I’d always read that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was the daughter of a “teacher,” but from obituaries it appears her father was a Soviet-educated colonel in the army of genocidal Somali dictator Siad Barre. From Sahan Journal:
‘He was loved by everyone’: Somali community remembers Nur Omar Mohamed, who died of COVID-19
Best known in the U.S. as Ilhan Omar’s father, Nur was a prominent Somali military officer who encouraged his children to succeed
By IBRAHIM HIRSI
JUNE 20, 2020Nur Omar Mohamed was an esteemed senior officer in the Somali National Army well before the country plunged into anarchy following the fall of the Siad Barre regime in the early 1990s.
A few years after that, he ended up in Minnesota with his family. Most Americans knew nothing about his prestigious career as a colonel who led a successful regiment in the Somali-Ethiopian war during the late 1970s. To them, he was just another faceless Somali refugee.
He picked up jobs as a cab driver and postal worker to make ends meet. But more than two decades later, he regained some of his lost status through his daughters Ilhan Omar, who became the first Muslim lawmaker to wear a hijab in the United States Congress, and Sahra Noor, a health care executive.
Nur died Monday from COVID-19 complications at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. He was 67.
Nur was born in Bandarbeyla, a coastal town in northeastern Somalia, and grew up in Mogadishu, where he completed his middle and high school education, relatives said.
He joined the Somali National Army after obtaining a military education in Russia, Faraton said. Thousands of Somali students in that decade received scholarships from the Soviet Union to train as medical doctors, technicians and military specialists.
When he returned to Somalia, Nur began his climb in the military hierarchy, eventually becoming a colonel. During the 1977-1978 Somali-Ethiopian war, he led a regiment, Faraton said.
But if he was 67 at his death in June, he would have been about 25 in 1977-78. Do they let you lead a regiment at 25?
Somalia was a Soviet client at the time, but when they attacked newly Communist Ethiopia, Moscow said, “Hey, wait a minute, Ethiopia has a much bigger population than Somalia and it rains in Ethiopia.” So the Soviets switched sides to backing Ethiopia and Somalia was defeated. Somalia became a minor US ally.
“Nur played a significant role in the war,” he added. “He was one of the officers who were recognized for their work.” …
Nur’s prestigious career in the military ended in 1991 after the Barre regime was ousted, and the country sank into civil war. The family escaped to Utange refugee camp in Kenya.
Was Rep. Omar’s dad involved in the Isaaq Genocide of the late 1980s? If he was 67 in 2020, it seems more likely he was a high-ranking officer in the late 1980s, the time of internal massacres, than in the late 1970s, the time of external aggression.
Four years later, in 1995, Nur and his family arrived in the U.S. as refugees. The family spent the first two years in Arlington, Virginia, before moving to Minneapolis and establishing a permanent home in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood.
Here, Nur was no longer the affluent colonel he was in Mogadishu. …
But this loss of status wasn’t unique. In The New Immigration: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Carola Suárez-Orozco wrote that new immigrants and refugees from middle-class backgrounds “frequently find employment in positions far below their training and qualifications because of language difficulties, lack of connections, or lack of certification in certain professions.”
How many refugees get mad at America because they were big shots back home but here they are only qualified to drive cabs and sort mail?

Steve, did you see the Ronnie McNutt video?
Yes, but….
In Canada we ask immigrants to have a lot of university qualifications and there is the assumption that Canada will be a paradise for them. Once they get in they cannot find work what they have been educated for. Now we have the best educated taxi drivers in the world. A solution would be to let fewer in, but as it is we end up with a lot of understandably annoyed people.
Not to mention the small pond’s big fish showing up in the big pond, like the small town valedictorian on his first day at Harvard.
I didn’t know that Omar’s dad was trained by the Soviet military. Too bad he didn’t leave Somalia for Russia.
Will she ever get in trouble for her immigration, tax and all the other fraud she has committed?
Isn’t it proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she used a false name to come to the US and then marry her brother? I thought that had left the realm of conspiracy theory and joined conspiracy fact.
