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Breitbart: Christian Holocaust underway in Iraq?


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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/19/Christian-Holocaust-Underway-in-Iraq-as-USA-and-World-Looks-On

 

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, there were at least 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Over the last ten years, significantly in the last few months with the emergence of ISIS, that figure has dropped to about 400,000.

In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching. This is the sad news that Breitbart’s National Security Editor and one of the world’s leading experts on asymmetric warfare, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, brought to Breitbart News Saturday, hosted by Editor in Chief Alex Marlow on Sirius XM Patriot Radio.

Dr. Gorka explained that “in the last 48 hours, ISIS, which is now called the Islamic State in Mosul, has painted the letter “N” for Nazarene on the houses of all the surviving Christians in the city. ISIS has basically given an ultimatum to all the Christians left: You can either flee or convert to Islam, or we will kill you.”

Gorka points out that, over the last 20 years, America has stood up around the world to save Muslims. “Whether it was to save the Muslims in Bosnia or the Albanians, Kosovars, and Muslims in Serbia, it is now time for a humanitarian operation to save the remaining Christians in Iraq,” he said. “It is time for the American people and our representatives to do something for our co-religionists remaining in the Middle East.”

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Thought this might deserve its own thread, but if not please merge. 

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/mid-easts-christians-intro/

 

This is from a few years ago, but it's a story of how Christians were able to practice and occasionally prosper under Mubarek, Assad, and Hussein....provided they "supported" the regime, which means never rocking the boat. All three of those rulers violently put down any sectarian uprisings so Christians were relatively safe. In the chaos that exists now, Christians are just another minority.

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Looks like it is somewhat serious. The regional Catholic leader is asking for help.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/18/A-Desperate-Cry-from-Iraq-Christians

 

Iraq’s Christian leaders have just made a desperate cry for help. Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, head of Iraq’s Catholic church, has issued an appeal “to all who have a living conscience in Iraq and all the world.”
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That's a pretty awful article-way too dumbed down and omitting a number of relevant facts.

Nasser did the best job of protecting the Coptic population, but Sadat was ruthless and put Pope Shenouda and much of the Coptic leadership under house arrest or exile. Mubarak made peace with them through a combination of intimidation and promises of protection. When that protection started to break down in the aftermath of church bombings, young Copts joined the uprisings.

Though they try to pass themselves off as Shiite Muslims, Alawites are in many ways closer to Christians in beliefs. The Baath party from which Hafez al Assad and Saddam rose to power was founded by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Christian. If Al Nusra or ISIL take over Syria, the first thing they will do is follow Ibn Tawmiyya's fatwa to slaughter the Alawites as apostates; the second thing will be to exterminate their Christian allies.

The emergence of political Islam is in most ways a reaction to the economic and military failures of the secular Arab nationalist movements that brought about independence. Plenty of Christian Arabs rose to prominence in the 50s and 60s when sect was subordinated to Arab causes. Besides Aflaq, there was George Habash as a champion of the Palestinian cause, for example.

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"Mission Accomplished." "Iraqi freedom."

Trillions well spent.

Sighs.

Its a complex topic (that I have no appetite to delve into), but simplifying it like that does not help anything. I don't know maybe for you its a simple choice in hindsight, but when comparing the atrocities and torture of Saddam and Sons vs. what's happening now vs. how many lives were lost as collateral damage, its a difficult situation all around. I guess we could have done nothing at all and let Saddam have a woman & daughter raped in front of their husband/father or put another dad in a room full of angry bees while the family watched. Or we could have done nothing and lots more people would likely be alive. Sad all around. One only has to look around to see how sinful and fallen man is.:(

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Actually Zguy examining this issue isn't all that complex at all. Dubya sold the Iraq invasion to the American people based on the idea that Saddam had WMD. Nevermind the fact that when he was being a "good guy" i.e. not invading neighbors well, except for Iran which was OK because we don't like them, he still gassed the Kurds which we didn't seem to worry about too much at the time. So unfortunately, it turns out Iraq part deux was really about revenge against "That man who tried to kill my Diddy." Well, that and oil of course.

 

Yes, Saddam was a bad guy. I don't think anyone disputes that. However if you're being realistic about examining the complexities of the topic, I think you have to delve into the idea that perhaps the ME was better off with guys like Saddam and Assad who kept the clamps on the Islamofascists and the ethnic hatred. If you count all the killing and suffering going on now, all of a sudden ****s like them maybe don't look quite as bad, even from the inside if you're an Iraqi or Syrian.

