January 03, 2004

British Cancel Another Flight as Allies Query U.S.

British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations.

The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.

"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
[We may never know a lot, including what really happened on 9/11 and on whose orders. Such is Life and the dark and secret world of the Islamofascist terrorists.--Jennie T.]

The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.

In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.

Turns out this was gun-grabbing bunkum on behalf of the anti-gun NYTimes!
It now turns out that the BA London to Washington flights were cancelled based on specific intelligence:
AL QAEDA'S D.C. DEATH JET PLOT

An al Qaeda terror team has been plotting to hijack Washington-bound British Airways Flight 223 and crash it into the nation's capital, officials said yesterday.

The frightening - and specific - intelligence is one factor behind the recent rash of airline cancellations, including Flight 223 again yesterday.
[...]
The information about Flight 223, from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles International Airport, came from a foreign source inside al Qaeda, who claimed the terror group wanted to strike during the holiday, sources said.
[...]
Intelligence leading to the cancellations of flights to New York and Washington from Paris and London came from al Qaeda detainees in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the Al Queda detainees in question have only been picked up and interrogated in the last few months and in the case of the Turkish suspects, within the last month after the jihadi bombings in Instanbul, so I think it's safe to say that this information is pretty "fresh" and timely.

In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.

The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers.

Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.

Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.

American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.

President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.

"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
[...]
The level of intelligence "chatter" picked up by the American intelligence community, and used as a gauge of terrorist activity, had risen to alarming levels by the time Mr. Ridge raised the threat level, officials said. Electronic eavesdropping, monitoring of e-mail messages, and information from informers picked up snippets of suspicious references to flight numbers and cities, and it pointed up concern about specific flights as well, including London to Washington, Paris to Los Angeles, and Mexico City to Los Angeles, officials said...[...]

In the hours and days leading up to the Dec. 21 orange alert, the suspicious intelligence became louder, more credible and more specific, officials said. And it appeared to take a sudden upturn just before Dec. 21, surprising even some national security officials who said they had no reason to expect the alert level to increase in the day or two beforehand. By the time the alert was declared, officials said, they were deeply concerned that an international flight would be Al Qaeda's next means of attack on the United States.

Daniel Benjamin, a former counterterrorism specialist with the National Security Council, said he spoke with officials who "thought the orange alert was easily justified based on the available intelligence, and one person could even have imagined it going higher" to a red alert, which has never happened under the current threat system.

The French routes were among their biggest concerns, and intelligence pointed to the possibility of attacks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, officials said.

While I'm sure it is an absolute hassle for the passengers on these cancelled or delayed flights, I know that if it were a passenger, I'd rather be safe and alive than sorry and dead!
What is our government doing, but precisely what we want for them to do, which is to gather intelligence and take the appropriate safety measures to look out for our safety as (air) travellers and as civilians on the ground living in peace and freedom?
After all, of those Americans killed on 9/11, several hundred died in the crashing planes but also so did thousands more in the buildings on American soil that were bombed by those planes, so you never know.
The life saved may be yours...or mine!
(Could Islamist terrorists crash a plane into your house or building? It's still possible in the future, but at least it won't be these planes during the holidays just past because of the alert and the steps taken.)
It's a comfort to me to know that President Bush and Homeland Security Sec. Ridge think of the safety of you and me as they would that of their own "children" and family and ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't get any better or more protective than that!
(And those ingrate nations France and Mexico should get over themselves as soon as possible! After all, it's American tourists and their dollars they want. We can't spend any money in their countries if we're deceased!)

U.S. Dismisses Libya's Warning Over Sanctions

The United States ignored on Friday a warning by Libyan officials that they will stop paying compensation to families of Pan Am 103 victims unless Washington lifts sanctions against Libya by May.
[Actually, it's by May 12, to quote Momar accurately.--Jen]

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the United States will discuss relations with Libya only after that country has eliminated its deadliest weapons programs and renounced terrorism.

[...]...In a reported published Friday, however, Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanim told The New York Times that his country will withhold future payments if the Bush administration does not quickly reward Libya for its promises to abandon its secret weapons programs.

The State Department's Ereli said U.S. policy "is based on Libyan actions and what steps Libya takes to follow through on its commitments."

He said the compensation agreement resulted from negotiations between Libyan officials and lawyers for the Pan Am 103 families. Because the U.S. government was not a party to the discussions, Ereli told reporters, questions about compensation should be directed to the Libyan government and the Pan Am 103 families.

