Opinions Supported By Facts

Richard Salbato 8-9-2007

 

We have the most important election in the history of the United States of American. This election reminds me of how the majority of Americans elected President Jimmy Carter. He was soft-spoken, Christian, against war, and promised peace.  The results were that he destroyed Iran, Nicaragua, Argentina and Panama.  Cuba expanded to many countries in South America and the stock market crashed.  Interest rates for houses rose to over 20% and our Embassy in Iran was overtaken and hostages were held of over a year until the day Ronald Reagan took over.  Carter was nice like Neville Chamberlain.    

Cause of War

I know I should be writing about Catholic things like the Tridentine Mass or False Apparitions but I am a great student of Pius X and Pius VI and believe that Catholics should be very involved in politics.  The present problems in the world can be directly linked to the words of the Angel of Fatima about the Mass, the outrages, sacrilegious and indifference.  God said that wars are punishment for the sins of mankind and we Catholics are not innocent of these sins.  The rape of the Churches, altar rails, statues, icons, altars and tabernacles are the outrages prophesied by the Angel of Fatima.  The empty Confessionals, birth control and illegal annulments are the sacrilegious as these people continue to go to Communion. What we see today as people no longer kneel before the Tabernacle, at the elevations, and after Communion show the indifference.  The strange music, lack of silent prayer and strange dress are indifference to God, treating Him commonly.

Remember that Moslems do not practice birth control or have abortions and they can rightfully say that we are immoral.

False apparitions like Vassula Ryden and Medjugorje help divide Christians at a time when we need to unite against those who want all of us killed.  Over a million Christians were martyred by Islamists and hundreds of millions by Communists as we Catholics did nothing.  We sat home and sent money and food but the Islamists stole it from the relief agencies and we sat home feeling good about ourselves. 

Vote – Peace, War, Abortion

Right now for Catholics the overriding issue in the next elections is and always has been “Abortion”.  Every Pope has said this is the overriding issue, trumping all other issues.  But, and I predict this now, that 80% of Catholics will vote for a pro-abortion President, Republican or Democrat.  The reason they will do this (which by the way is a mortal sin) is that they think the war in Iraq is a more important issue than abortion.  The leading Republican Candidate right now is pro-abortion, pro- gay rights, pro-gay marriage, and pro-gun control.  All the Democratic Candidates are pro all these things.  The one presently running Candidate that supports the war is in last place. 

If I do not change Catholic’s minds on this war, they will put in office a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual President and then God will be angry enough to bring about a real war inside the USA. 

The Holy Father and War

“The Pope is against the war in Iraq”, say my friends.  Yes, I have read all these statements.  I have read them for more than 10 years even before 9-11, even before the first Gulf War, which the Pope was against.  But why are popes against war and why was even Pope Pius XII silent about Hitler?  The pope is father and protector of six plus billions of Catholics thoughout the world, and hundreds of millions of Catholics living in Moslem government nations as second class citizens.  What if the Pope said it was the right thing to invade Iraq the first or second time?  The five million Catholics living in Iraq would have been killed by Hussein and his Special Forces (mostly East European Communists and not Iraqis).  What if the Pope spoke out openly about the Catholic persecution in China and the thousands who have died there for being nothing but Roman Catholics?  The Communist Chinese would kill them all.  What if the Pope spoke openly about the mass destruction of the Catholic Church in Communist Russia and Eastern Europe?  Many more would have died than did. 

What the pope says openly does not effect me if it is not about morals or doctrine because I know he has to be the father, the diplomat, the peace maker.  But what he says in private to his closest friends or to me personally would be my law and I would put that before any of my own feelings.  But I know what the Catholic teaching is on a just war and even on when we Catholics are obliged to go to war for our protection or for the protection of others and that is why I posted these teachings on my web site. 

