FANATICAL Muslims behind the burning of a giant poppy in an Armistice Day outrage are unmasked today by The Sun.

When Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko spoke to a group of government officials about the problem of corruption in his country 1976, he didn't come right out and tell them to quit stealing altogether. He just told them to dial it back. "If you want to steal, steal a little cleverly, in a nice way. If you steal so much as to become rich overnight, you will be caught."

Somebody is probably offering similar advice to Islamist terrorists in Iraq in light of the murder of more than 50 Christians by Al Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad on Oct. 31. By killing so Christians at once, they overwhelmed the ability of Western intellectuals and religious leaders to sweep the problem of Islamist violence against Christians under the rug.

Mobutu's advice, if it were translated from the context of corruption to terrorist violence, would go something like this: "Keep the murders to a dull roar. Don't kill too many Christians at once, because if you do, you'll force intellectuals and religious leaders in the West to admit that we are not merely a liberationist movement opposed to foreign troops in our country, but killers intent on perpetrating an ethnic cleansing in Iraq."

Even if Al Qaeda were to dial it back and reduce the death toll of their attacks to several at a time, it's too late. Media outlets in the West have woken up to the problem of anti-Christian violence in Iraq and are starting to connect the dots about the violent eliminationist ideology that motivates it.

Carnage too much to ignore

The carnage and the depravity was just too much for people to ignore. In an article published on Nov. 11, the USA described the attack in chilling detail:

Priest Wasseem Sabeeh was halfway through Sunday Mass, in Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, when an explosion shook the church. Suddenly men with guns yelling Islamic prayers burst into the church. They fired at the priests, congregants, even murals of Mary and the saints.

 

Some parishioners screamed and ran out. Sabeeh, 27, and another priest, Thaer Saadallah, 32, hastily directed dozens of others into a room near the altar, then turned to plead with the men in suicide vests to stop the killing.

 

They shot Sabeeh at point-blank range, then shot Saddallah in the face. He fell on the steps of the altar, his vestments stained with blood.

Leaders from the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and the Presbyterian Church (USA) seem unable to acknowledge exactly who perpetrated the violence, but they did come out with statements condemning it. Their inability to name names and shame the perpetrators of this violence and condemn the ideology that motivates it is a problem is clearly troublesome, but in the Age of the Internet, the story is getting out.

It got out in the pages of the Chicago Tribune. On Nov. 7, the paper published a profile of Natasha Shino an Assyrian activist who explains why she and her family have fled Iraq and live in Chicago: ""We're going through a silent genocide," Shino said. "We are near extinction."

It got out in the pages of London's Globe and Mail, which on Nov. 10, 2010 reported about anti-Christian violence in the days after the attack in Baghdad:

A slew of attacks on homes and shops of Christians in the city killed six people and injured 33 injured since Tuesday evening, according to an Iraqi defence official.

 

These latest attacks, small-scale by Iraqi standards, came just 10 days after a devastating Oct. 31 hostage-taking in which 44 Christian worshippers, two priests and seven security personnel were killed when Iraqi forces stormed Baghdad's Syrian Catholic Cathedral that had been seized by several Islamist gunmen.

 

The Islamic State of Iraq, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, announced it carried out the cathedral attack to force the release of Islamic converts allegedly being detained by the Coptic Church in Egypt. The group later declared Christians everywhere to be "legitimate targets."

The Globe and Mail even quoted a France's Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud as stating there is "a deliberate will to destroy the Christian community" in Iraq.

It got out in the pages of Time, which on Nov. 11, acknowledged the onslaught of anti-Christian violence in Iraq. It reported that Iraq's remaining Christians want to stay in Iraq and that Muslim leaders are working to bring an end to the violence. Nevertheless,

There has been no let-up, however, in the campaign against [Christianity]. On Wednesday, synchronized bombings struck at least 11 Christian locations across in Baghdad, killing at least six people and wounding more than 30. The strikes appear to be directly connected to a vicious October 31 church invasion that left at least 50 people dead after gunmen overran Sunday services, shooting down the attending priest and acolyte at the altar before spraying automatic gunfire on the congregation and detonating explosives vest. The Halloween murders at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad's middle class, mixed Karada neighborhood were followed by an announcement by the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda proxy, promising "We will open upon [the Christians] the doors of destruction and rivers of blood." (Emphasis added.)

