William 'X'. The missing link in the Mboya, Kennedy, Obama story.

William X. Schieneman It all started with this man. William X Schieneman who in late fifties met Tom Mboya who was on a speaking tour of the USA. While in the US Mboya had approached the then Presidential Candidate Richard Nixon to consider sponsoring students from Kenya for education in the US. Nixon turned down the request. Schieneman then introduced Mboya to John Kennedy who ran the Kennedy foundation. At a later meeting Kennedy agreed to give usd 100,000 to support the ‘airlift’ programme. The first airlift had already taken place in 1959 with the help of Dr. King, the African American Students Foundation and its sponsors, Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, and Sidney Poitier, Mboya raised sufficient funds to cover the students’ travel expenses. Barak Obama Snr, father to current US President barak Obama was one of the beneficiaries. John F Kennedy who had befriended Mboya was then assassinated in 1963, same year that Kenya became independent. Mboya also became friendly with civil rights leader martin Luther King and Kennedys younger brother Senator Robert Kennedy who visited Kenya in 1966. In 1959 Mboya and MLK held a joint rally in Washinton DC where Mboya talked of Kenya’s independence battle. (http://www.myspace.com/video/firstworldtv/tom-mboya-dr-martin-l-king-address-a-civil-rights-rally-in-dc/50689977) King was assassinated April 4th 1968. Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated later the same year on June 6th 1968 Meanwhile Obama junior was growing up in the US. Mboya himself was then assassinated on July 5 1969, All three friends were killed within a 15 months of each other! After Mboyas death, Bill Schieneman was declared ‘persona non grata’ by the Kenyatta government and banned from travelling to Kenya. This was only lifted in 1980 by then President Moi and Schieneman could visit Mboya’s family again. On Sunday 16 October 2011, US President Barack Obama unveiled a monument to Martin Luther King at the same Park where Mboya and King had addressed the crowd on Civil liberties in 1959. On Wednesday 19 October, Kenyas’ President Kibaki unveiled a monument to Tom Mboya. President Kibaki was Mboyas assistant minister when Mboya was killed in 1969. To wrap it up. In Schieneman’s Will he told his son that he would only rest in peace once he was buried beside his old friend Mboya on Rusinga Island. His son Billy duly complied and after a cremation in the USA Billy brought his ashes to Rusinga Island. After consultation with the Wayugu clan (Ndiege, Mboyas family), Schieneman was interred in the same mausoleum where Mboya is buried. COSMIC JUSTICE. Mboyas grave.

The late Bill Schienemans’ grave next to Mboya.

2012: Barak Obama jnr is President of the USA, while Uhuru Kenyatta son to Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya, is now the President of Kenya though he is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court where he faces charges of Crimes against Humanity.

National Anti Corruption Campaign Steering Committee; progress report.

The report covers corruption issues and the recommendations on how to deal with them from every district in Kenya.

Constitution

For some reason.

