Spate of Christian killings before Iraq March vote

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

MOSUL, Iraq, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Four Christians have been killed in the last four days by gunmen in Iraq's turbulent north, weeks ahead of an election in which the minority group's vote could be a factor in a Kurd-Arab tussle for power.

Bombings and shootings are recorded almost daily in the violent northern city of Mosul, where a struggle for territory and power between Arabs and Kurds has hampered effective policing and been exploited by al Qaeda.

"We do not know anything except the situation is miserable in Mosul. We Christians became the target of political struggles," said a Christian priest in Mosul who declined to be named.

With Iraq's March 7 parliamentary vote looming, a spike in attacks against Christians could be a sign of voter intimidation by factions in the bitter Kurd-Arab dispute, or another attempt by al Qaeda to derail the election.

Sunni Islamist insurgent groups such as al Qaeda have little tolerance for those who do not adhere to their severe brand of Islam, and have attacked Iraqi minorities they label crusaders, devil worshippers and infidels.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM745994.htm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. And in order to pre-empt the inevitable comments, let me remind you that

Iraqi Christians are NOT Texas-style fundamentalists or even the product of missionary efforts.

They are Eastern Orthodox, and their branch of Christianity has existed in the Middle East for over 1500 years.

[anachro1]

2. So what?

It's all pointless superstition.

[nyc 4 Biden]

4. an intolerant liberal. how ironic.

[Sultana]

8. You are disgusting!

[theoldman]

5. They lived there peacefully until the US interfered.

[Mari333]

3. when saddam was in charge he kept this under wraps

but we walked in and occupied the country murdering hundreds of thousands of people and it was like hitting a hornets nest with a hammer

now we watch exactly what we knew would happen in 2001...a mess.

[Igel]

7. That's not hard to do, actually.

Stalin kept a lot of unrest under wraps. No Chechen or Estonian independence or real Komi or Ostyak autonomy under Stalin. Or even Brezhnev.

Tito kept the Serbs and Croats and Bosnians at peace. The only report I read that accurately predicted things in Yugoslavia was a crackpot LaRouchian rag. Everybody else bought into the fiction. Depressing, really.

Those pesky Slovaks were happy enough in Czechoslovakia.

The generalization is this: Often when there's a stifling government, change towards liberalization, a laxing of the strictures, lets all kinds of enmnities that have always been there come out. Latent hostility can become real hostility. Frozen conflicts easily thaw and grow warm. The most dangerous time for an unfree country is when it starts to become free. What suddenly becomes "new" conflicts are usually just old conflicts given new life.

The response isn't to say, "Oppression and strong-arm dictatorships are good because when everybody's equally repressed then there's peace." A better response is to try to figure out how to manage the conflict when it's nascent. In the case of Iraq--and Yugoslavia--as the strongman needed additional loyalty he played favorites and fanned the emnity that he kept squelched.

That's as good a place as any to stop and click on "Post message".

[lsewpershad]

6. "We Christians"

Have KILLED so many for so long .......

[MisterP]

9. the Christians of Iraq? nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Yes, there is a very ancient community of Eastern Orthodox Christians in Iraq

as there are several other Arabic-speaking countries, including Paletine, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon.

[MisterP]

11. I was responding to their "KILLED so many for so long" claim against the Iraqi Christians nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. I see that now

:hi: