This is a trap. (Attacks on Christians)

Yesterday’s attacks on the churches were not very unexpected because the terrorists consider destroying this country their primary mission. They have attacked all Iraqis without discrimination, they murdered the She’at Muslims near their holy shrines, they attacked Sunni mosques, they attacked the IP near their stations and they assassinated our politicians and leaders and they will keep trying to attack anyone and anything to stop us from building this country but they will not defeat us, unless we submit to their evil plans; something we will never do.

I’ve tried to ask as many Iraqis as I could about their feelings and all Iraqis I met showed anger, contempt and bitterness about what happened but noone gave signs of despair. I’ve watched many reactions on the internet and I found that many people considered what happened an aggression against Christians (and that this is what the terrorists want) while we in Iraq see it as a crime against Iraqis and this reaction is the last thing they want.

However, how the West views this is more important than our reactions as the message this time was sent to the West not to us. This time they chose to attack what they think is a soft target and I believe that their choice is based on two sick wishes: The first one: they think that by terrorizing the Iraqi Christian community the Iraqi Christians will get panicked and choose to leave Iraq and thus creating a situation of insecurity and distrust among Iraqis.

The second one: with these attacks they want to drag the West to believe that this a war on Christianity and that it came as a reaction to the “war on Islam”. They want to give their war a religious shape to inflame religious sensitivities between Christians and Muslims and they want the Muslims in the West to be persecuted so that they can use it to make simple minded Muslims believe that the war on terror is a crusade.

I can say that I’m sure that the 1st one will not find a measurable success because as I mentioned earlier; in Iraq we think about the latest attacks just the same way we do about any previous ones. As for the 2nd one, well... it’s up to you in the West and you can determine the way it affects you. You need to be far-sighted when you decide how to respond to this test and I believe you can do that. So please, don’t fall in this trap.

I don't believe it would be wise for us to step up our efforts in assisting Iraq, except in prayer, and training for your defense. We lost more men in our civil war than in all our wars combined -- an awful, but needful price to pay for freedom, and it pains us still.

Dear Father, please bless the Iraqi people and all her allies with strength, protection, faith and success.

We will most assuredly keep you in constant prayer.

~The Mayor's Wife

Further to the Moscow Patriarch's taking a page from Putin with his Mob Boss call of condolence in the aftermath of the destruction.

Having toured the Kremlin and understood for the first time, really, the traditional ties extant between Russia and Persia, I'm certainly willing to concede the VERY SLIGHT possibility some ancient connection -- a la that they had with their Serbian brothers? -- is kicking in among the ex-intel sorts who manage the State Religion in Russia.

But, absent some precedent on which to rely in trusting this is so (I'll be hunting around, trust me), I think Alexy II's with the Program where this continuing triangulation of the People of the Book's concerned.

Holy War my ass. Illumined Muslim insurgents are no more representative of Islam than the "former Soviet"-sponsored IRA is of Catholicism. And the destruction of Christian churches in this war does not differ in any essential fashion for me from the Allied destruction of Dresden or our annihilation of the center of Japanese Christianity at the otherwise non-strategic target that was Nagasaki.

Having worshipped in churches in both Ukraine and Russia and pored over every detail of the Remaking of Russian Religion at Sts. Peter & Paul (particularly the display of Yeltsin at the canonization of the Romanovs and the geneology of Russia's relation to decadent English), I think I can tell the difference between a devout Granny and an Operator. Just about any faithful Catholic attuned to the revolution within the Church (and, particularly, its longtime penetration by the Enlightened), can do the same.

I'd like to pretend it was a joy to find a little card table of pro-life literature tucked in a corner of Alexy's cavernous cathedral. But when the State posts anti-abortion placards in the cars of the Metro, it's hard to pretend it's the Orthodox Church which is spearheading the right to life in Russia given the birthrate crisis the Government faces despite its overwhelmingly generous incentives for women -- married or not -- to reproduce.

Nothing yet "on point" but I'm still looking.

Have read enough, however, that I'm reminded how utterly absurd were your accusations I need "hate" the Orthodox. Nothing's farther from the truth and the sowing of such discord and enmity for others is actually a speciality of your less-than-ecumenical minded Alexy II.

I'd post links but any Google search will serve basically the same purposes in providing ample illustration of same.

Well ... clearly I need more schooling on the history.

You don't think the guides at the Kremlin give you false information about the exquisite -- I mean BREATHTAKINGLY exquisite -- armor (full body for rider AND horse) and other gifts to the Tsars from the Persians, do you?

It was just an eye-opener, that's all. As was playing prairie-dog on the Metro and taking in the immense variety of Russian faces.

If you've got a direction in which I should head for more info, I'd be grateful.

I truly hope you understand that I've NO enmity whatsoever for Orthodox or for Russians (quite the contrary, actually) but I simply do not trust the Moscow hierarchy anymore than I trust AmChurch or most of the Vatican bureaucrats.

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