a clear sign” from the third imam, whose name was Husayn ibn Ali.

The tradition concludes: “Shi’ites should have no doubt that he is with us.”

In a curious coincidence Obama’s first and second names – Barack Hussein – mean “the blessing of Husayn” in Arabic and Persian.

His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means “he is with us,” the magic formula in Majlesi’s tradition.

Mystical reasons aside, the Khomeinist establishment sees Obama’s rise as another sign of the West’s decline and the triumph of Islam.

Obama’s promise to seek unconditional talks with the Islamic Republic is cited as a sign that the U.S. is ready to admit defeat. Obama’s position could mean abandoning three resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council setting conditions that Iran should meet to avoid sanctions.

Seeking unconditional talks with the Khomeinists also means an admission of moral equivalence between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic. It would imply an end to the description by the U.S. of the regime as a “systematic violator of human rights.”

Obama has abandoned claims by all U.S. administrations in the past 30 years that Iran is “a state sponsor of terrorism.” Instead, he uses the term “violent groups” to describe Iran-financed outfits such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Obama has also promised to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference within the first 100 days of his presidency.

Such a move would please the mullahs, who have always demanded that Islam be treated differently, and that Muslim nations act as a bloc in dealings with Infidel nations.

Obama’s election would boost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chances of winning a second term next June. Ahmadinejad’s entourage claim that his “steadfastness in resisting the American Great Satan” was a factor in helping Obama defeat “hardliners” such as Hillary Clinton and, later, it hopes, John McCain.

“President Ahmadinejad has taught Americans a lesson,” says Hasan Abbasi, a “strategic adviser” to the Iranian president.

“This is why they are now choosing someone who understands Iran’s power.” The Iranian leader’s entourage also point out that Obama copied his campaign slogan “Yes, We Can” from Ahmadinejad’s “We Can,” used four years ago.

A number of Khomeinist officials have indicated their preference for Obama over McCain, who is regarded as an “enemy of Islam.” A Foreign Ministry spokesman says Iran does not wish to dictate the choice of the Americans but finds Obama “a better choice for everyone.” Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Majles, Iran’s ersatz parliament, has gone further by saying the Islamic Republic “prefers to see Barack Obama in the White House” next year.

Tehran’s penchant for Obama, reflected in the official media, increased when the Illinois senator chose Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate. Biden was an early supporter of the Khomeinist revolution in 1978-1979 and, for the past 30 years, has been a consistent advocate of recognizing the Islamic Republic as a regional power.

He has close ties with Khomeinist lobbyists in the U.S. and has always voted against sanctions on Iran.

Ahmadinejad has described the U.S. as a “sunset” (ofouli) power as opposed to Islam, which he says is a “sunrise” (tolou’i) power.

Last summer, he inaugurated an international conference called World Without America--attended by anti-Americans from all over the world, including the U.S.

Seen from Tehran, Obama’s election would demoralize the U.S. armed forces by casting doubt on their victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, if not actually transforming them into defeat.

American retreat from the Middle East under Obama would enable the Islamic Republic to pursue hegemony of the region.

Tehran is especially interested in dominating Iraq, thus consolidating a new position that extends its power to the Mediterranean through Syria and Lebanon.

During the “World Without America” conference, several speakers speculated that Obama would show “understanding of Muslim grievances” with regard to Palestine.

Ahmadinejad hopes to persuade a future President Obama to adopt the “Iranian solution for Palestine,” which aims at creating a single state in which Jews would quickly become a minority.

Judging by anecdotal evidence and the buzz among Iranian bloggers, while the ruling Khomeinists favour Obama, the mass of Iranians regard (and dislike) the Democrat candidate as an appeaser of the mullahs. Iran, along with Israel, is the only country in the Middle East where the United States remains popular. An Obama presidency, perceived as friendly to the oppressive regime in Tehran, may change that.

--

Amir Taheri is the author of 10 books on Iran, the Middle East and Islam. His new book “The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution” will be published by Encounter Books in November.

----
www.biography.com/featured-biography/barack-obama/index.jsp
Barack Obama, the junior U. S. Senator from Illinois, is the first ever African–American to become the presumptive presidential nominee for a U. S. major political party. On June 3, 2008, he gained enough delegates to be nominated by the Democratic party at its national convention in August.

Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G. I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack’s father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama’s parents were students at the East–West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue Ph. D. studies and then returned to Kenya.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East–West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro–Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African–American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

www.monstersandcritics.com/dvd/reviews/article_1423765.ph...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

www.barackobama.com/about/

www.barackobama.com/splash/first_to_know.html

-------------
By Bill Rigby - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. defense contractors thrive as well during Democratic administrations, if not better, than in Republican ones, and the likely election of Barack Obama as president offers no hint of being an exception.

Defense is still largely a labor intensive, old-line manufacturing business, with close ties to the Democratic Party, and no president wants to do anything that would cut American jobs, especially in a time of economic distress.

"This president is going to care more about manufacturing jobs than any other president in a generation," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based think-tank which specializes in defense issues.

"People will be surprised at how stable weapons spending will be. Is Barack Obama really going to cut military purchases at major weapons plants in swing states like Florida, Virginia and Colorado?"

Besides economic concerns, the United States still faces security threats and the growth of China's ambitions, making cuts to big defense programs even more unpopular.