We, Kenyans have believed...fallen for the hype that a new constitution is the panacea for the problems bedevilling our nation.
Much as I can see the need for change and a re-examination of our constitutional dispensation, I have a certain unease with a new constitution and the promises it offers. I do think that our real problems are far more related to the loss or erosion of our values than to poor legislation and outdated laws.
There is an inherent and very real danger about the way that we are approaching this issue.
African and indeed our traditional values, honesty, sincerity, hard work, generosity and more have been under attack by the advent of capitalism for the last 50 odd years. Constitutions worldwide have been adopted as the best way to ensure the proper functioning of a nation and or republic and the equitable distribution of resources as well as the inalienable freedoms of all people, the right to create wealth and many other checks and balances in a free society.
But try as I might I do not see how better legislation will improve our values. Values can only be instilled. They cannot be legislated. Legislation may be there to guard our collective values as a nation and can be improved and moulded over time to adapt with the fast changing pace of life....but can never be a substitute for an inherently good value system.
Japan is a wealthy country and one of the most ancient civilisations on earth with what would undoubtedly be one of the most diversified and vibrant economies on earth. We associate this country with good governance and all that comes with it. But I want to point out that despite laws being in place for the detection, and effective prosecution of crime and more so in this vein corruption, those implicated in the same often choose to take their lives.
This stems from a deep seated sense of justice in society ,such that one who has gone against the ‘moral code’ even in a moment of weakness finds more ‘honour’ in self inflicted death than the indignity of a public trial. I use the example of Japan because it also has in its constitution a official dynasty, in fact the very one that unchecked, 50 years ago, led to their involvement in the second world war and their subsequent ‘punishment’ by the USA being the only country to date to have seen the devastation of atomic bombs.
The point I am making is that it is very dangerous for us to put more reliance on a constitution, than on our own moral and ethical codes. Why limit ourselves to what is written in law. Shouldnt we have in all of us our own ‘law’ that has a higher bearing on how we live than a written code?
What did Jesus tell the Pharisees when they accused his disciples of ‘working’ by ‘harvesting’ on the Sabbath day when they ate grains of wheat from the fields as they walked. Laws are made for man not man for laws. Let the overriding law be that in our own values rather than a constitution. It’s safer that way. A constitution or law should never be superior to your own value system. They should work in tandem to create a cohesive society. But your own values come first.
More so. In trying to find the ‘perfect’ legislative environment we run the greatest danger of alienating ourselves community from community, region from region than ever before.
Comments attributed to a number of Mp’s recently show what a deep seated problem we have. Some from both Rift Valley and Central province (not limited to) have openly said the next president should be from their communities/regions. With what has so recently put us at each other’s throats and a new constitution in the offering which advocates albeit in a ‘sober’ tone, the much discredited ‘majimbo’ system, are we not as Kenyans putting the cart before the horse?
Doubtless some will argue that a new constitution guarantees the equitable distribution of resources so it’s a prerequisite to the next election but who and what guarantees our morality? Laws have been broken before and will again.
Additionally we have complained that the current coalition is bloated and a drain on public resources. Pray what then is this new Constitution? Have we honestly looked at how multi layered it is and considered the cost of implementation of the required changes to our governance. More important to me though, is that while our priority right now should be how we can become more cohesive as a nation and rediscover our sense of patriotism from which possibly the seeds of a better value system may be sown, we are busy discussing a document that will undoubtedly divide us more along ethnic and community lines than ever before.
While I agree that changes and reform are necessary I would much rather an incremental change (amendments) to our current constitution that would allow us to go to an election as a unified nation and continue with the process of constitutional reform and or change after that point. Not to mention the fact that a referendum is still an option that would put more strain on our national psyche than we can now bear.
We have yet to identify and try the masterminds of the post election violence which will open up old wounds, the TJRC is supposedly underway, more and older wounds, a referendum possible, new constitution, then an election in 3 years time. Isn’t this too much to bite, chew and swallow at one go considering that in 2012 most of these will still be underway?
Rather than try to enter a long treatise for which in neither qualified nor inclined. I urge my fellow Kenyans, citizens to examine, not the new constitution but our own society and ask whether legislation can bring about or indeed is the appropriate tool, to bring us to the point of a new moral and ethical awakening which is the only sure way our guaranteeing the future of this nation.

As for me. I have no hesitation in deriding this effort for being too little too late. I will not read it. I do not think it is the answer to our problems. I am certain that in its current form and the method we are adopting to examine and implement it we are bound to be worse off than we are right now.
All things considered. I respect the fact that many will disagree with my position. Time will tell.

More on al shabaab

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
AL-SHABAAB EXECUTE SOMALI WOMAN, AISHO IBRAHIM DHUHULOW, BY STONING FOR ADULTERY AND BEHEAD MANSUUR MOHAMMED FOR CONVERTING TO CHRISTIANITY FROM ISLAM









Somalia: Woman stoned to death, October 28th 2008...Al-Shabaab execute Somali woman, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, by stoning to death for adultery, UPDATE 11/02/08, she had been raped and she was only 13 years old ! Mansuur Mohammed, 25, a World Food Program (WFP) worker was beheaded for converting from Islam to Christianity by the Al-Shabaab terrorist head hunters, see their USA hosted website here http://www.kataaib.net/ .

