Is Iraq better off now than it was 3 years ago?
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  Is Iraq better off now than it was 3 years ago?
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Question: Is Iraq better off now than it was 3 years ago?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
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Total Voters: 54

Author Topic: Is Iraq better off now than it was 3 years ago?  (Read 2959 times)
Nym90
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« Reply #25 on: March 03, 2008, 07:27:25 PM »

It was better off in 2005 when this question was first presented than it was in 2002.

Certainly far worse now than in 2005 though, and very questionable whether it's better now than 2002.
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phk
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« Reply #26 on: March 04, 2008, 03:51:54 PM »
« Edited: March 04, 2008, 03:55:02 PM by Huma Abedin 08' »

It was better off in 2005 when this question was first presented than it was in 2002.

Certainly far worse now than in 2005 though, and very questionable whether it's better now than 2002.

Hows it far worse now than in 2005?
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JSojourner
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« Reply #27 on: March 04, 2008, 04:35:52 PM »

Yes, arguable it is both freer and more secure.  Is it as good ast could have been.  No.  Is it better than Saddam's reign, yes.

For Shiite males, I guess it's peachy.  For women and Iraqi Christians, it's worse than under Saddam.
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phk
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« Reply #28 on: March 04, 2008, 04:57:36 PM »

Yes, arguable it is both freer and more secure.  Is it as good ast could have been.  No.  Is it better than Saddam's reign, yes.

For Shiite males, I guess it's peachy.  For women and Iraqi Christians, it's worse than under Saddam.

I disagree. Chaldeans had been targeted by sectarian terrorists but overall their situation has improved dramatically.

Patriarch Mar Emanuel III Delli, the Baghdad-based head of the Chaldean Church, was ordained into the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican today, and the whole event was carried live by Iraq’s national television station for well over an hour.

Al-Iraqiyya TV’s caption for the event was ‘The Symbols of Iraq’ and at one point the camera focused on a man in the audience holding up the Iraqi flag just as Cardinal Delli was named.

It was a very moving ceremony, and it was especially refreshing to find Iraq’s official media highlighting the event and describing the Chaldean patriarch as a national ‘symbol’. The channel even skipped the Muslim midday call to prayer in order to keep transmitting the proceedings, which were conducted in Latin but were translated into Arabic by a presenter.

This is the power of the New Iraq whereby a predominately Muslim nation takes pride in its Mosul-born son making it to one of the highest bodies of the Roman Catholic Church.

Some assume that the Saddam regime was accommodating of Iraq’s Christians, citing Saddam’s foreign minister Tareq Aziz as an example of that trait. But Aziz’s original name was too ‘Christian’ sounding so he Sunnized it in order to be accepted. Hence, Christians were tolerated under Saddam’s Iraq, while nowadays their accomplishments are being positively celebrated by the New Iraq. That’s a world of difference.

I have to admit that I choked up when I saw the Iraqi flag being waved, but it is still the Ba’athist Arab Nationalist flag with the ‘Allah is Great’ slogan—Saddam’s addition—inscribed upon it. Isn’t it odd that such a flag was being displayed inside St. Peter’s? Doesn’t Iraq deserve a flag that wouldn’t grate against the sensitivities of its non-Muslim citizens?

Congratulations to Patriarch Delli and the Chaldeans and to all Iraqis on this day. What a stark contrast this New Iraq presents to a xenophobic states like Saudi Arabia and other racist regimes in the region!
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JSojourner
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« Reply #29 on: March 05, 2008, 09:51:35 AM »

Yes, arguable it is both freer and more secure.  Is it as good ast could have been.  No.  Is it better than Saddam's reign, yes.

For Shiite males, I guess it's peachy.  For women and Iraqi Christians, it's worse than under Saddam.

I disagree. Chaldeans had been targeted by sectarian terrorists but overall their situation has improved dramatically.

