by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Iraq has had very vibrant Christian community of a variety of backgrounds; Roman-Catholic, Orthodox, Maronite, and others, as well as vibrant Jewish and minority faith communities and the reason I said “has had” is that things are changing.
A great many members of those communities have fled the country since the US-led invasion of the country and the toppling and subsequent capture and execution of Saddam Hussein.
While under Hussein and before those faith communities all seem to exist side by side, more or less, in harmony and without trouble, Christians and others are being severely persecuted nowadays and this persecution seems to reach high up in the government that the West so nicely has put in power.
Very much like in Afghanistan a puppet regime has been installed and and is being kept in place, even to the extent that some things that are being done by that regime, and the one in Kabul, are being overlooked as long as the powers that be can get their dirty hands on the oil and other mineral wealth of those countries.
The word from the Christian communities in Iraq is that is has been much better for them under Saddam Hussein than it is now under the new regime and that, I think, should tell us something.
Despite the goings on against Christian Iraqis – in the same way as against Gypsies everywhere – they are not being accepted as political refugees and refugees fleeing from persecution and being in real danger of life.
As per usual, the powers that be in the West are blind to human sufferings as long as they can get their hands on the oil and other riches of those countries. What are a few people that get persecuted for their beliefs or their ethnicity in the important equations of oil and minerals and the money to be made from the exploitation of those resources?
© 2010
