More attempts by Muslims to ethnically cleanse Jews, Jewish history and Jewish holy sites from the face of the earth. And nothing but silence from the rest of the world. Via JPost:

For centuries Jews, Christians and Muslims came to Al-Kifl, a small town south of Baghdad, to visit the tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel and pray.

The Al-Kifl shrine has a distinctive Jewish character, namely the Hebrew inscriptions and the Torah Ark.

The vast majority of Iraq’s Jewish community left some 60 years ago, but Shi’ites took good care of the holy site – until now.

Recently the Iraqi news agency Ur reported that a huge mosque will be built on top of the grave by Iraq’s Antiquities and Heritage Authority, while Hebrew inscriptions and ornaments are being removed from the site, all as part of renovations.

Prof. Shmuel Moreh of Hebrew University confirmed the report. “I first heard the news of tomb desecration from a friend of mine who is a German scholar. After visiting the site he called me and said that some Hebrew inscriptions on the grave were covered by plaster and that a mosque is planned to be built on top of the tomb.”

“Someone must intervene before it’s too late,” Moreh warned.

Pretty freaking ironic that France is now all hysterical considering that Jacques Chirac sold the Osiraq nuclear reactor and its parts to Saddam Hussein.  Via Breitbart:

France expressed concern Friday after Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that his country had developed new nuclear fuel enrichment technology despite international pressure not to do so.

“These are worrying declarations,” French foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told reporters. “We need to check the accuracy of the figures … and for that we’ll wait for the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

And regarding the righteous 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear reactor, if you haven’t seen this video before, it’s a gripping documentary on Operation Opera.

Takes 45 minutes to watch, but well worth it.

Video: The Story of the Israeli Air Force’s Attack on the Iraqi Reactor Near Baghdad, June 1981

Oh, and this video confirms – with documentary footage – that Jacques Chirac sold the nuclear reactor and its parts – to Saddam Hussein.

The video demonstrates France’s embrace of Islam, and its hypocrisy and hysteria about Iran’s reactor(s) is now laughable.

From the Islamic hubris department at DPA/Qatar Tribune:

Iraqi parliamentarians are demanding Israel pay billions of dollars in reparations for a 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear reactor, Baghdad’s daily Al Sabbah reported on Thursday.

Mohammed Naji Mohammed of the United Iraqi Alliance is leading a campaign for the Iraqi foreign ministry and courts to seek reparations.

And regarding the righteous 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear reactor, if you haven’t seen this video before, it’s a gripping documentary on Operation Opera.

Takes 45 minutes to watch, but well worth it.

Video: The Story of the Israeli Air Force’s Attack on the Iraqi Reactor Near Baghdad, June 1981

Oh, and btw this video confirms – with documentary footage – that Jacques Chirac sold the nuclear reactor and its parts – to Saddam Hussein.

Explains a lot about France’s embracing of Islam, doesn’t it.

It’s good to see natural selection at work. Any moron who would give a loaded automatic to a two-year old deserves to be shot.

I thought that this would be a good time to repeat a previous post of mine about the history of England’s principled role in creating nations, carving up nations and occupying the Middle East:

During WWI, the entire Middle East, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire, was split into two parts. Half was controlled by France (the French Mandate), the other half by England (the British Mandate).

The French Mandate included the northern part of the Ottoman Empire. The British Mandate included the southern and eastern part of the Ottoman Empire.

It is important to keep in mind that the Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East from the 16th to the 20th century — for some 400 years. During this time, the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. did not exist. The residents in these areas were predominately Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire, living in loosely organized tribal communities.

The British Mandate included the landmass on the West Bank of the Jordan River all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the landmass on the East Bank of the Jordan River, an area known as Trans-Jordan. The British called this whole huge area “Palestine.”

When the British took over the land of Israel, suddenly the dream of a homeland for the Jews became a real possibility.

By this time, there were between 85,000 to 100,000 Jews living in the Land of Israel, of a total population of 600,000. (See “History of the Jews” by Paul Johnson, p. 430.) Most of the Arabs living in the land had migrated there only in the previous thirty years attracted by the jobs created by the Jews who were building and farming. (Note that when Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there.)

