Posted on 12/23/2007 7:56:31 PM PST by james500
The spiritual leader of Iraq's Chaldean Christian community has called on US forces to release Saddam Hussein's ex-deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
Cardinal Emmanuel Delly made the request in his Christmas message.
Mr Aziz, who is himself a Christian, gave himself up to US forces after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but no charges have been brought against him.
He was seen in court last year in his pyjamas, testifying for the defence in the trial of Saddam Hussein.
"In terms of Tariq Aziz," Cardinal Delly said, "we have to demand the release of all those who were captured and which have no evidence against them."
The Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, who criticised the US-led invasion in 2003, said his requests to visit Mr Aziz in prison had been turned down.
Iraqi prosecutors say he could face charges in connection with the crushing of the Shia Muslim uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.
In January last year, Mr Aziz's lawyer said his client had suffered a stroke.
In his message, Cardinal Delly also called for religious freedom in Iraq, where many Christians have been kidnapped, killed or forced to flee.
Larry Tate?
LOL
Many Christians in Iraq.
Let’s free him of his Earthly bonds.
Calling Steve Martin. Was he wearing plaid, or was he dead?
Iraq was a secular dictatorship. There were Chaldean Christians and Armenians in the government, although the vast majority were Sunni Muslims.
“Cardinal Emmanuel Delly made the request in his Christmas message.”
Stranger things have happened. Pilate pardoned Barabbas.
5.56mm
Hahahaha! That’s Larry Tate from Bewitched!
Yes, he may be a war criminal, but he was not a republican. Had he been a republican, the left would have been screaming for him to be executed.
Sounds like something Huckabee might fall for.
Saddam’s mouthpiece should hang.
No way, how stupid that would be.
Cardinal Delly said, “we have to demand
*********
Demand?
Cardinal, if it weren’t Christmas I’d tell you where to put you’re demand....Sir.
Erm, Saddam’s govm’t wasn’t islamic at all. They were more of socialist/secularist dictatorship.
"Mr. Aziz - he did no wrong. I have it from many authentic sources. It's only those infidels who make up stories about him."
Maybe I've got him confused with someone else.
Wasn’t that Dan Rather?
Such a Christian...
B.S.,
Hang him too.
They ought to let him go. Saddam Hussein and his sons were the real culprits. Everyone else was just trying to stay alive and not be put in a meat grinder by Saddam and sons...
Regards,
Star Traveler
Aziz was harmless. He was the token Christian in the Saddam regime and from all accounts, he actually tried to provide some common sense counsel to Saddam IRT international weapons violations.
I would be willing to bet that if he were Muslim, he would be released by now.
Right. Saddam needed to keep the Christian minority from becoming a factor in opposition to him. Azziz was a tacit statement to them: “if you don’t act up, you’ll more or less be left alone and here’s your proof.” Until FR smarties have actually lived under a regime like Saddam’s they ought to think before they rant. Saddam did exactly what Mayor Daley does—played off ethnic minorities against each other, gave protection to those who stay on the plantation etc. The majority Shia rose up against Saddam and, because we abandoned them, died by the thousands. Christians in this region have had to survive for more than a thousand years in Dhimmitude. Under Saddam they had a secular dhimmitude situation and Azziz was in many ways Saddam’s favored house slave who could thereby offer a bit of protection for his co-religionists.
When you are playing that role of house-slave, you face constant challenges about just what to do to avoid ending up in the plastic shredder. Azziz may very well have been complicit in some crimes, even major ones. Or he may not. I don’t know. What I do know is that as a Christian in that situation, he was walking a helluva tightrope. Throwing stones at him from this distance and from our religous safety is foolish. If he did commit crimes, try him, but holding him indefinitely without trial strikes me as wrong and the Patriarch is right to decry it. It’s possible the Shia are holding him as a pawn in the game of chicken they are playing with the Sunnis. That’s the real danger—that’s what could undermine the long-term significance of the sacrifice of our blood and treasure.
It was a well-known fact before the war that ol’ Tariq was a Chaldean Christian. However, I have no idea how he reconciled his personal beliefs with the vile regime that he enthusiastically worked for.
Aziz taught Christians to acquiesce in atrocities and to abandon their Gospel witness for a place at the trough.
