Iraqi Christians Flee Wave Of Targeted Violence

From NPR's All Things Considered:

In Iraq, a wave of attacks targeting Christians is leading to an exodus from Baghdad and other cities. Before the 2003 U.S. invasion, there were nearly 1 million Christians in the country. That number was cut in half in the past several years.

Now, with the latest violence, families are seeking refuge in northern Iraq and trying to emigrate.

And

Bashar Warda is a Chaldean Catholic archbishop. He says Christians have been part of this country since the 2nd century. But, unlike other Christian leaders, he can't in good conscience encourage Christians to stay.

"Practically, I cannot guarantee anything to any family. I would ask them if they have the patience to stay, if they could travel elsewhere, just for the meantime. That's all," he says.

Listen to or read the rest here.

Given the sectarian violence that has been raging in Iraq since, well, since our ill fated invasion of the defenseless nation back in 2003, it should come as no surprise that Iraqi Christians would finally become targets. So my point in posting this article isn't to say "Wow, check this out--it's bad;" rather, it's to rub people's noses in the big huge smelly steaming pile of how badly we fucked up by occupying the oil-rich desert nation.

Specifically, to rub fundamentalist Christian noses in the dog shit they decided to make Iraqis eat.

American fundamentalists were some of the biggest cheerleaders for the invasion, especially my former sect, the Southern Baptists. It's all about God, guns, glory, and America to these sick people. Needless to say, the Jesus they worship bears very little resemblance to the Jesus of popular understanding. Their Jesus is a vengeance filled asshole with a sword, ready to lob off the heads of anybody who crosses him, or his pet country the USA. When fundamentalist President GW Bush said let's go to war, fundamentalist Americans screamed "Fuckin' A!"

When it was Muslims killing Muslims, these people didn't give a shit. It was the price Iraq had to pay for their WMD, or for freedom, or democracy, whatever. Besides, to them, Muslims aren't really people because they're not Christians. So what if they get blown up? Well, now they're killing Christians from a national community that dates back nearly two millenia. We made Iraq safe, alright, safe to kill Christians. And Muslims, too, but they don't matter.

Will American fundamentalists understand the irony? Probably not. Apart from the fact that irony simply does not exist in the fundamentalist mind, the Christians of Iraq are Catholic, and therefore not "born again" in the protestant sense, which means they're not really Christians. So why give a shit if apostate Christians are slaughtered? It'll do the world some good to get rid of the fakes.

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