Christians in Iraq

Absolutley Awful. In Indonesia people are being warned to stay away from churches in fear of terrorist attacks over Christmas.

What would happen if a mosque was stormed by terrorists and all the people slaughtered on the holiest day of Ramadan? Yet it seems like anything goes re Christians.

 

Is it not an awful embarassment that in Saddam's Iraq, Christians were able to live in peace and worship as they wished, but that in George Bush's Iraq, their very existence is threatened?

 

This is something that I think about often. I dont have an answer because of the stories of what Uday Hussain went around doing to whoever he pleased, and I cant say which is worse.

 

Barbarian asks:
Is it not an awful embarassment that in Saddam's Iraq, Christians were able to live in peace and worship as they wished, but that in George Bush's Iraq, their very existence is threatened?

I think I know what the Iraqi Christians would say.

 

Galatian,

Are you talking about people like Tariq Azziz?

Joseph Botwinick

 

I am talking about the people who used to be able to meet weekly to worship Jesus without worrying about terrorists bombing their church.

I am talking about the people who used to be able to let their children go out and play without worrying that they might be kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam.

I'm talking about the people who used to be able to go out and shop and go to their jobs without worrying about being harmed because they were Christians.

Those people. The fact that one or some of them collaborated with Saddam does not mean that the rest of them deserve what Bush has done to them.

Christians are no longer protected in Iraq. And it appears that a nearly 2000 year old Christian community is now doomed.

 

People like Tariq Azziz, right?

Joseph Botwinick

 

Um, no. If you're suggesting that Tariq Azziz is typical of Christians living in Iraq, that is crazy.

Are you suggesting Iraqi Christians deserve what Bush has done to them?

 

No, I am saying that Tariq Azziz was a member of this so called "Christian" church. This might explain the preferential treatment they recieved under the Saddam regime. Also, Bush did not do it to them, but I am suggesting that maybe the Muslims in Iraq have good reason to dislike this Church. Interesting however, how you seem to focus on this Church under Democratic rule while ignoring the rape rooms, torture chambers, and mass graves under Saddam's Regime. Is that because then he was only oppressing Muslims? Are their lives not worth much to you? What exactly are you trying to say.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I think you might be more respectful of God and the people who love Him, than to put put the word in parentheses as though you think they are not worth of loving Him.

They got no preferential treatment. In fact, they had some restrictions as far as proslytizing and building new churches. Saddam didn't care for them any more than he did for others. But his Baathist ideology was sedular and it didn't matter to them what they worshipped, so long as they caused him no trouble.

Must have been the war fairy, um? Someone removed the Baathists, and let the islamists take over. Bush was taking credit for that recently. (although he didn't talk about the second one)

They do, after all, worship Jesus as God and Savior. A definite provocation, don't you think?

Nope. We've talked about them before. You know that. I've told you personally that Saddam was a brutal, sadistic dictator. Don't bother denying it, everyone's seen it.

So far, there is no democratic rule in Iraq. Until there are free and open elections there won't be. And that's as far as we're going to go on your bunny trail.

No doubt Christians as well as Muslims ran afoul of Saddam from time to time. However, Saddam did allow Christians to worship in peace. They no longer have that freedom, thanks to Bush.

C'mon, Joseph, be honest with us. You know that Saddam did no religious persecutions at all. He didn't care about religion.

You disparage Iraqi Christians because you're embarassed that Bush has made it impossible for them to live in peace there now.

It should be an embarassment to all of us.

An ancient Christian culture in Iraq is now doomed because Bush destroyed the only thing that was protecting them from the Islamists.

They now live in fear, and are emigrating. Soon they will be gone.

Iraq's Christians have been fleeing the country, particularly following church attacks in August that left 11 dead. Saturday's attacks "will no doubt push people to emigrate," Father Raphael Qutaimi, acting bishop of the Syrian Catholic Church, said. "But this country has been ours for thousands of years. Our ancestors shed blood defending it. We mustn't leave it.''

"Pascale Isho Warda, a Christian who is the interim government's minister for displacement and migration, estimated as many as 15,000 out of Iraq's nearly 1 million Christians have left the country since August," reports the Associated Press. Other reports estimate there are between 650,000 and 800,000 Christians in Iraq.

Many Christians stayed away from Mass yesterday, afraid that the attacks would continue. "I am sad in my heart because tomorrow I will not be attending Mass,'' said Widad, a Chaldean Christian. "They are denying us what is most important thing in our lives.''

"What can we do? They are shelling our church, they might break into our homes tomorrow and the next day force us to wear the veil," Widad said.

"The [Christian] community stood at 1.4 million people according to a 1987 census but has since shrivelled to 700,000 during a turbulent period of war and years of crippling sanctions," reports Agence France-Presse.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/142/13.0.html

Get the picture now, Joseph?

 

I think I know what the Iraqi Christians would say. </font>[/QUOTE]Galatian,

Look real close at this post and then look at your most recent post. I think you might find some contradictions here. Specifically when you said:

That seems to contradict your statement here:

Do you see what I am saying?

Joseph Botwinick

 

What did Bush destroy? The Saddam Regime? Are you now trying to say they were better off under Saddam? You seem to be a walking contradiction to me. How many of them have been murdered, raped, gassed, or torture by Bush since Saddam left? How is it that you are even able to know about these problems? Is it because somebody now has freedom of speech and isn't afraid of what Saddam or his two thugs kids might do to him. Saddam was the one with a fear society. America is helping to create a free society. Is it perfect? Nope. But as Sharansky says, there is no garantee that human rights will always prevail under a democracy, but it is more likely since the leaders success is directly related to the well being of the people he rules. In a dictatorship, it is garanteed to ignore human rights because there is no incentive to worry about the well being of your people you are ruling. All you have to do is control them with fear.

