Some Iraqi Christians Feel Threatened

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_christians&cid=540&ncid=1480

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ameera Dawoud is a Christian, but as soon as the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, she traded her pants, fitted skirts and uncovered hair for oversize clothes and a veil.

"They say you have to cover your hair or we will kill you," Dawoud said by telephone from the northern city of Mosul. "If you don't wear a veil, people look at you as if you were naked." snip

Mosul's Christian minority has for long lived in harmony with the city's Sunni Arab majority, and many say they still do. Any hostility toward Christians was mostly kept in check under Saddam Hussein, who didn't allow militant Islamists to gain clout.

The rise in Islamic fundamentalism after Saddam's ouster worries Christians, secularists and some moderate Muslims.

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[LibLabUK]

1. Hmm..

Wasn't Tariq Aziz, Saddam's deputy, a Roman Catholic?

I wonder what's going to happen to the Christians when the Fundamentalist Islamic Clerics run Iraq.

[Kurovski]

2. There was a tape that made the rounds

a couple of years back, that was of an Iraqi woman who became an American citizen.

This woman went on a tirade (on a call-in talk show) about how Americans don't know how badly Christians were treated by Saddam. She was all " How DARE YOU!" this, and IF you ONLY knew!!" that. And basically accused anti-Iraq war Americans of being uncaring shitheads.

She sounded like a total freeeepair.

Of course, Christians were left alone to worship in Saddam's hellish regime. He even had high-up Ba'athists who were Christians.

Some in the military used this tape to "inspire" the troops who were being trained to fight in Iraq, To let them know what "they were fighting against."

So, this is ironic.

I think the woman called herself Gloria, but I can't find anything on the internet. I have an article in my clip files, but the files are 6 states away right now.

I'll see if I can find it. I have to remember the name of the columnist who wrote it. I used to occasionally send Email back and forth with him, but after I said I doubted the woman's claims---No more Emails.

I'm fairly convinced it was Bushista propaganda.

[0007]

3. Sounds like more right wing propaganda to me!

[Kurovski]

4. But Christians are less safe since Bush invaded Iraq.

And I believe that to be true.

[0007]

5. No one is safe from a hive of pissed off bees.

[Kurovski]

6. And as the article points out

Christians are being targeted, whereas prior to the invasion, Christians had some protection from being targeted by others who did not want them to worship as they do.

Or for that matter, anyone else who does not agree with the religious hard-line.

And yes, anyone can die at anytime in Iraq. It is a very dangerous place.

[Maat]

7. The websites of the Religious Right love to post things like this.

It fires up the base. I'm sure that was not what you were after, but Karl Rove used these type of reports to build up the thought that the Righteous must fight the Demons around the World, and that they would be rewarded during the time of the Second Coming. Isn't it tragic that * is getting a holy war going around the world, and that the rest of us get to be dragged down along with the Administration.