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So now that it is out that Obama completely fabricated that his paternal grandfather had been put on trial, imprisoned and tortured by the British in Kenya, will it effect US-British relations?
It may be a small issue that will have no real effect - who knows. British people who hear it won't be too impressed with the President though.
One of the enduring myths of Obama’s ancestry is that his paternal grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, who served as a cook in the British Army, was imprisoned in 1949 by the British for helping the anti-colonial Mau Mau rebels and held for several months.
‘But he had been in the camp for over six months, and when he returned to Alego he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice. He was so ashamed, he refused to enter his house or tell us what happened.’
In a 2008 interview, Sarah Obama claimed that he was ‘whipped every morning and evening’ by the British. ‘They would sometimes squeeze his testicles with metal rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together. He was lucky to survive. Some of his fellow inmates were mutilated with castration pliers and beaten to death with clubs.’
But Maraniss, who researched Obama’s life in Kenya, Indonesia, Hawaii and the mainland United States, found that there were ‘no remaining records of any detention, imprisonment, or trial of Hussein Onyango Obama’. He interviewed five people who knew Obama’s grandfather, who died in 1979, who ‘doubted the story or were certain it did not happen’.
Fabricated?: 'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book
This undermines the received wisdom that Obama’s grandfather was a victim of oppression, an assumption that has in turn fuelled theories that Obama harbours an animus towards Britain based on a deeply-rooted rage about the way Onyango was treated.
There are at least two other threads on this silly non-issue.
Unfortunately it's not that silly. Obama was surprisingly disrespectful to one of our better allies. And did he not like the Brits because of some lie he told everyone and then came to believe himself? This is some guy leading our country.
I was being kind. It is worse than silly. It is stupid, malicious and false.
Better?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockside
Obama was surprisingly disrespectful to one of our better allies.
Bull****. One's family history is what it is. Respect has nothing to do with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockside
And did he not like the Brits because of some lie he told everyone and then came to believe himself?
1) There is no hint that Obama does not like the Brits.
2) If he believes it himself, then it can hardly be a lie, now. Can it?
3) There is still a very good chance the story is true anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dockside
This is some guy leading our country.
Yep.
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Obama's grandfather tortured by the British? A fantasy
