www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Iraqi Christians

Relations between Muslims and Chrstians are very difficult to understand especially in Muslim dominated countries. I can attest to hearing reports from Christisns that detail horrible persecutions at the hands of Msulims. My own medical Doctor is a Coptic Christian from Alexandria who testifies to the daily persecutions he suffered at the hands of Muslims until he and his family fled Egypt. He says that if a Muslims speaks in my class it can be assumed that he is lying. I'm not sure that I believe him but I do know that it is generally accepted that the Qur'an teaches that it is alright to lie in certain circumstances. Yet, I also have read and heard of Christians peacefully coexisting in places like Lebanon and Iraq.

While Christians and Muslims are forever opposed to each other and the basic teachings of Islam about Christ are false we do share hatred for Secularism as a religious principle. Humanism as religion is even more corrosive than Islam. So we coexist and find ways to show Muslims the way to Christ as did St. Francis as do so many now nameless saints among our Catholic and Orthodox (and even Protestant) brothers and sisters. (And yes, I do recognize the separation that exists between those various groups.)

CDL

As Lance has correctly stated, the Catholic just war position is that preemptive war is not justifiable. A defensive war is, however.

Getting back to a previous post before getting moved, the third in command in the Hussein government was a Chaldean (Tariq Assiz). It is somewhere between improbable and impossible that the Chaldeans, Syriac Christians, Assyrians and other Christians will have any fair representation or protection under a Shiite-Sunni coalition government (if forming a lasting coalition is possible). Gangs from both Shiite and Sunni factions have attacked Christians numerous times.

The uneasy relations living amongst the Kurds are a further complication - that part of the country is now threatened by Turkey being poised to attack them as well, which will certainly cause even more hardship to the Assyrians and Chaldeans who have found limited refuge in Kurish areas.

The media doesn't seem to remember that at least one of Saddam's attacks on the Kurds was in response to a brutal sequence of village attacks on peaceful Assyrian and Chaldean villages.

I don�t think any U.S. political leader actually believes that we can leave Iraq overnight. Talk is being made about us remaining stationed there like we did in Germany. It will take time. In your opinion, you think that the Iraqi Christians would not be facing the danger they are in had we not gone in; true, but to a point. There are Muslims, whether in Iraq or outside of Iraq, who would love to make it into a true Islamic military state. Christians would have even greater fear when their faith would be outlawed under penalty of death. Look what happened when the terrorists came into Iraq where Christians and Muslims lived peacefully side by side. They were persecuted, first by being taxed, then killed and kidnapped. Then uncooperative Muslims were killed. There are many places we haven�t gone into to fight wars. Are Christians enjoying more freedom in the world? I can list a number of countries where Muslims are trying to extinguish Christianity either by conversion or by death.


I agree with most of your statement. However, military strategies DO change. What was a quagmire one day can become a success the next. There are still deaths, but they have decreased. But you wouldn�t know it given the media�s stance on this. Any typical news, even FOX, is nothing but a daily murder report. Good news is boring. We are more interested in the latest drug scene in Hollywood is than what good has come from charitable acts. I would even think that for every pedophile priest during the church sex scandals there is at least forty who are doing the Lord�s work as his humble servants. Humility don�t cut the news scene. Lately, the war has become a quagmire for the terrorists. General Petraeus has not only worked with Iraqi soldiers to rid them out of Baghdad, they have relentlessly pursued them up north. It is not a good time to be a terrorist.


The war strategy had to change because we failed to work with local Iraqi leaders. Only after the majority in Congress sent General Petraeus to Iraq (hoping he will lose the war?) did they become upset when the new strategy began to work. I know troops who fought there and they said things began to turn for the better when the purpose and objective of the war was handed over to the locals. Iraqis began telling on the Al Queda where they were hiding. They wrote nasty things about these persecutors on public buildings in order to drive them out of hiding and try to clean them up. When they came to erase the nasty anti-Al Queda graffiti they were shot or blown up by local citizens. Unfortunately, Congress has tried 40+ times to prevent financial support for our troops. Fortunately, their attempt to put our troops in harms way failed as many times. The good news is well hidden in most of our media. Though those media sources you listed on previous posts have acknowledged this good news, it is usually found deep inside the paper, not on the front page. *News*, at least front page news, is only for when our troops get killed.



Our troops are in the Middle East fighting a war. They deserve our support. For Americans, the real issue isn�t whether one is for the war or against it; it is all about WINNING it. Given the lack of support by some members of our government, what does one call it if not support? This is not Bush�s war. As I state later in this post, the facts about WMDs and suggestions about first strike options in Iraq were already there.


Mexicans, didn�t kill 3,000+ innocent U.S. citizens. The Chinese didn�t. Nor did a horde of angry Byzantine Catholics who were acting out on their frustrations against the new liberal liturgy. Foreign terrorists did. I don�t think our President would have had a leg to stand on if he suggested a first strike war, nor the previous President. But then 9/11�


WWII made a mess of Europe. The U.S. enjoyed a period of monopolies for a decade or two after until imports became a reality. But what is Europe like now? Currently, since the terrorists have been routed out of Baghdad, the streets are now filled with children, traffic jams(!), and markets full of many things. Terrorists like to destroy. *Humanitarians* (I decided to use the term) like to build. Muslims even replace crosses that have been taken down from the churches. Life will still be rough though. We have to be vigilant.


Many more terrorists have died than U.S. troops. Unlike the terrorists, our troops do not make it their business killing innocent civilians. This has happened, but unlike the new anti-war movie, the perpetrators were quickly dealt with. The new movie lies about the events. I guess that when one cannot win an argument, the only defense is a lie.



