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Actually most American people could have seen this coming since Reagan started funding the Mujahideen.
While hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are affected by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s takeover of key cities including the Ninawa (Nineveh) provincial capital, Mosul, minority Christians – some of whom trace their origins to the earliest years of Christianity – are among those with the most to lose. In previous years, Christians fleeting violence in Baghdad or elsewhere in the south often headed for the Mosul area. The Nineveh Plain formed the historic homeland of Assyrians, an ancient non-Arab ethnic group in Iraq. Main Christian denominations include Chaldean Catholic, Assyrian, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian and evangelicals.
Syria was another key destination for Christians who were able to leave Iraq, but the civil war there made life even riskier across the border than at home, prompting some to return. For many Christians in the Mosul area now, the autonomous Kurdish region to the north-east may offer the best short-term hope – if they are able to cross over. Chaldean archbishop Amel Nona told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) he believed all Mosul’s Christians had left the city, and spoke of efforts to find emergency accommodation in ancient Christian villages in the Nineveh Plain. As the jihadists swept into Mosul this week, they reportedly looted and torched churches, raised their black “there is no god but Allah” flags and started demanding that women wear the Islamic veil.
The Assyrian International News Agency identified two of the targeted churches as the Chaldean Church of the Holy Spirit, and an Armenian church under construction, which it said was bombed. Barnabas Fund, an aid agency that supports minority Christians in Islamic countries, said the attacks on churches were “a clear statement from ISIS that they are no longer welcome in Mosul.” “It is feared that this latest exodus could be the final death knell for the Christians of Iraq,” said Barnabas international director Patrick Sookdheo. “Having previously sought refuge in Syria, this is no longer an option, and as ISIS violence threatens the stability of the wider region, Christians have very few places of safety to which to run.”
An Iraq-based representative of the religious freedom advocacy group Open Doors sounded a similar warning. “This could be the last migration of Christians from Mosul,” the organization quoted the representative as saying. Open Doors says an estimated 1,000 Christian families were living in the city as of Monday this week. “The Islamist terrorists want to make Iraq a ‘Muslim only’ nation and as a result they want all Christians out,” Open Doors USA President/CEO Dr. David Curry said in a statement. “The situation for Christians has deteriorated each year over the past 10 years. Iraqi Christians have faced kidnappings, threats and even death for being followers of Jesus. And they have little faith in their government to provide security as we see in the tragedy unfolding this week.” Open Doors urged Christians to pray for their Iraqi brothers and sisters caught up in the conflict.
Syrian atrocities
“We need to be very concerned about the situation in Iraq,” said former CIA intelligence analyst Kenneth Pollack, who is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “Worst-case scenario is that there'll be a horrific civil war, it will have an effect on the global economy and could cause a very significant recession in the developed world. It will spawn new terrorist groups and it will destabilize the region. This is a very serious situation,” Pollack told Australia's public television network Thursday.
The al-Qaida-linked Sunni Islamists who stormed Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul on Tuesday have now taken control of Tikrit and they are moving on to Baghdad, the seat of Iraq's Shiite government. “They pushed with really rapid momentum all the way down to the outskirts of Baghdad and we've seen the Iraqi security forces almost literally melt away in front of them," Pollack said. “This is a very disconcerting situation.” Pollack described Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, as “a really nasty group.” “They are as radical, if not more so, than the rest of al-Qaida. It is likely that what we are seeing is the beginning of a new civil war in Iraq, and while that is probably not likely to lead to a rapid takeover by al Qaeda, the fighting there could have a very serious impact not only on Iraq's stability but on the stability of the rest of the region and on the global supply of oil.”
Although he's been warning of such a scenario for years, Pollack said he's surprised by the speed with which ISIL has seized control of two Iraqi cities. “Clearly they have been secretly husbanding and building up their strength in a way that escaped any of the Western intelligence services or even the Arab intelligence services. I think that both the strength that ISIL has shown and the weakness demonstrated by the Iraqi security forces have both been very surprising.” Asked how President Obama should respond to this latest foreign policy crisis, Pollack said the U.S. “needs to step up and recognize that Iraq is too important to American interests, to western interests, quite frankly to the entire global economy, to simply allow it to drift the way that the Obama administration has. "It's very late in the day. Saving Iraq is going to be extremely difficult; and what we need to recognize is that the kind of incremental half-steps that this administration has typically (been) favoring throughout the Middle East just aren't going to cut it. It is going to require some very dramatic steps.”