But some have said that the war in Iraq does not qualify for a just war because, they say, there is no connection to 9-11, to terrorists, to weapon of mass distruction, to al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. I will not only show that there are connections to all these things by Saddam Hussein but will show photographic proof of it.  If Saddam Hussein was still alive we would have already had another 9-11.  

Be Nice

Before showing my proof, I want to answer emails I know I will get anyway.  They will say, “Who cares, just be nice to these terrorists and they will go away.” 

The Holy Father quoted Paleologus who said: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."  The pope's call for Christian and Islamic interchange ignited days of Muslim rage. Demonstrators in London waved placards that read "Islam will conquer Rome" and "Jesus is the slave of Allah." "You infidels and despots," the Mujahedeen Shura Council warned in an online communiqué, "we will continue our jihad and never stop until God avails us to chop your necks."  Muslim hotheads torched seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Likely infuriated by the pope's speech, two gunmen in Mogadishu, Somalia, fatally shot Sister Leonella Sgorbati, 65, four times in her back. They also killed a bodyguard at the children's hospital where the Catholic nun worked.

So far, such political correctness has failed to cool the ire of radical Muslims. British police on Sept. 2 arrested 14 men reportedly connected with a suspected terror-training camp that operated out of an Islamic school in Sussex. Scotland Yard and MI5 recently arrested other Muslim zealots who allegedly plotted to explode Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and U.S.-bound passenger jets.

U.S. officials offered an olive branch of sorts to 190 top Taliban fighters last July. An unmanned Predator drone spotted them in Afghanistan, lined up virtually in formation. Given this golden opportunity to liquidate nearly 10 score of America's most bloodthirsty enemies, U.S. military commanders balked. The Taliban members were at a funeral, and Pentagon rules of engagement prevent attacks in cemeteries. So the Taliban forces casually dispersed.

The Taliban subsequently has hammered Coalition forces in some of that conflict's most intense combat yet. They also showed no American-style mercy at the funeral last Sept. 11 of Paktia Provincial Gov. Abdul Hakim Taniwal. A suicide bomber used that occasion in Khost to kill six mourners and injure 25 others. The previous day, a Taliban suicide bomber had killed Taniwal, his nephew, and his bodyguard.

Throwing olive branches at Islamofascists is beyond futile. This is the war on terror, if America won't fight this like a war — and win — we might as well cut our losses, hand out the Qurans, and start the mass conversions.

The Truth about Saddam Hussein before the war

For me as a practicing Catholic to make a case for the war in Iraq and the war on Terrorism I must show that it was just in Catholic Theology.  That means that it must be defensive.  We are obliged to defend our family, our neighbors, our nation and ourselves.  We are never allowed to use more force than is necessary to defend.  We are never allowed to revenge but we are allowed to use the force necessary for justice. 

Some will say that a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, cannot be defensive.  Well, we attacked Hitler but he had not attacked us.  We invaded Italy but they had not declared war on us.  They did, however, go to war against our neighbors and as such we had the moral obligation to go to their defense.   What then is the defensive justification for war with Iraq?        

Journalist Novak said that you cannot get a job in the major media today unless you are a far left liberal, socialist or even communist, so are you learning the truth from the news media?  The news media says over and over that there were no weapons of mass distruction found in Iraq, so why did we go to war in the first place. The do not say there were no weapons of mass distruction but that we did not find them.  However, we did not go to war with Iraq only because of weapons of mass distruction but also because of his support for radical terrorists throughout the world including the terrorists of 9-11. 

Known as “The Butcher of Baghdad,” Mr. 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.  These 405,000 people are my neighbors. 

Support of Terrorism

If this is not reason enough for a just war, let us look at world wide terror. 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.

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.

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, ages 18-21. Saddam paid the families of the killers $20,000 each. These 199 people are my neighbors. 

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 killing and wounding hundreds including a 14 year old American.  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 1,432 people are my neighbors. 

These bonus checks  were handed out at ceremonies where banners proclaimed the friendship of the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein.  In addition to funds, Saddam Hussein's government provided diplomatic help to Islamic extremists.