On Nov. 11, AFP reported on the U.S. State Department's condemnation of the attack (which unlike some Christian institutions, mentioned the perpetrators by name) and reported that "[a]n estimated 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq before the US-led invasion of 2003 but that number has since shrunk to around 500,000 in the face of repeated attacks against their community and churches."

The story made it onto the Website of the Christian Science Monitor, which on Nov. 10 quoted an Iraqi Christian who asked that his name not be used as saying: "What's happening to us is what happened to the Jews."

The CSM provides some necessary detail when it reports "Iraqi Jews, once an integral part of society here with a history dating back to Babylon, began fleeing in the 1940s. Now only stories of their once vibrant community remain."

The publication fails to provide any explanation as to why the Jews disappeared from Iraq - they were being murdered - but even the most obtuse readers can figure that out for themselves.

Christians Not the Only Victims In Iraq

Christians and Jews are not the only victims of this type of violence. This reality was underscored on April 23, 2010 when terrorists hijacked a bus in Mosul, Iraq, ordered all the Christians and Muslims on board to leave and then killed 23 remaining passengers, members of the Yazidi religious sect.

A few months later, Sunni terrorists murdered more than 500 members of this group with multiple car bombings in two villages near Iraq's Syrian border. After the attack, one Yazidi told Reuters "Their aim is to annihilate us, to create trouble and kill all the Yazidis because we are not Muslims." (Reuters, Aug. 17, 2007).

Taken together, these stories help illuminate a troubling reality that journalists and intellectuals have a tough time acknowledging: Religious and ethnic minorities are treated terribly by Muslim and Arab majorities throughout the Middle East.

Minorities in the Middle East who lack an army and a security barrier to keep would-be murderers at bay are victims of regular violence (such as the Copts in Egypt) or worse, potential victims of ethnic cleansing (such as the Yazidis and Christians in Iraq).

Minority Rights Achieved in Israel

There is however, one minority group in the Middle East that has been able to achieve a modicum of safety in the face of Muslim and Arab enmity - the Jews. With Israel's creation in 1948, Jews from Europe and the Middle East were able to achieve what no other minority in the region has been able obtain in the region - territory in which it can express its cultural identity and protect itself from Muslim and Arab hostility and oppression.

On this score, Israel's creation represents a breakthrough for minority rights in the Middle East. Mordechai Nisan, author of Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (McFarland, 1991) puts it succinctly: "In the 1948 breakthrough, one Mid-eastern people achieved independence and majority status as no other people had done." (Page 234) Jewish independence in the Middle East represents a serious challenge to Islamic hegemony in the region and has in numerous instances served as an inspiration for minorities suffering from oppression at the hands of Muslim majorities to long for homelands of their own.

Instead of directing the world's attention to the mistreatment of religious minorities at the hands of Muslim and Arab majorities in the Middle East and acknowledging that Israel's creation in 1948 was a powerful and legitimate response to this oppression, a significant number of Western intellectuals and religious leaders have portrayed Israel's creation as a cause of (and not a response to) minority suffering in the Middle East.

The irony is this. Instead of condemning the violence against religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East (and the ideological and theological beliefs that foment this violence) human rights activists and peace activists in the West have facilitated this violence by focusing the vast majority of their attention on Israel - a country founded to prevent the destruction of a minority in the region. And to make matters worse, prominent Western journalists have cooperated with this process.

