That's why things are so bad in Iraq. The darned Christians.

Posted by: tanstaafl at April 5, 2008 11:25 AM

"Christians have frequently been caught up in the violence or been targeted in this predominantly Muslim country."
-- from the article

This is the kind of careless remark, thrown into a newspaper account, that appears to inform, but instead misleads.

What does it mean to say that Christians "have frequently been caught up in the violence"? That "caught up in" makes a reader think that, just as one can be "caught up in the passions of the moment" Christians too, may have been "caught up" with the "violence" that is apparently sweeping Iraq, for reasons that in this article remain undisclosed, and possibly, here and there, have been committing acts of violence like all those others simply "caught up" in it. But of course they haven't.

And the article might, just might, have been used to educate, little by little. Who are those "Christians"? Who are the Assyrians, and what happened to them when the British left in 1932? Who are the Chaldeans? How many of both are there, and how many were there, and how long have those "Christians" been in the area now known as Iraq? Is it their home, or are they foreign to the area? Who arrived in Iraq first, the Christians, or the Muslims?

Since there is sectarian violence, between Sunni and Shi'a, and ethnic violence, between Kurd and Arab, what is the reason for attacks on Christians? What could it be?

And why have so many Christians left, never to return? And what does that Christian exodus -- an exodus of doctors, of engineers, of professionals of allkinds -- mean for the future of Iraq?

And why is it that some of the Christian Iraqis, when they arrive in the West, cannnot quite explain why it is that they wish Saddam Hussein, tyrant and monster though he was, had not been overthrown, becuase, as that tyrant and monster, he held in check the people those Christians, when inteviewed, keep calling the "turbans" -- a word they use, as do some Sunnis, to describe the Shi'a who take their Islamic faith to heart, which is always a danger for Infidels, in Iraq, and everywhere.

Americans do not know quite what to make of this. What? they ask. You mean Saddam Hussein, that monste, was in a sense the protector of the Christians? Yes. In a sense. Though he was, in the end, a Muslim, he was also someone who rightly saw that there was no threat from Christians (this didn't keep him from murdering a few, along with many more Jews, as "Zionist agents" in a famous public hanging in Baghdad), but the Shi'a, and it is those Shi'a who have -- no doubt also assisted, in the same anti-Christian activities, by some Sunnis -- who have taken to killing Christians, whether it is those accused of selling alcohol in Basra, or those who are guilty of the crime of going to church in Baghdad or Mosul. And even some Kurds have been known to kidnap Christian girls.

Can Christian Iraqis, who in Iraq continued to believe -- they had to believe, they had to make themselves believe -- that Iraq was fine, that Iraq was more than tolerable, that the Muslims were swell, that "we all got along" -- when they are in the freedom of exile in the West, begin to analyze what their true situation, as tolerated dhimmis, protected for his own reasons, even employed by him (so many Christians served as drivers, tasters, cooks, for Saddam Hussein, for they could be trusted), by Saddam Hussein, but that still did not make them free and equal citizens, and their position was always fraught with peril, as Christians in a land ruled by Muslims, of various kinds, exhibiting various degrees of fanaticism - but still, Muslims.

One wonders if those Iraqi Christians who now bitterly bewail the American intervention -- and how hard it is for Americans to understand what lies behind this, what is the real, unspoken story -- will come to terms, now or in the future, with what Islam is all about, and why the very best that they could expect, even under Saddam Hussein, was simply intolerable, for those who know what true mental freedom, and real physical security, means.

For if they do, they can be useful -- and should be eager to be useful -- in this country and elsewhere in the West, helping to monitor Muslim populations, and to do what they can to make sure that their real enemy, Islam, does not establish itself here, in the West, to threaten those who have already finally had to leave Iraq, or the Middle East, sooner or later, because of Islam, Islam, Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2008 11:48 AM

The jihad continues at the expense of Christian blood.

Posted by: Crusader at April 5, 2008 11:49 AM

"These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me." ~ John 16:3

Posted by: Lex at April 5, 2008 11:57 AM

The assistant said Adel was a compassionate man who preached about love and peace and was heavily involved in helping orphans and widows in his church....