Abu Abbas, former secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Front, masterminded the October 7-9, 1985 hijacking of an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Laur, on a voyage across the Mediterranean. They held some 400 passengers hostage for 44 hours.  Italian officials took the hijackers into custody. But Abbas possessed the ultimate get-out-of-jail card: An Iraqi diplomatic passport.

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. 

Abu 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. These 1,195 people are my neighbors.  My neighbors are the innocent of the world, but if you are only interested in Americans…

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.

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 and Mrs. Frederick Stohlman of Newton, Massachusetts. The New York Times, September 10, 1974

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. 

What About Attacks on American?

Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists (many with al-Qaeda links) responsible for international mayhem and even the incidental deaths of Americans, but is there any evidence that Iraq sheltered those responsible for attacks on America? 

Abdul Rahman Yasin, an 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.

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.

The Associated Press reports that Coalition forces shut down at least three terrorist training camps in Iraq. The most notorious of these was the base at Salman Pak, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Before the war, numerous Iraqi defectors said the camp featured a passenger jet on which terrorists sharpened their air piracy skills. This satellite photo shows an urban assault training site, a three-car train for railway-attack instruction, and a commercial airliner sitting all by itself in the middle of the desert.  

Sabah Khodada, a former Iraqi army captain who once worked at Salman Pak. On October 14, 2001, granted an interview to PBS television program “Frontline,” stating, “This camp is specialized in exporting terrorism to the whole world.”

He added: “Training includes hijacking and kidnapping of airplanes, trains, public buses, and planting explosives in cities ... how to prepare for suicidal operations.”

He continued: “We saw people getting trained to hijack airplanes...They are even trained how to use utensils for food, like forks and knives provided in the plane.”  

So 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 image that appeared on the front page of the March 27, 2003 New York Post showing U.S. troops at an Iraqi military base in Nasariyah. They encountered a mural 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.

Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, was Consul and Second Secretary at Iraq's Czech embassy between March 1999 and April 22, 2001. He long has been suspected of meeting with September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta, most likely on April 8, 2001, perhaps at other times, too. While skeptics dismiss this encounter, Czech intelligence found Al-Ani's appointment calendar in Iraq's Prague embassy, presumably after Saddam Hussein's defeat. Al-Ani's diary lists an April 8, 2001 meeting with "Hamburg student." Maybe, in a massive coincidence, Al-Ani dined with a young scholar and chatted about Hegel and Nietzsche.  

Or perhaps Al-Ani saw a former student from Hamburg named Mohamed Atta to discuss more practical matters. The Czech government sticks to their contention that they did observe this Iraqi diplomat meeting with Mohamed Atta just five months before 9-11. As Czech U.N. Ambassador Hynek Kmonicek explained in a letter to Philadelphia attorney James Beasley, Jr.: “In this moment we can confirm, that during the next stay of Mr. Muhammad Atta in the Czech Republic, there was the contact with the official of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Al Ani, Ahmed Khalin Ibrahim Samir, who was on 22nd April 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities which were not compatible with the diplomatic status.” 21 Al-Ani was kicked out of Prague for casing the headquarters of Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Iraq, presumably because he wanted to blow them up. 

Of course, we know what happened next. Mohamed Atta and his henchmen went to airports on the East Coast. Here he is in Portland, Maine at 5:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001. 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 …

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

As the May 8, 2003 New York Post and other news outlets reported, Judge Baer ruled that Saddam Hussein’s government was complicit in the September 11 attacks and that the Baathist government owed the plaintiffs a judgment of $104 million.

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.

 

Notes:

Proof of the above found on http://www.husseinandterror.com/  by Deroy Murdock  

This is not a support for President Bush or even for his reasons for the war. It the real reason was Oil, it does not matter because God can use bad motives to do good things.  Bush does not give me good feelings because of his family background going back to World War II. I do not want to blame him for his family but it gives me pause.