Obama Violated the Logan Act?

There are allegations that Barack Obama violated the Logan Act while on his recent trip to Iraq. Its alleged that he attempted to negotiate a delay in troop withdraw until after a new administration is installed in Washington. Read about it below.

Obama has built much of his campaign for the Presidency on the fact that he has been against the war in Iraq from the very beginning and would demand an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq were he to be elected President. Yet, on his first trip to Iraq recently, he is alleged to have attempted to negotiate a delay in troop withdrawal from Iraq. Its being reported that he attempted to negotiate this delay in troop withdrawal with Iraqi officials as well as with US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus. All parties declined to participate in Obama’s plan.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari reports that Obama made his ‘demands’ the central focus of their talks while he was in Iraq.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

The prospect of an Obama Presidency is of great concern to leaders in the Iraqi government. Many have been convinced that its inevitable that Obama will be elected. They are hopeful that once he is in office, he will modify his opposition to the liberation of Iraq. However, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has worried about what kind of debt Obama will owe the American anti-war lobby which needs for the Iraqi liberation to not just fail, but to be a disaster, in order to prove their paradigm that the whole enterprise is a foreign policy and strategic blunder. They are fearful they will be left to the same fate as the South Vietnamese were when American soldiers were forced to abandon them.

This appears to be an effort on his part to covertly interfere with the progress being made in Iraq in order to benefit his own political ambitions and to validate his own public statements about the war. If that is true, its beyond troubling that a man who wants to be President would jeopardize the security of the country, the lives of our men and women in uniform, the lives of the Iraqis and the stability of the Middle East in order to win an election.

But Barack Obama isn’t the only democrat who has interfered with high level negotiations with foreign governments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jesse Jackson, Senator John Kerry and former President Jimmy Carter have certainly taken it upon themselves to negotiate with foreign governments without the authorization of the United States government.

Congress established the Logan Act in 1799 making it a felony to interfere with the relations of the United States and foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

I’m sure that Obama supporters will be outraged to realize that he has actively but quietly campaigned to prolong the war in Iraq. I’m also sure that the main stream media will be all over this Obama scandal. Hopefully, the media will investigate this to the same extent they have investigated the sex lives of the Palin family.