By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
February 14, 2009

Members of President Barrack Hussein Obama's immediate family living in Africa exposes the presidency to potential intimidation, blackmail, and coercion by an unrelenting and deadly enemy . . . thus creating a serious threat to United States national security.

Candidate Obama sealed the fate of his African family when he promised that if elected president, he would make hunting down Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda terrorists a priority.

"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I will not," Obama said in May 2008. "We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets, like bin Laden, if we have them in our sights."

Al-Qaeda has a bloody history of mercilessly decimating its enemies and their families caring for neither race nor religion. Its actions demonstrate an absolute willingness to fight their jihad with kidnappings, murders and suicide bombings all over the world. It has proven itself to be the single greatest threat to the United States. Although bin Laden is isolated from the day-to-day operations of al-Qaeda, his terrorist organization is spreading its influence deep into Africa.

Candidate Obama's loud pre-election protests that he was never a Muslim provoked bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide attacks against the United States, to later single out President Obama with a special indictment.

Bin Laden sees Obama as a "murtad fitri," the worst type of Muslim heretic (apostate) because he was "blessed by Allah" to be born into the faith of Islam. President Obama's father and grandfather were Muslims and he was schooled as a Muslim. Al-Qaida has prominently featured Obama's statement, "I am not a Muslim."

Immediately after Obama was elected president, al-Qaeda's No. 2 man Ayman al-Zawahri released a recording during which he described President-elect Obama - along with former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice - as "house negroes" doing the bidding of whites.

He declared Obama's plan to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan as doomed to failure, because Afghans would annihilate U.S. troops. "Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them," al-Zawahri threatened.

The message also made reference to Obama's Muslim father and his Christian religion. "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America … And so you promised to back Israel, and you threatened to strike the tribal regions in Pakistan, and to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, in order for the crimes of the American crusade in it to continue."

The question is not whether bin Laden's al Qaeda will go after unprotected members President Obama's Kenyan family. It is when and how.

Last year, dozens of al Qaeda terrorists kidnapped a Muslim Iraqi tribal chieftain, along with 13 members of his family in Iraq's Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, because he was opposing al Qaeda.

The heavily-armed insurgents critically wounded Mandeel's son and his daughter in-law before taking away Mandeel and 13 members of his family. Mandeel's house and several nearby houses were damaged and some were burned down.

Such brutal tactics should easily signify similar retribution to come against President Obama's Kenyan family.

Obama's Muslim roots run deep

President Obama's father was born a member of the Luo tribe in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. Obama Senior's Luo father (President Obama's grandfather), Hussein Onyango Obama, was a prominent and wealthy farmer who converted from Christianity to Islam.

In President Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, his step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, traced his male ancestral line in Africa back 12 generations. President Obama has at least one great and revered Luo leader on the African side of his ancestry.

One of President Obama's great-grandfathers (several generations back), "Owiny," was said to be a powerful leader of the Luo tribe, which moved into Kenya some 400 years ago.

Sarah Obama, a devout Muslim, was quoted telling President Obama, "What your grandfather respected was strength. Discipline. This is also why he rejected the Christian religion, I think. For a brief time he converted [to Christianity], and even changed his name to Johnson. But he could not understand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that this man Jesus could wash away a man's sins. To your grandfather, this was a foolish sentiment, something to comfort women. And so he converted to Islam -- he thought its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs."

President Obama's grandfather, from whom he received his middle name Hussein, was "fiercely devoted to Islam." He had at least three wives: Helima, who had no children; Akuma, who gave birth to Sarah Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Auma Obama. The third wife was Sarah, whom President Obama refers to as his "grandmother." Sarah became the primary caregiver for Obama Senior after his natural mother, Akuma, left the family when her children were still young.

President Obama said his quest for the presidency was "inspired" by his "love of the country [Africa] that allowed his father to triumph against astonishing odds."

Just one day before the Jan. 3, 2008 Iowa caucus, Sen. Obama (D-Ill.), who was on his way to be America's first African-American president, taped a message from Iowa to Kenya for broadcast on Voice of America asking the Kenyan people to stop the violence that erupted in the wake of a disputed presidential election.