Glenn Johnson, chairman of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which represents about 150 families, said it's up to Libya to meet the conditions for lifting the sanctions by dismantling weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological, and admitting inspectors.

"They haven't dismantled," he said. "They say they're willing to and going to, but I don't think anyone wants to lift sanctions because they say they're going to do it."

Susan Cohen, mother of a Pan Am 103 victim, said that, given the choice between lifting sanctions by May and a cutoff of compensation payments, she would prefer the latter.

She said she has no faith that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi is sincere about giving up doomsday weapons for good.

President Bush said he saw al-Qaddafi's pledge on Dec. 19 to surrender his weapons programs as a victory for his policy of forcefully confronting unfriendly states. He expressed hope other states will follow suit.

Current sanctions include a ban on U.S. oil company operations in Libya and on most use of U.S. passports to travel there. Additional economic sanctions are in place as a result of Libya's membership on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

I pray the Lord will continue to bless and comfort these poor people that lost loved ones in the Lockerbie bombing.
They have suffered enough without (al-)Qaddafi dragging them through agony again!
The way some of the Lying Liberal Left papers like the NYSlimes were reporting this story, they made it sound as if Muammar had a point and that the United States was being the Big Bad Guy (again) for not lifting the sanctions immediately when the Colonel Kadaffy Duck pwomised to disarm.
I love our policy (Don't trust, but verify first!) and I am touched as an American that even those who lost their beloved family on Pan Am 103 want President Bush to stay the course and not to give in to Libya's crazy demands just because they want the money that is supposed to compensate them for their personal loss and grief.
(And yet according to this book I'm reading about anti-Americanism in France, the French think that greed is our defining national characteristic and that all we think about is $$$. Funny, how when one spends it in Paris or on French goods, they don't seem to mind!)
And I guess this serves me right for thinking that Qaddafi had completely "changed" for the Good--he hasn't changed his old tyrannical spots enough to suit me!

US: Mosque raiders sensitive, successful (United Press International)

Coalition troops who raided a Sunni Muslim mosque Friday in Baghdad did not defile the sacred space in their successful hunt for weapons, officials said.

The raid of the Ibn Taymiyah mosque in the southwestern part of the Iraqi capital sparked protests, including charges that U.S. troops tore pages out of the mosque's Koran, CNN reported.
[Ah, yes! The good old Crescent News Network, always blaming America first. Sheesh!--Jen]

But Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt denied the accusations, saying the troops took unusual precautions to show respect, including following Iraq Civil Defense Corps personnel and Iraqi police when they entered the place of worship.

"Despite the clear use of this mosque for criminal, terrorist and anti-coalition activities, great care was taken by coalition forces to uphold the sanctity of the mosque and to use the minimum amount of force necessary to conduct the operation," Kimmitt said.

He called called the mosque a "hub of anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi activities" and the scene of insurgency cells' meetings.

Kimmitt said the mosque held high explosives, TNT, blasting caps, gunpowder, grenades, detonation cord, artillery primers, rocket launchers, mortar tubes and sights, AK-47 rifles and ammunition. Soldiers also found materials for making the small bombs regularly used to target coalition convoys.

I continue to be so proud of our US (and Coalition) troops!
Clearly, this mosque had to be raided, because it's the Sunnis in Iraq, and around the Arab world, who have declared a fatwa on the Great Satan and of course, it's the Baathist Sunnis who continue the "resistance" on behalf of Saddam, even though he's sitting in our jail.
If we had to raid the mosque, though, I'm pleased as punch that we did do it with sensitivity to the Sunni Muslims' beliefs and feelings and respect for their place of worship, even though it sounds like it was nothing more than an arsenal and ammo dump!
(All that was missing was an altar to St. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite!)

Texas Rep. Ralph Hall Switches to GOP

After nearly a quarter-century as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, Texas Rep. Ralph Hall switched parties to become a Republican and said he expects support from the White House.

"I've known (President Bush) since he was a young boy. He's a Godly man. He's a Texan and he was the governor and he's our friend," Hall told The Associated Press Friday.

Bush praised Hall's decision, welcoming him to the Republican Party.

"Ralph is a close friend of the Bush family. He is a well-respected leader of the highest integrity, and a tireless advocate for the people of Texas," Bush said.

Hall, 80, made the move Friday, the final day for candidates to file to get their names on the ballot for Texas' March 9 primary.