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Why isn't the western world offering political asylum?  Just get them out of there and accept that ISIS and similar groups should be named and treated as what they are, intolerant mass murderers.  Make sure they feel properly insulted and shunned by the international community for what they've done and continue to do.  

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I think it's certainly possible to go too far with the "The ME was better off when the US was propping up dictators everywhere."

I will point out that yes, there's probably more violence now. (Or, it's not as well concealed.)

But, we've also had a wave of dictators being overthrown by their own people, too.

Yes, said overthrowing people seem to have a flair for electing people who may be worse than the devil they knew.

But, even if you assert that the new (democratically elected) dictators are worse than the ones the US picked, I think that the wave of democracy still may wind up being a really good thing. Might take 10-20 years, but still.

There's at least a chance.

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Why isn't the western world offering political asylum?  Just get them out of there and accept that ISIS and similar groups should be named and treated as what they are, intolerant mass murderers.  Make sure they feel properly insulted and shunned by the international community for what they've done and continue to do.

They have oil. Odds of that happening?

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Why isn't the western world offering political asylum?  Just get them out of there and accept that ISIS and similar groups should be named and treated as what they are, intolerant mass murderers.  Make sure they feel properly insulted and shunned by the international community for what they've done and continue to do.  

 

Are we sure they haven't been?   The article is purposefully vague on that.  

 

Actually Zguy examining this issue isn't all that complex at all. Dubya sold the Iraq invasion to the American people based on the idea that Saddam had WMD. Nevermind the fact that when he was being a "good guy" i.e. not invading neighbors well, except for Iran which was OK because we don't like them, he still gassed the Kurds which we didn't seem to worry about too much at the time. So unfortunately, it turns out Iraq part deux was really about revenge against "That man who tried to kill my Diddy." Well, that and oil of course.

 

Yes, Saddam was a bad guy. I don't think anyone disputes that. However if you're being realistic about examining the complexities of the topic, I think you have to delve into the idea that perhaps the ME was better off with guys like Saddam and Assad who kept the clamps on the Islamofascists and the ethnic hatred. If you count all the killing and suffering going on now, all of a sudden ****s like them maybe don't look quite as bad, even from the inside if you're an Iraqi or Syrian.

 

 

More importantly, if you want to get bad guys out of power, a blunt invasion by US troops under weak premises is a stupid idea.  

 

It just makes the Americans the enemy in place of Saddam.  

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Are we sure they haven't been?   The article is purposefully vague on that.  

 

 

 

More importantly, if you want to get bad guys out of power, a blunt invasion by US troops under weak premises is a stupid idea.  

 

It just makes the Americans the enemy in place of Saddam.  

 

they are fleeing to the Kurds for sanctuary (which we of course enabled and protected)

 

I agree

 

the country and their lives will be what they make of them, growing pains are a ****

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I guess we could have done nothing at all and let Saddam have a woman & daughter raped in front of their husband/father or put another dad in a room full of angry bees while the family watched.

 

That's the rationale being trotted out to justify invasion? Should Saddam have sent them to Syria, Egypt, Macedonia or elsewhere to be tortured ... USA's practice of extraordinary rendition many years, and possibly still.

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That's the rationale being trotted out to justify invasion? Should Saddam have sent them to Syria, Egypt, Macedonia or elsewhere to be tortured ... USA's practice of extraordinary rendition many years, and possibly still.

To be fair, when every single justification for the war has come up wanting, you have to be impressed with just how far the Right has moved the goal posts on this issue. But then they love the idea of new wars and bombing everyone in the Middle East. Just ask John McCain, and he'll sing you a tune...."Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!" They want to invade Syria, and Libya right up until it is a Democrat idea then all of the sudden they're all peace-nicks. Somehow I'm not convinced

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It's sad but I think to some degree that's exactly the case here. Aside from that, we just managed to get ourselves out of Iraq. Nobody in their right mind would think we're going back there to play the guy in the white hat again...especially since it worked out so well last time.