The war, like any war, leaves open the possibility of opportunists to take advantage of power vacuums to enforce their ways. Iran and others sent in Al Queda terrorists into Iraq. Most, if not all, terrorists in Iraq were not even Iraqis. Iraq, unfortunately, became the arena where terrorists wished to fight. Christians would be in greater danger if they had their way of enforcing Islamic law, fundamentalist Islamic law. The first thing they began to do was tax the Christians, charging them *rent*. Then they began to kill them. These terrorists have plans to do this whether we were there or not. Just take a look at the litanies of terrorist killings, genocides, and pillaging in the world. Are Christians doing this? Are Jews doing this? Point out any area where Christians are being persecuted, you will certainly discover radical Muslims behind it. Iraq is only ONE place where Muslim extremists/terrorists are at work. Unfortunately, for them we pushed them back. The Iraqi army, which is stocked with many former Al Queda members who gave up on the dark side, is fighting tooth-and-nail to rid this scum out of their country. The Christians, like their Muslim neighbors, know who the enemy is.


Muslim terrorists did. His ties with them are becoming more apparent. Remember, it was Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid who was the first to come up with WMDs before President Bush took office seven years ago. They were the first to suggest first strike options which were considered inevitable. Bush did what they only talked about. Idiot Representative Dennis Kucinich wanted to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney. This was scratched by his own party members because it would open a can of worms for his party. Remember who were the first to mention WMDs and suggest first strike options. If Cheney would be impeached for lying about WMDs, then all the above will have to go too. We are all in this together now. The terrorists could have stayed put, but they chose to go to Iraq. We followed.



I am not advocating a humanitarian argument for war. *Humanitarian* is just like *love*; there are so many degrees and types that we might be talking pass one another. I don�t think our main objective is to protect Christians. This is not a Crusade.



I am glad to hear that you don�t wear a brown shirt and follow Moveon.org. Moveon.org was founded to *move on* Washington from getting stuck addressing all of Bill Clinton�s sexual escapades. But NOW and other women�s organizations followed their conscience and totally ignored all the sexual harassment and rapes.


Me too.

Ed Hashinsky

I had another conversation with a Muslim student in my class. He explained that if one part of the Ummah hurts all of the Ummah hurts. Since Palestinian Arabs are so mistreated then Islam all over the world will react against all who support Israel.

Here's my thought and I may state it to him. If Christians around the world were as united they would take one look at Sudan or any of a hundred other places in the world and then proceed to wipe out every Muslim in the world.

Maybe not...

CDL

Baloney. There is much inter- and intra-hatred between Muslims in the world. The Palestinians would remain a pocket of scum to the rest of the Islamic world if it wasn't for the hatred against Israel. Palestinians are right next door to Israel. Hatred against Israel is the only thing that binds all Muslims in the world next to hatred of the West for supporting Israel. Muslims don't *hurt*; they do know how to *hurt* others, especially Jews who many of them wish dead and their country wiped off the face of the earth. Christians *hurt* too, but that doesn't stop Muslims from persecuting them, tearing down their churches, and killing them. Dan, you make the Muslims seem like feeling kind of people.

Ed

Dan,

Ask your Muslim student if *hurt* was felt when Muslims killed each other in the Iran-Iraq Wars? What does he feel about the Saudis and their form of Islam? Does *hurt* extend to Christians and Jews are killed in the name of Allah? What about the *hurt* that women have to endure in their religion as second class humans? Do they feel their pain when they are beaten by the religion police? What about those terrorists who enter other countries to fight proxy wars against the U.S., but terrorize, persecute, kidnap and kill Christians - and their fello Muslim neighbors? These are valid questions.

Correction for last post - it was the student, not you Dan, who tries to make Muslims into feeling kinda people. He should read the Q'uran. Christians and Jews are infidels, less than some animals. No *in the Image of God* here.

Ed

[quote=lanceg]Ed,

I have to say a few things to you:

I am tired of people like you accussing others of "anti-American hate speech," and of being "turn coats," because of opposition to the Iraq war. We live in a democracy, which affords us the right to dissent and disagree.

I do not care if someone disagrees with me about the war, and thinks I am mistaken, naive or just plain stupid; but I reject your characterizations, Ed, of people against the war as being anti-American or treasonous.

I am tired of the lack of civil discourse in our society, and I am especially disappointed that even my fellow believers can't at least assume that those of us who oppose the war do so from faith in Christ, conviction, and a good conscience.

I am a Catholic; the the current Pope and the his predecessor were against the war, and nearly all Orthodox prelates I have heard from have as well. I may be wrong about the war, but I am in good company, and acting and speaking in good conscience, listening to my shepherd, and taking into account the gospel, the scriptures, and the patristic teaching on war.

I may be wrong, but I resent be referred to as a traitor. it is rude and unfair, and I do not treat my friends who still support the war with such disrespect.

Lance

Very well said!

Ed,

Please. Respond to my entire thread not to your own hyperbole.

CDL

Ed,

Thanks for the correction, but please don't be so quick to respond. I have no use for the false Islamic religion. I have no illusions about their bent toward violence, misplaced self pity, or about the intentions of the Imams. What I don't believe is that by our reliance upon secular power we are going to win anything. I doubt even that we could win if Christendom were to return. I believe our only options are conversion and until that is complete, coexist to the best of our ability, hoping that in some way enough Muslims will lay down their lust for violence long enough that most will stop killing us and each other.

CDL