The church invasion in Baghdad and the ongoing exodus of Christians from Iraq is part of a tuition that ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East must pay for journalists, intellectuals and religious leaders in the West to come to their senses. One can only wonder how much more of this tuition must be paid.

- Originally published at CAMERA.

Listen here.

From ASIANEWS:

11/12/2010
IRAQ - GREAT BRITAIN
The tragedy of Iraq's Christians is that it does not interest anyone, Chaldean Catholic says
by Nirmala Carvalho

Under Saddam Hussein, Christians in Iraq were around a million. Today, more than half have fled, living as refugees in other countries, in particular Syria and Jordan. Those who are left behind feel betrayed and abandoned by the government and the international community, with only one desire, to be able to live and worship in peace.

Birmingham (AsiaNews) - "There is now a real danger that Christians in the Middle East, and in Iraq in particular, of being exterminated, due to both persecution and large-scale emigration," this according to Dr Joseph Seferta, an Iraqi-born Chaldean Catholic living in Birmingham, Britain, where he is a member of the Commission for Inter-faith Dialogue of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. He gave an exclusive interview to AsiaNews about the difficult situation Christians face in Iraq and across the Middle East. Here it is.

"I belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church, which makes up the majority of Christians in Iraq. Others include Assyrians, as well Syrian, Armenian and Byzantine Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox. Christians under Saddam Hussein totalled some one million, but now only half that number remains in the country, the rest having fled and are living as refugees, particularly in Syria and Jordan.

The atrocity committed by Muslim fanatics, which resulted in dozens of Syrian Catholics dead and dozens of others wounded, was a big blow to the struggling Christian minority. It has been followed by other assassinations of Christians in their homes and shops. All these fanatics (known by various names) in the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries, are bent on imposing Shari'a and running Islamic states that have no place for Christians in them.

Christians in the Middle East, of course, predate Muslims by hundreds of years and go back to Apostolic Times. Since the 7th Century Islamic conquest, they have been made second-class citizens with hardly any rights at all. They have undergone many waves of persecution, which have greatly reduced their numbers and influence. They suffer prejudice and discrimination on a daily basis, while Muslim minorities here in the West enjoy full rights and have built hundreds of mosques.

Tragically, Iraq's Christians had nothing to do with the American invasion, but they always wrongly get accused of siding with the "Christian" West. Now they feel both isolated and betrayed by their own government as well as the international community. They have always been model citizens, serving their country in every field, and their only desire is to be left alone to live and worship in peace. But they have become a soft target for extremists.

There is now a real danger that Christians in the Middle East and in Iraq in particular, of being exterminated, due to both persecution and large-scale emigration, unless something is done urgently to stem the tide and save them. Too many cannot bear their suffering any longer and are sick and tired of waiting for someone to come to their aid. People either do not know or do not seem to care about them. Even the recent Middle East Synod convoked by the Holy Father was a disappointment, due to lack of both unity and courage. It is now high time that the United Nations seriously tackle this huge problem, for otherwise we will end up with the catastrophe of an Iraq and even a Middle East devoid of any Christians.

In October 2007, 138 Muslim leaders issued 'A Common Word between Us and You', a substantive invitation to Christians to dialogue based on the commandments to love God and love one another, found in the Bible and the Qur'an. The problem is that no such thing exists in the Qur'an.

While love is central in Christianity, it is hardly relevant in Islam. The few Qur'anic verses that mention love mean something that is totally different from the New Testament. In the Qur'an, Allah's love is conditional upon man's blind obedience to his laws. Thus, we read in verse 4:107, for example, "Allah loveth not the impious and the guilty."

Love in the Qur'an is just an attribute rather than a part of God's very essence (as in "God is love", 1 John 4:8). The concept of love of neighbour does not exist either. There is only love for fellow Muslims, who, for example, are told in 5:59, "Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends", and in 9:29, "Fight those who believe not in Allah or his Apostle, even if they are the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] until they submit".

Watch, and listen, here.

Liverpuddlian for Ask Imam is Ask Mimam.