Hall's switch follows a GOP-led drive -- bitterly contested by Democrats -- to remake Texas' congressional districts more to their liking. Party strategists contend they can gain five or more seats through a mid-decade redistricting, a change that could greatly strengthen their grip on power in the House.

Democrats and some minority groups objected to the plan, saying it violates minority rights, and challenged it in court. A three-judge federal panel was evaluating the districts and expected to rule soon.

Before Hall's move, the House had 228 Republicans, 205 Democrats, 1 Democrat-leaning independent and 1 vacancy.

Hall said he would have resigned if the old redistricting map had been overturned, but when no ruling came from the court, he decided to run as a Republican.

"I think I can get re-elected much easier if I run as a Republican," Hall said.

[...]
He also said he did not agree with "all these guys running against the president."

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Democrats are "reaping what they've sown."
[They're starting to, Tom, but the reaping has only begun. It's early in the new year!--Jen]

"Their leaders have lined up behind Howard Dean's brand of angry, intolerant politics. They've made their message clear: 'moderates need not apply' and that's a sad trend for a once-great party," DeLay said.
[...]

Hall was first elected to the House in 1980 and has long been one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Speculation that he might switch parties first surfaced in 1995, when the GOP gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

He said then he wouldn't, arguing that it would be better to try and move the Democratic party toward the middle.

Hall's defection has historic overtones. His district in Texas includes territory once represented in Congress by the late Sam [Taliaferro] Rayburn, who served as a Democratic speaker for much of the time between 1940 and 1961.

What a great story and what terrific news!
Congressman Hall has had a respected name in Texas politics for a long time.
And his change of parties, along with the larger redistricting plan to give Texas more GOP Congressonial representation indicates the larger swing of the whole state to the right towards more Conservative and GOP values and ideas of governance!
God Bless, Mr. Hall, particularly for showing at 80 years of age that you're never too old to "see the light" or to make a change for the better!
Oh, and Sam Taliaferro Rayburn really was a distant Texas relation of mine and as the brilliant political strategist that he was, taught LBJ everything he knew about how to work within a legislative governmental system, which Lyndon used to become the "Master of the Senate" and later, to serve as one of our most powerful Presidents, who invariably got his executive way by working the Congress.
Gotta give the old devil his due, even if he was a Democrat!

141 feared dead in plane crash near Sharm el-Sheikh

A charter airliner with 141 people aboard - most of them French tourists - crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff early Saturday from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to officials who feared no one had survived.

The Boeing 737 jet took off shortly before 5 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) and quickly disappeared from radar about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of the airport, said airport officials using customary anonymity. There was no distress made, according officials at Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The crash occurred amid a week of heightened concerns about terrorist threats from the air that have led to increased security and canceled flights around the world.

But an initial statement from aviation ministry ruled out terrorism, calling the crash an "accident" that may have been caused by a mechanical problem. The ministry said no one was believed to have survived.
[...]
The weather was clear in Sharm el-Sheikh and other flights were taking off without incident, officials said.

Sharm el-Sheik is a popular Red Sea tourist resort that also frequently hosts major political and economic summits. Egypt has held several meetings on peace in the Middle East there, including one in which US President George W. Bush met with regional leaders in June over the "road map" plan toward creating a Palestinian state.

Local news media reported Saturday that vacationing Prime Minister Tony Blair from Britain was to meet there later in the day with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Hmmm. Interesting...
While the Egyptian "officials" may not think this was terrorism, I'm not so sure.
The French are a target because well, they're French, and Chirac didn't endear himself to the Islamists lately with the recent headscarf ban in France.
And Egypt's popularity has been dropping in the Arab world, at least the Paleostinian part of it, with his urging of late to his brother Muslims to become more moderate and to go with the Western flow.
(His most recent efforts have been an attempt to negotiate a ceasefire between the Palis and the Israelis.)
Now that I've learned that Tony Blair, PM of the "Little Satan," was going to meet with Mubarrak in Sharm el-Sheik later today, it seems more and more that this airplane "accident" could very well have been caused by SAM fired from the shoulder of an Islamist, say a member of Islamic Jihad who make their home in Egypt.
Thirdly, most Western airports (both here in the US and in Europe) have been so locked down because of our terror alert, that the bad guys were forced to hit a "soft target" like this Egyptian tourist plane.
At this same time of year in 1988, I took a tour of Egypt and got on 2 intra-Egypt tourist flights: this could have been me. Yikes!
Well, God rest the souls of these poor departed.
Hopefully, they never even knew what hit them before they were gone.

