After a 1,400-year-old Iraqi Christian monastery was recently destroyed by the Islamic State (ISIS) most of the world condemned the demolition — except for spokesman for the U.S. military’s Operation Inherent Resolve, Col. Steve Warren.
“Thousands [of Iraqi Christians] have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee,” noted CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview with Col. Warren last week. “There is legitimate fear – you’re there in Baghdad – that the long history of Christians living peacefully, productively in Iraq, is coming to an end. How worried should we be about the Christian community in Iraq?”
The response: “Wolf, ISIL doesn’t care if you’re a Christian … We’ve seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting towards Christians.”
Wrong: Roughly two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christian citizens have been killed or forced to flee the country by ISIS and its jihadi predecessors over the past decade—and this has everything to do with their religious identity.
In Iraq and everywhere else it has conquered, ISIS has, at a minimum, rigorously enforced on pain of death Islam’s dhimmi laws, which require Christians to pay extortion money (jizya) and agree to live by a set of degrading rules.
Often, ISIS fighters skip these formalities and simply torture to death Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, sometimes releasing the footage online for propaganda purposes. Most notable are two videotaped mass executions of 21 Egyptians and 30 Ethiopians in Libya last spring, but there have been many lesser-known cases. When a group of Iraqi Christian children refused to renounce Christ in 2014, saying “No, we love Jesus,” ISIS decapitated and mangled their bodies. Last summer in Aleppo, Syria, ISIS tortured, mutilated, publicly raped, beheaded and crucified 12 Christians for refusing to convert. Escaped eyewitnesses have reported ISIS places Iraqi and Syrian Christians in cages or coffins and sets them on fire.
ISIS has frequently kidnapped Christians and demanded ransom payments for their release, often forcing female captives into sexual slavery. A 12-year-old girl, raped by an Islamic State fighter, was told that “what he was about to do was not a sin” because she “practiced a religion other than Islam.” ISIS has even sent operatives disguised as refugees into U.N. refugee camps in Jordan to kidnap young Christian girls to sell or use as slaves.
The Islamic State is committed to expunging all physical traces of Christianity in areas it conquers, demolishing dozens of ancient churches—in Syria alone, up to 400 churches have been destroyed since the war—not to mention countless crucifixes, statues, graves, and other relics. It ordered the University of Mosul to burn all books written by Christians and decreed that all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain that bore Christian names (some since the 1700s) be changed.
As for the occasion of Warren’s comments—ISIS’ destruction of a 1,400 year-old monastery—this is nothing new. Last summer ISIS set fire to a 1,800 year-old church in Mosul and bulldozed a 1,600 year-old monastery in Homs for “worshipping a God other than Allah.”
In short, Christians are certainly experiencing “specific targeting” by the Islamic State. While ISIS has also killed Muslims who get in its way, only non-Muslims—chief among them Christians—are being enslaved, raped, and forced on pain of death to convert to Islam. Although Islamic law, or Sharia, legitimizes the killing, enslavement, and rape of non-Muslims, it prohibits treating fellow Muslims accordingly.
Few informed observers dispute that the Iraqi Christian community is gravely and specifically threatened by ISIS. According to the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial, ISIS persecution of Christians “fits the definition of ethnic cleansing.” Even David Saperstein, the United States ambassador at large for religious freedom, acknowledges that it is “primarily Christians” being persecuted in Iraq for their faith.
For the official spokesman of the U.S. military’s fight against ISIS to make such clueless and callous remarks to the contrary is deeply disconcerting. But perhaps Col. Warren is not to blame—perhaps he’s just a military man doing his best to comply with demands from politicians upstairs that he say nothing to acknowledge the suffering of Mideast Christians.
Thanks for posting, Raymond. With a system of civilian oversight of the military, and Obama’s purges of all commanders who won’t go along with his social experiments, it’s likely you’re right about the Colonel’s being forced to deny Christians are being targeted. The people need to know what the military is up to and confront their representatives with it.
What is this ISIS/ISIL thing? I gather that ISIL is the politically correct term since it is what 0bama calls it and what the General quoted in this article called it. What is the difference or why is it important to the 0bamanoids?
