The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Christian Churches Again Attacked in Iraq

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The Spectacle Blog

Christian Churches Again Attacked in Iraq

By Doug Bandow on 7.13.09 @ 5:31AM

It is not clear that Christians will have a home in even a theoretically safer Iraq. The forces of Islamic intolerance may be too strong.

Reports the Christian Science Monitor:

It takes a certain amount of courage to attend a church in Iraq.

In the past 24 hours, bombs exploded outside of six churches in various Baghdad neighborhoods, killing at least four people, and wounding more than 30, according to a Reuters report from the Iraqi capital.

Sunday's attacks were among the worst, in terms of the death toll. But many of these same churches have been bombed before. On Jan. 6, 2008 - also a Sunday - seven churches (four in Baghdad, three in Mosul) were hit in a similar round of bombings. Two years earlier, four churches (three in Baghdad, 1 in Kirkuk) were bombed - also on a Sunday in January.

The Assyrian (Christian) International News agency reports that 52 Assyrian churches have been bombed in Iraq between June 2004 and the end of 2008.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Crusader| 7.13.09 @ 9:24AM

B-b-but I thought we've "freed" Iraq?!?!? Isn't it a "democracy" now? People who crave freedom and democracy don't go around blowing up Christian churches do they?

I guess so.

L. Ross| 7.13.09 @ 11:44AM

What! Couldn't be muslims blowing up those churches. That's the religion of peace. Must be rival Christian congregations. That's it.

MattSwartz| 7.13.09 @ 9:16PM

Ross's snark fails due to total ahistoricsm.

Saddam's Iraq was nasty, but it was a beacon in the region for religious freedom. A Christian there was far safer than in any neighboring country. Since Bush went in to bring "democracy", this tradition has collapsed, since we are now forced to cooperate with a government coalition of people who are far more radically Islamist than Saddam ever was.

The biggest losers coming out of "Operation Enduring Freedom" are Iraq's Christians, most of whom are dead or dispossessed.

The big winners? Democrats, defense contractors and radical Iraqi clerics. These three groups have enriched themselves, and the whole world is poorer for it.