Posted on 12/24/2010 7:19:16 PM PST by george76
Churches empty and Christmas decorations are put away after al-Qaida renews deadly threat.
Their cathedrals stand silent and their neighbourhoods are rapidly emptying. Now Iraq's Christians face two further unthinkable realities: that Christmas this year is all but cancelled, and that few among them will stay around to celebrate future holy days.
It has been the worst of years for the country's Christians, with thousands fleeing in the past month and more leaving the country during 2010 than at any time since the invasion nearly eight years ago. Christian leaders say there have been few more defining years in their 2,000-year history in central Arabia.
The latest exodus follows a massacre led by al-Qaida at a Chaldean Catholic church in central Baghdad on 31 October, which left about 60 people dead, almost 100 maimed and an already apprehensive community terrified. Since then, the terrorist group has targeted Christians in their homes, including family members of those who survived the attack.
In Baghdad, as well as the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, Christmas services have been cancelled for fear of further violence. Church leaders said they would not put up Christmas decorations or celebrate midnight mass. They told families not to decorate their homes, for fear of attack after al-Qaida reiterated its threat to target Christians earlier this week.
"Now more than 80% of Christians are not going to the churches," said the head of Iraq's Christian Endowment group, Abdullah al-Noufali. "There is no more sunday school, no school for teaching Christianity. Yesterday we had a discussion about what we would do for Christmas. We took a decision just to do one mass. In years before we had many masses."
There has not been a mufti who has stood up and said this is wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
>This is a terrible consequence of a Muslim Government.<
.
Be aware that you may have to flee this country in a decade or so judging by its swift surrender to Islam.
It’s incomprehensible how America allows the immigration of people whose aim is to destroy their host country.
>Most Muslims are peaceful.<
.
Sigh.
Please don’t take me out of context.
It was meant in the same sense that in WWII most Germans and Japanese were “peaceful”, i.e. not personally doing the dirty work on the front.
And I don’t hear the muslim in chief condemning any of it.
Sad, isn’t it. And we didn’t even get the oil. We let the Iraqi people keep it and they sold it to Russia.
We seem to have a habit of taking one creep out and letting a worse creep in. I think that’s how Saddam got into power in the first place. The same thing with Marcos in the Phillipines. There are more examples.
True. Iraqi Christians should be given sanctuary here, as opposed to any muslims.
A dictator has no virtues.
And I don’t hear the muslim in chief condemning any of it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1862485/posts
In the current issue of the American Spectator, Doug Bandow observes that centuries of dhimmitude have left Christians in the war-torn country without any means of self-defense. Washington policymakers have refused to lend assistance for fear of showing partiality,
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