WHILE THE NAACP STAGED ITS "HATE-FEST" (as the Wall Street Journal called it ) against Republicans last week in Houston, one prominent African-American travelling overseas snatched headlines by exceeding even Julian Bond’s toxic virulence.

"The Muslim American people are praying to the Almighty God to grant victory to Iraq" in any war with the United States, American Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan reportedly told his hosts during his latest visit to Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad.

Farrakhan "does not represent our views or the views of American Muslims," said Faiz Rehman, spokesman for the American Muslim Council, to CNSNews.com. "The mainstream American Muslim community does not consider the Nation of Islam as part of the Muslim community. They claim to have the name of Islam attached to them, but they are not Muslims."

But on this latest Hate Tour, like those he made to visit and honor tyrants in 1996 and again in 1997-98, Minister Louis Farrakhan has made every effort to give support to evil leaders, and Muslim leaders in these lands have embraced him as a major American Muslim leader.

In Syria, for example, 69-year-old Farrakhan was welcomed warmly not only by its anti-Semitic President Bashar al-Asad but also by Syria’s 91-year-old Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, who gave the Nation of Islam leader a podium in the Grand Mosque of Damascus to deliver a Friday lecture on the Muslim Sabbath, July 5, 2002.

From Syria and Iraq, Farrakhan’s entourage trekked to Durban, South Africa, for the birth of the new African Union. Here, too, he was welcomed as a major American political and Islamic leader, and not without cause.

No American should forget the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Jesse ("Hymietown") Jackson was a Presidential candidate, and at his side as a campaign chieftain was Rev. Louis ("Judaism is a gutter religion") Farrakhan. When delegates asked the chair to permit a vote on a simple resolution — that "the Democratic Party repudiates and condemns anti-Semitism" — their motion was stifled and no open vote was permitted. This resolution, Democratic bosses feared, might offend the notoriously anti-Semitic Farrakhan and prompt the Nation of Islam leader to herd his followers away from the Democratic Party.

For the record, Farrakhan denies being anti-Semitic. His spokesman Akbar Muhammad said that Farrakhan was misquoted by the Iraqi News Agency about praying for an Iraqi victory over the United States. Minister Farrakhan is on a "peace mission," Muhammad told the Chicago Sun-Times, and actually said "that Muslims throughout the world and Muslims in the U.S. are praying that war does not come to Iraq."

Muhammad acknowledged that the Iraqi News Agency "was in part correct" when it reported that Farrakhan "expressed admiration for the Iraqis’ steadfastness against the aggression and continued embargo" (that Farrakhan, parroting Saddam Hussein’s propaganda, claims has starved to death 1.6 million Iraqis).

And who would be to blame if and when the United States again attacks Iraq? Muhammad told Sun-Times reporter Dave Newbart that on this current tour Rev. Farrakhan "said we need a lobby that would stop Zionists from excercising (sic) an inordinate amount of control in the U.S. Senate and Congress."

Speaking last June 17 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Farrakhan said that other nations shared his concern about what an American attack on Iraq would portend.

"If it’s Saddam Hussein today, it’s Muammar Gadhafi tomorrow;" said Minister Farrakhan, "It’s Bashar Asad in Syria the day after; it’s the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia; it’s Fidel Castro the day after; it’s the President of North Korea the day after that. Who’s next on your list?"

And what if Saddam Hussein and others on his list are developing weapons of mass destruction and have terrorist allies willing and eager to smuggle such weapons into New York City, Chicago, Houston, or Los Angeles? Does this justify President George W. Bush’s new policy of preemption?

"All Islamic regimes that want to be technologically advanced must be destroyed," is how Rev. Farrakhan described American policy back in 1998. This columnist was unable to find any condemnation by Farrakhan of any Islamic or other nation trying to acquire such weapons of mass murder.

On his "peace mission" Mr. Farrakhan stopped in Zimbabwe for three days as guest of its Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe. He told the government-owned Herald newspaper that he gives "full support" to "President Mugabe’s policies, especially the land issue…."

The "land issue" is Mugabe’s confiscation of all farms owned by citizens whose skin is white. The choicest of these farms have been given to Mugabe’s cronies. This policy has idled the land and plunged Zimbabwe into famine and starvation. And when Great Britain objected to such apartheid-like discrimination, Mugabe announced preparations to confiscate all property in the country owned by British citizens.

This nakedly racist and insane policy is what Farrakhan endorsed and praised. It is more evidence of why, last April, a British appeals court reinstated the U.K.’s travel ban prohibiting entry by Louis Farrakhan. He is banned because his presence in the nation would "pose an unwelcome and significant threat to community relations and in particular to relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities."

If such are the fruits of Farrakhan’s "peace missions," allied with communists abroad and Jesse ("redistribute-the-wealth-to-me") Jackson at home, then let us describe Louis Farrakhan as the Roman historian Tacitus once did Rome’s policies of conquest — "They make a desert and call it peace."

The question is: why does any African-American, Muslim, or any legitimate foreign leader take Louis Farrakhan seriously? The answer seems to be that Minister Farrakhan — who once upon a time as then-Christian 14-year-old Louis Eugene Walcott was violin virtuoso and showman enough to win on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour" -- has the power to cloud at least some men’s minds.

Mr. Ponte hosts a national radio talk show Saturdays 6-9 PM Eastern Time (3-6 PM Pacific Time) and Sundays 9-11 PM Eastern Time (6-8 PM Pacific Time) that can be heard on 220 stations and via TalkAmerica.com. The show’s live call-in number is (888) 822-8255. A professional speaker, he is a former Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest.