Skepticism? Fair enough...
Here is a pile of corpses, victims of the 1988 gas attack on Halabja, Iraq. I doubt the folks in Halabja are very skeptical about any claims of WMD being present in Saddam's Iraq...
Posted on 08/04/2004 8:09:20 PM PDT by Destro
Many Christians Flee Iraq, With Syria the Haven of Choice
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
Published: August 5, 2004
DAMASCUS, Syria, Aug. 4 - Abdulkhalek Sharif Nuaman likes to talk as he works, removing bubbly Iraqi bread from his ovens on long pallets. The baker is a cheerful man, yet his florid face darkens as he explains why he decided to flee Iraq.
Two months ago, Mr. Nuaman says, he was both a member of Iraq's small Mandaean sect, and a patriot with high hopes for the country's democratic future. Then Islamist extremists began attacking Christians in his Baghdad neighborhood, and his 9-year-old son was kidnapped, dragged into a moving car as he played near the family home.
After relatives scraped together $5,000 to ransom the boy, the family decided enough was enough and left, driving across the desert into Syria to apply for refugee status.
"We are safe here, and so we feel free," Mr. Nuaman said of his new home in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana. "The Syrians are brothers to us. There is no discrimination here. That is the truth, and not a compliment."
Iraq is home to some of the world's oldest religious communities, including Assyrians, an early, now independent Christian sect; Chaldeans, Eastern-rite Catholics who recognize papal authority; and the Mandaeans, who follow John the Baptist.
Yet, attacks on Iraq's tiny Christian minority have been steadily increasing since late spring, culminating in the bombing of five Christian churches in Baghdad and Mosul on Sunday. As a result, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Christians are now fleeing the country in record numbers.
Ajmal Khybari, an official at the refugee agency's Damascus office, said about 4,000 Iraqi families had registered as refugees in Syria. Although they represent less than 5 percent of Iraq's population, Iraqi Christians now make up about 20 percent of the total refugee flow into Syria from Iraq, Mr. Khybari said.
Rita Zekert, the coordinator of the Caritas Migrant Center, a Catholic charity in Damascus that provides food, medicine and other aid to new refugees, said last year's wartime influx of Iraqi refugees included Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Kurds in percentages roughly proportionate to their numbers in Iraq. "But nowadays, 95 percent of the people coming to us are Iraqi Christians," Ms. Zekert said.
Though Iraqi Christians are heading to Jordan and Lebanon as well, Mr. Khybari said, Syria is the preferred destination, for its low cost of living, cultural similarities with Iraq and policy of freely issuing visas to citizens of other Arab countries. "For people of a very depleted economic status, Syria is an easier choice," he said.
Yet most of Syria's newest Iraqi Christian refugees say the decision to leave their homeland was anything but easy. They tell of Christian shopkeepers killed by Islamist gangs for daring to sell alcohol, of family businesses sold to ransom stolen children. They say life in Syria is hard for them, as new refugees are often barred from jobs and schools. They left Iraq, they say, only because they were too terrorized to stay.
Solaka Enweya, 56, an Assyrian Christian who arrived in Syria with his three sons on June 27, explained that attacks on Christians had become common since Saddam Hussein's government was toppled, in part because of the perception that Iraqi Christians are aiding the Americans. But like other refugees here, he said attacks on Iraqi Christians increased this spring.
"When we heard that the Americans were going to liberate Iraq, we were so happy," Mr. Enweya said. "Yet our suffering has only increased."
He said his family had been receiving vague death threats since the start of the war, in March 2003. But beginning in April, he said, a local Islamist group began directly threatening his sons because of their faith. Then they blew up his van. Mr. Enweya had run a small delivery service, and with the loss of the van, his whole livelihood disappeared.
"Saddam didn't allow for people to incite religious life like this," he said. "We Christians have suffered so much. Our only choice was to come to Syria."
Suhair Mikhail, 33, recalls walking home from her church in Baghdad this spring with a friend, a young woman from her choir.
"A car stopped, and three men got out," she said. "They began tearing my friend's clothes. They said, 'Because this is the first time we see you unveiled, we will only strip you. The next time, we will kill you.' "
Despite the growing frequency of attacks and humiliations, the leaders of Iraq's Christians are urging their members to remain in Iraq or, if they have already left, to return.
