Killings Sow Fear Among Christians in Southern Iraq

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Bashir Toma Elias was killed by a single shot to the head in the middle of Basra's bazaar on Christmas Eve as he prepared to head home to celebrate with his wife and five children.

The killing of the Iraqi Christian alcohol merchant sowed fresh fear in a community afraid of increasing religious intolerance in mainly Shi'ite Muslim southern Iraq.

His widow Jihan cried hysterically outside the Chaldean Church in the affluent Manawi Pasha neighborhood after Christmas Mass, held in the morning because the lack of security prevented holding a midnight service.

"We buried Bashir and our priests are celebrating while we are being slaughtered," said 40-year-old Jihan. "Where is the peace they preach?"

More: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=4061408

[NNN0LHI]

1. Fucking Bush knew this would happen. He didn't care. Oil, oil, oil. n/t

[oneighty]

2. And the Southern Baptists

are going to send their missionaries to that "Godless Country"
to spread the word?

180

[Nlighten1]

3. I have a prediction...

Some of those missionaries are going to meet their maker very soon.

[goforit]

11. Wow!.....Do they understand what is happenning?

Hmmm.....

[GRClarkesq]

4. If someone wanted to keep Iraq destabilized

this type of killing will keep everyone on edge. Christains involved in the alcohol biz make easy targets.

[oneighty]

5. Strange!

Jews have been stereotyped as being adept money handlers.

Will the Christians of the Middle East be stereotyped as adept alcohol handlers?

An aside? At one time in history "Christians" were enlisted by the turks to fight their wars. Are Christians now being enlisted by Israel to fight their wars?

180

[GRClarkesq]

10. Stereotyped?

Perhaps, but Saddam only allowed Christians to sell alcohol during his regime. Now you may have:

1) Shia who want to drive out alcohol sellers or who just dont like Christians

2) Other Iraqis, of any background, who want to get in on the trade and know the Christians make easy targets

3) Or anyone who just wants to cause trouble between the various factions.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. alcohol merchant

if selling booze, only doubles his sinfulness/ offensiveness to Muslim fundamentalists.

[KG]

7. AFAIK - christians in iraq were protected by saddam

but gee aren't things so much better there now?

[sistersofmercy]

8. This has been going on since day one of this criminal war.

And actually, before the war in Northern Kurdish controlled Iraq, Christians were targeted by Islamic extremists. Of course, the selected squatter* as usual does not give a fuck. This is part of why I refuse to champion Saddam's capture as some great achievement for human rights, Iraq has been blasted back to essentially before 1973 development of the countries infrastructure, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead and maimed, while many other law abiding civilians have become victims of vendetta killings and targets by Islamic extremists.

[The Stranger]

9. This is the response to the Crusade.

This has been going on now for nearly one thousand years. But the Christian and Jewish Fundamentalists will use it to claim that the Muslim Fundamentalists are oppressing them and persecuting them and are going to take over the world, eventually recruiting misinformed non-Fundamentalists to the Holy War.

Last time it happened, though, it was the Christian Fundamentalists waging Holy War against both Jews and Muslims. European Jews suffered for centuries, and many feel that this undercurrent led through the Spanish Inquisition and eventually to the Holocaust. And don't forget that before the Crusaders would embark on a Crusade to massacre Muslims in cold blood in the "Holy Land", they would always start with a pogrom and massacre local European Jews.

[FlaGranny]

13. God save us if ANY religion

takes over the world. There would be a thousand year war.

[methinks2]

12. So, does this mean

that We(americans) now cares about Christians? Did we care before bombing? Did US bombs inquire as to ones religion before detonating? It's amazing how a supposed Christian president can't remember Christians unless it's for a good soundbyte. And did the mainstream media remember the Christians when they were rallying behind Bush and the fight du jour.

