Half of all Christians have fled Iraq since 2003, says Baghdad bishop

This is NOT good news: Half of all Christians have fled Iraq since 2003, says Baghdad bishop.

An excerpt from the article:

Chaldean Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Andreos Abouna of Baghdad said that before the invasion there were about 1.2 million Christians in the predominantly Shiite Muslim state. Since then the overall number has dropped to about 600,000, he said.

"What we are hearing now is the alarm bell for Christianity in Iraq," the bishop said. "When so many are leaving from a small community like ours, you know that it is dangerous -- dangerous for the future of the church in Iraq."

Well, so much for a freedom loving, democratic Iraq. It seems all we've done is to make it a wonderful hotbed for Isalmic violence and hatred....which is what I thought we were putting a stop to when we invaded the place to begin with.

But here's the moral of the story: you DON'T invade a country and declare it a "win" when you leave it's ideological instutions in place--it just doesn't work.

Imagine invading Germany during WW2 and leaving Nazism in place as a governmental system, or ivading Japan and leaving the Bushido code in place. Such a thing would rightly be called stupid.

But American forces go into Iraq, and leave the chief instution of hate filled rhetoric in place: Islam. Might as well take all the troops out right now, because if you don't dismantle Islam in Iraq, then you are only going to breed a much worst situation, which is in fact happening right before our eyes, as this article from the Cathloic News Service indicates. (But of course this is just one of MANY articles that show that Islam is taking a turn for the worst in Iraq.)

While I appreciate the actions of our current governemental administration to combat terrorism by taking the offensive, it does no good for them to pretend that Islam is not the source and motivation of all the terrorist acts committed by Muslims.

Until we realize that the enemy is Islam, not just goofey mid-east dictators, our war on terror is going to be a losing battle.

Thanks to Free Republic for the link to the story.

<>< TM