A woman in Somalia has been stoned to death after an Al-Shabaab Islamic Sharia law court found her guilty of adultery. The woman was buried up to her neck and then pelted to death with stones in front of a large crowd in Kismayo (port city controlled by Al-Shabaab ).
UPDATE 11/02/08....Amnesty International Denounces Stoning Death of 13-Year-Old Somali Girl; MOGADISHU, Somalia — A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said. Dozens of men (Al-Shabaab) stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

It was the first such execution in the southern port city since Islamist insurgents captured it from government-allied forces in August. A local Islamist leader said the woman, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, had pleaded guilty to committing adultery.

"She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply," said Sheikh Hayakallah. A group of men performed the execution in one of the city's main squares in front of thousands of people, AFP news agency said.

SOMALIA: Christian Aid Worker Beheaded for Converting from Islam by Al-Shabaab; Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness.

Muslim extremists from the Al Shabaab group fighting the transitional government on 23 September sliced the head off of Mansuur Mohammed, 25, a World Food Programme (WFP) worker, before horrified onlookers of Manyafulka village, 10 kilometres from Baidoa. The militants had intercepted Mohammed and a WFP driver, who managed to escape, earlier in the morning.

Sources close to Mohammed's family said he converted from Islam to Christianity in 2005. The eyewitness, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the militants that afternoon gathered the villagers of Manyafulka, telling them that they would prepare a feast for them.

Five masked men emerged (Al-Shabaab), carrying guns, wielding Somali swords and dragging the handcuffed Mohammed. One recited the Quran as he proclaimed that Mohammed was a "murtid," an Arabic term for one who converts from Islam to Christianity. Mohammed remained calm with an expressionless face, never uttering a word, said the eyewitness.

See my prior post, Thursday, October 23, 2008, Al-Shabaab Terrorists in Somalia Take Aim at U.S. and U.N. Aid Workers
UNICEF aid worker killed in Somalia Monday, October 20, 2008. Gunmen in Somalia have killed an aid worker employed by the United Nations during an attack against humanitarians in the war-ravaged country, witnesses reported Monday. A regional official in Somalia accused Islamist rebels, Al-Shabaab, on Monday of killing a U.N. employee in the second assassination of a senior aid worker in two days in the lawless Horn of Africa nation. We are sure Al-Shabaab killed him," Mohamed Maalim told Reuters.

Al-Shabaab have an offical website hosted in the Vancouver WA, USA. While ISPs can be criminally liable for providing support to terror groups, most ISPs -- upon receipt of a complaint about a problematic or legally murky customer site -- will simply cease doing business with the offending party, citing violations of their terms of service, Dotster Web Hosting in Vancouver WA refuses to do so with Al-Shabaab.
It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide "material support or resources" to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The term "material support or resources" is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1) as " any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(2) provides that for these purposes “the term ‘training’ means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge.” 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(3) further provides that for these purposes the term ‘expert advice or assistance’ means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.’’

The Al-Shabaab terror group's offical website is hosted in the USA at the Dotster Web Co which refuses to shut down this terrorist group's website. This is the same Al-Shabaab terrorist group that the Columbian Newspaper in Vancouver WA sides with and upholds their first amendment right "freedom of speech", WHAT !
The Columbian Newspaper; In our view: Internet censor (Bill Warner)Wednesday, May 07, 2008; A Florida man’s heart might be in the right place, but he is misguided in his bid to get a Vancouver Internet service company to drop a Somali-language Web site (Al-shabaab terrorists). Bill Warner, a Sarasota private investigator (http://www.wbipi.com/index2.html ), wants Dotster Inc. of Vancouver to refuse service to kataaib.net . Warner, who has launched similar purge efforts in other cities with other Internet companies, says kataaib.net supports an al-Qaida organization in Somalia, where war and genocide are tragic facts of daily life (THEY ARE AN aL-QAIDA ORGANIZATION).
Al-shabaab are located in Somalia, they are aligned with al-Qaeda and the Al-Shabaab are a specially designated terrorist organization by the US government and it is a Federal criminal violation to do business with Al-Shabaab !