Infidel!
Qur'an 47:33 "Believers, obey Allah, and obey the Messenger. Do not falter; become faint-hearted, or weak-kneed, crying for peace."
5:17 They indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary. Say: Who then can do aught against Allah, if He had willed to destroy the Messiah son of Mary, and his mother and everyone on earth ? Allah's is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them. He createth what He will. And Allah is Able to do all things.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at April 5, 2008 11:58 AM

Although President George Bush is not directly responsible fot the priest's murder, he is indirectly resposible for changing the power structure of Iraq and weakening the protection of Christians in Iraq.

Posted by: Johnathan at April 5, 2008 12:08 PM

I don't know if this is STILL the case, but in the early 1990s when I travelled to the Middle East, it was standard practice for Middle Eastern customs and border personnel to confiscate any and all "Christian" accessories (prayer beads, rosaries, bibles, holy pictures, medals, etc) and DESTROY them in front of their owners. Colleagues tell of witnessing such personnel actually cut-up and spit on Christian accessories of this sort."
-- from a posting above

Why wouldn't it be? Why, for example, would the Saudi "customs and border personnel"-- or those in other true-blue Muslim states (but not Syria, with its Alawites in ruthless charge, nor Egypt, but many of the rest) change their policy? Why shouldn't Christians be treated thus by Muslims unafraid to show they are true Muslims? Christians demonstrate kufr, they are ungrateful, ungrateful in the way they have refused to undertand that the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad, brought the uncreated, immutable Word of God. They should not have things quietly confiscated, but confiscated in a particularly humiliating way. They deserve whatever they get. They're just lucky to be alive, but that's because, you see, Islam is a "religion of tolerance." And of "peace."

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2008 12:17 PM

Islam Free Zone: I have a very good life. I am a full grown man, not an adolescent. I do my homework before I post on jihad watch.

You need to "GET A LIFE".... and an education too!!

There were nearly a million Christians in Iraq before the war and about half of them have left the country. Dozens of Christian churches have been attacked, bombed or destroyed and some Christian children have reportedly been crucified by Islamic terrorists.

The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was recently kidnapped and murdered. Some Christians left in Iraq don’t go to church for fear of being targeted for death. Some priests don’t wear clerical garb for the same reason.

Pope Benedict XVI has pleaded with Bush to do something about the plight of Iraqi Christians, however, in truth Bush has done very little to protect Christians.

Read Bush's Global War on Christians by Glenn Chancy:

Saddam Hussein was a bad Muslim, and everybody knew it. A secular dictator, he ruthlessly suppressed radical religious sentiment, and tried to build a modern state. Saddam was bitterly hated and reviled by Muslim radicals as diverse as Osama Bin Laden and the Shi'ite Ayatollahs of Iran. In a tape released by Osama bin Laden in February 2003, Saddam Hussein is referred to as an 'ignorant infidel.' The Iranian clerics hated Saddam so much that they repeatedly spurned peace initiatives to end the Iran-Iraq War, in the hopes continued fighting could topple his government. They intended to replace it with a Shi'ite dominated state modeled after their own. Eventually, they got smart enough to hire Ahmed Chalabi to convince the U.S. to topple Saddam for them.

Saddam had inherited the Ba'ath Party ideology of secular pan-Arab socialism, and hewed to many of its tenets throughout his brutal rule. Iraqi women enjoyed more rights than women in the surrounding Arab countries. Women could hold jobs and attend higher education, all with uncovered faces. In fact, women comprised 20% of the professional workforce.

Under Saddam, alcohol merchants plied their wares freely in their shops. The lack of enforcement of the Sharia made Iraq the party spot of the region. David Younan Oro, a 70-year-old patriarch of a Christian family in Ramadi, ran casinos and nightclubs during the heyday of Saddam's regime. He described the glory days like this, "They drink like donkeys here. Business was good. I had a lot of restaurants and shops." If you stayed out of politics, life and business were good.

Among the primary tenets of Ba'athist ideology was a dedication to religious tolerance. This is not surprising, since the intellectual father of Ba'athism was Michel Aflaq, himself an Orthodox Christian. In keeping with Ba'athist ideology, Saddam did not interfere with the rights of the Assyrian Christians in Iraq to practice their faith. Comprising somewhere between one and two million Iraqis, the Aramaic-speaking Assyrians are the original inhabitants of the modern-day state of Iraq.

The Assyrians did suffer repression under Saddam Hussein, who suppressed their ethnic and linguistic distinctiveness while trying to meld the hodgepodge of peoples in Iraq into a unified state. At no time, however, were the Assyrians ever denied the free practice of their religion, nor did they fear for their lives simply because of their faith.

