Joker Effigy of President created by Palestinian Socialist: NOT CONSERVATIVE

Palestinian-American behind 'socialist-joker' Obama poster

By Haaretz Service

A Palestinian-American has been revealed as the creator of the "socialist joker" image, a doctored poster of President Barack Obama found on highways and in cities across the United States this summer.

Many initially took the portrait - featuring the president with the carved-in smile of Heath Ledgers's character in the Dark Knight - to be the work of a conservative opposed to Obama's liberal ways.

But it turns out that Firas Alkhateeb, 20, is actually a liberal himself from Obama's hometown of Chicago, who would have preferred to see Dennis Kucinich elected.

Alkhateeb told the Los Angeles Times - which unmasked his identity - that the poster had been meant more as a joke than as a political statement. The original draft of the image was meant to satirize, or in this case "jokerize," Obama's picture on the October cover of Time Magazine.

Regardless of his intentions, the iconic image has turned into a political statement. An Obama critic downloaded Alkhateeb's image off of the photo Web site Flickr, printed it out as a poster, and tacked on the word "socialism" before pasting it up across Los Angeles.

The image has sparked debate among Americans of whether its message is racist, if it is related to the ongoing conversation of reforming health care, and of just how liberal the new U.S. president may be.

But for Alkhateeb, none of this seems to matter. "After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ," he told the Los Angeles Times. "From my perspective, there wasn't much substance to him."

Question: What is salvation?

Question: What is salvation?

A quick lesson on sin

Before we can understand salvation, we first have to understand sin itself. Sin was born when Satan rebelled against God.

• Isaiah 14:12-17 : How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

After Satan's fall, he set out to destroy mankind when he brought sin to the Garden of Eden.

In Genesis 2: 16-17, God told Adam and Eve they could eat of any tree in the Garden other than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Warning them not to eat of the tree, He told them they would surely die if they disobeyed Him.

Satan, knowing this, came before Eve in the form of a serpent (Genesis 3:1-6) and tricked her into eating the fruit. She gave the fruit to Adam and he ate as well.

The result of this rebellion on the part of Adam and Eve brought sin and death into a world that had never known it, creating a divide between God and man.

The Father in Heaven, having established death as the punishment mankind would have to pay for rebelling against Him, imposed death on the world.

As death became the punishment mankind would have to face as a result of his sinful nature, God, fully understanding man is sinful by nature, began allowing animals to be slain in place of men to make atonement for man's sins. This is why we see the sacrificial death of animals used as an atonement for sin in ancient Jewish religious traditions documented in the Old Testament. It is also why we see Jesus referred to in the Bible as the Lamb of God.

Jesus, the Son of God, came to surrender Himself to death on the cross to make atonement for our sins so none of us would have to experience eternal separation from God as a result of Satan's influence in our lives and our sinful nature.

What is salvation?

Salvation is the gift of God!

Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 3:16-18: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Romans 10:9: "...if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Acts 4:12: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Iran's designated defense minister a terrorist

DEBKAfile's unmasking of Iran's designated defense minister as terrorist spurred wide outrage

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 23, 2009, 10:36 AM (GMT+02:00)

Designated Iranian defense minister is wanted terrorist

Last Thursday night, Aug. 20, DEBKAfile first exposed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defense minister Ahmadi Vadhidi as wanted by Interpol for the 1994 Buenos Aires atrocity, a massive bombing attack on the Jewish community center in the Argentine capital which left 84 people dead and hundreds wounded.

This story, instantly picked up by world media (without attribution), spurred general outrage and protest - in particular, from the Argentine prosecutor and Jewish community. The US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said if Vahidi was indeed the man wanted by Interpol, it would be very disturbing to see him confirmed in the Iranian cabinet. Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak voiced deep concern, commenting that the Islamic Republic was showing its real face.

The following is the text of DEBKAfile's exclusive as published in its English edition early Friday, Aug. 21:

Ahmadi Vadhidi, whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has designated Iran's next defense minister, was head of the notorious al Qods Brigades which ordered and organized the bombing attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that left 84 people dead.

Interpol has issued an international warrant for his arrest for this crime. (See attached photo)

Al Qods is responsible for the Revolutionary Guards terrorist operations in foreign countries. For the attack on the Jewish center, Vadhidi used Hizballah operatives with whom he was acquainted from his days as commander of the IRGC's Lebanon Corps in the 1980s.

He was especially close to Hizballah's bombing and abduction expert, the late Imad Mughniyeh. Together, they plotted and executed the kidnapping of a series of high-ranking Western officials in those years, among them William Buckley and Col, Richard Higgins.

Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, was snatched in 1984, the first senior US intelligence official to be interrogated under torture by joint teams employed by Vadhidi and Mughniyeh. He did not survive the ordeal.

Four years later, the due captured Col. William Richard ("Rich") Higgins, the highest-ranking US military and intelligence officer in Lebanon at the time. He too was tortured to death in the attempt by Iranian agents to extract the secrets of US Middle East operations.

Vadhidi has been employed in recent years at home base in Tehran, latterly as deputy defense minister with responsibility for "aerodynamic development" i.e. missiles. He has also served as head of the ministry's planning department and head of the Expediency Council's political-security commission.

The Iranian president is poised to unveil his cabinet in the coming days. Composed mainly of his most brutal cronies and loyal yes-men - as well as three women for the first time - it faces the opposition of large sections of parliament who threaten to withhold endorsement.