The FBI is sorely lacking Arabic translators to monitor terror sites, the Jihad terror sites hosted in the USA must be shut down like http://kataaib.net/ the official website of the Somali Jihad group, Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen.
Hosted ISP by;
Dotster Inc.
8100 NE Parkway Dr # 300
Vancouver, WA 98662
Phone (360) 449-5900

On February 29, 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated al-Shabaab (aka al-Shabab, aka Shabaab, aka the Youth, aka Mujahidin al-Shabaab Movement, aka Mujahideen Youth Movement, aka Mujahidin Youth Movement, aka MYM, aka Harakat Shabab al-Mujahidin, aka Hizbul Shabaab, aka Hisb’ul Shabaab, aka al-Shabaab al-Islamiya, aka Youth Wing, aka al Shabaab al-Islaam, aka al-Shabaab al-Jihaad, aka the Unity of Islamic Youth) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended) and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224 (as amended).

The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against the provision of material support or resources to al-Shabaab and blocking of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or the control of U.S. persons


Bill Warner
Private investigator
www.wbipi.com

Al shabaab, Is it really Islam

Alshabaab: "The" Number One Enemy of Islam and Somali People
Dalmar Kaahin
August 29, 2009
For almost two decades politically polarized warmongers, acting like spoiled children who refused to share a sandbox, held Somalia hostage. But never before have Somalis seen a terrifying group like Alshabaab cult. From a victorious group that evicted Ethiopian troops from Somalia to a barbaric enemy of Islam and Somali society, Alshabaab is the most loathed faction in Somalia today. This religious cult pretends to advocate for the rule of Sharia laws yet undertakes the most un-Islamic acts; it screams about the presence of foreign troops in Somali soil, yet Alshabaab parachutes foreign suicide bombers into the country. Worse yet, the Western Media uses Alshabaab´s barbarism as a powerful propaganda tool against Islam. And above all, this ruthless group brought death and destruction to an oasis of serenity amid chaos in Horn of Africa: the democratic republic of Somaliland.

Alshabaab´s hypocrisy in abundant supply, it advocates for the rule Sharia, but it carries out the most un-Islamic acts of violence—suicide bombings. For starters, in the Somali world suicide bombers remain foreign ideologies that Alshabaab imported to the country. It is a new phenomenon that frightens the Somali people. So far, Alshabaab targeted government officials and civilians alike with suicide bombings. Without a doubt, suicide bombings are against the teachings of Islam. Clearly, any Muslim scholar that you speak to will tell you that suicide bombing is one of the most un-Islamic acts—a guaranteed ticket to hell; yet Alshabaab in the name of its version of Islam conducts what Islam resolutely forbids.

Equally, new to Somalia and as gruesome as the suicide bombing is the limb amputations. While in every neighbourhood of Mogadishu women are raped and people are mugged—never mind securing the rest of the country—Alshabaab horns its skills to chop up body parts of young boys caught shoplifting. But what does Islam say about limb amputations?

To amputate thieves´ arms or legs strict conditions must be met: first, a functioning Islamic state with its security forces, economy, justice and health care systems should exist. Second, the state must prove beyond shadow of a doubt that the government can provide jobs for the thieves, but they resort to stealing. Before, the perpetrators lose their limbs, the president of the Islamic republic—if required—must testify in a court of law that it is not his/her government that fails them, but they let themselves down. Third, the owner of the stolen goods must insist not to forgive the perpetrators, which will never happen in the Somali society. Fourth, the perpetrators and community should have time to evaluate what is at stake. During this period the community convinces the owner to forgive the thieves. Currently, Somalia is far from a nation that can be applied to Islamic laws.