One measure of the relative religious freedom of the Assyrians under Saddam was the exuberant and public celebration of Christmas. As one writer described it, "Christmas decorations, including nativity scenes, were seen in shops, restaurants and hotels. And Saddam reportedly sometimes attended services at Christian churches in Baghdad and even delivered an annual Christmas address."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy5.html

Posted by: Johnathan at April 5, 2008 5:06 PM

As usual, the politically correct media says nothing about this latest tragedy in Iraq. This fact makes the atrocity even worse.

Posted by: Christian at April 5, 2008 6:16 PM

It is not true that Iran hired Ahmad Chalabi to persuade members of the American government to invade Iraq. He had his own reasons for wishing to persuade them to do so.

Posted by: Hugh at April 5, 2008 9:14 PM

Islam free Zone:

You are one strange dude!

You need to be admitted into a mental institution.

Posted by: Johnathan at April 6, 2008 10:19 AM

The exodus of Christians from Iraq in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein goes a long way toward explaining why the Vatican was opposed to the American invasion. It also explains why Chaldean Christians in America resent Bush’s war.

Aside from the carnage unleashed by the invasion, which appalled Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the invasion and the subsequent creation of an Islamist-friendly regime have made life hazardous for Iraq’s Christian minority. Saddam Hussein may have been a ruthless dictator, but, like the equally autocratic Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he was better for Christians than the alternative. (During a visit to Cairo several years ago, I noticed portraits of Mubarak in the vestibules of Coptic Orthodox churches and was told that Christians considered the dictator a bulwark against persecution by Islamic extremists.)

The effect of the invasion on Christians in Iraq is only one of the unforeseen consequences of the neocons’ cocky campaign to transform the Middle East. But it is an especially painful one for Christians including the pope, who last year appointed the Chaldean patriarch to the College of Cardinals as a gesture of solidarity with Iraqi Christians.

Posted by: Johnathan at April 6, 2008 10:32 AM

Hello, I would like to comment on islamic attacks on Christians. I am a new poster so I hope I can make a clear comment WITHOUT being personally attacked by the likes of "islam-free-zone".

George Bush has supported in Kosovo, the same islamic Albanians there who have attacked the Orthodox Christians there for centuries.

During WWII the Albanians as members of Hitler's SS, deported all Jews and most of the Orthodox Christian clergy to Dachua. Christians citizens were tortured and murdered as well as being deported to concentration camps.

I do not see Mr. Bush as any helpful person when it comes to protecting innocent Christian clery anywhere in the world where Christians are forced to stand alone against ISLAMIC TERROR. Iraq is no exception!!

In 1999, with NATO in Kosovo, several Serbian Orthodox Monks were kidnapped and killed and many Nuns were raped and tortured by the Albanian KLA islamic group. That KLA group is known to have recieved much money from both bin laden and the Clinton govt.

Fast forward to this year. After over 150 Churches were destroyed, thousands of Christian burial placed defiled and destroyed and many Priests and Nuns stoned or attacked by Albanian islamics, President Bush and 33 countries recognized the Albanian's right to take Kosovo as their own independent country.

The Land called Kosovo-Methojia, the land of the blackbirds and Monasteries in Serbian, and for centuries the seat of the Serbian Church, has been delivered by GEORGE BUSH on a silver platter to islamics funded by bin laden and Saudis.

Just like the head of Saint John the Baptist was delivered to Herod by heathens....

Don't talk to me about this President or John McCain or H.Clinton or Hussein Obama, who ALL support this government being unfair to the suffering Christins and non-Albanians in Kosovo-Methojia!!!

I will be sitting out this election. As for me and my house we will serve the LORD.... put not your Faith in Princes( politicians) or sons of man...

Posted by: PinkingShears at April 6, 2008 1:35 PM

Pinking Shears: Good to have you here at jihad watch.

Keep in mind that there is an oil factor in Kosovo which keeps the U.S. and her European allies firmly on the side of the Albanians and away from Russian involvement through their close ally, the Serbs.

What do I mean here?

The AMBO Oil Pipeline.

Kosovo does not have oil but its location is strategic as the trans-Balkan pipeline, also known as AMBO pipeline, named after its builder and operator, the US-registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation, will pass through it.

The pipeline will pump Caspian oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas via Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora, for transport to European countries and the United States.

