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Turabi Wants Obama Win
[An Nahar] Sudan's veteran Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, linked to al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden... who abandoned all hope when he entered there... in the 1990s, hopes U.S. President Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... will win a second term on Tuesday. "Obama of course," Turabi told Agence La Belle France Presse when asked about his U.S. presidential preference during an interview. "He's gentle towards the Mohammedans generally," Turabi said, and referred to Obama's childhood spent in Mohammedan-majority Indonesia, and his Kenyan father who was raised a Mohammedan. Obama uses the word "terrorism" far less than his predecessor George W. Bush, and his name is a variant of the Arabic word "Baraka", Turabi said. "You know what 'Baraka' means in Arabic? Blessing." Obama, a Christian, was elected the first African American U.S. president in 2008 and is in a tight race against Republican rival Willard MittRomney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O... Turabi has been a force in Sudanese politics for six decades, and was a key figure behind the 1989 coup which brought the Islamist regime of President Omar al-Bashir  Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. to power. Sudan then became a notorious refuge for turban Islamists, including bin Laden, leading to American sanctions which Obama renewed last week. Posted by: Fred 2012-11-06 |
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