But Alshabaab devises a brutal campaign of terror and argues such an atrocity is based on Islamic Sharia law. Destroying cemeteries, killing civilians and displacing them, among other atrocities, Alshabaab carries out a barbaric war against the Somali people. However, among Somali Islamic scholars Alshabaab´s barbarism has nothing to do with promoting Sharia. "Before Sheik Sharif's election you were all fighting for an Islamic leader, but now you have no excuse," the chairman of the Somali Clerics Council, Sheikh Nur Barood Gurhan states. http://hiiraan.com/news2/2009/Feb/somali_clerics_council_endorses_president.aspx (Sheik Sharif is the current Somali president, or more precisely: the besieged mayor of Mogadishu.)

Now don´t forget: many members of Alshabaab fighters are in fact from former warlords´ militias. In the past, some of these militias who currently call themselves Alshabaab raped Somali women and girls, looted businesses, and murdered countless innocent people in the name of defending not Islam or Somalia but the interest of their tribes. (Back then, tribes were the new sports on the block.) These gangs just changed shirts. In that case, shouldn´t Alshabaab´s Sharia applied to its members? Of course not, because Alshabaab zealots accept only the part of Islam that favours them. That is, they exonerate themselves from their horrendous crimes—without a tinge of regret—yet preach us about Islam.

Also, while Alshabaab screams about the presence of the African peacekeeping forces known as UNISOM in Somalia, it [Alshabaab] parachutes foreign suicide bombers into Somalia. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Hisbul Islam—an ally of Alshabaab—unequivocally admits receiving support from Eritrea and foreign fighters. He states, "Eritrea supports us…there may be two or three Arabs who were moved by Islam to fight alongside us." http://markacadeey.com/may/20090523_1e.htm

Now, admittedly, when attacked the UNISOM forces´ indiscriminate slaughter against civilians provide Alshabaab yet another reason to wage war. Worse yet, the current Somali regime´s imprudent strategy to associated with Ethiopia, and signing bogus maritime deals with Kenya which allow Kenya to steal a large chunk of Somalia´s territorial waters, among other blunders, provide Alshabaab a cause to wage war. See these articles about the scandalous treaty:


http://somalilandpress.com/4335/for-sale-somalia%E2%80%99s-territorial-waters/

http://www.unforum.com/UNheadlines571.htm and http://tinyurl.com/njjxgy

But the maritime treaty isn´t as scandalous as the Western Media´s malicious propaganda campaign against Islam. The Western Media could not be happier with Alshabaab´s un-Islamic barbaric acts. For instance, with respect to Somalia´s turmoil almost every article that you come across, or every channel you flip states, "Alshabaab enforce strict Sharia laws". What kind of Sharia? Without a doubt, this is the invaluable propaganda that the Western Media rejoices. And to make sure that an undiluted ignorance—the worst disinformation of the century, a condoned Islamaphobia—spreads like a wildfire, none of the Media groups invite Islamic scholars to clarify whether Alshabaab practices Islam, or barbarism. Instead, the Media invites the so-called Western experts who repeatedly regurgitate the same stale propaganda against Islam. Through the thick lenses of the West, Islam and terrorism are synonymous words, and so are Sharia and limb amputations. But in the long run these deliberate fear-mongering tactics and unabated Islamaphobia will harm the Western image and inadvertently recruit more groups like Alshabaab.

And who created this monster? Of course, Alshabaab came to power when U.S. commissioned Ethiopia to invade Somalia in December 2006. Ethiopian troops fled; U.S. failed its mission; Somalia inherited the monster.