Joseph Botwinick

 

You are correct that the path to Democracy has not been completed yet. This will happen in January, and Democracy will only grow from there. The Democracy that Iraqi soldiers are fighting and dying for. The Democracy that Allawi is putting his neck on the line for. However, I will point out that there is more freedom in Iraq than there ever was under Saddam. The people are now able to speak their minds, protest, etc... without fear of being tortured, having their duaghters and wives raped, being put in prison, or gassed and murdered as they were under Saddam. The fear society is crumbling and a free society is forming. It would seem to me that you should be happy about that. Yet, you lament for the passing of the glory days of Saddam when the Christians were treated better and more humanely. I think you are a bit confused as to who the good guys and who the bad guys are. I have no confusion in my moral clarity of who is more huumane, and right for Iraq.

Your statements about removing Saddam as the strongman who controlled the locals even if he did so brutally is eerily reminenscent of the Oslo mentality of the United States under Clinton and Israel under Peres. They truthfully believed that by putting a tyrant in charge of the Palestinians and giving him money and legitimacy that he could (or would) control the terrorists in his own country. He did exactly the opposite and expanded terrorism in Israel. And was never held responsible. When asked why he wasn't keeping his end of the bargain, he would constantly claim that he wasn't strong enough and needed more power and money to keep them under control. Unfortunately, we always gave it to him under Clinton without ever requiring anything in return. No reciprocity. No accountability. Just blind faith that a tyrant would bring peace. That was wrong. Fortunately, we have a president who has held the tyrants responsible.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I would argue that if this church never caused him any trouble, then maybe there was something wrong with them. Christians all over the world are persecuted and murdered by brutal dictators for preaching freedom in Jesus and standing for human rights. And yet, this Church never caused Saddam, who set up rape rooms, tortured and brutally murdered his own people? What were they preaching anyway? I can only imagine that if they were preaching the Gospel and the moral supremacy of human rights, they would have been a problem for Saddam. Apparently, they had no such problem with each other. Not very surprising, considering one of their members was a high ranking official in Saddam's brutal regime.

Joseph Botwinick

 

It seems strange to me that we have people arguing that the church needs the protection of the state. If the church's are bombed to oblivion, who actually loses? Not the Christians. They are in heaven with God. The people who lose are the bombers, who no longer have the Christian witness. The attitude portrayed in so much of modern Christianity is a long way from Paul's who said to depart and be with Christ is far better. I am not in favor of bombing churches, but it is absurd to suggest that the church was somehow better off under Hussein than it is now. Someone just wasn't thinking when they said that. The church is the church of Jesus Christ and is protected and grown by him, not by the protection of the secular state. Perhaps it shows who some people really trust in ... or perhaps it shows that they just weren't thinking before they spoke.

But more than that, we have some arguing that it is better to be living under a brutal dictator responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people than to be living under freedom. We respect the people who gained freedom for this country, but trash those who gain freedom in another. Freedom is good for us, but not for them? Is anyone here complaining about the French soldiers who died in our revolution? Were their lives wasted for the cause of freedom? Why is it okay for the French to die for our freedom, but not for our soldiers to die for the freedom of people in far worse conditions?

These are some of the same people who claim that the government of the US should not engage in the kinds of things Hussein did because that would violate civil liberties. Apparently civil liberties are good for Americans even if it exposes them to the risk of death, but not good for Iraqis when it exposes them to the risk of death.

What we have demonstrated here is something I have often pointed out ... an extreme lack of critical thinking. Some will say anything in an attempt to make Bush look bad no matter who much it lacks actual sensibility. This has demonstrated that well.

 

Yesterday, I was coming out of the post office. A tall young man came out behind me and glanced at me and said, "What great weather! I'm lovin' it!" "Yes, it is," I said. (It was in the 50s.) He said, "where I've been up until a few days ago, it was in the 100s." Of course, I had to ask, and yes, he had been in Kuwait and Iraq.

So we had about a 5 minute conversation outside of the post office. I thanked him for his service. He told me that the majority of people in Iraq really love our military, especially the kids. He said of course we never see that on the news, they just focus on the bad news, they're biased. He said our military has a high morale and love what they are doing over there, knowing they are helping people to be free and have a free country. He said he knows we killed the chance of a nuke ever coming from Iraq to home because we are there now. I wished him a Merry Christmas and thanked him again for his service & asked him to tell anyone in the military he talks to there is someone back home thanking them and praying for them.

Just thought I'd post this. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong, we are there. Our loved ones are there, trying to help people. Our military believes in the mission.

I believe it was wrong to set up another Islamic state in the Middle East. But it is done. Only from the vantage point of history will the big picture be seen. It is probably a blessing that Christians are leaving. Christians don't usually fare very well living in an Islamic state. But there is always hope that by the Jesus film and SAT-7 Arabic Christian TV, people will continue to get saved. The Holy Spirit is not surprised. He will continue to bring people to Jesus Christ even in the Muslim states, as people seek the truth.

 

I don't totally agree with you, LE, on this. I do, however, agree with your last post enough to give you a big ole

Joseph Botwinick

 

bump