Iraqi Christians being urged to leave now know they were much safer under Saddamm

[Political Lurker]

7 November 2010 Last updated at 04:18
Church leader urges Iraqi Christians to quit country

The archbishop wants the UK to grant asylum to Iraqi Christians

Hostages die in Iraq church siege
Eyewitness: Baghdad church siege
Iraqi Christians' long history
A senior Iraqi Christian is to call on believers to quit the country, after gunmen targeted a church in Baghdad.

Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, who is based in the UK, will make his appeal during a service at the Syrian Orthodox Church in London.

The archbishop has previously criticised the lack of protection for Iraqi Christians.

At least 52 people died as security forces stormed a Catholic church in Baghdad to free dozens of hostages.

A number of gunmen entered Our Lady of Salvation in the city's Karrada district during Mass on Sunday 31 October, sparking an hours-long stand-off.

The militants made contact with the authorities by mobile phone, demanding the release of al-Qaeda prisoners and also of a number of Muslim women they insisted were being held prisoner by the Coptic Church in Egypt.

After negotiations failed, Iraqi security forces stormed the building, before the gunmen reportedly threw grenades and detonated their suicide vests.

On Sunday, Archbishop Dawood is expected to advise all Christians to leave Iraq now that al-Qaeda has warned of more attacks there.

The archbishop is also calling on the UK government to grant Christian Iraqis asylum.

Christians - as ethnic Assyrians - have lived in Iraq since the 1st Century, but following the fall of Saddam Hussein, they have become isolated and the Baghdad government has proved unwilling or unable to protect them.

There has been a string of bomb attacks on churches leading many to flee to neighbouring countries.

Church leaders have in the past advised the faithful to stay in Iraq and strengthen their communities.

But such is the insecurity, there are signs this policy may be about to change.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11705032



Persecution of Christians in Iraq worse now than under Saddam Hussein, “vicar of Baghdad” tells “60 Minutes”
60 Minutes, CBS, WKMG
Christians in Iraq are probably worse off than ever these days, an Anglican priest tells CBS’ "60 Minutes."

The Rev. Canon Andrew White, who is called the "vicar of Baghdad," estimates that 90 percent of the country’s Christians have left or been killed by Muslim extremists.

Scott Pelley is the correspondent on the report. It airs at 7 p.m. Sunday on WKMG-Channel 6.

"There’s no comparison between Iraq now and [under Saddam Hussein]," White says. "Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians — probably ever in history."

The CBS newsmagazine attends a service for what’s left of White’s congregation. There’s an interview with a young Christian who describes the disaster that befell Christians after the U.S. invasion.

"[Muslim extremists] were telling us that Christians were against Islam, that we’re infidels, that women shouldn’t drive and that a woman who doesn’t wear a head scarf should get her head cut off," says the man, who is not identified. "I thought, ‘What are we, going back to the Middle Ages?’ "
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2007/11/persecution-of.html


Obliterating' Iraq's Christians
By Nina Shea
director, Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom

What is most startling about the report of the heartless double bus bombings on May 2 that targeted and injured 80 Christian students traveling to northern Iraq's Mosul University was that the young Christians there attend university at all. Since the U.S. invasion, Iraq's Christians have been mostly driven out of the country by violence directed against them for their religion. Their communities are shattered. That these young people continued to dream of preparing themselves to serve their country signals that community's deep commitment to Iraq and a modicum of hope they still harbor for its future.

Unless the Obama administration acts fast to develop policies to help them, though, their hope will likely be in vain.

Relentless waves of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, extortions and rapes have triggered a mass exodus of Christians from Iraq over the past seven years. Since 2003, over half of the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian, Syriac Orthodox, and Armenian Christians, as well as some Protestants have fled to Syria, Jordan and farther flung places. While only 3 or 4 percent of Iraq's pre-2003 population, they account for 40 percent of its refugees, the UN reported.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/05/obliterating_iraqs_christians.html

and also
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Christians+in+Iraq%3A+with+the+dismantling+of+Saddam's+regime,+anarchy+...-a0189871697
_________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

[Tomasito]

The United States with its allies equipped with the most advanced weapons and computers, after 7 years of intense conflict did not annihilate the Talibans? A superpower do not manage to overcome a small group of soldiers?! If we take this case into a football perspective, is Barcelona playing against standard Liege. A game that should be decided in the first twenty minutes and whose the end result should be 9-0. It points that they are in Iraq not for fighting against anybody and not for protecting any people. Under the didactorship of Saddam things were better that today. Today Iraq is a battle war. It became a country without a present and future for their people. For the sake of Iraquian people, america should leave that land.
_________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Political Lurker]

[Tomasito]

Oh.. Thank you Lurker. =)
_________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Tomasito]

What does "conundrum" mean? My dictionary says it's a difficult problem. If we substitute this word with "a difficult problem" which would be "This problem makes it quite clear they are not in Iraq to fight or protect anyone". Does it make sense?
_________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Political Lurker]

[Tomasito]

weapons of mass destruction.