But Somalia is not the only victim of Alshabaab. The democratic republic of Somaliland also received the wrath of Alshabaab. It detonated one of the worst suicide attacks in Somaliland´s history in October 2008. Over twenty two civilians lost their life. The scares of the bomb attacks are still visible in Hargeisa, Somaliland capital. And while panic-stricken Somalilanders focused on local suspects from Somalia, I asked a simple question: "Is Canada Harbouring Terrorists Who Attacked Hargeisa, Somaliland capital?" http://www.maanhadal.com/articles/Is_Canada_Harboring_Terrorists.html

One year later, Canada´s National Post Newspaper answers my question and details how Alshabaab sympathizers from Canada planned to spur chaos in Somaliland: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1472963 Similarly, a brainwashed Somali-American from Minneapolis was among the suicide bombers that sent body part flying over rooftops in downtown Hargeisa.

Now, Hargeisa is only 280km from U.S. bases in Djibouti. Additionally, Somaliland border guards near Djibouti are poorly trained and barely equipped to stop suicide bombers and terrorists. Therefore, God forbid but it will be a matter of time before Alshabaab attacks U.S. bases in Djibouti. And that is why it is paramount for the U.S. not only to train and equip Somaliland forces but also base some U.S. forces near the border between Somaliland and Somalia to stop suicide bombers destined to attack U.S. base in Djibouti.

Surely, just as the Alshabaab terrorists bombed Somaliland in 2008, so too they could detonate deadly explosives against U.S. bases in Djibouti. Hence, the U.S. must stop Alshabaab at the border between Somaliland and Somalia and not at the gates of the U.S. military bases in Djibouti. The indisputable fact is: the ONLY wall that separates Alshabaab suicide bombers and U.S. forces in Djibouti is Somaliland. If this wall is thick enough, Alshabaab will have less chances of attacking the U.S. interests in Djibouti.

To sum up, Alshabaab´s callous brutality against Somalis, its un-Islamic ideologies, and its unabated barbaric limb amputations, among others, now forced many Somalis to either stay frightened in their houses, or flee in droves. Also, this group´s brutal war to annihilate anyone that opposes its ideologies is unprecedented in Somalia.

With conviction, overwhelmingly the Somali citizens, the intellectuals, and the Islamic scholars, view Alshabaab as the number one enemy of the Somali society and Islam.

As for the West, it cannot abandon Somalia and watch while West-created monster: Alshabaab decimates the current Mogadishu regime.

The truth is: while Alshabaab is left to amputate and terrorise Somali people, the West uses this terror group as an indispensible propaganda tool against Islam. The fact is: if the U.S. and its allies want to annihilate Alshabaab they could do so easily. But why bother? After all, Alshabaab has very little chance or motive to detonate bombs in the Western countries (minus staged terrorism, of course), despite the ludicrous shrills from the West. And more important, to continue the Western imperial expansion, an enemy is always needed.

Similarly, both Ethiopia and Kenya desperately need Alshabaab to keep Somalia´s inferno burning.

Doubtless, once Alshabaab terrorists overrun Mogadishu and its environs, they will take their suicide bombs to the democratic republic of Somaliland—once again—where during its upcoming presidential election in September 2009 terrorists plan to detonate massive explosives at polling stations.

Nor will the U.S. bases in Djibouti escape Alshabaab terrorists´ attack, if U.S. doesn´t stop them before they enter Somaliland.

Dalmar Kaahin

dalmar_k@yahoo.com

Al Shabaab

I will be posting alot of material and my personal opinions on the current sitauation in Somalia and the madness of Al sabaab.....shortly

Mboya sends Obama to school

(Mboya welcomes Bob Kennedy to Nairobi, Mboya and Kennedy)

Why does nation newspaper in particular have such a problem with Mboya’s role in Kenyas independence?

Look at the following story in Nation 1 April 2008. In it there is no mention of Mboya. Look at the original story in the Washington post of 30 March 2008 and come to your own conclusion. Nation do not even mention 'Washington Post' but simply 'Washington'

If it were not for the efforts of Mboya Obama may not have been a presidential candidate today.

