CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS TO FACE MORE BAD NEWS: HE NOT ONLY DIDN'T GET THE SUPPORT OF PEOPLE WHO VOTED REPUBLICAN, GREEN AND INDEPENDENT LAST MONTH, 1/2 THE VOTERS WHO STAYED HOME AND DIDN'T VOTE CAN'T STAND HIM.
OTHER FINDINGS WERE THAT 51% OF AMERICANS FEEL BARACK'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS ARE DIFFERENT THAN THEIR OWN. THIS LED NEUTERED POODLE E.J. DIONNE TO HISS THAT IT WAS A "DOUBLE-STANDARD" AND INSIST IT WAS JUST BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GO TO CHURCH.
NO, SCREWY, IT'S ALSO BECAUSE A HUGE WAVE OF ATTACKS ON IRAQI CHRISTIANS STARTED OCTOBER 31ST AND BARRY O HAS NOT SAID ONE DAMN WORD ABOUT THE ATTACKS. HE HASN'T SPOKEN OUT PUBLICLY ON BEHALF OF IRAQI CHRISTIANS. PEOPLE DO NOTICE. AND THEN THEY CONTRAST THAT WITH ALL HIS EFFORTS TO REACH OUT TO OTHER RELIGIONS.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today in DC, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted (link has text and video) a new department report on religion:
Because we believe in religious freedom and because we are committed to the right of all people everywhere to live according to their beliefs without government interference and with government protection, we are troubled by what we see happening in many, many places. Religiou sfreedom is under threat from authoritarian regimes that abuse their own citizens. It is under threat from violent extremist groups that exploit and inflame sectarian tensions. It is under threat from the quiet but persistent harm caused by intolerance and mistrust which can leave minority religious groups vulnerable and marginalized. During the past year, al-Qaida issued calls for further violence against religious minorities in the Middle East. Sufi, Shia, and Ahmadiyya holy sites in Pakistan have been attacked. So was a Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad just a few weeks ago. We received reports from China of government harassment of Tibetan Buddhists, house church Christians, and Uighur Muslims. And several European countries have placed harsh restrictions on religious expression.
The new report is entitled "2010 Report on International Religious Freedom" and we'll note these basics on the Iraqi population from the report:
The country has an area of 168,754 square miles and a population of approximately 28.9 million. According to statistics provided by the government, 97 percent of the population is Muslim. Shi'a Muslims--predominantly Arabs but also Turkmen, Faili (Shi'a) Kurds, and other groups--constitute a 60 to 65 percent majority. Arab and Kurdish Sunni Muslims make up 32 to 37 percent of the population; of these 18 to 20 percent are Sunni Kurds, 12 to 16 percent are Sunni Arabs, and the remaining 1 to 2 percent are Sunni Turkmen. Approximately 3 percent of the population is composed of Christians, Yezidis, Sabean-Mandaeans, Baha'is, Shabaks, Kaka'is (sometimes referred to as Ahl-e Haqq), and a very small number of Jews. Shi'a, although predominantly located in the south and east, are also a majority in Baghdad and have communities in most parts of the country. Sunnis form the majority in the west, center, and the north of the country.
Reported estimates from leaders of the Christian population in 2003 ranged from 800,000 to 1.4 million. Current population estimates by Christian leaders range from 400,000 to 600,000. Approximately two-thirds of Christians are Chaldeans (an eastern rite of the Catholic Church), nearly one-fifth are Assyrians (Church of the East), and the remainder are Syriacs (Eastern Orthodox), Armenians (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), Anglicans, and other Protestants. Most Assyrian Christians are in the north, and most Syriac Christians are split among the Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Ninewa Provinces. Christian leaders estimated that as much as 50 percent of the country's Christian population lives in Baghdad, and 30 to 40 percent lives in the north, with the largest Christian communities located in and around Mosul, Erbil, Dohuk, and Kirkuk. The archbishop of the Armenian Orthodox Diocese reported that 15,000 to 16,000 Armenian Christians remained in the country, primarily in the cities of Baghdad, Basrah, Kirkuk, and Mosul. Evangelical Christians reportedly number between 5,000 and 6,000. They can be found in the northern part of the country, as well as in Baghdad, with a small number residing in Basrah.
Yezidi leaders reported that most of the country's 500,000 to 600,000 Yezidis reside in the north, with 15 percent in Dohuk Province and the rest in Ninewa Province. Shabak leaders stated there are 400,000 to 500,000 Shabaks, who reside mainly in the north, near Mosul. Estimates of the size of the Sabean-Mandaean community vary widely; according to Sabean-Mandaean leaders, 3,500 to 7,000 remained in the country, reduced from an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 in 2003. The Baha'i leadership reported their members number fewer than 2,000 and are spread throughout the country in small groups. A sizable portion of the Jewish community, which once had a significant presence in the country, left in the years immediately following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Eight Jews remain in Baghdad, and none are known to live in other parts of the country.
As of March 2010, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported 223,000 active refugee cases for Iraqis living outside of the country and estimated that approximately 1.5 million Iraqis had fled and remain outside the country. In March 2010 the UNHCR reported that 58 percent of all registered Iraqi refugees (in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt) were Sunni, 21 percent were Shi'a, 4 percent were nonspecified Muslim, 13 percent were Christian, 3 percent were Sabean-Mandaean, and fewer than 1 percent were Yezidi. As of April 2010, the Ministry of Migration and Displacement (MDD) had registered 1.55 million internally displaced persons since 2006. In March 2010 the UNHCR, using the UNHCR, MDD, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as sources, estimated there were 2.8 million internally displaced persons in the country. An estimated 59 percent of the internally displaced are Shi'a Muslims, 35 percent are Sunni Muslims, 5 percent are Christians, and fewer than 1 percent are Yezidis, according to the IOM.