(I remember asking quite a few pro-war people what they thought would happen to the Christians in the middle east if we start this war. They just looked at me blankly, as if they never connected the Sunday school songs with the current world. I've also heard a lot of these same christians state that we should just blow up the whole middle east. They include the Palestinians in that statement. When I ask them where they think the Christians live in Israel. They just look confused. They think we can just bomb our way out of all the problems in the world, and somehow we won't actually hurt people who are like us. . . Like it's okay to kill people as long as they're not people who are like us. Don't they teach geography in school anymore? Good grief! I'm just glad I drink bottled water and shun FOX news.) (I feel better now that I've vented)

[jokerman93]

14. God is on the field in Iraq -- Very Useful to Bush

Rant Warning:
This article is disturbing to me for several reasons. I am about to rant about the fundamentalist right wing. If you are easily offended because you think I'm talking about you, I'm probably not, but you don't have to read this if you don't want to. Although we are no longer free in America, nobody will mind if I speak my mind here.

:hi:

God is on the field in Iraq

Religious intolerance is always a tragedy, but this news is a great new vein of gold for the Bush lovers who believe God put him there to fulfill a divine plan. Here's why:

It reports an execution style murder of a Christian, and increasing violence between religious factions in Iraq. This is the first report of this type of "Christian targeted" violence in Iraq that I've seen. It disturbs me, not because I'm surprised it's happening, but because this report coincides nicely with increased vociferousness here in this country by the fundamentalist Christians of the political far right.

Remember the remarks of Lt. Gen Boykin about "our" God being bigger than "their" God? In case you want to know, Boykin is the Delta force black ops guy who has both Rumsfeld's and God's ear at the Pentagon. The public remarks he made a while back we're not nullified or denied in any way by the administration, but were certainly used as a potent currency in the bible circles of America's growing army of radical cardboard Christians.

These are people who ultimately expect America to become the capital principality of God's triumpal empire on earth. Yep, the bible tells us it all goes down in a big summer blockbuster style war that will leave the righteous in power and the evildoers of the world, under their boot like Satan's snake. God wants war. He also wants them to send missionaries. The only way to make sense out of such an ill-concieved idea is to concede that the Repulican God of the New American Christian is naive or feverish. Barring that, it is a call for more innocent blood to flow in the name of Christ.

Such tiny minds are filled with "Left Behind" fictions, simplistic historical fantasies, tortured biblical interpretations, synthetic religious dogma, and at least twenty years of political propaganda and misinformation. That's enough to keep any human being mentally, emotionally and spiritually hamstrung in the service of Christ, or any other raw political power that publically hitches its wagon to such a Christ.

Whoever gets there first...

This subliminal desire for Armageddon is nothing more than fear-based blood-thirst reified and sanctified for political duty. I am concerned about this type of religious civil strife/proto-civil war that's going on in Iraq. Acts of violence against Christians can be, and I predict will be, used to rally popular support for further conquest and escalation of the Neocon wars against the sovereign oil-rich nations of the ME.

Persecution of believers is of course one of the markers of the coming apocalypse. The types of poltically manufactured Christians who believe this, seek threads of persecution they can tease loose and develop from the news, as well as from confrontations with "Godless liberals" like me. The "anger" of those of us who know what's behind the far rightwing "Christian" movement can be, and I predict will be, reframed as a form of persecution.

For the record: I am an American. I do not believe in God, or in God's favoritism for one country's greed and blood-lust over that of any other. I believe all people (including me) should be free to quietly believe in whatever private fictions allow them to cope with the chaos and seeming unfairness of life. I feel this crypto-fascist religious movement is a direct threat to the U.S. constitution. If this movement is successful in co-opting the cultural and political center of the American ethos, then America as we have known it is doomed to a downward spiral of mediocrity, mental slavery and moral poverty. Please note, in my opinion what we're talking aboutr is a political movement -- not a religious movement at all.

Ok. Done for now.

Back to the article!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. Nice rant!

In short... Religion is one of the greatest boons to any Government wishing to control and influence a weak minded populace.