Iraq priest 'killed over pope comments'

[leftchick]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/986D3437-8801-4AE2-91C1-860A42D5EB68.htm

The relatives of a Christian priest who was kidnapped and beheaded in Iraq have said that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 ransom.

They were speaking as more than 500 people attended a memorial service on Thursday for father Amer Iskender after his decapitated body was found in an industrial area of the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday.

Iskender was a priest at the St. Ephrem Orthodox church in Mosul.

"He was a good man and we all shed tears for him ... He was a man of peace," said Eman Saaur, a 45-year-old schoolteacher who said she attended Iskender's church regularly.

[AngryAmish]

1. Way to go, Bush

[katinmn]

2. Way to go, Pope. Should have know the power of your words to

incite hatred. Shame.

[carzen]

15. way to go pope and bush

[brentspeak]

16. What about the animals who committed the murder?

Do you think they're in any way to blame for this, too?

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Why does everyone BUT the killers get blamed?!

:shrug:

[FormerDem06]

7. Because Islamic Extremists are only bad

because of Bush. Or at least I think that's the template we're all supposed to use right?

Good Grief

[Nostradammit]

8. May be because people are going up the ladder of cause and effect

Instead of stopping at the first rung.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Sounds like the "Twinkie Defense."

[Igel]

14. This sort of thing went on under the Ottomans.

Any setback, any insult to the fundies' faith ... communal response for a communal mindset. Goes way back.

* made it possible for them to do this. But the propensity was there ... just suppressed by somebody who could. Part of the traditional culture, albeit in the country once billed as 'most secular' and 'most educated', at least in the '60s and '70s. 1800s, 1700s, 1600s ...

I assign immediate blame at the first rung.

But I refuse to stop at the second rung, once I'm climbing the ladder. Rather than political points, I want to understand the problem, because then if there's a solution it may be evident. And I find that the third rung on the ladder turns out to be very similar to the first rung, so after I get past "the people that did this are responsible" and move past "* unleashed this", I'm back to "and many of the Iraqi people have reverted to their traditions."

Note "many", not "all". And if there's a solution to tradition, it's that. Call it Kulturkampf if you want, or even bid'a, but that's precisely what's needed: The secular or wishy-washy or moderate, non-tribal Muslims have to take these retrograde idiots to the woodshed. Fitna. There, I've said it.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

10. Good question.

[barb162]

11. that's too easy and sensible

[rodeodance]

4. ``more than 35,000 Iraqi Christians have fled to Syria

Christians flee Iraq



The news of the priest's murder came as the leader of an Iraqi Christian group said that more than 35,000 Iraqi Christians have fled to Syria to escape the violence in their country.



Christians are leaving because of individual threats from Muslim extremists and the general deterioration of security in Iraq, Emmanuel Khoshaba, the Syrian Orthodox head of the Assyrian and Democratic Movement, said on Thursday.



Christians are frequently attacked by Muslims in Iraq.



Islamic groups have carried out several car bomb attacks on churches and Christian areas.

[rodeodance]

5. .Christian women have also been kidnapped in large numbers,

.Christian women have also been kidnapped in large numbers, and on other occasions been killed for not following Islamic social and dress codes.



Khoshaba's figure indicates an increase of 75 per cent from the 20,000 Iraqi Christians who were said to have moved to Syria in 2004, the year after US-led forces invaded Iraq and began the conflict.



Christians made up around three per cent of Iraq's pre-war population 26 million people.

[The Stranger]

13. Falwell, Dobson, Robertson don't really think these people are Christians.

They don't have telethons five nights a week and, more importantly, they look funny.

[patrice]

6. I pray that this act does not become more justification for

more racial and religious hate and violence.

Pray that somehow the people who did this come to recognize Love and the Family of Man.

[Megahurtz]

12. That's really sick.

These people need to just STFU over a few stupid fucking words.

[JVS]

17. Matthew 16:24-26

24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"