Obama And The 'Birther' Controversy- Fact Or Fiction?

Does President Barack Hussein Obama fulfill the Constitutional requirement of being a natural-born US citizen?

As I've stated before,I personally think the people who are working this angle are wasting time and energy, since the Supreme court will absolutely not touch this with a ten foot pole - for fear of civil unrest, if nothing else.

But in spite of that, in view of the lunatic theories, the refusal to provide clear and conclusive information by Obama and the plain disinformation floating around the web on this matter both pro and con, I think Joshua's Army members deserve an unbiased look at this.

This controversy has been around since the election, and it hasn't gone away.As a matter of fact, speculation has increased to the point where the White House unleashed its attack poodle Robert Gibbs on the matter:

Question: "Is there anything you can say that will make the Birthers go away?"

Gibbs: "No. I mean, the God's-honest truth is 'no.' I mean, Bill, let's understand this. I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House--and I mean this in seriousness--the White House briefing room discussing the made-up, fictional nonsense of whether or not the President was born in this country.

"A year and a half ago, I asked that the birth certificate be put on the internet. because Lord knows, if you've got the birth certificate and put it on the internet, what else could be the story? Here's the deal again: if I had some DNA it wouldn't assuage those who don't believe he was born here.

"But I have news for them and for all of us. The President was born in Honolulu, Hawaii."

Gibson as usual is factually challenged or simply trying to lie and spin this. What exactly would DNA prove about where someone was born?? And by 'birth certificate', is he referring to the crudely forged photoshop of the short form certificate of Live Birth posted on Daily Kos? Because that's the only one that's ever been posted publicly to my knowledge, although Hawaiian public officials have publicly acknowledged the official short form Certificate of Live Birth's existence.

All that aside, the fact that the White House even saw fit to address this shows that this controversy continues to have legs - in large part because of the extraordinary amount of time, money and effort Obama and his camp have devoted to sealing his records, refusing to answer perfectly legitimate questions and thwarting any inquiries into the matter.

Let's look at the facts.

The US Constitution has only three requirements to serve as president. You have to be at least thirty-five years of age, you must be a natural-born US citizen, and you must have resided for the last fourteen years within the United States.

A natural born citizen is defined as someone born within the territorial limits of the United States or its possessions. Thus, John McCain is a natural born citizen because he was born to two US citizens in the Canal Zone, a US possession at the time. So is anyone born in Puerto Rico, or within a US embassy - American embassies in foreign countries are considered US soil, as are certain military installations.

With that in mind, here's what we know about the current president's situation. The president's mother, Stanley Anne Dunham was eighteen and already pregnant with Obama when she flew to Kenya to be with his father. We know that at least two of Obama's Kenyan relatives went public with the fact that they witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya, and that afterwards they withdrew very quickly from any media contact. We know that Obama's mother stayed in Kenya for several months, but decided she didn't like the way Kenyan Muslims treated their wives (and likely, the idea of having Obama's father's previous wife in the picture) and left...by which time she was very pregnant. It's also a fact that most airlines won't allow a women in that condition to board a plane, for obvious reasons.

So what if Obama was born in Kenya or outside the US? His mother was a natural born citizen. Doesn't that make him a US citizen anyway?

Sorry, no. Obama's mother was not of legal age to transfer citizenship to her child if he was born outside the US according to the laws in existence at that time. I refer you to Section 301(a)(7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 235, 8 U.S.C. §1401(b), Matter of S-F- and G-, 2 I & N Dec. 182.

Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham was 18 when he was born. In order to transfer US citizenship to a child born outside the US, she would have had to have lived in the US 10 years consecutively, five of which were after reaching the age of 14. Since she was not nineteen at the time of Obama's birth, she could not have legally transferred citizenship to Obama if he was born overseas.

There's also the matter of Obama's father, who was a Kenyan national and a British subject. Under the laws and international conventions of that time, there's a good possibility Obama would have been a British subject at birth even if he actually was born in Hawaii, because of the mother's inability to transfer citizenship and his father's nationality.

The Obama-Dunham marriage dissolved in some acrimony. Since Obama's father was Kenyan and a Muslim, there was every reason for the Dunhams to believe at the time that Obama's father might attempt to initiate a messy court battle to regain custody of his male child Barack.

After filing for divorce after Obama's birth, the normal course of action would have been for Obama's mother to apply for US citizenship for her child, which she would have eventually gotten.