The 1.1 billion dollar AMBO pipeline will allow oil companies operating in the Caspian Sea to ship their oil to Rotterdam and the East Coast of the USA at substantially lower cost than they are experiencing today.

When operational by 2011, the pipeline will become a part of the region's critical East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway, railway, gas and fiber optic telecommunications lines. This pipeline will bring oil directly to the European market by eliminating tanker traffic through the ecologically sensitive waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.

Posted by: Johnathan at April 6, 2008 5:17 PM

Sorry if this is slightly off topic but here is my information about the AMBO Pipeline:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/romania.html

Posted by: Johnathan at April 6, 2008 5:39 PM

Johnathon

you raise an important topic - that Muslims in Muslim countries take out their rage on the dhimmis (or threaten to) if 'humiliated' by external non-Muslim forces. They bank on our fear that our actions will hurt those people, or cause Muslims to hurt them.

The religious leaders and political leaders of the non-Muslim world are going to face some very hard decisions if the War of Self-Defence Against the Jihad really hots up.

Essentially: I can't see that we will win this thing if our leaders allow the Ummah to play the 'hostage' card with dhimmi populations, be they Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist...The Muslims will argue that we Infidels musn't impose sanctions on Islamic rogue states, because the dhimmis will suffer; we mustn't make war, because the dhimmis will get hurt; and if we resist the Jihad, if we humiliate the Muslims, then the Muslims will hurt or kill the helpless dhimmis (so - to save the dhimmis, we must give in and become dhimmis ourselves...).

Perhaps we need to reflect upon what a Christian king of Abyssinia is reputed to have done during the Middle Ages. Whoever was then caliph was declaring an intention to kill all - ALL the surviving Jewish and Christian populations in the Holy Land.

The king of Abyssinia, who had Muslims living in his country (but not so many that he need fear them) let the Caliph know, in no uncertain terms, that if those Jews and Christians were harmed then he, king of Abyssinia, would execute every Muslim within his domains and flatten every mosque therein. He must have been very convincing - the caliph backed down.

(The story is related in James Parkes' Whose Land', an overview of the history of the land of Israel from ancient times to 20th century, with many chapters devoted to the period of Muslim imperial occupation).

We may have to think about what kind of pre-emptive threats we will have to make - and MEAN, and carry out if necessary - in order to prevent the Ummah from using Christians, or Hindus, or others, as hostages for our 'good behaviour', that is, our abject submission to their demands.

Because let us not forget that two can play the hostage game. Those countries who do not have unmanageably large Muslim minorities might have to use them as bargaining chips to trump any attempt by Muslim states to turn non-Muslim minorities into 'hostages' for Infidel good behaviour.

I am trying to think, here, as prime ministers and presidents may be forced to think, in confronting an enemy - jihadi Islam - that thinks and acts exactly like the Mafia writ large.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at April 7, 2008 4:22 AM

Pinking Shears, et al:

I am an Orthodox Christian in the US. On my father's side, I go back to Jamestown, and on my mother's side -- to departing Greece 1914.

This is something I am observing: Orthodox Christians are not afforded the protection or the respect of Protestants. I do not say this lightly. There has been no protection for the Christians in Serbia in the last twenty years. Their concerns are irrelevant to US foreign policy. The Orthodox Christians of Bethlehem are not protected assisted. There are no protests about the Orthodox girls kidnapped for Muslim child brides in Egypt. The Orthodox Christians of the MIddle East are not protected or assisted.

There is virtually no coverage of these events in the US media. Christians in Muslim countries are substantially Orthodox.

Furthermore, this is a historical truth: the United States did not assist the 300,000 Orthodox Smyrna massacre victims in 1921 (cutting off arms of those who swam to their ships and tried to climb aboard), they did not assist the horror of the Constantinople Orthodox who were purged in 1954, and they did not help the dying Orthodox Cypriots in 1965.

I monitor "Voice of the Martyrs" a Protestant website that asks for prayers for those persecuted around the world, but you'd better be a Protestant evangelist or convert to merit their attention. Apparently Orthodox are not martyrs (the Greek word for 'witness') for the first time in two thousand years.

When the United States starts perceiving Orthodox Christians as something other than an ethnic religion that is insignificant (except at election time), than perhaps Orthodox Christians in other countries will merit protection.

Posted by: thelittlegreekwoman at April 7, 2008 7:13 AM