"These terrorists are playing on the sectarian conflicts," said Emmanuel Khoshaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a political party of Iraq's Assyrian Christians. "Before, they were tampering with Sunni-Shia relations. Now it's the Christians' turn."
He is especially worried that the church bombings will bring a new wave of refugees. Mr. Khoshaba counsels Christians to be patient.
"Iraq is in a new stage of its history," Mr. Khoshaba said. "We have free speech, and places in the national assembly. Chaldeans and Assyrians are some of Iraq's most ancient people. It will be terrible if they leave before we can taste the fruits of Iraq's democracy."
He was not.
Okay, don't believe there was a drop of bleach in Iraq, let alone enough poison to kill 5000 kurds?
When Iran was first to made such allegations it was dismissed by US government as rabid propaganda (at that time Iraq was being supported in its war against Iran). Now the allegations became the absolute truth. Some scepticism would be in place.
"Go figure"?! Much simpler explanation is that the official image is false. Middle East Christians live there and they know better what is going on around them than the average FOX viewer.
This fellow is a Mandaean. Mandaeans are not Christians. They are throwbacks to the Gnostics and the Mystery Religions of Hellenistic times.
They believe that John the Baptist once led their group and that Jesus was a renegade member.
They call their priests "nasurai" ("keepers of the mysteries" in Aramaic) which may be the origin of the Greek word "nazoraios" (rendered in English as "Nazarene") in the New Testament.
Well, this term is applied to the priesthood of the New Testament:
"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."
(1Cor:4:1)
BTW, I would rather say that it was New Testament Greek which influenced Aramaic. Educated Jews/Christians of that time used Greek, especially outside of Palestine (in ALexandria or Rome). So they used Greek version of Old Testament Scriptures (Septuaginta) and so the New Testament was in Greek.
My guess is that when we liberated Iraq we expected to have less of this radical islamic violence than what has in fact happened. It is notable that there are suspicions that other countries such as Iran, Syria and Russia have had a hand in not only ensuring that a group of insurgents would be dug in prior to the US invasion, but that they would receive continued support across the difficult to enforce borders. I think the Iraqi Christians are naive to believe that Syria is a good place to be in the long term. Turning my critique to the US, I think we have been far too politically correct during the mop up phase in Iraq. We have been too lenient and have been too obsessed with avoiding collateral damage - as a result the dug in, foreign supported Fedayeen and their insurgent partners, are getting off scot free. Also, we dismissed, far too quickly, the idea of restoration of Constitutional Monarchy in Iraq. A Constitutional Monarchy there could have (and still could) play a strong role in protecting the Christians, and, keeping the lid on ethnic tensions.
"We"? When the secular government in Syria is overthrown there will be much more islamic violence in Syria and Syrian churches will be destroyed (like in Kosovo under the supervision of NATO troops).
Educated Jews never used the Septuagint. The Septuagint was written mostly for Jews outside Judea who had forgotten Hebrew.
The word "natsur" has meaning in Hebrew and Aramaic. It appears in Isaiah 48:6. It is translated in English language bibles as "hidden things." Isaiah was written long before anyone in Judea spoke Greek.
The word "nazoraios" has no root in Greek. It is obviously from a foreign root. So it could not have come from Greek into Aramaic. Just the opposite. But it most likely did not come from the town of Nazareth as the New Testament implies.
"Steward of the mysteries of God" is a plausible explanation of what it might mean.
Well. I guess we mean different types of education. Traditionalist Jews if they got education they used Hebrew of cource. But at this time the Graeco Roman civilization was at its appex and many Jews got got classic education. Same way as many Jews today go to Harvard instead of yeshiva.
A large and prosperous professional class of Jews was present in the Roman Empire and they used the lingua franca of educated people - Greek. Even in the Palestine the struggle between Hellenists and Pharisees/Zealots was more or less even.
The process of abandonment of Hebrew was not resticted to the upper/middle class - many from lower class and merchants used Aramaic.