A big boost for a Jewish homeland came from Earl Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), then foreign secretary, who in 1917 promised British support for the cause.

Balfour became a friend of the Jewish cause in some measure because of Chaim Weizmann whose invention of artificial acetone, the chief ingredient in gunpowder, enabled the British to mass-produce gunpowder for the war effort. Balfour said that acetone converted him to Zionism.

Balfour’s support for a Jewish homeland became known in history as the Balfour Declaration which was issued in the form a letter to Lord Rothschild on November 2nd, 1917. It stated:

“His Majesty’s government looks with favor upon the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people.”

But talk is cheap, and when it came to the reality of creating such a state, the British had many other considerations and interests to take into consideration.

Despite the support of certain British political figures, the British Foreign Ministry and others were generally much more pro-Arab, and the British government got busy carving out Arab countries from the lands of the Ottoman Empire.

Through their efforts the country of Iraq was created in 1921. It was a monarchy with Faisal ibn Hussein, the son of Hussein the Sherif of Mecca, as king. Soon thereafter Iraqi oil started to flow to the West.

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia) and it is no wonder the British were interested in having a bond with this country as well as other oil-rich Arab states.

Another country created by the British was Jordan. In 1927, the British installed Abdullah ibn Hussein, another son of the Sherif of Mecca, as emir of the new country called Trans-Jordan, later Jordan. Jordan was confined to the East Bank of the River Jordan and did not include any part of the West Bank.

Why were the sons of the Sherif of Mecca made rulers of these countries?

The British wanted alliances with all the Arab kingdoms. They had shored up support for the Ibn Saud of the Arabian Peninsula, who had fought the Turks alongside them. Ibn Saud got Saudi Arabia.

But when that happened, the British had to pay off the Hussein Sherif of Mecca, who was in charge of the Islamic holy sites. (The Hussein family are Hashemites, the tribe of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and have been traditionally the keepers of the “holy” city of Mecca.)

They had to give him and his children some land, so they gave them Iraq and Trans-Jordan — the land on the East Bank of the River Jordan.

Yet despite all this country-making, and despite the Balfour Declaration, the British could not get around to creating a country called Israel.

Why not?

There was a clear British bias against the Jews as is readily apparent to anyone who has studied the series of White Papers issued by the British government in the 1920s and 1930s.

The reasons for this bias were:

The British had to deal with the issue of an Arab majority living in what was left of Palestine. They came up with all kinds of partition plans all of which were rejected by the Arabs. (Not all Arabs were opposed by-the-way; King Faisal of Iraq signed an agreement with Chaim Weizman calling for peace and cooperation.)

Many members of the British government and military were clearly anti-Semitic and had a romantic/patronizing attitude toward the Arabs.

The Arabs had oil and England needed oil. In the final analysis, the British had to take into consideration what was in their best interest. Looking after their strategic interests and placating tens of millions of Arabs was more important in their eyes than saving a few hundred thousand Jews, even though this went against the conditions of the mandate that they were granted in 1920.

Meanwhile the poor Jews, not knowing that the British were going to back out of their promise, kept migrating to the land.

The third migration or aliyah (between 1919 and 1923) brought 35,000 Jews to the land. The fourth aliyah (between 1924 and 1928) brought 80,000 Jews to the land. The fifth aliyah (between 1929 and 1939 as Hitler rose to power in Germany) brought 250,000 Jews to the land.

The Arabs made it clear that they were not going to sit still for a Jewish state. In August of 1929, due to the instigation of the preachers in the mosques, a series of riots broke out in which many Jews were massacred.

The New York Times in its history of Israel (Israel: from Ancient Times to the Modern Nation, pp. 38-39) writes of this time:

“The riots of August, 1929, were ignited in Jerusalem over a rumor spread by Arab leaders that Jews were going to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most holy shrine. Fighting soon spread throughout Palestine. The worst massacres were in Hebron, sacred to Jew and Muslim alike, where 67 Orthodox Jews – men, women and children – were slaughtered by Arabs and 50 more wounded. Pierre van Paassen, a reporter, described the horror that he witnessed by lamplight in a Jewish seminary in Hebron: ‘The slain students in the yard, the dead men in the synagogue, slashed throats and mutilated bodies.’ By the time order was restored 133 Jews had been killed, 399 wounded.”