Alan Holdren (Catholic News Agency) observes, "The situation for Christians in Iraq is becoming bleaker. The violence directed against them is no longer limited to the captal city of Baghdad, but has been spreading throughout the country." Hadani Ditmars (Globe and Mail) reflects on the violence:
When I met Maryam last spring, she was desperate. "Please help me get out of here," she pleaded. She was continually harassed, she told me, by her new neighbours, rural Shia Muslims who had come to Karradeh from the south after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. "They tell me I'm a bad woman, and that I will go to hell."
But as Maryam tearfully blurted out her story of living alone as a virtual shut-in, terrorized by local militias and longing to join family members abroad, she already seemed to be in hell.
But as Maryam tearfully blurted out her story of living alone as a virtual shut-in, terrorized by local militias and longing to join family members abroad, she already seemed to be in hell.
Ditmars explains Maryam had left Iraq for Syria due to the violence but money issues ("her meagre United Nations stipend") forced her to return to Baghdad where she found the violence had neither vanished nor merely diminished. AP reports that Berlin's Interior Minister Ehrhart Koerting issued a call today for Germany to provide refuge to 2,500 Iraqi Christians. The current wave of violence targeting Iraqi Christians -- one in a long line of waves -- appears to have begun with the October 31st assault on Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Church. Father John Boyle (Caritas in Veritate) posts a letter from friends in Iraq who were in the church during the attack:
The terrorists were in the Church from about 5 pm until 11 pm when their weapons ran out and they began to blow themselves up. They Iraqi Security forces were all the while standing outside paralysed with fear and confusion but by about 10 pm the security forces attacked the Church with huge fire power and no one knows how many innocent people they killed when they stormed the Church but by then most of the terrorist were already dead and they had run out of weapons to use.
At about 1 am the army was sure that all of the terrorist were dead and that they had rescued any of the people who were still alive inside the Church.
One army officer described the scene as follows; "I entered the Church and can hear loud screams of women and children but I could not see them because of the intense smoke, I then slipped and noticed that I slipped in a pool of blood just then I was hit by the most awful smell, it was a smell that I had become familiar with but it was nevertheless awful it was the terrible stench of death. I saw body parts, limbs and many bodies piled up at the entrance. The people there looked like they had been dead for sometime as their bodies had become quite stiff when we tried to move them".
The link will also provide you with photos of the violence including the dead (and one of the two priests killed -- after he was killed; the one who was shot in the back of the head execution style). The Underground debunks two popular rumors about the motivation for the attacks. Alan Holdren (Catholic News Agency) quotes Father Firas Benoka stating, "There is a climate of terror that fills the Christian homes not only in Mosul and Baghdad, but also those on the plain of Nineveh." Holdren explains, "The plain of Nineveh, where Mosul is located, is one of the ancient cradles of Catholicism. The towns and villages that dot the plain are home to some of the world's original Christian communities, dating back nearly 2,000 years to the dawn of Christianity." Meanwhile Asia News interviews Monsignor George Basile Casmoussa, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, who notes that there is a "dangerous growth" in the attacks with people being assaulted "directly in their homes" and that Christians are first fleeing their own cities and some then take the step of fleeing Iraq. He states, "We are asking the United Nations to seriously discuss the issue of Iraqi Christians. To send a real commission for an inquiry. To put pressure on the Iraqi government to ensure attention and the highest security to churches and Christian villages. And to pursue the murderers, to the very end of it."
The terrorists were in the Church from about 5 pm until 11 pm when their weapons ran out and they began to blow themselves up. They Iraqi Security forces were all the while standing outside paralysed with fear and confusion but by about 10 pm the security forces attacked the Church with huge fire power and no one knows how many innocent people they killed when they stormed the Church but by then most of the terrorist were already dead and they had run out of weapons to use.
At about 1 am the army was sure that all of the terrorist were dead and that they had rescued any of the people who were still alive inside the Church.
One army officer described the scene as follows; "I entered the Church and can hear loud screams of women and children but I could not see them because of the intense smoke, I then slipped and noticed that I slipped in a pool of blood just then I was hit by the most awful smell, it was a smell that I had become familiar with but it was nevertheless awful it was the terrible stench of death. I saw body parts, limbs and many bodies piled up at the entrance. The people there looked like they had been dead for sometime as their bodies had become quite stiff when we tried to move them".
The link will also provide you with photos of the violence including the dead (and one of the two priests killed -- after he was killed; the one who was shot in the back of the head execution style). The Underground debunks two popular rumors about the motivation for the attacks. Alan Holdren (Catholic News Agency) quotes Father Firas Benoka stating, "There is a climate of terror that fills the Christian homes not only in Mosul and Baghdad, but also those on the plain of Nineveh." Holdren explains, "The plain of Nineveh, where Mosul is located, is one of the ancient cradles of Catholicism. The towns and villages that dot the plain are home to some of the world's original Christian communities, dating back nearly 2,000 years to the dawn of Christianity." Meanwhile Asia News interviews Monsignor George Basile Casmoussa, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, who notes that there is a "dangerous growth" in the attacks with people being assaulted "directly in their homes" and that Christians are first fleeing their own cities and some then take the step of fleeing Iraq. He states, "We are asking the United Nations to seriously discuss the issue of Iraqi Christians. To send a real commission for an inquiry. To put pressure on the Iraqi government to ensure attention and the highest security to churches and Christian villages. And to pursue the murderers, to the very end of it."
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