Maybe I am wrong.
How many refugees with undeclared mounds of cash do great as cab drivers and door to door sales and other jobs where they declare income as they please?
There have been juntas in Africa led by sergeants. And war is always good for rapid promotion.
At least he lived long enough to see the glorious uprising in the country that saved him.
Custer led a brigade at 23.
I doubt that it happens very often. The refugees I’ve met are grateful to the USA. In my experience, it’s more common for their children to be resentful.
Interesting question. I don’t think any of my immigrant ancestors were big shots back home. I have no reason to doubt most came because they perceived they would have more opportunities here than in their native lands, where moving up was difficult, if not impossible. Today, do we get a higher percentage of immigrants who were elite in their home countries, but not elite enough to retain their status here? That seems like a recipe for dissatisfaction.
Not buying the old man’s cause of death is chicom bat flu. Just like the math doesn’t add up for his true age we can assume all other facts in the article are fudged or otherwise shaped for political correctness.
Anyway every hospital administrator knows how to keep the revenue flowing: MARK IT DOWN COVID.
And holy smokes the testing technology is now either so supersensitive or error prone that you could find covid19 molecules/antibodies on a meteorite that has freshly entered earth’s atmosphere.
Whatever. Now wacky fraud Ilhan can introduce an omnibus bill in her father’s name 1 making it legal to marry your brother 2 declaring the muslim veil as best practice to maintain womens protection from bat flu 3 fund the construction of a national mosque on top of the Jefferson memorial.
The Case-O-Rama rolls on.
He should have fought harder back home.
Of course, when such a politically and militarily leading personage as this is ‘accepted as a refugee and resettled’ in the USA, the *certainty* that the CIA etc have ‘got’ to him is a given.
2015 lawyers, engineers and medical doctors were a big thing, which would all arrive from – Syria.
I came across an “archeologist” and his family. – A distinguished man who wore black trousers, a white shirt and a brown jacket, an Omar Sharif moustache and glases and knew some french. – It turned out, he had been running the kiosk at the entrance of an archeological site. Which was quite something back home. – Here, he did not engage much in learning German or finding work (he was 53 years old but physically not that fit, yellowish skin, problems with his hip and knees) – because at home, he had already been retired.
A joke in the 1920s was that the doormen of half the great hotels of Europe were former Russian nobility.
If the officer class is hated by rank and file soldiers, as is often the case after long and fruitless wars, it may be senior NCOs whom the soldiers are willing to follow.
It is also possible he lied about his age after immigrating, to get more years of work in before having to retire. “Refugees” do that sort of thing, sometimes.
So the media wants us to mourn a proud cog in the Marxist regime that ruled Somalia for decades? Notice how they say he studied in Russia and not the USSR, as if he was studying Dostoevsky instead of Lenin
So he was a soldier in the service of Soviet puppet Siad Barre. Meaning that Ilhan Omar’s father was ultimately a henchman for…………….Russia! Somebody, call Adam Schiff!
Good riddance!
A funny story about people not realizing who these poor helpless immigrants are. You know, the ones who can move their whole families from poor African countries to middle class neighborhoods in first world countries across the ocean.
The middleweight UFC champion, Israel Adesanya, immigrated to New Zealand from Nigeria when he was entering adolescence. White journalists kept assuming he must have been so poor and destitute on the Dark Continent and he was utterly confused because he had never said that.
One way he illustrated his family background: he *decided* he wanted to learn how to bathe himself when he was eight or nine years old. Before that, of course, he had servants doing it.
OTOH, it’s not exactly a badge of honour in the world of Islam to have the daughter be the bright public star of the family.
Makes sense. The nobles and general staff really know how to dress up their uniforms.
First I’ve heard of it. A quick Google search and thirty seconds later I’m watching a guy blow his head off.
Much more grisly than the Budd Dwyer footage.
Not to mention many pics of those African armies and militias often have some fairly young soldiers. You could rack up a lot of experience by age 25 in a unit like that.
Mister Nur Omar Mohamed = Nur admit Ms. Omar mere ho.