The 1930s saw more rioting and more massacres, especially in Jaffa and again in Hebron. In response, the British convened the Peel Commission which almost totally did away with the Balfour Declaration that had originally promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine on both sides of the River Jordan.

In July of 1937, the Peel Commission issued a report which said that all the Jews should be confined to a tiny state that would include a sliver of land along the Mediterranean coast and a small piece in the north abutting the west side of the Lake Kineret (“Sea of Galilee”).

The Arabs greeted the Peel Commission recommendation with a revolt which lasted until 1939.
The Arab Revolt was led by Haj Amin Husseini, who was originally appointed as the Mufti of Jerusalem by the British. It is interesting to note that in addition to hundreds of Jews who were killed by Arabs, some 3,000 Arabs died in this revolt at the hands of other Arabs and at the hands of the British.

For all the British criticism of Israel today, at that time the British were not shy in their efforts to quell the rioting. They introduced the policy of housing demolition and used artillery to shell rebellious towns.
The revolt was finally crushed and the Mufti fled first to Beirut and later to Europe, where he became an ally of Adolph Hitler, organizing a Bosnian S.S. unit to kill Jews in the Balkans.

After the war he was captured but escaped. He was later involved in fomenting violence, including the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan in 1951. He was last heard of living as a guest in Saudi Arabia. (Faisal Husseini, who was the PLO’s representatives in Jerusalem and who recently died of a heart attack was a relative of his.)

The British did not keep the promise contained in the Balfour Declaration and neither did they keep the promise contained in the Peel Commission report.

They did enforce one aspect of the Peel Commission report — that which limited Jewish migration to the land to only 12,000 a year for the next five years (1939-1943). By doing so the British doomed the Jews under the control of Nazis — they would no longer be able to find refuge in their homeland.

They did this, knowing full well what the Germans were doing to the Jews — this was after the Nuremberg Laws and Kristallnacht (see Part 60). And still the British closed an escape route that would have saved millions of Jewish lives.

The Jews were desperate and they tried to come illegally. In response, the British set up a blockade to keep them out.

Many Jews managed to circumvent the blockade and it is estimated that 115,000 Jews got through. But 115,000 is a very small number compared to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust and who could not find refuge in the land of Israel.

The British presently show the same callousness in regard to Jewish men, women and children being murdered today, as they did during the British Mandate.

I gratefully acknowledge Aish for their assistance in providing facts contained in this post. You can read the White Paper of 1922, White Paper of 1939, and the Balfour Declaration, here, here, and here.

What happened to this little Muslim girl?

Warning: Graphic description of barbaric ritual. Do not read any further if you are easily offended. From Der Spiegel:

Fatima’s scream is as blood-curdling as it is heart-wrenching. The little girl, who looks to be about eight years old, screams in a panic, initially in fear and then because she is unable to bear the pain she is experiencing. She is lying on the floor of a dirty hut somewhere in the Ethiopian desert. Her body is contorted with pain as she screams, cries and finally lies there whimpering. Her new, green floral dress is soaked in blood. Two men and her mother press the delicate child against the floor and pull apart her thin little legs.

An old woman crouches in front of Fatima, holding a shiny razor blade and a thick, threaded darning needle. Today is the day Fatima will become a woman, a decent woman.

The purpose of the thick darning needle is to lift the lips of the vulva to facilitate cutting them off. The old woman moves the razor blade into position. First she slices off the small lips of the vulva and then the clitoris. There is blood everywhere. The girl arches her small, sweat-soaked body. The old woman repeatedly pours a milky liquid onto the wound to prevent infection. Then the grandmother comes into the hut, pokes at the wound and tells the old woman to make a deeper cut. The process starts all over again. Fatima’s screams become almost unbearable. If the sight of this girl under female circumcision is so difficult to bear, how can she possibly stand the pain?

Finally the deed is done. The wound is sewn shut with thorns, leaving only a tiny opening. A straw is inserted into the small opening to prevent it from closing. Then Fatima’s legs are tied together with a rope to allow the wound to heal. She will lie in bed, her legs tied together in this fashion, for several weeks.

