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So much for the "march toward freedom" in Iraq. Ironic isn't it, that the American-led invasion of Iraq should take such a toll on on the ancient Christian community there? Reduced by one quarter in just three years!

Nick

I watch an American news program on one of our TV stations from time to time and they finish with the days dead soldiers. I can't get over that they are so young and they are just being fed into a machine that kills them and sends them home in body bags. I am not surprised that people are getting fed up with what seems like a mess from start to where we are today.

ICXC
NIKA

Brethren,

One life lost in a war is always too many. having said that, we should keep the number of deaths in perspective with other societal tragedies afflicting the US:

35,000 people, mostly very young, commit suicide each year.

25,000 people, mostly family, cohabitants, or acquaintances kill each other each year.

1,000,000 or more babies are aborted each year!

800 men and women (US citizens), on average, have died in Iraq each year, every one a professional volunteer. I served the US Navy for more than 10 years active and reserve. Its part of the agreement one consciously makes when one takes the oath. In Pentagon-speak, it is a "low intensity war," meaning very few casualties in relation to the number of forces engaged.

The Christians have been leaving Iraq for years. Better educated, versed in more foreign languages, and sharing our common Christian religious perspective, they are natural collaborators with the coalition of forces serving in Iraq. Naturally, they make good targets for any insurgent wishing to strike at the occupation.

To wit: CSM reporter Jill Carroll was just released by the insurgents but the very first thing that they did when they captured her was to put a bullet into the head of her Christian Iraqi interpreter. May his memory be eternal.

In Christ who will judge all,
Andrew

Why are Iraqi Christians considered part of the coalition and the Sunnis considered insurgents? Under Saddam Hussein both groups were united in the Ba'ath Party (for the most part).

Dear Nicholas:

In response to the report of Bishop Abouna's remark about the number of Iraqi Christians who have left the country, you suggested that this exodus is due to the American-led invasion. On what grounds do you make this suggestion? Did the Bishop blame the US?

Dr. Michael

Dear Doctor,

No, he blames the current security situation, and what he describes as "despair". He doesn't address the larger question of responsibility.

Though to what extent the present situation could have (or, should have) been anticipated, or prevented, is an interesting question. Clearly the proximate cause is the lack of security, the remote cause of that, I suppose, is the U.S. rule of Iraq after the invasion.

The article only comments that three quarters of the Christian population remains, from that which existed before the U.S.-led invasion.

Nick

What proportion of Iraqui Christains these days would be Jacobite or Nestorian (no offence intended by those terms) and what proportion Orthodox, Catholic or other?

N

"The Chaldeans, whose 600,000 people represent the majority of Christians in Iraq, are an oriental rite Catholic community. The Chaldean church emerged from the Nestorian doctrine which it renounced in the 16th century while preserving its rites.

Many Christians started leaving
Iraq in the early 1980s

Former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, currently in custody, is the best known of the Chaldeans.

The Assyrians, believed to be approximately 50,000 in number, are Christians who have remained faithful to the Nestorian doctrine.

The Nestorian church became a dissident movement in the year 431 after the Council of Ephesus. It affirms two separate personalities within Jesus Christ, namely both a human and a divine nature, and not a single personality possessing both human and divine natures as Catholicism holds.

In Iraq, there are also Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs, Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, and more recently since the time of the British mandate after the first world war, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Bilingual

Many Iraqi Christians still speak Aramaic-Syriac, the language of Jesus Christ. During the 1970s, bilingual cultural magazines in Arabic and Syriac were published and radio as well as television transmitted programmes in Aramaic.

In the northern region of Kurdistan, Christians number about 150,000, mostly Chaldeans.

Christians are represented by only one minister in the interim Iraqi government to which the US-led occupation handed over power on 28 June.

Poverty and war induced many Christians to start leaving Iraq, beginning in the early 1980s. Nearly half a million have gone in the past 15 years."

from Aljazeera

ICXC
NIKA

thanks for sharing the lesson from History. it is a shame that after two millenia, that the ancient Christian communities (Chaldean or Assyrian, that's not the issue) are leaving Iraq. I met an Assyrian many years ago at UT Chattanooga, nice fellow.
as far as Aziz is concerned. I shudder when I hear his name linked with Christians. he has a lousy testimony as far as I am concerned, and is no better than Saddam.
Much Love,
Jonn

Dear Michael you said:

"Why are Iraqi Christians considered part of the coalition and the Sunnis considered insurgents? Under Saddam Hussein both groups were united in the Ba'ath Party (for the most part)."

I say:

I believe that Saddam did not persecute the Christians in order to keep the 'West' on his side. It worked! It seems he persecuted only the Shiites and Kurds. Of course the Shiite and Kurdish lands is where the oil is. The Sunni's have none.

As for the the Sunni's being considered insurgents, I believe it is only the Sunni's that are coming from Syria...no doubt being paid through Saddam's fortunes to create havoc. He wants to regain power and seems to be managing it.