How sad that the warlord industry in the US is not sufficiently developed that our immigrants can come and do the mayhem that Americans just won’t do?
Nice to see that situation being rectified. I am sure that Col. Nur will rest peacefully knowing that the next generation of immigrants will be able to pillage the US just like they did at home.
we know nothing about most of these big shot refugees…
https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/obituaries/former-president-of-south-vietnam-nguyen-van-thieu-dead-at-78/article_01c44f8e-caaf-58b8-922b-6458c9548b0f.html
one of these big shots ran a liquor store..
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/25/Nguyen-Cao-Ky-accused-of-leading-Vietnamese-gangs/3789467524800/
so much for screening.
So he first settles in Arlington, Virginia. Possible we’re missing something bigger about this awful family. That in fact like a lot of foreign people who settle in and around DC Mr. Noor h had some connections to the imbeciles who run the State and Defense Departments or the CIA?
How many Americans get mad at America because they were trained to be big shots, but they can only get jobs waiting tables because immigrants took all the mail sorting and cab driving work?
How many years does it take to become a colonel in Somalia? 3 years?
Came with skills in demand less in old world than in new world.
Came with status inherited in old world.* New world has no use for them.
——
*Or status “earned” through ruthless bossing of war clan or crime syndicate. New world still doesn’t want them. They compete with new world’s crime bosses.
Think Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlins and Staff Sergeant Samuel K. Doe.
That’s certainly sweeping a lot of bad foreign policy and immigration decisions under the rug.
“Most Americans”? Most Americans cannot name a single colonel in their own nation’s Army, much less the mid-level uniformed butchers of sh!+hole countries. And there’s no reason they should be able to.
“Faceless”? God, writing is so bad today, the result of lowering educational standards so sub-90 IQ blacks can get a high school diploma and a boost into a university they have no business attending. This whole article would have been returned to me by my 9th grade English teacher covered in red ink with a giant “D” in the upper margin.
With Africans everything is possible….
So true. I suspect this is what drives many Antifa members. Community college and directional State U grads with soft degrees who can’t get regular work. They join protest movements to feel important.
If there’s one benefit to our increasingly cashless economy, it is that hiding cash from the government is a lot harder to do. I make it a point to never use cash when making purchases from an immigrant-run business.
Our new “gig” economy is basically made possible by mass immigration. It’s the day laborer standing in front of Home Depot gone systemwide. Jobs without security, benefits, or any sort of guaranteed pay.
Nur died? I didn’t even know he’d been sick.
Heartily agree with you, Missourah. I would add that many of those Americans lose the much higher-paying jobs in their own fields to non-citizens in the first place.
Foreigners brought here unnecessarily on H1B visas because their disloyal corporate employers are never satisfied with their profits. They are always ready to indifferently destroy families and towns to replace and outsource to increase profits further.
We know two talented white American men in this situation, one an IT pro and the other an experienced journalist and editor. Adding insult to injury, the journalist was laid off by a hostile immigrant (an Indian Muslim supervisor); a friend still in the company confirms that he was replaced by a non-citizen at lower pay.
They have done what a man should do, getting lower-paying jobs outside their fields, taking part-time jobs with no benefits (or ha, pensions), and moving in order to downsize. The IT guy has a wife and two young children to support (and buying a house is now a distant dream), while the journalist has a pregnant wife and a house he is struggling to keep by depleting once-substantial savings.
An employer typically pays only a few thousand dollars to the fed gov (and some to an immigration lawyer) to arrange an H1B:
https://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-filing-fee-summary/
The fed gov needs to charge employers FAR more for an H1B visa. Try $50,000 up front and $50,000 every year the H1B is in our country thereafter. Index these amounts amply for inflation (using the higher measure of calculating inflation).
It would no longer pay for corporations to fill a position with a noncitizen except in extraordinary situations. The employer would not bother with an H1B unless the noncitizen had truly unusual or exceptional skills that provide great immediate value to the employer (and hopefully the country) possessed by few available US Citizens.
