Wednesday, October 18, 2006 Under Saddam, Iraqi Christians co-existed peacefully. Now?... they are fleeing in horror Atta boy Bush! I'd love to see your "values voters" defend this: "Christianity took root in Iraq near the dawn of the faith 2000 yrs ago, making Iraq home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. The country is rich in biblical significance: scholars believe the Garden of Eden described in Genesis was in Iraq; Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees, a city in Iraq; the city of Nineveh that the prophet Jonah visited after being spit out by a giant fish was in Iraq. Both Chaldean Catholics & Assyrian Christians, the country’s largest Christian sects, still pray in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. They have long been a tiny minority amid a sea of Islamic faith, but under Saddam, Iraq’s million or so Christians for the most part co-existed peacefully w/ Muslims, both the dominant Sunnis and the majority Shiites. But since Saddam's ouster, Christians have been subjected to a steady stream of church bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and threatening letters slipped under their doors giving them mere hrs to flee or else be killed. In 1987 (the last time an Iraqi census was taken) there were 1.4 million Christians in Iraq. Most estimates say that there are approx 600,000 in Iraq now. But most of them are too scared to attend church and veil their females to avoid detection." Well... given that the beheaded and dismembered body of Father Boulos Iskander, a Syrian Orthodox priest of St Ephram's parish in Iraq, was just found in a suburb of Mosul... yeah... I think they do have plenty of reason to be scared shitless. But where is the outcry from the Religious Fright about these Christians being killed? We know they won't say a single word about the 100s of 1000s deaths of Muslim and secular Iraqis, but since these are the same people who mysteriously claim that Christians are always being persecuted, shouldn't they speak up about this? Oh that's right... the Religious Fright and BushCo's base could care less about the plight of these folks b/c they are all just "dirty ragheads" to them, no matter no what. |