(Nation Story)

Obama admits Kennedy tale over airlift not exactly true Publication Date: 2008/04/01
WASHINGTON, Monday

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Alabama, a year ago, Senator Barack Obama traced his “very existence” to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.
The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Mr Obama’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which “history replays itself” and by how “two generations of two families — separated by distance, culture and wealth — can intersect in strange and wonderful ways.”
But the key details of the story are either untrue or grossly oversimplified.
Contrary to Mr Obama’s claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedys did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the US that included Mr Obama’s father.
According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached to support the programme nearly a year later, in July 1960.
The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged on Saturday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father’s arrival in the US.
Meanwhile, with the next big contest coming in Pennsylvania on April 22, Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate McCain took much of the day off.
In their absence, Mr Obama took the opportunity to attack McCain’s stance on the war in Iraq, a war he said had failed to make the United States safer while costing billions of dollars in part because of Bush’s tax cuts.
“When you ask John McCain how it has made us safer you get - err,” Mr Obama told a raucus crowd of 2,000 at Harrisburg town hall in Pennsylvania. “He will argue that the surge has been the right thing to do but ... the question is why did we go in there in the first place.”
Earlier, Obama campaigned at Pennsylvania State University. where some 22,000 people came

to listen to him speak at an open air rally in what aides said was one of the biggest events of the Democratic campaign.
College students have been some of Obama’s most active supporters and in Pennsylvania he must score big among them if he is to do well against Clinton.

Agencies

(Now the FULL story)

Obama Overstates Kennedys' Role in Helping His Father

By Michael Dobbs
Sunday, March 30, 2008;

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.
The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which "history replays itself" and by how "two generations of two families -- separated by distance, culture and wealth -- can intersect in strange and wonderful ways."
It is a touching story -- but the key details are either untrue or grossly oversimplified.
Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged yesterday that the senator from Illinois had erred in crediting the Kennedy family with a role in his father's arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently "started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past."
The real story of Barack Obama Sr.'s arrival in the United States and the subsequent Kennedy involvement in the airlifts of African students sheds light on the highly competitive presidential election of 1960 and Africa's struggle to free itself from colonialism, as well as the huge strides made by the Obama family, which has gone in two generations from herding goats in the hills of western Kenya to the doors of the White House.
In his speech commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the Selma civil rights march, Sen. Obama linked his father's arrival in the United States with the turmoil of the civil rights movement. Although the airlift occurred before John F. Kennedy became president, Obama said that "folks in the White House" around President Kennedy were looking for ways to counter charges of hypocrisy and "win hearts and minds all across the world" at a time when America was "battling communism."
"So the Kennedys decided 'we're going to do an airlift,' " Obama continued. " 'We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.' This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. . . . So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."
A more accurate version of the story would begin not with the Kennedys but with a Kenyan nationalist leader named Tom Mboya, who traveled to the United States in 1959 and 1960 to persuade thousands of Americans to support his efforts to educate a new African elite. Mboya did not approach the Kennedys for financial support until Obama Sr. was already studying in Hawaii.
Mboya, a charismatic politician, was assassinated in 1969. His daughter Susan, now living in Ohio, said the mass airlifts of Kenyan students to the United States had a "huge" impact on the young African nation, which gained its independence from Britain in 1963. She cited a University of Nairobi study that showed that 70 percent of top Kenyan officials after independence, including Obama Sr., were products of the American program.
In the late 1950s, there was no university in Kenya, and educational opportunities for Africans were limited. The British colonial government opposed Mboya's efforts to send talented young Kenyans to the United States for an education, arguing that there was a perfectly good university, Makerere College, in neighboring Uganda. The U.S. State Department supported the British and turned down Mboya's requests for assistance.
During his 1959 trip to the United States, the 29-year-old Mboya raised enough money for scholarships for 81 young Kenyans, including Obama Sr., with the help of the African-American Students Foundation. Records show that almost 8,000 individuals contributed. Early supporters included baseball star Jackie Robinson, who gave $4,000, and actors Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.