** ALL revenue from the stiff H1B visa fees should go directly to US Citizens who lose their jobs, as a fed supplement to state unemployment benefits.
That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Do you really think government needs to be involved in every single transaction dealing with goods and/or services? What a fine and upstanding citizen you must think you are.
And in a few years when those jobs are automated (driverless cars are Ubers whole business model), those immigrants and their ancestors will be here and likely on the govt dole for good.
Privatized profits, socialized costs.
A good number of clever, educated refugees start immigrant assistance charities/rackets and cash in big on white liberals and positive press, when in reality they’re malignant parasites playing whitey for the sucker.
Russia was good back then, according to today’s Democrats. Although not as good as when they were instituting the Red Terror. It is only contemporary Russia that is evil.
Pretty good! I don’t know how you and Reg sort out the good ones from the gibberish. Will you reveal your secret?
This is my experience also, especially with Nigerians who fail to keep their kids away from rap.
That kind of thing happens during an extended war. Especially given his Soviet training. How common was that? It seems to me being chosen for that training would indicate either being a child of the elite or exceptional ability (or both).
It is depressing to dig into things like this.
https://menafn.com/1098974175/Ilhan-Omars-Father-Was-Top-Propaganda-Official-In-Genocidal-Barre-Regime
P.S. Somalia recently made a 32 year old army chief.
https://www.voanews.com/africa/standout-general-picked-lead-somalias-al-shabab-fight
You’re right, Wilkey. That’s one of the reasons that my own “radical center” has moved “left” or “populist” in the past decade.
We could do with a substantial universal basic income ($2,000 per month in today’s dollars). But we should not fund it with a big new tax on US Citizens like the federal VAT that Andrew Yang proposed. We can fund it without any new or increased tax on the general population.
By far the biggest new source of federal revenue would be publicly owned natural resources. The annual proceeds from the sale of our God-given natural resources are massive: oil, gas, minerals and precious metals, and water. Currently, much of the proceeds are diverted to a VERY small number of large shareholders and executives at profiteering “energy companies.” An additional amount, lesser but still meaningful, is wasted on lobbying and politicking.
It would be a drastic and controversial change, of course, to transfer natural resources to public ownership. Realistically, then, we need other ways to fund a UBI — for gig workers and the rest of us — in the near term.
We had better get to it soon. The number of gig workers stuck in a stressful precarious life, always near poverty, will only grow as mass immigration continues and automation and AI advance. I would, of course, stop the immigration, but automation and AI alone will eliminate millions more jobs.
To fund the UBI without natural-resource proceeds, I suggest three targeted federal taxes and a drastic increase in USCIS fees.
(1) straight 50% tax on annual household income over $25 million — not even the top one half of one percent of households — treating capital gains, dividends, and interest the same as salaries/wages (funny how andy yang never proposed higher taxes on the elites);
(2) an excise tax of 10% on marijuana products (with more populous States legalizing adult use, like New Jersey (nine million people) this November, this is a rapidly growing market that will provide a tax base of several trillion dollars per year in time — the next huge boost to the legal pot tax base will come when it’s legalized in the 3rd and 9th most populous States, Florida and North Carolina);
(3) an excise tax of 20% on cash remittances sent to foreign countries;
(4) a transaction tax after a specified high number of stock or bond trades.
A majority of US Citizens will not pay any of these four new taxes. Most US Citizens do not buy marijuana products. Most do not send cash abroad. Not even three in a hundred speculate through frequent stock and bond trades. Not even one in a thousand earns the elite/plutocrat-level incomes mentioned above. Yet together these taxes still provide a substantial new tax base.
To minimize the inflationary effect, UBI could start very small ($250 per month) and increase slowly. The phase-in period could be ten years.
The alternative is tens of millions of anxious people stuck in the gig “economy” with no bargaining power, no economic security, little ability to raise healthy secure families, no peace of mind, no ability to demand good treatment and working conditions, no ability to buy and hold on to a home in many places, no hope of saving for a dignified retirement. The number of perpetually frightened, tired, hopeless people will be so large that one might call it an “army” of people.