First, they manufactured a problem, declaring that Iraq was a grave danger to the United States:
- Arguing that Iraq was a threat to America and to the peace of the world, through its alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist networks.
- Asserting there was a grave and growing danger from Iraq, thus there was an
urgency to act.
- Cultivating widespread anxiety by propagating fear stories about enemies seeking
to do the American people great harm.
- Demonizing Hussein as someone so evil and irrational that there was a moral imperative for action.
Next, they had to dismiss other policy options that could have avoided war:
- Arguing that containment – an effective strategy during the Cold War – couldn’t work with Iraq.
- Attacking the efficacy of U.N. weapons inspections (which, ironically, had successfully disarmed Iraq from 1991-1998).
- Declaring that there would be no negotiations or discussions with Iraq.
Finally, they stated that “we have no choice” – the U.S. did not want war but was being forced to act:
- It is Saddam’s choice to go to war. The U.S. argued that Hussein must disarm. If he did not comply by turning over his weapons of mass destruction, he was choosing war.
- If the U.N. refuses to act, then the U.S would have to act.
- They argued that war is our last option, even though the U.S. actively blocked every other viable policy. In this way, the U.S. made war the only option.
_________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Political Lurker]

Tom - There's an old saying

Repeat a lie often enough . . . and you create a myth
Americans are free.

Americans are free.

Americans are free.
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of ALL men, in ALL lands, EVERYWHERE.

Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.

Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises."
- Abraham Lincoln
They hate us for our freedoms.

They hate us for our freedoms.

They hate us for our freedoms.

How can even conservatives themselves stomach this internationalist, interventionist, activist-court-packing, states'-rights-suppressing cat's-paw of the transnational culture of control that is the only heartfelt homeland of the corporate elite?

* * *

Let us not put too fine a point upon it: we are in danger of reverting to fascism.
We live in a democracy.

We live in a democracy.

We live in a democracy.
Fascism is a disease endemic in our species, a periodic fever whose tremors induce a psychosocial orgasm in its sufferers, tantalizing them with physical delusions of both security and power.
The greatest nation on earth.

The greatest nation on earth.

The greatest nation on earth.
[I]t is fascism's capacity to make a nuanced oppression seem both nurturing and empowering that makes it so dangerous. It is this nuance of fascism - more than the Big Lie techniques and the brute force fascists also employ - that makes the Bush/Cheney administration and its police and propaganda mechanisms a true threat to humanity in general and to the United States - formerly respected as an icon of liberty - specifically.

The fundamental appeal of fascism to the everyday person is threefold. It consists of:
The promise of security. Fascists typically posit threats, external and internal, that are easily identified but difficult to fight, and then promise to protect you from them - if only you will give them absolute power to do so.

We will protect you.

We will protect you.

We will protect you.

Air Force. Navy. Army. Marines.

Social security. Health insurance. Car insurance. Life insurance.

Relief from uncertainty. It is no accident that Orwell had his dictator characterize himself as Big Brother. The fascist relieves you of the responsibility to make difficult decisions. You simply follow orders - given, of course, by Big Brother.

Mutual Funds.

Pension Funds.

Hedge Funds.

A share of strength. Most insidious, Big Brother will let you exercise power over others - as long as you exercise Big Brother's power Big Brother's way.

Make money, live large.

Make money, live large.

Make money, live large.
This last is the stroke of genius. The fascist enlists the sufferers of fascism themselves as petty dictators over those who have been designated as "below" them. And we the people are all too often eager to enlist.
Convince a slave that he is free and he will never resist.

Promise him a piece of the pie and he may gladly do your bidding.

Either way, the little green bill with the pyramid on back constitutes the chains of bondage to which Lincoln alluded and against which he warned.
_________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

[Tomasito]

What's that Lurker? A national anthem?
_________________
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Political Lurker]

[Tomasito]

[Political Lurker]

There's an old saying - if its brown and smells like shit.........
To put matters in context - the following trial was repeatedly used in the mass media - to legitimatize the Invasion of Iraq, the so called war on terror and as an excuse for torture and holding people for 90 days without .

Ricin! The plot that never was
Written by Lawrence Archer

Colin Powell referred to the ‘Ricin Plot’ during his infamous presentation at the UN, on February 05, 2003
"I was to become the jury foreman in the first terrorism trial in Britain since 9/11. The case became known as the Ricin Trial, since the prosecution alleged that a group of Algerian men were conspiring to manufacture explosives and toxins, including the deadly poison ricin, for terrorist purposes."