The old woman completes her barbaric task with a slap on her subject’s behind. Fatima is now a woman.

About 6,000 girls fall victim to genital mutilation every day, or about 2 million a year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 100 and 140 million women worldwide are circumcised. Most circumcised women live in 28 African countries, as well as in Asia and the Middle East. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least 90 percent of all women are circumcised in developing countries like Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia and Sierra Leone, while almost no women are circumcised in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

WHO distinguishes among four types of genital mutilation:

Type I, or “clitorectomy”: Excision of the skin surrounding the clitoris with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris

Type II, or “excision”: Removal of the entire clitoris and part or all of the labia minora

Type III, or “infibulation”: Removal of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching together of the vaginal orifice, leaving only a small opening

Type IV: Various other practices, including pricking, piercing, incision and tearing of the clitoris.

One out of every three girls dies as a result of infibulation, also known as pharaonic mutilation.

Women have been circumcised for thousands of years, and the custom has become deeply ingrained in human thought. Tradition demands that women be circumcised, and it is often the women themselves who wish to continue this ritual, partly to prevent sexual desire in girls. Indeed, an uncircumcised girl is considered worthless on the marriage market in many places because she is perceived as being “impure” and “loose.”

Although circumcision is often justified for supposedly religious reasons, there is no religious justification for the practice in either Christianity or Islam.

Sharp condemnation by religious and moral leaders is needed to ban this horrific practice. But movement does appear to be afoot — at least if an event that took place in Cairo two weeks ago is any indication. It bordered on a minor revolution.

Muslim scholars and academics from Germany, Africa and the Middle East spent two days discussing female genital mutilation. The goal of the conference was to declare this form of circumcision to be incompatible with the ethics of Islam as a global religion.

It was a German who organized and funded the conference. In 2000 Rüdiger Nehberg, 71, a man known for adventurous exploits that have included crossing the Atlantic in a pedal boat, founded Target, a human rights organization dedicated to fighting female genital mutilation. Since then Nehberg, accompanied by his life partner Annette Weber, has been traveling throughout Africa with his video camera, documenting the inhuman practice and attempting to win over political and religious leaders for his cause. Wherever he goes, Nehberg says: “This custom can only be brought to an end with the power of Islam.” In organizing the conference, which was held at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University under the patronage of Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Jumaa, Nehberg has come one step closer to his goal.

Many important Muslim scholars attended the event. The Egyptian minister for religious charities, Mahmoud Hamdi Saksuk, condemned the practice, as did the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi. Even the renowned and notorious Egyptian religious scholar and journalist Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who enjoys great popularity in the Middle East as a result of his commentary on the Aljazeera television network, attended the Cairo conference.

Qaradawi did full justice to his reputation as a hardliner by initially criticizing the fact that the conference was paid for by a foreign institution, and not the practice of mutilation. He also complained that the title, “The Prohibition of Violation of the Female Body through Circumcision” was biased and presumptuous.

But after plenty of hemming and hawing, even Qaradawi managed to agree that the Koran states that it is forbidden to mutilate God’s creation. “We are on the side of those who ban this practice,” he said, but added that doctors ought to have the last word.

This wasn’t enough for women’s rights activists. Mushira Chattab, the Egyptian first lady’s special ambassador and chairwoman of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, called upon the legal scholars at the meeting to take a clear position against female circumcision. Then she turned to Qaradawi and said: “You should not leave it up to doctors to condemn this practice.”

Every doctor at the conference agreed that there is no medical justification for female genital mutilation. Heribert Kentenich, physician-in-chief of the women’s clinic at the DRK Hospitals in Berlin expressed a “complete lack of understanding” for the fact that 75 percent of circumcisions are now performed by doctors in Egypt. “I find it almost more horrifying that doctors are enriching themselves by doing this,” he added. The drop in the estimated incidents of female circumcision has dropped significantly — some believe as much as from 97 percent to approximately 50 percent — but it is impossible to obtain precise figures. Even at 50 percent, that would still represent roughly 400,000 girls a year. Kentenich believes that the “medicalization of female genital mutilation makes it seem more acceptable.”

