Iraq the Ungrateful

This is a story that you can expect not to read much about, or to see analyzed in depth on cable news networks and prime time television: In a disgusting display of cowardice and extreme prejudice, terrorists in Iraq are responsible for the death of Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho who was kidnapped in Mosul, Iraq on February 29.

According to an Associated Press report, Rahho was “the second most senior Catholic cleric in Iraq. " In the same dispatch, “President Bush, the Pope and Iraq's prime minister condemned Rahho's kidnapping,” and “U.S. officials in Baghdad called it 'one more savage attempt by a barbaric enemy to sow strife and discord.'”

The Chaldean Church has had a presence in the land that is now Iraq since the 2nd Century, well before the time of the Prophet Muhammad, who was born around 570 A.D.

Before the steady sectarian crackdown on Christians in Iraq after the second U.S.-led invasion, Chaldeans comprised about 550,000 of Iraq’s estimated 700,000 Christians. Since then, there has been a vast exodus of Christians from Iraq, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Some observers believe that the remainder may be forced to go underground to assure its minority survival.

Is this the kind of democracy we can continue to expect from our Iraqi “allies?”