Septuaginta was a translation made for the Jews and by the Jews in the center of the ancient scholarship - Alexandria couple centuries before Christ. The quotes in New Testament agree with Septuaginta in the passages which got modified in the later Hebrew versions. The good example is the famous prophetic quote:
"For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."
In the late Masoretic version (VIIIc adopted later by Luther and Protestants) ) the passage reads:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
(Isa:40:3)
The difference in meaning is substantial - as the wilderness can be understood as being outside. Saint Johns while being an outcast calls for the repentence in the center - among Jews. Masoretic passage can be interpreted as the applying to change of the world outside (making streight) done from inside.
The word "natsur" has meaning in Hebrew and Aramaic. It appears in Isaiah 48:6. It is translated in English language bibles as "hidden things." Isaiah was written long before anyone in Judea spoke Greek.
This is true - and so the word Holy Sacraments is unprecise echo of Greek term Holy Mysteries as the later derives from Hebrew through the Septuaginta.
You never met an anti American, pan Slavic idea that you didn't like.
Can you give me some examples of "anti American, pan Slavic ideas"? Do you support KLA?
You read my mind - I was just about to list typical Pan-slavic ideas:
- The USA is out to get Christians, particularly Orthodox Christians.
- The USA's foreign policy, being in the hands of those darn, Jewish, neocon Zionist maniacs, must be opposed across the board.
- Because a sex-addicted, dope addled, 1960s radical, named Bill Clinton, messed up in the Balkans, therefore, we must conclude that heretofore, all subsequent US military actions, beyond strict defense of the Continental USA, suck.
- Vlad Putin never was a Communist, KGB insider, he was just going through the motions because of his "Russian nationalism" - in fact, he is "Tsar Putin."
- If the US attacks or pressures any nation that was previously in the Soviet sphere of influence, or, since then, has been in the Russian sphere of influence, we will automatically rail, along side the peacenick hippies and Michael Moore, against it.
- Deny, deny, then deny some more.
- How dare you compare us to Pan-Germanic ideologues from the 1930s.
Wow. So "peacenick hippies and Michael Moore" joined the pan-slavist conspiracy! Which nation to be "attacked or pressured by US" from "Russian sphere of influence" do you have in mind?
You've got it backwards, pan-slavists have joined Michael Moore, et al.
Hay, US save Ararat and PLO from Israel, after Ararat got rid of all Christians.
Skepticism? Fair enough...Here is a pile of corpses, victims of the 1988 gas attack on Halabja, Iraq. I doubt the folks in Halabja are very skeptical about any claims of WMD being present in Saddam's Iraq...
The FOX comment definately has a wiff of troll's bait to it... I don't watch FOX, I'm too busy typing up replies on FreeRepublic while listening to the Savage Nation on my headphones. Alternative media, that's what it's all about...
But okay, I'll nibble on the bait a bit. If FOX viewers would say "Go figure", then CNN/CBS/ABC/NBC/MSNBC viewers would say "Its those murderous Israelis. If only they would quit killing those innocent Palestinians who only seek a homeland, then Syria would be a kinder, friendler nation." NPR listeners would save the speeches and simply say "F*** Bush."
Photo of a pile of corpses does not prove the allegation by itself. You need to know were the photo originated, the identity of the bodies, time and place of their death and the reliable impartial forensic examination.
BTW, if you have all this additional information the photo is superfluous.
Also if one is shown the photo instead, one should be very skeptical. Photos and TV are the best way to impress the general public - you can show the photo of dead Serbs and tell that they are bodies of murdered Muslims. Or you can show the film with airplane dropping the bombs with false time and place ascribed - the most viewers will believe whatever you say as "film cannot lie".
That is why one needs to be skeptical. And if you want to figure out what is really happening it requires work, persistence and some wit. Even people in media big part of the time are clueless, repeating rumors, propaganda, illusions and regurgitating their own bias or superstitions.
And this apply to life in general as it is written in a great play:
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
(Macbeth, 5:5)
Iraqi Christians flee to the country which they know first hand, where they have friends and relatives, where they are welcomed/where they can get visas and where they know language and customs. For some reason they do not flee to our friends Saudies.
It seems to me that instead of fleeing, the Christian Iraqis should stay and fight for their country. If they only flee instead of fight, they don't deserve anything more.
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