Did you have a Merry Christmas?
Did you celebrate ol’ whathisname’s birthday by attending a midnight church service because your mom insisted, even though the rank hypocrisy of doing so made you feel ashamed down to your underwear?
That’s one of the privileges we enjoy here in the godless United States: to ridicule and not take seriously something that is deadly serious to people in other parts of the world.
In Iraq, the luxury of religious freedom for Christians doesn’t really exist. Christians have been fleeing Baghdad since 2003. As other sects and ethnic groups split into armed factions, Iraqi Christians mostly sold up and moved out of the country.
Last week, in the build-up to Christmas, security forces visibly increased their presence in Iraqi cities with significant Christian populations in an attempt to prevent violence.
In the past six weeks, four Christians and three Muslims have been killed in a series of attacks against churches in the northern city of Mosul, where Iraq’s Christian minority have long been concentrated. Attacks remain frequent in Mosul, 220 miles north of the capital.
“Christians are being targeted during Christmas time — the security forces, police and army must provide security, the police and army are responsible for this,” said Father Abdul Massih Dalmay of the Syrian Orthodox church of St. Thomas in Mosul, after a bomb killed two and wounded five at his church two days before Christmas.
Baghdad’s Christian population has been cut in half since the Iraq War began, while hundreds of Iraqi Christians have been killed and several churches attacked.
Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq in 2003, but their number has since shrunk by a third or more as so many have fled, according to Christian leaders.
One Iraqi Christian lamented the current plight of his brethren, asking “Do you think it is a normal situation when your bishop says, ‘Merry Christmas and go home?’ May God help the government bring an end to the danger.”
It’s ironic — sadly, horribly ironic — that the American invasion of Iraq, led by a bunch of right-wing criminals masquerading as Christians, has resulted in so many Iraqi Christians fleeing the country, with those remaining afraid to attend services even at Christmas.
As a patriotic American, my only question is, “Can the Goldman Sachs Octopus still stick its blood funnel into this mess and turn a profit somehow?”
@memzilla: In addition to making me laugh, you have also bought yourself a one-way ticket to hell. See you there!
@AustinJ – Dude they are brown, they talk funny. They are not REAL Christians any more than the people south of the border are. The baby Jeesus who is a blonde haired, blue eyed, english speaking USA Murrican does not give a shit about them and neither should we.