Aziz was such a stooge of Hussein's regime that he changed his family's ancient Christian name - Yochana - to Aziz in order to seem more Muslim.
As Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq in 1988, he witnessed the gassing of his fellow citizens in Halabja and did not utter a word of protest.
He is beneath contempt.
There are real Christians like Miguel Pro and there are fake Christians like Tariq Aziz - whose very name is a renunciation of his baptismal name of Michael.
Real Christians like Pro choose death rather than stand by and watch atrocities occur.
Filth like Aziz preside over the gassing of women and children.
Next time Mayor Daley gasses a neighborhood of Reilly supporters, get back to us with your lame analogies.
You don't become deputy prime minister and foreign minister of a dictatorship by just trying to stay alive.
You rise to that level because you are an active and essential collaborator of the dictator, shaping and enforcing his policies.
Try him for whatever blood is on his hands, then. The list of allegations was oddly minimal, given his status. Try him. The Cardinal has a point. I have no problem with enemy combatants being held without trial for the duration of the war but we do need to define the end of the war at some point and this WOT is problematic. For now, I have no problem with Guantanamo.
But Azziz is not in the same category. If he committed crimes, try him. And before American Christians rise up to cast stones at Christians living for 1000 years under Dhimmitude, walk a few miles in their shoes.
I don’t know what Azziz did or did not do. Try him and reveal it to the world. If they really have a strong case against him, why can’t he be tried? Others have been. Why not him? Doesn’t that give you pause? Is it possible that Dhimmitude is alive and well only now it’s the Shia who are using the Christian Dhimmis as pawns against the Sunnis?
He deserves a trial or else he should be released. What’s wrong with that?
I said, if he did crimes, try him. What’s your explanation for a lack of a trial? If he did those crimes, then put him on trial. How do you know what he did and why? How do you know his guilt? If he’s guilty, then he should be punished. But what gives you the right to try him here?
I make no brief for him because I do not know what he did or did not do. You may be right. But the Patriarch’s claim is based on his being held without trial for nearly five years.
Your analogy to Miguel Pro is the lame one. Saddam did not persecute Christians qua Christians. The Mexican government did. Saddam persecuted on ethnic basis and political basis. By your logic every Christian under Hitler who did not openly oppose Hitler and get himself shot was a traiter to Christ. Live under Dhimmitude for a few decades and then start giving instructions to Christians in the Middle East about how to survive, Chickenmartyr!
If Azziz sought actively to aid Saddam from early on in the Baathist regime, try him for it. If he found himself caught up in a maelstrom that started as one thing and became something else and he believed it better to stay where he was where he could do some good whereas turning his back would have not only cost him his life but cost his Christian coreligionists, only too late discovering he was trapped, . . .
I don’t know. If he is a monster, try him and punish him. But how come you know so damn much more than the Cardinal Patriarch? All your brave words of advice about how Christians who have lived in this hell-hole for a millennium ought to conduct themselves are just a tad arrogant.
I suspect that this is something for the Iraqi government to decide. He’s currently in US custody but with no charges filed against him. When we are finished with him then turn him over to the Iraqis and let them decide. After all, its their country.
I agree hang him high!
I wonder who is calling for Aziz’s release. Bernie Kerik?
You said — “You rise to that level because you are an active and essential collaborator of the dictator, shaping and enforcing his policies.”
I know that Aziz was ambassador for a while. What he did other than that, I can’t say. I’m sure he had a long career prior to that time of being ambassador. But, so did a lot of others in that regime. There were hundreds of thousands who participated with the government of Saddam Hussein. Not even a small percentage of those people are in jail and/or going to be convicted of a single thing.
Now, as far as Aziz and his job as an ambassador for Iraq, even if he was privy to all that was going on, in his job as ambassador, that’s just what he would do — represent the country and the leader. It’s like a lawyer representing his client, regardless of what is going on and what he has done.
I seriously doubt that our government really has anything on Aziz that he’s going to be convicted for. I suspect that he’s just being held because he’s such a high-profile figure of the former government of Iraq (and for no other reason). I think that many are hoping that he will simply die in captivity, thereby relieving them (our government and the Iraqi’s themselves) of doing anything about it, or having to go through a trial that may not be successful.
So, I think they should just let him go and ship him (and his family) out to another country (whomever will have him and his family).