Those steps include some level of military action, Pollack said. He mentioned unmanned air strikes and – if Iraq’s Shiite government allows it – he recommends sending “several thousand advisers into Iraq” to “rebuild the Iraqi military” that has been “politicized” by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. U.S. rebuilding would reassure the Iraqi people that the Iraqi security service is “not just a militia in the service of the prime minister, which unfortunately is what it's really become,” Pollack said. According to Pollack, “President Obama has steadfastly insisted that the United States doesn't need to deal with the problems of the Middle East. I think that it was always a mistaken bet, and I think we are now seeing, as we say, those chickens come home to roost. I hope that he is willing to reverse course, but quite frankly I've not seen any indication that he is ready to do that.” (A White House spokesman on Wednesday said, "The situation in Iraq is grave, and we're actively working with Iraqi leaders in support of their efforts to implement an effective and coordinated response to address this crisis. We'll continue to provide all appropriate assistance to the government of Iraq, to assist it in our common fight against the threat that ISIL poses to Iraq in the region.")
'Nightmare scenario'
The Middle East is the armpit of the World. It's by far the worst place on the planet!
For example in Africa there is a lot of violence. But when little girls get raped and innocent people are beheaded there's outrage! Amongst the global community AND people in those nations!
But in the middle east the more despicable you act the greater the badge of honor you get! It's unbelievable! And then lunatic people in civilized nations like [MENTION=30742]SunniMan[/MENTION] try to rationalize evil! We need to kick them the fuck out!
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying " "I Couldn't Have Predicted" Al Qaeda Militants Seizing Iraqi Cities" Isn't that interesting ? So she couldn't have predicted it, but thousands of American citizens predicted it, including me in another forum, more than 5 years ago, and continually ever since then.
Here is Hillary's exact words >> "This is not just a Syrian problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought it was a regional problem. I could not have predicted, however, the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq, and trying to erase boundaries to create an Islamic state."
And this is a person who might run for president of the United States ?
I would imagine that among those thousands of Americans who could (and did) predict what is happening right now in Iraq, if the US were to pull troops out, are thousands of 10 year old school kids in the 6th grade. If you think we've got incompetence in the White House now, what going to happen if/whenever Ms. Hillary Couldn't gets in there ?
Hillary Admits She Underestimated Al Qaida | The Daily Caller
You know, I am not a Hillary supporter in an way, shape, or form, but you are a total idiot. Nothing you quoted in any way makes her look bad. She actually argued for a more active intervention in Syria because she said it would destablize the entire region. The only thing she is saying is that she is surprised at how effective ISS turned out to be at taking over Iraqi cites. I am willing to bet that your post on that other forum didn't predict that anyone would be able to knock over multiple cites in such a short period of time.
Actually most American people could have seen this coming since Reagan started funding the Mujahideen.
Actually most American people could have seen this coming since Reagan started funding the Mujahideen.
True, the beginning of Islamic militants going political.
Actually most American people could have seen this coming since Reagan started funding the Mujahideen.
our state department told daddy bush that if we went to baghdad, we'd destabilize iraq. baby bush knew this and didn't care.
but the neocons love perpetual war. i guess they thought we were supposed to stay forever, spending all of our wealth and the blood of our military to do...
what?
nada.
She also couldn't predict that we'd still be in that country 10 years after she voted for a resolution to authorize an invasion of it in 2003.
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying " "I Couldn't Have Predicted" Al Qaeda Militants Seizing Iraqi Cities" Isn't that interesting ? So she couldn't have predicted it, but thousands of American citizens predicted it, including me in another forum, more than 5 years ago, and continually ever since then.
Here is Hillary's exact words >> "This is not just a Syrian problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought it was a regional problem. I could not have predicted, however, the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq, and trying to erase boundaries to create an Islamic state."
And this is a person who might run for president of the United States ?
I would imagine that among those thousands of Americans who could (and did) predict what is happening right now in Iraq, if the US were to pull troops out, are thousands of 10 year old school kids in the 6th grade. If you think we've got incompetence in the White House now, what going to happen if/whenever Ms. Hillary Couldn't gets in there ?
Hillary Admits She Underestimated Al Qaida | The Daily Caller
You know, I am not a Hillary supporter in an way, shape, or form, but you are a total idiot. Nothing you quoted in any way makes her look bad. She actually argued for a more active intervention in Syria because she said it would destablize the entire region. The only thing she is saying is that she is surprised at how effective ISS turned out to be at taking over Iraqi cites. I am willing to bet that your post on that other forum didn't predict that anyone would be able to knock over multiple cites in such a short period of time.
Correct.
Clinton could not predict ISS.
Bush could not predict WMDs.
Anyone can predict anything. Most are lucky to be right 50% of the time.
