I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE

AP photo of school register reveals "Barry Soetoro" as muslim Indonesian

By Israel Insider staff August 14, 2008

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A 2007 Associated Press photograph, suppressed until now, shows the school register of the child who is today known as Barack Hussein Obama but was officially listed then as Barry Soetoro, whose citizenship was listed as "Indonesian" and whose religion was listed as "Islam." The visual evidence starkly contradicts the Obama campaign's claim that he was not a Muslim and confirms that he is a national of at least one other country. In addition, it raises the highly problematic issue of what is Obama's official name. If it turns out to Barry Soetoro, and no official change of name was ever made, Obama may face an array of charges of deception and misprision that may throw into doubt, at the very least, his fitness to run. Deep doubts remain about the veracity of the "certificate of live birth" image produced for his campaign by the radical left-wing Daily Kos blog. There are reports that investigative teams -- from the Republican and Democratic parties as well as various intelligence agencies -- are seeking out the details of his murky childhood from Kenya to Indonesia. There are indications of growing disquiet in the circles of power that the so-called "smears" may have understated the gravity of the candidate's identity problem: he may not be American, he was not raised Christian and, it appears, he was not Barack Hussein Obama. The evidence of the candidate's un-American, un-Christian upbringing is nothing new, and has been documented by bloggers as early as 2007 and by Israel Insider in our very first report on this subject in June of this year. But until now the photograph of his school record has been lacking. The image is dated from 2007 and was apparently taken to accompany an AP article that appeared in January of that year. Ironically, that article was about how Obama was rejecting the untrue charge that the public school he attended was a radical Indonesian madrassa. Some excerpts: "We will not be swift-boated," said Obama communications director Robert Gibbs. "And we won't take allegations that are patently untrue lying down." "Obama's mother, divorced from Obama's father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather. The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering -- Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant. Gibbs said he wasn't sure why the document had Obama listed as a Muslim." Gibbs may not have been sure, but it appears that the Obama campaign made sure that this image did not see the light of day, because the photographic listing of the candidate, even as a child, as an Indonesian whose religion was Islam was worth, well, a thousand words. "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim," Gibbs said in the article. "As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." That may be Gibbs' assertion, but evidence from grown-up school chums of little Barry Soetoro indicates that he studied, and excelled in, the teachings of the Koran in the original Arabic and could recite the Shehada, the Islamic article of faith, by heart, and with a decent tune, according to the New York Times roving columnist Nicholas Kristof, to whom "Obama" remarked that the sound of the Muslim call to prayer was one of the world's most beautiful sounds. The AP article quoted Iis Darmawan, 63, Obama's kindergarten teacher, who "remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. 'He wrote an essay titled, "I Want To Become President,"' the teacher said." She didn't indicate which country he wanted to become president of. The AP caption reads: "This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro into the Catholic school made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. The document lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen, born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, and shows his Muslim step-father listed the boy's religion as Islam. (AP Photo/ Tatan Syuflana)" Syuflana is a well-known and frequently published photographer, specializing in Indonesia. A representative of the AP confirmed that the photo is authentic. The most damaging revelation in the AP photo (registration required to see the large-scale image. A derived image is here.) may turn out to be the listing of his name as Barry Soetoro. It has been reported that he used the name Barack Hussein Obama and failed to mention Barry Soetoro when asked to provide any former names. (He reportedly also did not respond honestly when answering negatively to a question concerning illegal drug use, which he has since admitted.) It is believed that failure to report his previous name is not an isolated instance, and may have contributed to the perceived need to manufacture a forged birth certificate listing Obama's preferred identity as if it were present from the start. The listing of Barry Soetoro as a Muslim contradicts what appears on his campaign's Fight the Smears website, where he says that "I have never been a Muslim." In a private meeting with Jewish leaders in February, Obama emphatically re-stated the claim, but with a bit of a twist, declaring: "I am not, nor have I ever been, a Muslim (especially an anti-American one)." Does the candidate protest too much here? Indeed, he is echoing language used in the 1950s by those who denied Communist ties. No one is claiming, here, that Obama is anti-American. But the image of his school registration doesn't lie, and indicates clearly that he was registered as a Muslim, and thus, despite the claim of his spokesman, he didn't study the catechism. Barry Soetoro studied the Koran. This is the tenth of a series on the identity and citizenship of the candidate who now calls himself Barack Hussein Obama. Here's where you can find Part 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Other articles about Obama are linked on the upper left of this article.