I do not believe there is really anything to be gained by keeping him prisoner and refusing to go through with a trial and hoping that he will die and relieve everyone of a decision...
Regards,
Star Traveler
Saddam had a "religious awakening" after his defeat in the 1991 Gulf War [*], adding "Allahu Akbar" in Arabic script to the Iraqi flag. It was pretty transparent pandering, and Iraqi Muslims and neighboring countries didn't buy it.
[*] I've never liked the phrase "first Gulf war." The first ran from 1980-88 and was between Iran and Iraq.
He was also a frequent spokesman for the regime because he speaks fluent English and, as a Christian, presented a more appealing face outside the Middle East. My impression has always been that he was there for window dressing and had very little real inside influence. I could be mistaken, and he might be a war criminal, but if so it's time to bring charges.
This is the first grumble about folks being held without charge, but it won't be the last. There will be folks who are likely guilty but will be let go or freed after relatively short sentences, just like at Nuremberg. The imperative is to stabilize Iraq; holding this or that individual accountable is a lesser concern, and the most culpable figures have already been tried, convicted and hanged.
All of those charges but one begin “As a member of the Revolutionary Command Council ...” We don’t — or at least I don’t — know whether he actively supported the crimes committed by the regime or even counseled against them.
So he opposed the liberation but wants to make the rules anyway. Get bent.
Thank you. I'll take it a step further and say that holding anyone indefinitely without trial, counsel or recourse isn't something we should do or condone.
Leaving aside the comparison to American political figures, yes. Perhaps it's religion, not patriotism, that's the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Saddam held power for as long as he did because he was brutal, not because he was skilled. In fact, he was pretty much inept at everything he did. General Schwartzkopf said it best: "He is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man." His political and diplomatic efforts were equally all-thumbs.
Saddam thought that simply mouthing the right Muslim catch-phrases and clumsily lobbing missiles at Israel (which killed more West Bank Palestinians than they did Israeli Jews) would rally the rest of the Middle East to his side and against the Coalition. It didn't work. Think what you will about Islam, but Muslims aren't congenitally stupid, and the ones who survive long enough to lead countries know the smell of snake oil.
Okay, so this creep is a Christian. Let’s be sure to give him a nice Christian burial.
Look smartface, he opposed the war because he feared for the people he was leading. And he was right about that. The Iraqi Christians have paid a disproportionate price, far out of proportion to their numbers, during the insurgency. It’s not a matter of body counts, it’s about ability to survive as a people. Huge numbers have fled and those who remain are targets of intimidation. They’ve managed to hang on under Islam for more than 1000 years. As difficult as things were under Saddam, they had it better than the Shia and the Chaldean patriarch simply was trying to do what he could for his people in a no win situation. Incidentally, this is the primary reason as far as I can see that the Pope opposed the war. He feared the complete destruction of the Christian minority. Christian Arabs are virtually gone from the Holy Land. They cannot even go to Bethlehem for Christmas. Christians in Iraq, once one of world centers of Christianity, are dwindling to the point at which it become difficult to sustain a culture. They speak variants of Syriac/Aramaic, their churches are in a direct line from those founded in the first decades of Christianity. Do you know what happened to Orthodox Christians in Kosovo after the Muzzies took over? That’s what the Chaldean Christians fear—their centuries old churches and monasteries blown up, their women raped, their life destroyed.
And the Shia are feeling their oats. If it’s left up to them Iraq will not have religious pluralism—after years of domination they want to control everything and their extreme wings have no use for Christians, not even as Dhimmis. And with Condoleeza Rice now making nice with the Arabists in the State Department (who think that Christians ought to just bug out of the Middle East and leave it to the Muzzies because Christians are just a bothersome pimple on the body politic), it’s a real question whether the freedom-shouting Bush Administration will really stand up and insist on an Iraq that has a place for religious freedom.
I sincerely hope that in the end the Sunnis and Shia will realize that it’s in their best interest to create a multi-religious state with true religious freedom, but the Chaldean patriarch who has seen his priests kidnapped and held for ransom, his churches bombed, his flock scattered, might be forgiven for asking that the US not forget about his people, including even Tariq Azziz.
You live in freedom. Think at least ten seconds before you shoot your mouth off about people who have known nothing but tyranny, dhimmitude and bloodshed for centuries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.