I knew what the buff envelope was as soon as I spotted it on the doormat; another jury summons. My heart sank. I’d served on a jury in an assault case only two years previously and it had been a brutal experience. The CCTV evidence of a young man being struck on the back of the head with an axe still stayed with me. But this new summons was to the Old Bailey: now that could be interesting. As it turned out, it was life changing.

I was to become the jury foreman in the first terrorism trial in Britain since 9/11. The case became known as the Ricin Trial, since the prosecution alleged that a group of Algerian men were conspiring to manufacture explosives and toxins, including the deadly poison ricin, for terrorist purposes.

The case came to court in September 2004. Five men stood in the dock, while a further four were scheduled to be tried in a follow-on trial, the Court Service considering, probably correctly, that prosecuting nine defendants at once would have both crammed the courtroom and confused any jury. The defendants were a disparate bunch, mostly associated with each other through the Finsbury Park mosque.

Although it has since become inextricably linked with terrorism by the presence of the notorious preacher Abu Hamza, the mosque had previously served a different and rather more peaceful purpose, providing a focal point for the large Algerian community who lived in the neighbourhood. Men would meet, socialise, eat, swap information on jobs and lodgings and even sleep at the mosque, although the latter was an informal arrangement and frowned upon by the mosque trustees.

The five Algerian defendants, Kamel Bourgass, Mouloud Sihali, David Khalef, Mustapha Taleb and Sidali Feddag, were all charged on two counts: Conspiracy to murder and “Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”, a 19th century piece of legislation that had been resurrected by the CPS for the trial.

Information had come into the British authorities in early January 2003 that a group of Algerian terrorists was going to strike the UK imminently. The news understandably caused huge consternation at Scotland Yard and within a matter of days Anti Terror Branch officers carried out a raid on a property in Wood Green, North London. The shabby one bed flat, provided for the 17 year old Sidali Feddag whilst his asylum claim was being processed, was searched thoroughly for poisons and explosives.

Feddag had met Kamel Bourgass at the Finsbury Park mosque some months earlier and had offered him accommodation in the flat when he realised Bourgass was homeless. However, Feddag had asked Bourgass to leave a matter of weeks before the raid when his brother needed somewhere to stay. Bourgass had duly obliged, but crucially left many of his possessions behind. Among these were some suspicious items: rubber gloves, thermometers, bottles of chemicals, a small quantity of castor oil seeds (the principle ingredient for making ricin), a large sum of cash and most damning of all, a hand written set of recipes for manufacturing a variety of toxins and explosives, contained in a locked sports bag. The recipes were later identified as being written by Bourgass and his fingerprints covered the other suspicious finds.

Scientists from the government research laboratories at Porton Down carried out generic testing for the presence of proteins on some of the items found at the scene. One item, a mortar and pestle, showed a very weak positive reaction to this onsite testing, but later highly specific tests for ricin, carried out at the laboratory, proved the initial analysis to be misleading. According to the chief scientist, in his evidence to the Old Bailey, he had declared the tests negative. As far as he was concerned, there was no ricin at Wood Green.

A series of arrests followed, although the main suspect, Kamel Bourgass, was missing. Mustapha Taleb was picked up almost immediately, after his fingerprint was discovered on a photocopy of the poison recipes. David Khalef had been arrested some months earlier in Norfolk, found in possession of a copy of the recipes. Mouloud Sihali had been picked up at the same time as Khalef. He had connections with one of the chief suspects in the alleged conspiracy, having let him stay in his flat for a number of weeks.

Despite Porton Down knowing within 48 hours of the raid that there were no toxins found at the scene, the police had somehow been notified of the exact opposite. The ensuing media reports were unequivocal; there was a “factory of death” in Wood Green and a quantity of ricin had been discovered. Government spokesmen confirmed the find, announcing in a public statement that “a small amount of the material recovered from the Wood Green premises has tested positive for the presence of ricin….. The Department (of Health) is now alerting the health service, including primary care, about these developments.” Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in later the same day, announcing to a meeting of British ambassadors in London “The arrests which were made show this danger is present and real and with us now. Its potential is huge. ”

The startling headlines almost certainly scared Kamel Bourgass into fleeing London. Within a few days he was holed up in a Manchester flat belonging to a distant acquaintance. When police arrived at the flat several days later, entirely coincidentally and in order to detain another man unconnected with the ricin plot, Bourgass was recognised and promptly arrested.

What happened next was withheld from the ricin trial jury, to avoid prejudicing the evidence. Bourgass broke free from the officers guarding him, snatched a knife from the kitchen and attempted to escape.

In the ensuing chaos he violently stabbed police officer Stephen Oake to death and badly wounded several others before he was finally restrained.

Shockingly, the myth of the ricin find was soon to have an even greater effect. Despite the fact that Porton Down knew there was no ricin at Wood Green in early January 2003, Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State, mentioned its definite discovery several weeks later on February 5th, as part of his presentation to the United Nations Security Council. Arguing the case for the invasion of Iraq, Powell cited the Wood Green “find” as a cause for grave concern and linked it to an “Iraq-linked terrorist network”. British and American forces invaded the country within a matter of weeks.