December 29, 2003

Israel warns of major 'non-conventional' attack

Israeli intelligence officials say militant groups are planning a major "non-conventional" attack on New Year's Eve.

Possible targets are holy sites, nursery schools, apartment buildings and hospitals.

Police have been told to prepare for three possible scenarios: an air or sea-based attack or a ground assault involving several simultaneous suicide bombings, the officials said.

Senior intelligence officials know which of the three scenarios is most likely, but are reluctant to share the information with police officers to prevent leaks, the officials said.

The warnings are connected to Israel's killing of a senior Islamic Jihad "militant"[Sneer quotes on "militant" mine. Here's a word I'd love to see banned from the dictionary forever.--Jen] in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Following the airstrike, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said the death had prevented a "mega-terror attack," but security officials said the warnings are still relevant.

Good work, Israelis, on both averting a big attack and terminating the Islamic Jihad killer!
Turkey cancels New Year festivities amid alerts

Authorities have canceled New Year festivities in Istanbul's main square due to security concerns, the mayor's office announced Monday.

A leaked police document last week warned that terrorists may be planning attacks against U.S., Israeli and Western targets in Turkey in the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Of course, Turkey remains a prime target for the IslamoNazis, after America and Israel, because it's a predominantly Muslim country with a secular, democratic government and the jihadis really hate that.
Now, if only our people can get everything nailed down security-wise for the celebration in New York's Times Square: ever since 9/11, I've sweated through every drop of the crystal ball there, although it looks as if the Manhattan partiers there always have a good time (in spite of the terror caused by Dick Clark's face!).

Car Explodes in Riyadh

A car exploded in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Monday night, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel said the explosion occurred under a car owned by a police officer who had parked outside a mosque. The blast destroyed the car and shattered windows in nearby buildings, Al-Arabiya's correspondent in Riyadh reported.

Stay tuned for more details on this...you know how secretive and Kremlin-like the Saud news services are, particularly about domestic Islamist terrorism.
While we're on the subject, take the time to read this 7-page in-depth analysis of the Saudi terror problem at Foreign Affairs Magazine:
The Saudi Paradox.
The author explains why the [Sunni] Wahhab Sauds' real war is against the Shi'ites, whom they lump together with "Zionists," Jews and Americans, citizens of the Great Satan. Doran notes that the Saudi royal family divides its time, efforts and police action at home between suppressing Wahhab jihadi terror, on the one hand (Prince Abdullah), while persecuting more secular-minded Islamic reformers on the other hand (Prince Nayef).
This Sunni Saudi-financed and supported war on Shiites is very likely one of the major forces behind the Sunni Ba'athist "guerilla" war on our Coalition soldiers in Iraq.
This could, and most likely will, get very ugly for them (and perhaps for us) before it's over and certainly after 9/11, we know that it already did.
And yet they call themselves the Religion of Peace™?

Palestinians Critical of Israeli Order on Outposts

The Palestinian Authority on Monday criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's order to remove four unauthorized settlement outposts under a U.S.-backed peace "road map" as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

"I think the world is sick and tired of these public relations stunts -- Israelis moving a caravan here and a caravan there," Palestinian Negotiating Minister Saeb Erekat told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Two members of Sharon's cabinet said the government was moving too slowly in carrying out a commitment to remove unauthorized settlement outposts from occupied territory.

The ministers spoke in interviews with Israel Radio after Sharon signed an order to accelerate the removal of the four outposts -- only one of them inhabited -- in accordance with the road map.

(Can you believe that no matter what, we're always stuck with not only Yasser Arafish, but also his "mini-Me" Saeb Erekat?
Can't wait to see the back of those 2, if you know what I mean and I think that you do...)
It's good to see Israel, under Sharon's leadership, keep their part of the road map requirements.
As Sharon publicly stated last week, he hates to have these settlements dismantled, but knows that he must give the order to keep Israel's word.
For years, in not decades, the Palis have screamed that eradicating the settlements is a major requirement for them to secure peace in the Middle East, yet now they call these real steps to making that a reality a "P.R. stunt!"
Israel is doing what she has to do, even if it's "unilaterally," like taking these settlements down.
Meanwhile, for their part, the Paleostinians are doing exactly bupkis to dismantle the systematic jihadi terror in their midst.
Crunch time is coming for the "Paleostianians" and when it does, it won't be pretty.
But remember, they did this to themselves.

