Posted on 09/19/2014 10:16:35 PM PDT by Steelfish
Christianity In Iraq Is Finished
By Daniel Williams September 19
In the part of his Sept. 10 speech on confronting the Islamic State that probably drew the least attention, President Obama mentioned the need to help Christians and other minorities, expelled from cities and villages in northern Iraq, return from where they came. “We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homeland,” he said.
Obama got that wrong. Christians, of whom around 120,000 have taken refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan, will not be going home even if their tormentors suddenly disappear.
I spent 10 days talking with Christian refugees in Irbil, the capital of the northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, this month, and they are adamant they will not be returning to Mosul and nearby towns on what is known as the Nineveh Plain.
It is not simply that these Christians have gone through tremendous trauma. It is not only because they lost everything, including their homes and businesses, and in some cases spent days and even weeks in detention while being badgered to convert to Islam, where they saw babies taken from mothers’ arms to be held for ransom and busloads of young people ferried off into the unknown. (snip) Indeed, the exodus of Christians is ongoing. Has anyone noticed that the Christian population of Iraq has shrunk from more than 1 million in 2003 to maybe 300,000 today? Now, there are virtually no Christians left in either Mosul or on the plain.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Do I detect a note of bitterness ? ... in the WASHINGTON POST ?????
You know what - these are the sort of refugees we should bring into our countries. They are Christian are likely to want to fit in our way of life. In Australia too large a proportion (any) are Muslims who are the ones who are starting these wars - I don’t care which sect of Islam they are from - let them fight it out not come here to start on us!
Christianity and other minority religious grps in the muslim world will be reduced in numbers as islamic states continue to take over secular govts or regimes. Given time, unfortunately, same can happen in currently and predominantly western countries. Remember Christians were once the majority in the ME. What happened?
God will accomplish great things with this, I have no doubt.
Oh wait.. Wrong thread.
Christianity finished? Boy are they in for a surprise.
Obama wants to arrange the same fate for the Syrian Christians.
Just watched a report in Syria. The Christians are saying that all these years under Assad the muslims were hypocrites. Now, overnight, they do not smile at them at the market but scowl. Just like in Nazi Germany once Hitler got in power, bam, the attitudes were revealed.
Mark my words, with gun control and all, it will be the same here.
To clarify, meant ‘western christian countries’.
Do you mean because the war deposed Hussein, and then as a direct result Obama got elected, because the peace-loving American populace was repelled by the violence and presumption of this, and then Obama withdrew all support from the newly established Iraqi government, clearing the field for the Islamists?
Because if that's what you mean, then I agree.
I don’t think that is what he meant....
I am getting so that I don’t even bother to reply to these sanctimonious ignoramuses...the forum is full of them these days...
But I’m glad you did..
I am way past PO’d...
Actually this is a direct result of the 2003 Bush war WON, and UNDONE by our boy prez, Marxist effeminate and pacifist.
There, fixed it.
In Iraq, Christians numbered about 1,500,000 in 2003, representing just over 5% of the population of the country. They numbered over 1.4 million in 1987 or 8% of the population.[1] After the Iraq War, it was estimated that the number of Christians in Iraq had dropped to less than 450,000 by 2013[2] - with estimates as low as 200,000.[3]Christianity in IraqAs of 21 June 2007, the UNHCR estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries with a large majority of them Christians, and 2 million were displaced internally, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to Syria and Jordan each month.[11][12] A 25 May 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq were granted refugee status in the United States.[13] After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.[14] Some Christians were pressured to convert to Islam under threat of death or expulsion, and women were ordered to wear Islamic dress.[14]
In August 2004, International Christian Concern protested an attack by Islamists on Iraqi Christian churches that killed 11 people.[15] In 2006, an Orthodox Christian priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded and mutilated despite payment of a ransom, and in 2008, the Assyrian clergyman Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of the Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul died after being abducted.[14] In January 2008, bombs exploded outside nine churches.[14]
In 2007, Chaldean Catholic priest Fr. Ragheed Aziz Ganni and subdeacons Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed were killed in the ancient city of Mosul.[16] Ganni was driving with his three deacons when they were stopped and demanded to convert to Islam, when they refused they were shot.[16] Ganni was the pastor of the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and a graduate from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome in 2003 with a licentiate in ecumenical theology. Six months later, the body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, archbishop of Mosul, was found buried near Mosul. He was kidnapped on 29 February 2008 when his bodyguards and driver were killed.[17]
Of course things went from bad to worse under Obama.
Heh. I had already noted his sign-up date as 2002, but I confess that every time I think someone is an imposter, they have a respectable sign-up date. So I clicked his signature as suggested, and found a gateway into a giant anti-evolution screed.
“No matter where you go, there you are” - Buckaroo Bonzai
Why doesn’t anyone get the idea to arm the living crap out of the Christians??? Not just small arms, but the whole shebang, to just shy of tactical nuclear weapons... Wait, maybe some of those too!
Point taken.
Some people have this idea. But I think that there is an agreement in place that forbids western powers giving such support to Christian peoples some of these regions. It's the price of doing business with muslims. Kind of like selling one's soul.
“Mark my words, with gun control and all, it will be the same here”
No, it won’t, my FRiend, be not afraid. That genie is out of the bottle. We “infidels” hve our guns & nothing short of governmental mass confiscation followed by general insurrection and/or civil war is going to change that, and even the Obamabots know it.
This isn’t Germany and this isn’t the Middle East. This is America. They can attempt to demonize we who are armed lovers of liberty, but if the shooting starts, it will be a two-way firing range.
As Adm. Yamamoto said or is alleged to have said, “We cannot invade America; there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
No, it's politics.
Recalling now with amusement during the run-up to the Iraq invasion that the Bush admin had named a operation using the word "Crusade".
There was a immediate uproar by the left and they had to change the name.
The same sort of thing happens in every western society. It's not just the Muslim minorities, it's the left. Part of the political war going on daily is the marginalization if not total elimination of Christian doctrine. So the Muslim extremists have a great political ally in the left.
Call them birds of a feather....at least for now..
As far as the Christian populations in the Middle East are concerned, they have been in decline for decades. Any safe havens that were allowing them under moderate regimes are now persecuting them as the regimes change. Bush had nothing to do with this trend. A war is not necessary for the moderate regime to be replaced with a Muslim theocracy. Turkey is a great example...there are others and will be more.
Unfortunately, these small enclaves cannot protect themselves, and in fact probably would not if they could. As this stuff spreads like a disease further to the West, I wonder if any Christian's will take up arms to protect themselves when their government ignores their plight.
It seems unlikely at present..
One day, in the not too distant future, one may find that even the democratic state will fail to protect it's Christians..assuming that this leftist cancer continues to grow.
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