The direct consequences include hemorrhaging, as well as severe pain and anxiety that can lead to trauma. Besides, the practice can also cause infections in the urinary tract, the uterus, the fallopian tube and the ovaries. Other consequences such as tetanus infections, gangrene and blood poisoning can be fatal. Besides, women who are subjected to pharaonic mutilation experience increased pain during menstruation, when blood accumulates in the vagina because the opening is too small to permit normal flow. Mutilated women are also at greater risk for becoming infected with HIV.

Intercourse is painful for circumcised women. To be able to penetrate, men must often force themselves into their wives’ vaginas. Those whose penises are incapable of doing the job use a knife to enlarge the opening.

Circumcised women can face complications during pregnancy, and both the mother and child are at greater risk of dying in childbirth.

There is no religious justification for this practice. All three major monotheistic world religions define man as a perfect creation of the Almighty, and condemn doing any harm to God’s creation. In Sura 95, Verse 4, the Koran states: “We have created man in our most perfect image.” Besides, in Islam men and women are meant to experience sexual fulfillment, and it is considered the husband’s matrimonial duty to satisfy his wife — a near impossible task when a woman is circumcised.

Although the conference’s attendees were generally in agreement over these facts, men repeatedly insisted on defending circumcision as an established custom. “Our women have been circumcised for thousands of years, and they have never complained,” said an agitated elderly man in the audience. The conference, he said, was a Western conspiracy, and showing pictures of circumcisions was a crime.

But the academics and scholars in attendance declared genital circumcision to be a deplorable custom without any basis in religious texts. They called upon the parliaments in the countries where the practice is common to pass laws making genital mutilation a crime.

The Grand Mufti of Egypt signed the resolution the next day. Ali Jumaa declared that he firmly believed that the fight against this terrible custom would succeed. Muslims base much of their behavior on legal opinions issued by religious scholars.

For Rüdiger Nehberg, the adventurer on a crusade for women, the conference represented the fulfillment of a dream. He now plans to “print a small book containing the recommendation and the scholars’ comments and distribute 4 million copies worldwide.”

Click here to view a map of some of the areas where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is practised.

Now if Muslim “scholars” can all agree that killing Jews and Christians is also a terrible custom, then I’ll have some reason to review Islam as a religion, rather than as a political movement.

Click for more information and photos on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Cindy, read the following and read it carefully, slowly, and more than once so that is sinks in.

Source: Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror – by Deroy Murdock

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, burned its oil fields in a dastardly act of eco-vandalism, killed some 5,000 of his own people with chemical weapons at Halabjah, and stuffed another 400,000 or so of his constituents into mass graves.

In spite of that, did he possess weapons of mass destruction?

Considering the United States gave him approx 11 – 13 months warning, it can be assumed that nuclear, biologicial and chemical (NBC) weaponry was escorted covertly out of Iraq and into the hungry terror nations that surround the region.

But Cindy, even if Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, the question that must be asked is did Saddam Hussein have ties to terrorism?

The notion that he did not is the platform upon which your bleat out your rhetoric; you and the other half-wits that have glommed onto you like velcro.

Here’s the facts, Cindy Sheehan:

Saddam Hussein knew plenty about terrorism. In essence, he owned and operated a full-service general store for global terrorists, complete with cash, diplomatic aid, safe haven, training, and even medical attention. Such assistance violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 687. The results not only broke international law, but also were deadly, as this chart demonstrates.

The public evidence of Saddam Hussein’s cooperation with and support for global terrorists is abundant and clear. The Baathist government’s contacts and collaboration with terrorists in general, al-Qaeda in particular, and even the September 11 conspirators should make all Americans highly grateful that President Bush led an international effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

Cindy, you have to agree that the world is better off now that Hussein was removed from power.

You’re not the only mother who lost a child in war. Remember 9/11.

But since you can’t remember 9/11, let’s start with money. At a minimum, we know that Saddam Hussein’s government supported terrorism by paying “bonuses” of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers. How do we know this? Tariq Aziz, Hussein’s own deputy prime minister, was stunningly candid about the Baathist government’s underwriting of terrorist killings in Israel.

“President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000,” Aziz announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen on March 11, 2002, Reuters reported the next day.