There was enormous excitement when the Britannia aircraft took off for New York with the future Kenyan elite on board. After a few weeks of orientation, the students were dispatched to universities across the United States to study subjects that would help them govern Kenya after the departure of the British. Obama Sr. was interested in economics and was sent to Hawaii, where he met, and later married, a Kansas native named Ann Dunham. Barack Jr. was born in August 1961.
Among the other students on the first airlift was Philip Ochieng, who went on to become a prominent Kenyan journalist. In a 2004 article for the Nation, Kenya's leading newspaper, Ochieng remembered Obama Sr. as "charming, generous and extraordinarily clever," but also "imperious, cruel and given to boasting about his brain and his wealth." Obama Jr. paints a similar portrait in his best-selling 1995 autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," describing his father as exceptionally gifted but also "wild," "boastful" and "stubborn."
After the success of the first student airlift, Mboya decided to expand the program in 1960 and to include students from neighboring African countries. This time, he raised $250,000 for 256 students. Universities and colleges promised scholarships worth $1,600,000, but Mboya still needed money for the airlift itself. His American friends suggested that he approach Sen. John F. Kennedy, who had just launched his presidential campaign. In addition to chairing a Senate subcommittee on Africa, Kennedy controlled the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, named after his older brother who was killed in World War II.
The two men met at the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Mass., on July 26, 1960. Kennedy later said that the family was initially "reluctant" to support the program because of other commitments but eventually agreed to provide $100,000 because it was impossible to raise the funds elsewhere.
Stephen Plotkin, an archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, said a search of the records did not turn up any evidence that the Kennedy family supported the 1959 airlift.
Vice President Richard M. Nixon, determined not to be outdone by his Democratic rival for the White House, persuaded the State Department to drop its long-standing refusal to fund the program. The head of the Nixon campaign "truth squad," Sen. Hugh Scott, accused Kennedy of attempting to "outbid the U.S. government" in a "misuse of tax-exempt foundation money for blatant political purposes." Kennedy responded by accusing the Nixon campaign of "the most unfair, distorted and malignant attack that I have heard in 14 years in politics."
The former executive director of the African-American Students Foundation, Cora Weiss, said some of the money provided by the Kennedys was used to pay off old debts and subsidize student stipends. Even though Obama Sr. arrived the previous year, he and other members of the 1959 cohort benefited indirectly from Kennedy family support.
According to a letter on file in the Mboya papers at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, "most" of Obama Sr.'s early expenses in the United States were covered by an international literacy expert named Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who had traveled widely in Kenya. Kirk wrote to Mboya in May 1962 to request additional funds to "sponsor Barack Obama for graduate study, preferably at Harvard." She said she would "like to do more" to assist the young man but had two stepchildren ready for college.
Susan Mboya credits the student airlifts with helping to make Kenya "an island of stability in a region rocked by turmoil" until very recently. "We were fortunate in having a lot of highly educated people who were able to come back and take over the government after the British left," she said. Products of the airlift project included Africa's first female Nobel Peace Prize winner, the environmentalist Wangari Maathai.
Obama's Selma speech offers a very confused chronology of both the Kenya student program and the civil rights movement. Relating the story of how his parents met, Obama said: "There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Junior was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama."
After bloggers pointed out that the Selma bridge protest occurred four years after Obama's birth, a spokesman explained that the senator was referring to the civil rights movement in general, rather than any one event.
Obama Sr. never quite lived up to his enormous potential. He achieved his dream of studying at Harvard after graduating from the University of Hawaii. He divorced Dunham in 1963 and married another woman.
He returned to Kenya and became a close aide to Mboya, a fellow Luo tribesman, at the Ministry of Economic Development. According to his old "drinking buddy" Ochieng, he antagonized other officials with his "boasting," was "excessively fond of Scotch" and ended up in poverty "without a job." He got into frequent car accidents, one of which led to the amputation of both his legs. He was killed in another car accident, in 1982, at the age of 46.

Special correspondent Michael Zielenziger in Stanford, Calif., contributed to this report.