"The basic, core defense budget will not be reduced because I don't think it can afford to be reduced," said Clay Jones, chief executive of Rockwell Collins Inc (COL.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which makes cockpit gear for military and commercial planes.

"If you believe what (the candidates) have said, I don't think they are going to come in and gut the defense budget."

END OF THE PARTY

Growth in military spending is expected to moderate after the war-fueled bonanza under President George W. Bush, but no one in the industry expects spending to go down.

U.S. defense spending climbed over 60 percent during the Bush administration, to $542.5 billion for fiscal 2009, plus $70 billion of supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The supplemental budget would be the first to go, if Obama moved to draw down the U.S. military presence in Iraq. That would hurt companies that supply hardware and logistics to active U.S. forces, but could free up money for long-term contracts building fighters, bombers, warships and missiles -- the bread and butter for Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other big contractors.

At worst, the growth in core defense spending "will slow to the rate of inflation, about 2 or 3 percent," said Jones at Rockwell Collins, from the 5 to 8 percent annual growth under Bush.

Despite that relatively strong outlook in the face of a recession, defense companies have been punished alongside other sectors in the recent market-wide selloff. Further dips would be a good time to buy, some analysts say.

The Standard & Poor's Aerospace and Defense index , which had fallen 35 percent this year at Monday's close, was up more than 4 percent on Tuesday as Obama took a handy opinion poll lead into election day.

DEMOCRATS LIKE WEAPONS TOO

History suggests no basis for investor pessimism.

"Defense stock performance and budget growth have shown little correlation with the party in the White House or the party in control of Congress," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned, in a research note this week.

If anything, Democrats are the big spenders.

"If you look at the full sweep of the 20th century, Democrats presided over four of the five big weapons build-ups," said Lexington's Thompson, referring to two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.

The exception is the Cold War build-up under Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. His successor, Bill Clinton, established the modern-day preconception that Democrats cut defense budgets by slashing spending in the 1990s as the United States reacted to the Soviet Union's demise.

MCCAIN FEAR

Defense contractors would probably dislike a surprise victory by Republican candidate John McCain, whose crusade against Boeing Co's (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sway over the U.S. Air Force helped establish his reputation as a maverick in Washington, D.C.

"There's a peculiar mismatch between people's stereotypes of the parties and the way they actually behave in regard to the defense industry," said Thompson. "Senior Republicans like (Dick) Cheney, (Donald) Rumsfeld and McCain detest the defense industry. Senior Democrats actively court it."

Former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld never spoke directly to leaders of defense contractors about his ambitious plans to modernize U.S. weaponry. Many top executives at defense contractors are lifelong Democrats, according to Thompson.

"McCain would be much worse for defense contractors," he said. "They might make as much as money, but be miserable doing it. McCain starts with the assumption that the defense industry is corrupt."

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Likely losers in the event of an Obama win are companies with lucrative contracts supplying U.S. forces in Iraq, such as bullet-maker Alliant Techsystems Inc (ATK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), armor plate maker Ceradyne Inc (CRDN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), or large contractors making fighting vehicles such as General Dynamics Corp (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Boeing looks like a winner, given Democrats' staunch support for the company in its effort to win a controversial $35 billion refueling tanker contract, which will be put up for grabs again next year.

Lockheed's massive Joint Strike Fighter project also looks to be safe, as a prime example of a major jobs-providing program, which it would be political suicide to cut.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

============

Cessation of Iraq hostilities hits BAE Systems

By Rebecca Burn-Callander Thursday, 16 February 2012
Peace is bad for business at BAE. The defence giant today reported a nosedive (A very steep dive of an aircraft.)in annual revenues following cuts in the UK and America.
Tagged by:

Economy,
Government,
Saudi Arabia,
Enterprise,
Defence,
BAE Systems,
US,
UK,
BAE,
Aerospace & Defence

Further Reading

European manufacturing contraction slows
Britain's Most Admired Companies 2011: Engineering - aero & defence sector
Government announces enterprise zones in BAE redundancy hotspots
BAE defenceless over job cuts

The end of the Iraq war, Obama’s US defence cuts and slashed UK military spending have caused a spot of turbulence for BAE, manufacturer of everything from rifle bullets to the Typhoon jet fighter. Turnover has lost altitude: £19.2bn in sales for 2011, down 14% on the previous year. And profits have plunged by 7% to an EBITDA of £2bn.

The ‘age of austerity’ has been troublesome for the London-headquartered firm. It generates 47% of its revenues from the US and 29% from Britain. The former has just capped its defence budgets while the UK has sliced 8% off its miltary spending over the next four years. Competition for remaining defence contracts is fierce: just this month, BAE lost out to French rival Dassault on a $11bn (£7bn) contract to make an Indian government fighter jet.

Chief executive Ian King says: ‘BAE Systems is operating in a difficult business environment as defence spending reduces in its largest markets, the US and UK. Whilst little sales growth can be expected for the group in 2012 in the current market conditions, modest growth in underlying earnings per share is anticipated.’

BAE does have a few other lucrative contracts pending, however: an order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets by Saudi Arabia is still in the pipeline, albeit delayed. And BAE’s R&D tax settlement for 2011 is due to land any minute.

Like many other major defence players, BAE is trying to get into new markets - particularly the fragmented and rapidly growing pirvate security business. But in the meantime, its fortunes are tied to western government budgets, so it's in for a pretty thin time...

============