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Morbidly enough Christians in ISIS controlled areas actually have been getting a little better treatment than the Shi'ites. Shi'ites just get killed while Christians have the option to pay the jizyra, leave, or convert (all terrible choices that might end in death). The Syrian civil war and subsequent fallout truly is a humanitarian disaster across the board its horrifying what is going on right now almost across the board.

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It's sad but I think to some degree that's exactly the case here. Aside from that, we just managed to get ourselves out of Iraq. Nobody in their right mind would think we're going back there to play the guy in the white hat again...especially since it worked out so well last time.

 

we have thousands there now, and more to come .....they might not have white hats though

 

the Christians there know what to do to survive,it ain't going to be wait for the cavalry

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My first thought upon reading about this situation were in this order:

(1) there are that many Christians in mosul?

(2) why the hell haven't they left?

The bottom line is that its a barbaric region, and if one lesson (not that there aren't others) to take from the last 12 years is that you cannot force civilization on a population. The civilized don't hang around and try to change things. They leave to come here.

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As per the topic.

Chalk this up to just another terrible unintended consequence of 30 years worth of awful foreign policy and intervention.

More refugees, more religious persecution more pain and death.

No one is going in there any time soon, and what would they even do if they did go in? Create another temporary government that would crumble as soon as the troops left?

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 The civilized don't hang around and try to change things. They leave to come here.

 

 

I've met a lot of people like that , some things never change as a result.

 

better build a wall

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The only dictator the US propped up was the Shah. All the Arab dictatorships began in the Soviet orbit, thanks to Nasserism. Egypt switched sides under Sadat, but we never propped up Gaddafi or the Assad family. We have supported nearly all of the existing monarchies. We were arming Kurdish rebels against Saddam back in the 70s under Nixon, but we abandoned them after the Shah and Saddam came to a peace agreement. We only supported Saddam during. The 80s as a counterweight to Iran.

The blatant stupidity of the neocons was the creed that Saddam was the source of all evil in Iraq; ergo his removal would ensure a bright future. This delusion was evident from tje very beginning when Cheney and Rumsy sent in a meager force just big enough to topple Saddam, but woefully insufficient to deal with the aftermath - despite dire warnings from vast numbers of experts whom the administration dismissed as "armchair generals." Yes, Saddam was EVIL, but he was a natural byproduct of the inherent instability and hatred of an artificial nation that is the historic epicenter of the Sunni-Shiite conflict.

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My first thought upon reading about this situation were in this order:

(1) there are that many Christians in mosul?

(2) why the hell haven't they left?

The bottom line is that its a barbaric region, and if one lesson (not that there aren't others) to take from the last 12 years is that you cannot force civilization on a population. The civilized don't hang around and try to change things. They leave to come here.

Why exactly do you think the people there are barbaric and that they can't be civilized? 

Have you ever lived "over there", worked "over there", or had any meaningful interaction with the people you call barbaric?

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Why exactly do you think the people there are barbaric and that they can't be civilized? 

Have you ever lived "over there", worked "over there", or had any meaningful interaction with the people you call barbaric?

 

I have never visited the region.  My knowledge of the region, and its people, is based upon accounts provided to me by close friends and family members who have. I have had interaction with people from the region who have come here. I trust these people, and I believe they have provided me with reliable information based upon first hand experience. What I have seen on "the news" is actually a more generous depiction of what I have learned from "my sources" that I trust. If you want more detail, you can PM me. 

 

If having lived in or visited a region is a prerequisite to holding an opinion, then the vast majority of our citizens would only be able to speak on issues involving the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.  For that matter, many of us here in the DC region would not be able to hold opinions about the west coast, or Midwest, etc.  I stand by my statement regarding the region.

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I have never visited the region.  My knowledge of the region, and its people, is based upon accounts provided to me by close friends and family members who have. I have had interaction with people from the region who have come here. I trust these people, and I believe they have provided me with reliable information based upon first hand experience. What I have seen on "the news" is actually a more generous depiction of what I have learned from "my sources" that I trust. If you want more detail, you can PM me. 

 

If having lived in or visited a region is a prerequisite to holding an opinion, then the vast majority of our citizens would only be able to speak on issues involving the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.  For that matter, many of us here in the DC region would not be able to hold opinions about the west coast, or Midwest, etc.  I stand by my statement regarding the region.

You must have missed this question...

Why exactly do you think the people there are barbaric and that they can't be civilized? 

 

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