Kenya, homeland of the Obama family's Luo tribe, had burst into violence after President Obama's cousin Raila Odinga, a fiery Luo tribe opposition leader and Kenya presidential candidate, alleged that the December 2007 election that returned to office President Mwai Kibaki of the Kikuyu tribe was rigged.

More than 360 people were killed and more than 250,000 displaced, provoking a humanitarian crisis in a country previously considered a stable pillar in east Africa.

In one bloody incident, about 200 people, mainly Kikuyus (the same tribe as President Kibaki) desperately sought safety in the Kenya Assemblies of God church. A gang of 2,000 armed young men from the Luo, Kalenjin and Luhya tribes stormed and torched the church.

Witnesses reported that when people -- at least 80 of them children -- tried to flee the inferno, they where hacked to death with machetes. The attackers were backers of defeated presidential candidate Odinga, who was claiming that President Kibaki had rigged the election.

Odinga has links to Islamic extremists in Kenya, according to Voice of America and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya. Odinga signed a secret agreement with Sheikh Abdullah Abdi of the National Muslim Leaders Forum in which he agreed to institute Islamic law in exchange for Abdi's support. Establishment of Islamic Law in Kenya would disenfranchise and curtail the liberties of millions of Kenyan Christians. President Obama's cousin also promised that Muslims suspected of terrorism would be safe from extradition -- thereby establishing a safe haven for terrorists in Kenya.

Since President Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe was the target of the killings, and members of the President Obama's Luo tribe were doing the killing, one can image what the Kikuyu tribe now thinks of President Obama.

During a 2006 Kenya visit, Sen. Obama was asked if he sees himself as a Kenyan-American. He answered, "I'm an American and proud of it, and I'm also an African-American, which means I share a bond of struggle, but also joy, with people of African descent everywhere."

In August 2006, Sen. Obama made an emotional visit to Kenya, the homeland of his late father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. It was a highly publicized visit, a prelude to Sen. Obama's campaign to become president of the United States.

He has visited Kenya three times, in 1987, 1992, and 2006. His first was while he was in school. The second visit came while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago and the third was as a high profile United States senator. He was welcomed as a hero, "the son of a Luo tribesman."

In an interview, the senator said he hoped his trip would shine a spotlight on Africa's struggles, from the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region to the promise of elections in the Congo.

Sen. Obama told the people of Kenya that he wanted everyone in America to know about their troubles, and promised to push for the United States to help.

"All of you are my brothers. All of you are my sisters," the Illinois Democrat, 46, said after his tour of Kibera, where "700,000 people jammed into 1 square mile, with little access to water and other basic services."

Odinga capitalized on Sen. Obama's popularity by portraying Obama's 2006 trip to Kenya as a personal endorsement for Odinga against the Kibaki government.

Today, because President Obama has direct family roots in the African continent, specifically Kenya, millions of Kenyans are waiting for him to offer a timeline for fixing Kenya's suffering economy.

According to Kenyan traditions, President Obama is considered a Kenyan because his father was from Kenyan. Kenyans abroad are expected to help their less fortunate relatives. President Obama's quest to understand his African roots and develop relationships with his father's extended family has been taken to mean he has accepted that responsibility.

Kenyans perceive a president as a supreme figure - one whose word is law. Kenyan presidents usually oblige their tribesmen and political friends with lucrative favors.

When the reality strikes that President Obama will not make a heavenly appearance from America to end Kenya's economic miseries, Kenyans most certainly will feel betrayed and react bitterly.

Angry Luo tribesmen showed no mercy when they torched the church and hacked to death opposing tribesmen and their children as they tried to flee being burned alive. Will the Kikuyus single out President Obama's family in retribution for the church massacre?

With al Qaeda's history of violence and mayhem, there is little doubt that President Obama's family is in danger because of his threat to eliminate bin Laden and his renunciation of his Muslim birth.

The question Americans must ask themselves is to what lengths will President Obama go in order to protect his Kenyan family's safety?

Will al Qaeda demand ransom in the form of weapons, military information or political concessions?

Will President Obama do nothing as members of his family are tortured or beheaded?

Will he send American troops and treasure into still another confrontation with radical Islam?

The possibilities form a serious security risk for the United States and its citizens. And if al Qaeda's history truly is a prelude, the risk will come sooner than we fear.