U.S. Tells Foreign Carriers to Put Guards on Planes

One week after raising its terror alert level, the U.S. government on Monday ordered foreign airlines to place armed marshals on selected flights to and from the United States in a bid to boost security and thwart attacks.
[...]

Last week six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles were canceled on security concerns expressed by U.S. intelligence. French authorities detained 13 people who had been booked on the flights but released them after finding no links to radical groups.

Who knows what the real story was behind the Air France incident?
Did the French (Islamist Terror's new best nation-state friend) give these bad guys a heads-up by arresting them, giving them cover and sending them out to get new false IDs and passports, or were the French just going through the motions, trying to convince us that they're also on our side in the GWOIT, or did their actions accomplish both things?
Maybe they did help America dodge another bullet.
Let's hope.
This request that foreign carriers employ more security like air marshalls on transatlantic flights should have been implemented right after 9/11, if not before.
I suppose Norm Mineta fixated on the fact that all 4 of the 9/11 attack planes were domestic flights.
But then we found out that Mohammed Atta and several of the other hijackers were based in Germany.
And there was Richard Reid, the shoe bomber who boarded an American Airlines plane in Paris, at Christmastime 2001.
We're more than 2 years too late, but of course, better late than never.
And if the French can't do better, I suggest we ban all direct U.S.-France flights.
Notice that the British announced they'd be using more air security and sky marshalls on international flights without being asked by us.
*Some countries* know how important their American tourists are and how important it is to maintain good relations with us, not to mention the prevention of terror attacks on their own soil.
Then there's France.

Israeli Group Determined to Send Aid to Quake-Stricken Iran

An Israeli humanitarian aid group is determined to send help to earthquake-stricken Iran despite an Iranian government statement that the Islamic republic would accept help from everywhere in the world but Israel.

The death toll in Friday's massive earthquake, which leveled the southern Iranian city of Bam and surrounding areas, continued to rise on Monday.
More than 25,000 bodies have been recovered from the rubble left from the quake, which hit before dawn and caught most people still asleep in their beds. Officials fear the number of dead could rise to 30,000. Another 10,000 people have been hospitalized, officials have said.

Emergency aid, rescue teams with specially trained sniffer dogs and equipment have been pouring into Iran, including from the U.S.

A U.S. Air National Guard C-130 Hercules landed in the regional capital of Kerman on Sunday, delivering 20 pallets of humanitarian aid and another five pallets of medical supplies, surgical equipment, food and purified water.
The flight was the first American plane to land in Iran since the end of the 1981 hostage crisis. Washington severed ties with Tehran over that crisis, when militants seized the U.S. Embassy there and took staff members hostage in 1979.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari was quoted as saying that Iran had received American aid because his country considered the U.S. to be a legitimate government but would not receive Israeli aid because Israel is what he called a "force of occupation" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Earlier, Iranian Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani said that "all kinds of humanitarian aid from all countries and international organizations" were welcome - "with the exception of the Zionist regime," he said in reference to Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom offered Israeli condolences to the Iranian people in a statement.
[...]
Iranian expert Menashe Amir, who heads Israel Radio's Farsi (Persian) language radio service, which broadcasts daily news into Iran, said he had "no doubt" that the Iranian people would themselves accept aid from Israel.
During the phone-in section of his program on Sunday, Amir said he received calls from Iranians responding positively to the Israeli offer of help.

"Most of the people who talked in the program thanked [Israel] warmly for offering help and criticized harshly the Iranian [regime for refusing it]," Amir said.

Some of the callers to the radio program, Amir said, told listeners not to send money to Iran because it is a rich country and the money would not make it to the people but could instead be funneled into the Palestinian militant cause.

Hmmm. Interesting point--donated monies probably would go into Islamist terror funds, which probably explains why the U.S. gave aid "in kind" like food, water and medicine.
Above all, let's remember that no matter how many "ordinary" Iranians died in the earthquake, their cleric rulers still have their Islamist pride and a political/religious statement to make.
I'm proud of my government (the Israelis, too) for sending aid, in spite of the fact that Iran is run by a rogue régime that is a major sponsor of Islamofascist terror, especially Hezbollah, and is most likely involved in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to give to those terror groups.
At least for us, the good guys, saving innocent human lives trumps ideology.