Things have changed since Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan declared then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to be “the hope of the entire world.”
Much to the chagrin of the Nation of Islam, Obama has turned out to be a relative hawk in his dealings with the Middle East, continuing Bush administration tactics, increasing drone attacks, taking out terrorists on foreign soil, working to depose dictatorial regimes and now overseeing the demise of Nation of Islam friend and supporter, Moammar Gadhafi.
When President Obama committed the American military to intervene in the Libyan Civil War this year in an effort to bring the Gadhafi regime to an end, Farrakhan declared that Obama was an “assassin.”
“We voted for our brother, Barack, beautiful human being with a sweet heart and now he is an assassin, they’ve turn him into them,” Farrakhan told a crowd in New York in reaction to Obama’s efforts to depose “Brother Gadhafi.”
Then on Thursday, pictures of a dead Gadhafi saturated the airwaves.
Abdul Akbar Muhammad, an international representative of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, told The Daily Caller that Obama’s position on Libya was completely wrong.
“Obama, his position, is absolutely wrong. To use drone attacks to kill people, just like what happened in Yemen — we have the ability to bring people to trial. We are a nation of laws, and if a man is accused of a crime and has not been convicted, what gives you the right to say he should be killed?” Muhammad said. (RELATED: Post-Gadhafi, Obama warns other regional strongmen)
Muhammad also suggested Obama’s policies were constructed by others in the government, who turned Obama away from being the man who gave “great speeches” to the Arab world in Turkey and Cairo. But he said he doesn’t want his words to fuel the “racist” American right wing.
“I don’t want my disagreement with Barack’s policy to be used by a racist, right-wing tea party that is using their platform to try to get a black man out of the White House, and for him to go down in history as the worst president,” he said, “so I’m talking about policies of the government that is shaped by those around him and other people.”
According to Muhammad, the American media failed to tell the whole story about Gadhafi, namely about the good deeds the former Libyan dictator performed for black Africans. Many are mourning, not celebrating, his death, Muhammad said.
Muhammad added that the military action against Gadhafi was hypocritical because there are worse dictators, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
“Gadhafi brought millions of black people who were in the shadows under King Idris when he took power, brought them to the forefront, afforded them education, giving them towns and opportunity. This has not been brought up,” Muhammad told TheDC, adding that he highlighted the Libyan leader’s good works in his recent article “The Gadhafi I Know – A Commentary on the Libyan Leader,” written for the Nation of Islam’s “Final Call” newspaper.
While Muhammad believes the Libya intervention “will come back to haunt us,” he is still proud that he voted for Obama.
Watch Louis Farrakhan speak about Obama’s action in Libya:
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