Tariq Aziz and several other cabinet members were Chaldean Christians.  So, I am not sure how things could get better for them under an Islamic fundamentalist government.  Now, if the Iraqi government moves in the direction of Turkey -- where Christianity is sometimes inconvenienced, but not persecuted outright -- perhaps.

But consider, too, that Christians in Iraq aren't just Chaldean.  There are Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals and Anglicans.  How are they faring?  Too, what about Bahaists, Buddhists and practicioners of other non-Islamic faiths?  Is the post-saddam atmosphere more or less likely to lead to an Iranian or Saudi-style theocracy (Shiite or Sunni, theocracy is theocracy and it's always evil) where such individuals are beheaded, tortured, shot or imprisoned?


Patriarch Mar Emanuel III Delli, the Baghdad-based head of the Chaldean Church, was ordained into the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican today, and the whole event was carried live by Iraq’s national television station for well over an hour.

Al-Iraqiyya TV’s caption for the event was ‘The Symbols of Iraq’ and at one point the camera focused on a man in the audience holding up the Iraqi flag just as Cardinal Delli was named.

It was a very moving ceremony, and it was especially refreshing to find Iraq’s official media highlighting the event and describing the Chaldean patriarch as a national ‘symbol’. The channel even skipped the Muslim midday call to prayer in order to keep transmitting the proceedings, which were conducted in Latin but were translated into Arabic by a presenter.

This is the power of the New Iraq whereby a predominately Muslim nation takes pride in its Mosul-born son making it to one of the highest bodies of the Roman Catholic Church.

I certainly do find this encouraging.  I hope it is a sign the new Iraqi government will move toward tolerance.  But it is also something Saddam Hussein would have been very keen to communicate to the western world.  He was evil, but he was no idiot.  I don't see this as a sign of improvement.  But we can hope it is a sign that, at least, some level of continuity remains.

Some assume that the Saddam regime was accommodating of Iraq’s Christians, citing Saddam’s foreign minister Tareq Aziz as an example of that trait. But Aziz’s original name was too ‘Christian’ sounding so he Sunnized it in order to be accepted. Hence, Christians were tolerated under Saddam’s Iraq, while nowadays their accomplishments are being positively celebrated by the New Iraq. That’s a world of difference.

I have spoken with no fewer than four missionaries and/or foreign mission boards with workers in Iraq and contact with Iraqi nationals that indicate just the opposite.  The very BEST Christians can hope for under the new regime is a Russian-style "tolerance" of one form of Christianity.  While all others are crushed or marignalized.  As to the Aziz name change, if the Saddam regime wanted him to hide his Christianity, I'm surprised they would have trotted him out so often as the "house Christian".  And yeah -- theocratic Shiites (and Sunnis) would certainly be enraged that Aziz was Christian.  But Saddam kept the theocrats in line.  Often, hideously and unfairly so.  But sometimes the cork is best left in the bottle.  The devil we knew was better than the devil we don't know.  We have found this out over and over again, usually the hard way, throughout our history.

I have to admit that I choked up when I saw the Iraqi flag being waved, but it is still the Ba’athist Arab Nationalist flag with the ‘Allah is Great’ slogan—Saddam’s addition—inscribed upon it. Isn’t it odd that such a flag was being displayed inside St. Peter’s? Doesn’t Iraq deserve a flag that wouldn’t grate against the sensitivities of its non-Muslim citizens?

Congratulations to Patriarch Delli and the Chaldeans and to all Iraqis on this day. What a stark contrast this New Iraq presents to a xenophobic states like Saudi Arabia and other racist regimes in the region!

You won't get any argument from me on the horrific human rights record of the Bush-backed Saudi regime. Perhaps, if liberating oppressed middle easterners and spreading democracy was our purpose, we should have taken Riyadh before Baghdad.

But I certainly do share your sentiment about the Patriarch and extend my congratulations to my Chaldean brothers and sisters in Christ.  I hope they are able to use their minimal power and status to protect Presbyterians and Baptists...
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