But first you've got to get an audience. Try the Abba song:

West cannot defeat al-Qaeda, says UK forces chief

General Sir David Richards took over as Chief of the Defence Staff last month

The West can only contain not defeat militant groups such as al-Qaeda, the head of the UK's armed forces has said.

General Sir David Richards, a former Nato commander in Afghanistan, said Islamist militancy would pose a threat to the UK for at least 30 years. [No: forever, but the threat can be minimised by minimising the Muslim presence]]

But he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper a clear-cut victory over militants was not achievable.

The BBC's Frank Gardner said the comments reflect a "new realism" in UK and US counter-terrorism circles.

Our security correspondent said such an admission five years ago might have been considered outrageous and defeatist.

Gen Richards, 58, took over as chief of the defence staff last month, after a spell as head of the British army.

He is due to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in London later as part of the UK's Remembrance Sunday commemorations.

In his Sunday Telegraph interview, Gen Richards expressed confidence that al-Qaeda could be contained to such an extent that Britons could lead secure lives.

Gen Richards said: "In conventional war, defeat and victory is very clear cut and is symbolised by troops marching into another nation's capital.

"First of all you have to ask: do we need to defeat [Islamist militancy] in the sense of a clear-cut victory?

"I would argue that it is unnecessary and would never be achieved."

Gen Richards added: "But can we contain it to the point that our lives and our children's lives are led securely? I think we can."

He said the best weapon in the battle against al-Qaeda was the use of "upstream prevention" and the promotion of "education and democracy".

He drew similarities between militant Islam's "pernicious ideology" and that of Nazi Germany.

Gen Richards also admitted the Afghan people were beginning to "tire" of Nato's inability to follow through with its promises to the country.

Britain has lost 343 soldiers in Afghanistan since 2001 but Gen Richards said their sacrifice had been worth it. [why?]

He said he saw no reason for Britain to intervene militarily in other countries like it had in Iraq and Afghanistan but added: "It would be barmy to say that one day we wouldn't be back in that position."

From the Kalamazoo Gazette:

Ayesha Mangla Claims, For Non-Muslim Consumption That The  " Attack on Christian church in Iraq is contrary to teachings of Islam"

 November 11, 2010

leads jummah prayer worship at the Bilal Islamic Center in Kalamazo

By Ayesha Mangla

An Al-Qaida operative recently attacked Our Lady of Salvation Church in Iraq and ruthlessly murdered nearly 60 peaceful worshippers.

As a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, I strongly condemn this violent act of terrorism by the so-called followers of Islam. I heard they attacked another mosque in Pakistan. These evil people cannot belong to any religion, especially Islam, whose very name signifies peace.

Such barbaric actions are contrary to the peaceful teachings of Islam.[!] The Quran says that if you kill one person it is as if you killed the whole of mankind. [That's 3.52, taken from Jewish scripture -- what about 3.53 that immediately follows 3.52, and completely transforms its meaning?] It specifically admonishes Muslims to fight to protect religious places of worship such as churches, synagogues and others.

As a ruler, Prophet Muhammad championed religious freedom and protection of all its citizens. In a letter to the St. Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai he wrote, "Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend (Christians), because Christians are my citizens; and by God I hold out against anyone that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them.... Their churches are to be respected.... No one of the (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the end of the world."[this story, made-up most likely by Christians in a forlorn hope that Muslims might treat them better, is not part of orthodox Islam, and Ayesha Mangla, an Ahmadi, surely knows that but doesn't want you to know it].

Prophet Muhammad's unprecedented insistence to the Christian delegation to offer their prayers in his mosque is an exemplary promotion of religious harmony. I wish all Muslims could follow his example and teachings. [How much of this can you stand? ]

I fully express my heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and offer my sincere prayers during these extremely difficult times. We are with you. [tell the truth, for god's sake -- try to face the truth about Qur'an, Hadith, Sira]]