Instead, with the possibility of a nasty upcoming legal battle, it's possible that the Dunhams simply filed a Certificate of Live Birth with the State of Hawaii after the fact in an effort to circumvent this quickly and create a paper trail.

A Certificate of Live Birth merely attests to the fact that a child was born, and according to Hawaiian law can indeed be filed after the fact. The short form Certificate of Live Birth is supposedly a summary of what's on the long form, but it does not contain an affidavit from the attending physician or the hospital. No one has seen the long form, including Hawaiian state officials, since Obama refuses to give anyone permission to access it and under Hawaiian law the record is legally sealed. One has to wonder why. As an interesting detail, there are two separate Hawaiian hospitals that have claimed to be Obama's birthplace.

And, to delve into speculation - just suppose that Obama's long form certificate, the one that Obama doesn't want anyone to see doesn't have any affidavits from a hospital or doctor but simply states that Obama was born at home, based on an affidavit by a friend or family member..maybe even his mother? That doesn't actually prove he wasn't born in Hawaii..but then again, it doesn't prove he was, and it might just lead to further questions that could prove uncomfortable. Which could be why Obama wants absolutely nobody to see it.

This desire by the Dunhams to avoid a possible custody fight and ensure Obama's status as a legal US citizen could also account for another detail that has been made much of, a birth announcement placed in the Honolulu Advertiser when Obama was born. After all, the reasoning goes, how could someone plan something like that from 47 years in the future,or foresee the need to protect a future president's citizenship status that far in the past?

The answer to that is actually pretty simple. Barack's mom and maternal grandparents had a major incentive to create a paper trail for Barack Obama's legal status as a US citizen that had nothing to do with his future status as a Presidential candidate. The last thing they wanted was to have to go through a custody fight in a Kenyan court against a black father over a black child. Even if in fact, as has been alleged, the notice was 'automatically printed' from the registry office, that would have been a product of the original Certificate, and it proves absolutely nothing. Just like one of those old murder mysteries, the Dunhams had both motive and opportunity.We simply don't know what actually happened - because all of Obama's records have been sealed under lock and key. Not just his birth record, but his records from the exclusive Punahou School, Occidental college, even most of his records and paperwork from Harvard.

But wait, there's more... the separate issue of Obama's Indonesian citizenship.

Around 1966, Obama's mother remarried an Indonesian national by the name of Lolo Soetoro and relocated with her son Obama to Indonesia. The Nationality Act of 1940 still in force at that time provided for a loss of citizenship when a child became naturalized in a foreign country when his custodial parent became a naturalized citizen of that foreign country. While there's some controversy over whether Stanley Ann Dunham actually became a naturalized Indonesian citizen, ( and the records seem to indicate she did) one thing that isn't in doubt was that Lolo Soetoro legally adopted Barack Obama, and he became Barry Soetoro and a naturalized Indonesian citizen.

While he was living with Lolo in Indonesia, Lolo had him registered in public school as an Indonesian citizen and a Muslim...at a time when you had to be an Indonesian citizen to use the public schools. The American practice was not to recognize dual citizenship, and that was also the law in Indonesia. Did Obama ever renounce his Indonesian citizenship as required by US law, as Rahm Emanuel did with his dual American-Israeli citizenship? There absolutely no record of anything like that happening.

The so-called 'birther' controversy continues to ferment for one reason - because President Obama's deliberate secrecy and furtive behavior keeps it alive.

As one recent example, an Army colonel recently refused to be deployed to Afghanistan and follow Obama's orders on the grounds it would put the colonel in legal jeopardy for obeying an unlawful order unless he saw proof Obama was a natural born citizen of the US, thus Constitutionally legal POTUS and thus legally commander in chief.

If this had gone to trial, legal requirements would have meant that all of Obama's sealed record would have been fair game for discovery, meaning that the defense would have an opportunity to examine them.

When the colonel took it to court, instead of slapping him into the stockade for insubordination, the Army hurriedly changed his orders and dropped the matter. Did they receive a call from the White House? We'll probably never know.

I'm hardly prone to conspiracy theories, but there's obviously a lot of things here that need to be cleared up. Obama, of course, could resolve all this speculation almost instantly, and I hope he does by releasing his records, since it's simply the right thing to do. As president, he took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution, and putting to rest any doubts about this matter obviously falls within his oath of office.

After all his blather about a new era of transparency, I think Obama owes a little candor and transparency to his fellow citizens. We elected him, and we deserve to know if that decision was made under false pretenses. It's time the mask came off.

This isn't the sort of thing even Barack Obama can vote 'present' on forever.Nor should it be.