I really wish they would have killed Saddam rather than put him on trial. As long as he's alive, these insurgents will continue to get money from his family and followers and create havoc.

I guess it's one of the tactical errors that no one could have forseen. If only this government could find a way to stop the funding...but the money must be dispersed in so many different corporations and accounts throughout the world, that it is probably impossible.

The only other alternative would be a war with Syria. Certainly if the climate was the same as during the other World Wars, we would have attacked her by now.

Zenovia

Dear Andrew:

Thank you for stating the following facts, although one was not mentioned. How many young people die in this nation each year because of accidents:

"... we should keep the number of deaths in perspective with other societal tragedies afflicting the US:

35,000 people, mostly very young, commit suicide each year.

25,000 people, mostly family, cohabitants, or acquaintances kill each other each year.

1,000,000 or more babies are aborted each year!

800 men and women (US citizens), on average, have died in Iraq each year..."

"In Pentagon-speak, it is a "low intensity war," meaning very few casualties in relation to the number of forces engaged.

The Christians have been leaving Iraq for years."

"...they are natural collaborators with the coalition of forces serving in Iraq. Naturally, they make good targets for any insurgent wishing to strike at the occupation.

To wit: CSM reporter Jill Carroll was just released by the insurgents but the very first thing that they did when they captured her was to put a bullet into the head of her Christian Iraqi interpreter."

Zenovia

What I wonder is why the 3rd wealthiest man in the world, Carlos Slim Hel� of Phoenician Lebanese heritage, with 30 billion dollars, can not use his power to improve lives of fellow christians in the near east?

I must also mention that any news Zenit reports about the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi can only be favourable news, as they are the same organizations. In my opinion this discredits Zenits independence, impartiality and objectivity.

*Dying in an automobile accident: 1 in 18,800.
*Dying in a lightning strike: 1 in 4.2 million.
*Dying in a commercial airliner: 1 in 8.4 million.
*Dying in a terrorist attack: 1 in 9.2 million.

Regnum Christi is the lay movement associated with the Legion of Christ, not the same organization, exactly.
And Zenovia, your contention that the insurgents are a] foreigners and b] Saddam loyalists has been thoroughly debunked, and admitted to be a myth even by the US military.
This is almost as bad as the time you contended that the murder rate in Iraq is not as bad as NYC in the 80s. When I linked to statistics showing that it is ten times worse, or more, you never even apologized for the false claim....
-Daniel

Dear Daniel you said:

"And Zenovia, your contention that the insurgents are a] foreigners and b] Saddam loyalists has been thoroughly debunked, and admitted to be a myth even by the US military."

I say:

I falsely assumed that the name 'insurgents' meant that they came from another country. I was wrong, but that does not mean that they are not Sunni and Saddam supporters, (at least the one's that are not fanatic Shia's), and undoubtably paid by Saddam's fortune.

Now I heard that from a high standing Iraqi on TV, although the Americans were saying differently. To me that Iraqi's opinion seems logical, and I had come to the same conclusion...at least in the killings of the Shia's and the blowing up of the mosque. I don't know why the government wants us to believe differently, unless it's because of that fanatic Shia cleric, (Mussawa something), with his own army.

If I recall, he said something to the effect that they should not retaliate. That by not retaliating, it was not a sign of weakness, but rather to wait for all the foreigners to leave.

It could be that the Americans do not want to arouse the Shia's against the Sunni's anymore than they are now.

You said:

"This is almost as bad as the time you contended that the murder rate in Iraq is not as bad as NYC in the 80s. When I linked to statistics showing that it is ten times worse, or more, you never even apologized for the false claim...."

I say:

I said the 1970's in NYC, and I said it at a time when the death toll was not as high in Iraq as it is today...so you can stop 'insinuating' that I'm a liar.

Zenovia

But I showed you clearly that this was not true even of NYC in the 70s, that numerically the murder rate in Baghdad alone was ten times higher, and if one takes into account that Baghdad is smaller than New York, the statistical rate was even higher.
I am not saying you are a liar, merely misinformed. It does appear to me that you begin with a conclusion and then attempt to find evidence to confirm that conclusion, switching to other evidence when the original claims are debunked. You are in good company here, as that appears to be what Bush & Co have done to justify their war in Iraq.
The idea that the insurgents are being paid by Hussein is a novel one; I haven't heard that.
The insurgents are largely Sunni, that much is true. What the percentage is of jihadists vs Saddam loyalists vs ordinary Iraqis fighting an invader is unknown, but the military has backed off the contention that it is primarily Baathists.

It is by no means obvious that the US is trying to defuse tensions between the Sunnis and Shia; many in Iraq blame the US for the bombing of the Shiite mosque. I have wondered if civil war is not part of the American plan. At one point the Sunni and Shiia appeared to be uniting against the US. Now they are busy fighting each other...

-Daniel