In terms of income-generating potential for refugees and migrants there is also the “anchor sponsor” racket. The family/clan/tribe/village back home has hit the jackpot when one of theirs lands as an anchor sponsor in a first-world country. The first thing that the newly settled anchor does is to sponsor as many of his “family” members as possible to immigrate in return for a payment from each. It may even evolve into a classic pyramid scheme with residual payments from the sponsored members of each tier of the pyramid percolating up to those in higher tiers. By now there are probably smartphone apps and websites that facilitate these rackets, and in a variety of languages from third-world countries. Has there ever been a civilization in history that made its own demise a profitable enterprise for those who are destroying it?
Thus proving that Negroes are inferior.
Gilbert Lafayette was appointed a Major General in the American Revolutionary army at age 19.
Others noted Gen. George A. Custer. There are many others holding high rank at very young ages.
In places like Africa and other third world nations, screening for talent is done very early and often comes from insider political/military family groups or clans. He would be the same age as a senior grad student or possibly a new medical intern. But running an African regiment isn’t brain surgery.
There are 25 YO Army and Marine captains, roughly the level of responsibility.
The comment re: his working for genocidal dictator Siad Barre is on target. He undoubtedly supervised or organized local death squads or military groups doing the same thing.
In the USA they kick out 95 YO former German camp guards so they can send them back to Germany to die in prison. But for African war criminals, nice benefits and look, your family can return to the nexus of power! Illan knows something about how she’s going to enforce her own verison of Woketopia.
Qaddafi remained a Colonel.
Colonel is a rank that Military Intelligence uses.
Lower ranks tend to give way to Colonels. “Above your pay grade.”
Fictional example is Colonel Flagg (M*A*S*H TV).
This reminds me of not just Aidid but Atto, who died of natural causes in 2013 in Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osman_Ali_Atto
The “big man” model of social organization is very old, and it comes with a lot of baggage that most people don’t even pay attention to, least of all libtards. The Big Man always has other big men around him.
Atto objected to his portrayal in Black Hawk Down; he didn’t smoke cigars, he didn’t look or sound like the actor, he was in a Fiat 124 when captured, etc. and it probably is over the top, but there’s kernels of truth in it as well.
The reason Omar and way too many other Somalis are in Minnesota and Maine is the refugee racket that Lutheran and Catholic social services profit from, starting back in 1993 around the time of the battle in Mogadishu. Omar is here because the US decided to meddle in a post-Cold War civil war.
There is no logical reason for the Omar clan to be in North America at all. None.
“How many refugees get mad at America because they were big shots back home but here they are only qualified to drive cabs and sort mail?”
i never thought about this, but true. how many guys come to America and pretty much all they’re able to do is load trucks or work at McDonald’s? when back home in third world land, being a smarter than average guy meant they could run the local gang of flunkies, here it just means they can stock shelves at Walmart good enough to not get fired.
still a distinction without a difference though. who cares. send all useless third worlders like Nur Omar Mohamed back to where they came from. we don’t need any ‘lighthouse experts’.
“Gilbert Lafayette was appointed a Major General in the American Revolutionary army at age 19. ”
Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette being a Marquis from birth he probably out ranked a Major General.
France’s support may have had a stipulation that the young Marquis receive a rank equivalent to his privileged aristocratic status.
The Marquis is covered in this research paper:
http://mileswmathis.com/frev.pdf
Custer was a spook. Last in his class at US Military Academy. He didn’t have to try at all, he was going to graduate whatever.
Custer is exposed in these two research papers:
http://mileswmathis.com/custer.pdf
http://mileswmathis.com/lance.pdf
Someone needs to archive his DNA samples before his final rites.
I recall the father from “The Kite Runner” was a typical American “riches to rags” story. He was a big shot in Afghanistan but the Soviets invaded in 1979 and fled to America with the clothes on his back.
George McGovern piloted a B-24 at age 22. He was only a first lieutenant, but that was an expensive, if unwieldy, piece of equipment.
Also, remember that standards in Somalia might be a little lower than here, and the hiring pool offers less choice.
I think white people–more specifically, productive middle class people in general–need to work to develop their own networks of like minded people, with whom they can trade services “off the books”. (Part of a larger program of building our own society physical and on-line where we don’t get cancelled.)
I grew up as a solid middle class, pay your fair share kind of guy. But we now have a state that is not remotely “ours” nor under our control, but simply a parasitic extractive leviathan.
There is no moral or ethical obligation to pay one red cent to a government that is hostile to you, working against your existence as a people.
Thanks, Achmed. Like Reg, I start with the Internet Anagram Server at Wordsmith .org. Reg seems to pick the best from the ones suggested by the generator. Like Avis (vs. Hertz), I’m number two, so I try harder, using misspelled words, adding titles to the names like “mister” and “representative”, and other tricks.

Pemex, Petrobras, and Petronas come north!
I remember the flip-flop of Cold War alliances in the late 70s after emperor-dictator Haile Selassie was ousted and the red-terror commie-dictator Mengistu took power and Somalia–sensing weakness/opportunity invaded to grab territory.
Communism was/is a terrible system, but “Russia” sure seemed to have come out of this better off than us. You read of all these POCs who “studied” in the Soviet Union … but they always returned to their own nation. In contrast, the Cold War left us with detritus like Ilhan Omar and Barak Obama.
This is winning?
I knew an immigrant (political asylum) who had been a big shot back home.
He landed near DC because, as he put it, he still had high level contacts in his ex-country’s embassy in the US.
But as you’ve noted, his contacts could have included USG spooks.
Regularly scheduled semi-OT reminder that the 1999 Black Hawk Down book is pretty good, if you’ve never read it. Relatively safe way of embracing your inner converted-Land Cruiser technical
Piltdowman, 180 opposite tack used by immigrants from the Philippines. Common practice was to document their age a decade older; for early acquisition of Social Security & Medicare benefits. Years back I worked with with many remarkably spry SS collecting “65-80+” year old Philippinas.
You’re not wrong. Everyone would have been happier if she had gone to the Soviet Union.
They claimed to be father and daughter. But given their being from Africa, until paternity can be scientifically established, their claim seems specious.
If he could have just held on for a few more months, Biden could have made him a genocidal colonel again.
“Nur died?”
I’m still mourning Nipsey Hu$$le. RIP Pepsi.
“refugee racket … Lutheran and Catholic social services profit from”
Attention white men: Christianity has gelded you. Join Team Odin.
AKA, yes a foreign colonel flees, escapes (?) to the USA and can’t get a job as a colonel. After WWII thousands of officers returned home and went back to assembly line work, driving a cab, the postal service or whatever. Lots of people think a job in the Postal Service is a good deal. Love the line…”Most American knew nothing of his prestigious career as colonel”, and why would they. Most Americans now can’t name six Generals from the Revolution, the Civil War and WWII.
Having a colourful past in another country in another continent proved no obstacle to the dynamic career in the USA of one young man:
Reading through the funeral notice I think of the old saying , “ to let sleeping dogs lie”. Some things are best left unspoken. But clearly by writing an uplifting eulogy and coming out in public leaves the fathers memory open to investigation. As it should be, for every story has at two sides.
This story is in the Sahan Journal, a “501(c)(3) nonprofit digital newsroom dedicated to providing authentic news reporting for and about immigrants and refugees in Minnesota.”
The obvious question: who’s bankrolling it?
150k+ donors:
Knight Foundation
Racial Equity in Journalism Fund
Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation
100k+ donors:
Facebook Journalism Project Community Network
There’s over half a million right there. To publish eulogies to foreign invaders.
The Puritans were a bit more successful in Massachusetts Bay than your team was in what became Newfoundland. “Greater New England” extends to Honolulu.
Vinland, like the UK, has Christian crosses on her flag. And no runes.
Perhaps the yellow represents the village of Dildo.