US is not only denying that their islamic jihadist allies such ISIS and many others are targeting Christians in Syria but US is DIRECTLY arming and training various islamic jihadist groups to torture, to rape and to mass-murder Christians in Syria. US and other Western governments/societies, including the majority of the so-called “Christians” in those countries far prefer and hugely favor to help and resettle and assist the very muslims who are persecuting and murdering Christians in the M.E. and beyond. I can’t understand why God is silent over this EVIL… O’ God how long will you be SILENT over this EVIL?
These are the Endtimes. These things must come to pass, says Our Lord Jesus in the Bible. Read Matthew chapter 24. King James version. Pray hard! Especially for the persecuted Christians and the Jews.
Let us also thank God for Russia for making possible for Syrian Christians to celebrate Christmas in the streets of Damascus under the protection of the president Assad and Syrian Army. Imagine what would happen to these Christians if the American-backed barbaric islamic jihadists toppled president Assad’s government as America and their Saudi-Qatar-Turkey allies were expecting. Watch the video:
https://www.rt.com/news/327064-christmas-celebrate-syria-damascus/
Yes! I am definitely thankful that we have a strong leader like Putin now; one that strikes Against the most evil terror organization in this World’s history, Daesh! I saw that beautiful video, when it came out. The Little baby is just gorgeous.
I know that the Americans elected Obama, and I find it hard to believe, but you are right. However, I also feel that Obama has cheated the Americans and has sneaked in a lot of antisemitism, Muslim Brotherhood and pro-islamic measures.
You should read the chapter in Revelation, where the martyrs are mentioned: Their blood is crying to God for vengeance and asking ‘how much longer’, but God tells them that their number is not yet full and that they must wait a Little while. I think this Refers to the Christian martyrs in the ME (my Heart aches for them, truly!). I am speculating a bit about the ‘not yet full’ and wondering if it is coming to Europe and the US; the persecution. I think so. I also think that non-Christians will engage with moslems to persecute Christians.
ISIL, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, is the Obama regime’s preferred name because the Levant includes Israel whereas ISIS, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, does not. No detectable agenda there, I’m sure.
The most correct name is Daesh. The French only use this term now (after Bataclan), since that is the most insulting to the ISIS-terrorists. Of course Obama will use the name that doesn’t insult his best friends….
Kerry has used that term as well. But, I believe that Kerry uses it because he’s trying to show off.
The Nerogro Moslem sodomite you empowered in the White House has embolden Moslem everywhere to KILL Christians. Having seen what the Moslem sodomite was able to do with white America.
Scared little white men of the skinny negro they have given power and submitting to him like the cowards they are.
Don’t blame it all on Obama or on his skin color. Obama is by product and true reflection of the American society as America elected Obama TWICE as its president. American pro islamic agenda is far deeper than Obama. America and the Western world have turned their backs on Christianity and replaced it with destructive atheistic doctrines of postmodern moral relativism while they are also backing, enabling and arming the genocidal islamic jihadists worldwide that are massacring Christians and other minorities across the M.E. and beyond. For example, three decades ago, in Afghanistan, America supported and armed the Taliban, Bin-Laden and Alqa’ida and paid them fight against Russia. In the Balkans, America bombed Christian Serbia and formed two islamic states (Bosnia & Kosovo) in the heart of Europe. In Libya, America supported and fought on the side of the barbaric islamic jihadists who deposed Qaddafi. In Egypt, America backed Muslim Brotherhood and turned their backs on Gen. Mubarak, their long time ally. In Syria, America is currently allied with the evil Saudi Arabia, with Turkey and with other barbaric Arab states that are backing ISIS, the ‘free Syrian army’ jihadists, Alnusra jihadists and many other barbaric jihadists that are fighting Assad who is a secular leader who is protecting Christians and other minorities in Syria. .
He was – by and large – probably elected because of his black color. But you cannot neglect or explain away the power and influence, a leader has on his people; one example was Hitler. German women swooned at the mere sight of him, they threw flowers at him, and millions of Germans was hypnotized by his deception and evil. So much so that they themselves became capable killers (e.g. in the gas-chambers). You cannot strip the tanned guy in the White House of his influence and power, however well he manages to conceal his true agenda. Obama is a facilitator of islamization of America, anti-semitism and antichrist.
