Iraq's tiny Christian communities brace for heightened persecution

ISTANBUL, Turkey (BP)--Hours before a U.S.-led war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appears poised to begin, Iraq's small Christian minority fears more than American bombs, Compass Direct news service reported March 19.

Iraqi Christians expect to be targeted by a growing tide of Islamic militancy now being encouraged in the secularized Arab state, according to Compass, a news service focusing on persecuted Christians and based in Santa Ana, Calif.

Numbering less than 400,000, Iraq's Christian community has in recent months become the object of overt discrimination by Islamist elements, Compass reported. The attacks have ranged from verbal abuse and graffiti campaigns to stone-throwing and even brutal assassinations.

Iraq's Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has shrunk from 10 percent of the population 20 years ago to about 1.5 percent of the country's 24 million people. The majority of the Christians are Catholic or Orthodox, with several dozen evangelical congregations located mostly in larger urban areas.

Although Saddam Hussein initially kept religion out of Iraq's political life, he began to encourage devotion to Islam after the 1991 Gulf War, emblazoning the Muslim slogan "God is great" on the Iraq flag and claiming descent from the family of the prophet Muhammad, Compass recounted. Four years ago he launched a "faith campaign" to promote a revival of Islam, building scores of new mosques and religious schools across the country.

Over the past few weeks, local church leaders report that anti-Christian rhetoric has dominated Friday prayer sermons in Baghdad's mosques. "Muhammad said fight the infidels with everything you have," Abu Bakr al-Sammerai declared at the Abdel Qadr al-Gaylani mosque on March 7, according to Compass.

Ignoring the government's previous rules on religious tolerance, other Muslim preachers have urged their listeners to "fight the followers of the devil," openly labeling Christians (known locally as "Nazarenes") as "infidels," Compass reported. On March 13, Iraq's leading Muslim scholars issued a religious edict declaring that anyone who aided the U.S. and British forces would be "condemned to hell."

I don't understand the "point" of this article. It sounds to me like it's nothing more than anti-war sentiments. The author is trying to show that even the "good guys" (in this case, the Christians *in* Iraq) don't want this war. I suspect life for these Christian brothers and sisters will be better after that country is liberated. 9 posted on 03/21/2003 9:13 AM PST by Theo

No, the plain fact of the matter is, it likely won't be better.

These are the facts of the case:

Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980's was brutal, sure. He was also concerned with maintaining Power, nothing more. All he cares about is Power, everything else is quite negotiable. This is exactly the reason why we supported him in the Iran-Iraq War. He has always been an SOB, but at the time, he was "our SOB".
The overthrow of Hussein is (probably) a Moral Necessity for the USA given Saddam's (apparent) support of Al-Queda Terrorist Elements. This does not translate into a Moral "Big Rock Candy Mountain". It is worth remembering what we are doing here -- we are (on the basis of National Security imperatives) overthrowing the only Arab regime in the Middle East which has invited Arab Christians into the ruling Power Structure.
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are both are Friends and "Allies" of the USA. They are also both totalitarian Islamic dictatorships. Iraqi Christians have good reason to fear the outcome of this War. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Christians enjoyed Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Worship, as long as they did not question Hussein's power. By comparison, under the Wahhabi Shari'ah of our "friends" Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, those same Arab Christians enjoy the Freedom of getting their heads chopped off. Not for the "treason" of questioning the State, but simply for being Christian.
And even now, there is discussion amongst the eggheads of the State Department on how to best accomodate the rivalries of Iraqi Kurds, Baghdad Sunnis, and the Shi'ite Majority in a "Federal Democratic" Iraq. What do each of these groups have in common? They HATE CHRISTIANS. And needless to say, the Iraqi Christian community has been FORGOTTEN by the USA. And this probably comes as little surprise to the Iraqi Christians -- after all, beyond the fact that we left them to die on the vine in 1991, on the basis of the Albanian Kosovo War, they have probably deduced that the USA is perfectly happy to murder Orthodox Christians in defense of Islamic Drug-Runners.

Don't kid yourself about what is happening here.

We are, indeed, eliminating a National Security threat to the USA.
However, we are also (in all likelyhood) setting the Iraqi Christian community up for an absolute bloodbath. Sad to say -- they are the "odd man out", and they're gonna get squeezed ("squeezed" being a euphemism for mass murder and religious cleansing).

I will be pleasantly shocked if I am wrong.
I pray that I am wrong.

But the Middle East is what it is.

Hussein "protected" the minority Iraqi Christians as long as they did not question his Power.... every Dictator loves a Slave, right? And Tariq Aziz and the other Chaldean Catholics have considered Political Slavery to be the price of Religious Freedom.

But once Hussein is gone...

The Iraqi Christians are the "odd man out" amongst Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites.

In all likelihood, they will be butchered by the thousands.

I hope and pray I am wrong --- but that's the Nature of Fallen Humanity.
Do not kid yourself about what is going to happen here.

This decade, or the next. But soon enough.

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