Aziz simply echoed the policy his boss established one week earlier. As Saddam Hussein put it on Iraqi TV on March 4, 2002:

“We are glad of the Istishhadiyyah [suicide] and heroic spirit of the Palestinian people. By Allah, what the Palestinian people does is beyond my expectations…”

Saddam Hussein’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, is the man who Israeli intelligence believes was directly involved in funneling money from Baghdad into the hands of the families of homicide bombers. Documents that the Israeli Defense Force captured in the Palestinian town of Ramallah indicate that Vice President Ramadan used the Arab Liberation Front, the Palestinian Liberation Front, and the Palestinian branch of the Iraqi Baathist party to pass these funds into the hands of terrorists’ families.

Here’s the sort of thing Ramadan bought with Saddam Hussein’s money: On March 9, 2002, Fuad Isma’il Ahmad al-Hurani blew himself up in a Jerusalem restaurant called the Moment Café.

The devastation was extensive inside the eatery. Far worse, of course, was the human toll. Eleven Israelies were murdered while 52 were wounded.

Jews are human, aren’t they Cindy? Before your son was killed, did you ever weep for Jews being slaughtered by barbarians?

A little over three months after that carnage in 2002, Mrs. Khaldiya Isma’il Abd al-Aziz al-Hurani collected a check for $25,000 as a bonus for her son’s suicide and his homicide of nearly a dozen others. The check was a “President Saddam Hussein’s Grant” paid via the Palestine Investment Bank. These funds were transferred on June 23, 2002.

In another case, Usama Muhammad Id Bahr and Nabil Mahmud Jamil Halbiyyah blew themselves up in Jerusalem’s Zion Square on December 1, 2001. Before setting off to “martyrdom,” they also left a car bomb set on a timer two blocks away. It exploded just as rescue workers and emergency personnel arrived on the scene.

Here again, the physical damage was extensive, but largely reparable. Alas, the human toll was far more severe, what with 11 deaths and 188 injuries.

The deceased were all between ages 14 and 21. They were out for a night of fun after the end of Sabbath.

Jews celebrate the Sabbath, Cindy. That’s who Muslims got the idea from.

On April 10, 2002, Izat Jarradat boarded a crowded bus strapped with explosives. As the bus approached the busy Yagur junction near Haifa, he blew himself up. This vulgarity killed eight Israelis and wounded 15 others.
Not all of these victims are Israeli. American Abigail Litle, the daughter of a Baptist minister, was just 14 years old when she was killed on an Israeli bus on March 5, 2003.

See, Cindy? Christians are being slaughtered by Muslims too.

Between the time Saddam Hussein boosted his bonus payments to the families of Palestinian terrorists and the March 20, 2003 launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 28 homicide bombers injured 1,209 people and killed 223 more, including at least eight Americans. These bonus checks were handed out at ceremonies where banners proclaimed the friendship of the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein.

The Palestinian newspaper, Al Hayat, in December 2000 featured a letter expressing gratitude and appreciation to President Yasser Arafat and to President Saddam Hussein from the family of Imad Al-Dib Badir Al-Dayah.

Cindy, does it matter to you that Jews are being murdered, or are Palestinians your only major concern?

In addition to funds, Saddam Hussein’s government provided diplomatic help to Islamic extremists. This is Abu Abbas, former secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Front. He masterminded the October 7-9, 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship whose name, sadly, is now synonymous with terrorism. The Achille Lauro was on a voyage across the Mediterranean when four Palestinian terrorists seized it on the high seas. They held some 400 passengers hostage for 44 hours.

At one point, they segregated the Jewish passengers on board. One of them was a 69-year-old New York retiree named Leon Klinghoffer. He happened to be confined to a wheelchair. Without mercy, Abu Abbas’ men shot Klinghoffer, then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean.

The hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities in exchange for safe passage to Tunisia. Abu Abbas then joined them on a flight to freedom aboard an Egypt Air jet. However, four U.S. fighter planes forced the airliner to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Italian officials took the hijackers into custody. But Abbas possessed the ultimate get-out-of-jail card: An Iraqi diplomatic passport.