As I said, Obama is the reflection and the by product of the American society and its value. Obama was elected TWICE by the majority of Americans because they liked his ideas and his worldview. I therefore blame this mess not on Obama but on the American people. As I said also, America have always been pro islam and anti-Christian nation. Actually
the US Government Planned And Funded A Failed Muslim Conquest Of Russia As Far Back As The 1950s. Read: http://www.infowars.com/did-you-know-the-cia-planned-a-muslim-invasion-of-russia-2/
Of course you know why.
Had it not been for the formation of ARAMCO and the need to protect those Gulf bucks, political Islam would have never survived/been enabled. Take a look at the Ottoman Empire. It was the “sick man of Europe” for a long time. Turkey would have never been able to reinvest itself, had it not been for the brilliance of Kemal and his pure, unadultered hatred for Islam. The jihad that has been waged in the Western World, commenced years ago. But, it was a stealth jihad, waged in the halls of academia. When I think of the $$$ that bin Talal has spent in the Ivy League, when I think of the false narrative of Edward Said, when I think of apologists such as Esposito, and when I think of how many young minds continue to be brainwashed by textbook companies such as Pearson, it is easy to see how a master liar, like Obama, would have been elected. It’s too bad that more folks didn;t pay attention to D’Souza because his narrative hit the truth out of the ballpark.
Very well-said indeed!
Thank you!
Will be rid of this Obama ion 2017
And clean house of these PC people we have.
1st election–us—-2nd election-voter fraud!!!
Terrific post.
This is genocide people, and we have Hitler in the WH. who is doing NOT A DAMN THING TO HELP THEM. He is more in tune with the muslims being shipped in here. This is disgusting in our eyes When is he going to thrown out on his rear from the WH. If you can’t see this then your blind. He is Hitler.!!!!!!!!!!!
On the theory that History repeats itself (or at least rhymes), I think of the following comparison. In WWII, the Allies famously refused to acknowledge the particularity of the Nazi persecution of the Jews or take any steps to slow down the Holocaust, lest the Nazis seize on such actions as proof of their propaganda claim that this is a Jewish war of extermination against the Germans. Couldn’t you make a similar case that by privileging Christian suffering at the hands of jihadists, we risk giving IS a propaganda opening to claim this is a crusade against Islam? Better to pretend that Christians and Muslims are equal victims, and that military victory will solve the whole problem. As for Jews outside the region, well, Ban Ki Moon has already explained that inconvenience away, hasn’t he?
In both cases, I think the underlying assumptions are tragically faulty. Then again, the U.S. appears overly concerned that by putting Western boots on the ground to confront Islamic State, we will be fulfilling their prophecy of a final Armageddon-like battle. Rather than an impediment, that “prophecy” should be our incentive. How better to destroy IS and, more importantly, discredit their ideology than by dishing out a massive and comprehensive defeat? Again, Nazi Germany and Imoerial Japan come to mind as analogies. If we no longer have the stomach for that type of confrontation (do we think IS has a nuclear bomb and we’re being lured into a trap?), then the battle on the ideological front is imperiled if not already lost.
Hi, using phone so will keep this brief. Whatever the reason for such a blatant and shameless piece of disinformation, there can be no justification for lying like this, black cannot ever be white, or vice verse. Presumably he had some control over the interview, so change the question or change the answer. Plus, there are many diplomatic ways to speak to the media, without lying. What about ‘no comment’ ffs?
Raymond, I’m a Jew, 1st generation born after the Holocaust. I grew up in a neighborhood of survivors. This is as close as it gets Raymond including denial for self-interest. What drives me crazy, knowing the Shoah too well and this situation fairly well; the Pope trying to make friends and ignoring reality. The Catholic Bishops of North Aamerica shooting the messenger and befriending the Evil and a several Protestant Denomoninations. They don’t listen to the Clergy living there, people commanding respect or just your ordinary person. These ranking Church officials who ignore this Genocide are part of it!
He’ll be a general in no time. Lord, save us from the sword of islam.
Col. Warren apparently caught his stupidity from his Commander-in Chief.