At the end of the ricin trial, which had lasted seven months, cost an estimated £20 million and caused the jury to deliberate for 17 days, Bourgass was convicted on the lesser, although still serious, charge of Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. The jury were unable to reach a decision on the Conspiracy to murder charge and were eventually discharged. Bourgass had in fact already been convicted of murder and malicious wounding in a previous Old Bailey trial, kept deliberately secret to avoid any press revelations, and was serving a lengthy jail sentence. The other four defendants, Sihali, Taleb, Khalef and Feddag were found not guilty on all charges.

The second, follow on, trial collapsed, as the CPS decided there was little realistic hope of any convictions, as much of the evidence alleged against them was linked to the original defendants. While several of the defendants had entered the UK illegally, they had all served enough time in custody to be released after a few days and were let out on normal immigration bail conditions.

A reporting embargo in place since early 2003 had meant that the press had been unable to publicise the case until the verdicts came in. Now, after the jury had announced its decisions, the media had a field day, declaring Bourgass to be “The Toxic Terrorist” and claiming that he had Al Qaeda connections. The original intelligence given to the British authorities was revealed to have come from another Algerian man, Mohammed Meguerba, who had been interrogated by the DRS, Algeria’s notoriously brutal secret police who had a fearsome reputation for using torture during their questioning.

While Bourgass was making all the headlines, the other defendants received scant media coverage. The general opinion seemed to be that they had “got away with it”, despite the jury’s lengthy deliberations and Not Guilty verdicts. Politicians and the police were equally disappointed in the jury decisions: there were even mutterings in some quarters that the jury had “gone rogue”. Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced that he would be keeping “a close eye” on the cleared men, while Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told David Frost on his TV show that the law might have to be amended following the verdicts. “I think we’ll just have to look again, to see if there’s some other legislation around ‘acts preparatory to terrorism’ or something of that nature, that’s what we’ll have to do.”

The jury went back to their day jobs, but the story wasn’t over for the cleared defendants. Within weeks, the government announced its intention to deport them to their native country, despite the fact that Algeria had an appalling record on human rights and the defendants had been tarred with the brush of “terrorist”. When it seemed that there might be legal difficulties with the deportation process, the British government attempted to negotiate Memoranda of Understanding with the more contentious countries, including Libya and Algeria. (Libya signed up. Algeria refused, on the grounds that it didn’t go in for mistreatment of detainees, so there really was no need). A lengthy legal battle ensued to derail the deportations, but far worse was to come for two of the men.

Following the 7th July and failed 21st July 2005 bombings on London Transport targets, and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the British public were understandably jittery, and fear of terrorism was running at fever pitch. New anti terror legislation was hurriedly put together.

In the early morning of 15th September 2005, coincidentally the same day as Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced plans for 90 day detention of terror suspects, police stormed the properties of Mustapha Taleb and Mouloud Sihali.

Both were detained as “threats to national security”, although neither has ever been charged with any offence or even interviewed by the police. After several months in jail they were both released, subject to strict immigration bail conditions (Control Orders in all but name). Terms of their release included wearing an electronic tag, being curfewed for up to 22 hours a day, limiting their movements to a small geographical area and having their premises searched regularly. Potential visitors had to be vetted and approved by the Home Office.

Sihali eventually had his case heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) which rules on foreign deportation matters. In May 2007, SIAC decided that Sihali posed no danger to the British public and lifted his bail conditions, although he remains threatened with deportation to this day and is fighting it through the appeal courts. Mustapha Taleb has not been that fortunate. He was put back in jail for two years, where he was adjudged to be a severe suicide risk by the prison psychiatrist. He currently lives in a provincial town, subjected once again to strict bail conditions and cooped up in a tiny house for 20 hours a day, kept sane by antidepressant drugs. The British government would like to deport him too, despite the fact that he was granted asylum here in 2000, based on evidence that he had been tortured in Algeria.

David Khalef has been granted leave to remain in the UK and now lives quietly in London. Sidali Feddag is the only one of the cleared defendants with any real sense of achievement after the ricin trial. Impressed by the British jury system, he has gone on to study for a degree in law.

As for me, I was non political before the case. The ricin trial has changed all that.

Lawrence Archer is a writer and engineer. This is his first book.

Fiona Bawdon, who co-wrote the book, is a respected freelance journalist who writes on legal matters.

“Ricin! The inside story of the terror plot that never was” is released by Pluto Press on 11th October 2010.

Lawrence Archer, Fiona Bawdon
224pp, Paperback
Available from Pluto at £13, rrp £14.99

http://www.cageprisoners.com/learn-more/recommended/item/703-ricin-the-plot-that-never-was
_________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.