I can think of few things more “gelded” than sun-baked suburbia:
Joe, look out! Lysenkoism lives on in Western New York:
Assistant principal who yelled ‘F–k the police!’ at Rochester protests put on leave
Regularly scheduled semi-OT reminder that the 1999 Black Hawk Down book is pretty good, if you’ve never read it.
Especially if you’ve never read it. The movie is also impressive. Probably best to read the book first, in order to keep sorted who is whom. Don’t confuse Delta with Ranger with 10th Mountain, etc.
Relatively safe way of embracing your inner converted-Land Cruiser technical
Me no got inner technical. But sometimes I self-identify as a bird. Not a big bird, nope.
Just a little bird.
A man that could command a regiment in the Ogaden war and get through Soviet military training was probably pretty talented and/or tough. He probably was put under a lot more stress then western military officers who fight their enemies with much better technology than their opponents.
That’s no longer a big deal. Since today an A at Harvard stands for average.
Same goes for the USA. Any country that would allow someone who hates it and its people, well, the Whites ones anyway, as much as she does is clearly a country of failing powers and, therefore, no longer worth much.
It might still be a big pond. But it’s no longer a big deal.
Wish I woulda met you
Why not just eliminate the H1B visas entirely?
I mean, Barack’s dad returned to Kenya after pumping and dumping Ann.
40 years too late
AKA, thank you, but that begs the question. Why would any Americans know about his career?
Reg, thank you. Put on leave, with pay and benefits. Probably makes $80K to $100K. ACLU and NYSUT will be taking his case.
Wow what a scoop!
So Omar is like Ayan Hirsii, both had big shot in Somalia as fathers. What is it with these generals and their outspoken daughters?
This reminds me, Omar and Somalis like her consider themselves true Somalis (tall, fine features, nomads) and they consider as subhumans the darker skinned Bantus in the southern part of Somalia who are peasants and artisans.
Somalis are pretty open with their racism. In fact, once here many refugees fled the big cities where the refugee organizations had placed, and moved to the whitest state in the US, Maine, all to get away as far away from poor black people as possible.
H1B has destroyed tech as a career for citizens (esp if you do not have that stereotypical hindoo name) and woke HR policies have already made it easier for Indians to bring their folks in (DIEversity baby!).
Even in frickin Boise Micron is filling its ranks with Indians as the CEO is now an Indian. Expect the company to become just another tech company filled to the brim with Indians. Arraigned along the lines of caste/region and a new hierarchy will replace the egalitarian model of the not so distant past
This is the new normal at most tech (and soon to be med and finance) companies
Wonder if daddy was the infamous KGB Somali asset codenamed KERL listed in the Mitrokhin archive? KERL gave the Soviets advanced notice of Barre’s coup, and he was such an important asset that he had a secret audience with both Andropov and Brezhnev during one of his visits to the Soviet Union. KERL’s handlers wrote that he was instrumental in convincing Barre to allow the Soviet navy use of Somalia’s ports while simultaneously kicking out the US Peace Corps and half the US embassy staff.
“KERL’s handlers wrote that he was instrumental in convincing Barre to allow the Soviet navy use of Somalia’s ports”
Ilhan Omar’s grandfather was in charge of Coastal Defense or something maritime like that.
Steve, you’re right — it’s the grandfather. Barre’s coup was much earlier than I thought, and Ilhan’s father presumably would have been too young.
What’s interesting is that during the early 1970s, the Soviets viewed Somalia as its best Sub-Sharan prospect. And KERL, whose identity is never disclosed, was the Centre’s most important asset — so important that the KGB used him in an influence campaign with Qaddafi. He also laundered Western technology for the Soviets via Italy.
Anecdotal, but interesting (from the CityPages article): “Her grandfather rode the winds of change to Italy, where he attended university. He returned to his East African homeland, becoming Somalia’s National Marine Transport director. Abukar oversaw the string of lighthouses along the Arabian Sea coastline.”
My guess is that her grandfather was in charge of keeping the Somali pirates down — a worthy job, although we might not want to know too much about his methods. The lighthouse part of the job is what you’d explain to a child.
But that’s just a guess.