The source for this information is Bettino Craxi. At that time, he was Italy’s prime minister. As Craxi explained in an October 14, 1985 UPI story: “Abu Abbas was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic passport…The plane was on an official mission, considered covered by diplomatic immunity and extra-territorial status in the air and on the ground.” Seeing that this terrorist traveled as a credentialed Iraqi diplomat, the Italian authorities let Abbas flee to Yugoslavia. After political parties furiously withdrew from Craxi’s coalition, the Italian government collapsed.

Hisham al Hussein is the former second secretary at Iraq’s embassy in Manila.

The Philippine government expelled him on February 13, 2003, just five weeks before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cell phone records indicate he had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda’s de facto franchise for the Philippines. The timing was particularly suspicious, as he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf terrorists just before and after they conducted an attack in Zamboanga City.

Abu Sayyaf’s nail-filled bomb exploded on October 2, 2002, injuring 23 individuals and killing two Filipinos and one American. That American was U.S. Special Forces Sergeant First Class Mark Wayne Jackson, age 40.

As Dan Murphy wrote in the February 26, 2003 Christian Science Monitor, those tell-tale cell phone records bolster the televised claim by Hamsiraji Sali, a top Abu Sayyaf terrorist, that the Iraqi diplomat had offered this group of Islamo-fascists Baghdad’s help with joint missions.

After escaping Italian police in October 1985 following the Achille Lauro hijacking (thanks to his Iraqi diplomatic passport), Abu Abbas finally ended up in Baghdad in 1994, where he lived comfortably as one of Saddam Hussein’s guests. U.S. soldiers caught Abbas in Iraq in April 2003. This time, he did not get away. He died last March 9, in American custody, reportedly of natural causes.

I hope he suffered.

Abbas’ Baghdad sojourn was not an isolated incident. Saddam Hussein granted avowed international terrorists refuge in Baathist Iraq. Terror mastermind Abu Nidal also enjoyed his hospitality.

Nidal lived comfortably in Iraq between 1999 and August 2002. As the Associated Press reported on August 21, 2002, Nidal’s Beirut office said he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.” 13 Prior to his relocation, he ran the eponymous Abu Nidal Organization — a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries, at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries. Among other savage acts, Nidal’s group used guns and grenades to attack a ticket counter at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on December 27, 1985. Another cell in Austria simultaneously assaulted Vienna’s airport, killing 19 people.

Among the five Americans that Abu Nidal murdered that day was John Buonocore III, a 20-year-old Fairleigh Dickinson College student who had studied in Rome that fall semester. Buonocore was shot in the back while checking in for his flight home. He had hoped to return to Wilmington, Delaware to help his father celebrate his 50th birthday.

The New York Times reports that Abu Nidal’s Fatah Revolutionary Council murdered the following 17 Americans, at a minimum:

Americans killed in the Abu Nidal Organization’s December 27, 1985 attack on Rome’s airport:

*John Buonocore III, 20, of Wilmington, Delaware
*Frederick Gage of Madison, Wisconsin
*Natasha Simpson, 11, of New York
*Don Maland of New Port Richey, Florida
*Elena Tomarello, 67, of Naples, Florida

American executed during ANO’s 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am jet at Karachi, Pakistan’s airport:

*Rajesh Kumar of Huntington Beach, California

Americans slaughtered in ANO’s September 8, 1974 bombing of a TWA jet over the Ionian Sea en route from Israel to Greece, killing all 88 aboard:

*Eitan Bard of Tuckahoe, New York
*Seldon Bard of Tuckahoe, New York
*Ralph H. Bosh of Madison, Connecticut
*Jon L. Cheshire of Old Lyme, Connecticut
*Jeremiah Hadley of Poughkeepsie, New York
*Katherine Hadley Michel of Poughkeepsie, New York
*Frederick Hare of Bernardsville, New Jersey
*Margaret Hare of Bernardsville, New Jersey
*Don H. Holliday of Mahwah, New Jersey
*Dr. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts
*Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts

If there is any justice here, perhaps it is the fact that Abu Nidal died in August 2002. Saddam Hussein’s government claimed that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head — four times.

Cindy, you might ask, is there any evidence that Iraq sheltered those responsible for attacks on America?

Enter Abdul Rahman Yasin. This Indiana-born, Iraqi-reared terrorist remains wanted by the FBI for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack. President Bill Clinton’s Justice Department indicted Yasin for mixing the chemicals in the bomb that exploded in the parking garage beneath the Twin Towers, killing six and injuring 1,042 people in New York.

Soon after the smoke cleared, Yasin returned to Iraq. Coalition forces have discovered documents that show he enjoyed housing and a monthly government salary.

Since Iraq was liberated, Yasin remains at large.

Let’s talk about Abu Musab al Zarqawi. After running an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, he found his way to Baathist Baghdad, where he reportedly checked into Olympic Hospital, an elite facility run by the late Uday Hussein, son of the captured tyrant. Zarqawi is believed to have received medical treatment for a leg injury sustained while dodging American GIs who toppled the Taliban. He convalesced in Baghdad for some two months. Once he was back on his foot, Zarqawi then opened an Ansar al-Islam terrorist training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi is thought to be behind the October 28, 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley.

Foley was a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan who worked on international development projects. For that “transgression,” he was gunned down and killed in his driveway at home.

According to dissidents, journalists who have visited, and even United Nations weapons inspectors, Saddam Hussein appears to have offered training to terrorists, in addition to funding, diplomatic help, safe haven and medical care.

So, Cindy Sheehan, does all of this, or anything else, suggest a tie between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda? Some evidence is interesting but far from solid, such as this mural that U.S. troops at an Iraqi military base in Nasariyah encountered that seems to celebrate the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Recall that Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the al-Qaeda bombers who hit the World Trade Center in 1993, fled to Iraq after that attack and lived there freely, reportedly with a government salary. That’s one clear link to al-Qaeda.

Then there is the interesting case of Ahmad Hikmat Shakir — an Iraqi VIP facilitator who worked at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Citing “a foreign government service,” page 340 of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on pre-Iraq-War intelligence indicates that, “Shakir claimed he got this job through Ra’ad al-Mudaris, an Iraqi Embassy employee” in Malaysia. On January 5, 2000, Shakir greeted Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi at Kuala Lampur’s airport. He then escorted them to a local hotel where these September 11 hijackers met with 9/11 conspirators Ramzi bin al Shibh and Tawfiz al Atash. Five days later, according to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, Shakir disappeared.

Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi subsequently spent the morning of September 11, 2001 flying American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 184 people.

Shakir, the Iraqi airport greeter, was arrested in Qatar on September 17, 2001. On his person and in his apartment, authorities discovered documents connecting him to the 1993 WTC bomb plot and “Operation Bojinka,” al-Qaeda’s 1995 plan to blow up 12 jets simultaneously over the Pacific. Interestingly enough, as a May 27, 2004 Wall Street Journal editorial reported, Ahmed Hikmat Shakir’s name appears on three different rosters of the late Uday Hussein’s prestigious paramilitary group, the Saddam Fedayeen. A government source told the Journal that the papers identify Shakir as a lieutenant colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen.

Of course, we know what happened next. Mohamed Atta and his henchmen went to airports on the East Coast.

Within just three hours, he and the other pilots were in the air, about to reshape history. He and his evil colleagues turned this lovely vista of America’s premier city into a towering inferno.

They stole 2,749 innocent souls from the American family and decapitated the most powerful skyline man ever built.

Do you care about that, Cindy? Do you care what Saddam Hussein did to the 2,749 sons and daughtes of mothers, just like you?

As the May 8, 2003 New York Post and other news outlets reported, Saddam Hussein’s government was complicit in the September 11 attacks.

Thus, there is abundant and undeniable evidence that Saddam Hussein provided money, diplomatic services, shelter, medical care, and training to terrorists of every stripe, including those complicit in the 1993 WTC bombing and — according to a Clinton-appointed federal judge — the September 11 attacks. The Iraqi dictator aided al-Qaeda and other global terrorists who murdered Americans, both at home and abroad.

Saddam Hussein was a living threat to American national security and the safety of the civilized world.

Earth is a safer place with him now where he belonged all along: BEHIND BARS.

Saddam Hussein is a disgusting example of human vermin. Cindy Sheehan, you disgust me even more.

This post was written with deepest gratitude to Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror – by Deroy Murdock for providing all the source information for this post.